Transcript

Transcript

Deadly Fukushima Crisis Further Corrodes Viability of Nuclear Energy

By H Patricia Hynes, Truthout

Tuesday, 11 March 2014 09:08

More than 35 percent of some 38,000 Fukushima children examined have cysts or nodules on their thyroids, as compared with 1 percent of a control group of Japanese children. In a callous move to keep schools open in Fukushima, the Japanese government raised the “permissible” level of radiation for children. Japanese children now can be exposed to 20 times more radiation than was previously allowed, a level comparable to the yearly limit for German workers.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of radioactive water from the site have emptied and continue to leak via groundwater into the Pacific Ocean at the rate of 400 tons per day. Radioactive cesium, a carcinogen that bioaccumulates in animal, fish and human tissue, has been found throughout mainland Japan, in fish off the coast of Fukushima (thus closing that industry) and in large migratory fish such as Bluefin tuna off the coast of California. A plume of radioactive water from Fukushima is expected to reach the West Coast of the United States in early 2014. Tragically, there is no solution in sight to trapping and treating the cesium-, tritium- and strontium-contaminated groundwater before it reaches the Pacific Ocean. “The situation at the reactor site is progressively deteriorating, not stabilizing,” stated an international group of experts in their urgent appeal for international action to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

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Radioactive waste is the nuclear industry’s nightmare, most currently so in Fukushima Dai’ichi, where intensely radioactive spent fuel rods lie in a warped and sinking structure and at risk of a catastrophic fire if another (and potentially likely) earthquake strikes the region. For this reason, the US State Department advised Americans soon after March 11 to evacuate to at least 50 miles from the plant.

Study: Nuclear Reactors Are Toxic to Surrounding Areas, Especially With Age

By Candice Bernd, Truthout

Tuesday, 11 March 2014 09:06

The United States currently has 100 operating nuclear reactors in 31 states. The last nuclear plant to be constructed was finished in 1996, and the oldest was built in 1969. The average age of all operating nuclear plants in the United States is about 30 years.

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Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is at a major risk of a Fukushima-style disaster because it sits atop an active fault line, and the plant’s age is a factor in its vulnerability to seismic activity.

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But (David) Lochbaum (Director of the Nuclear Safety Project at the Union of Concerned Scientists), who authored a report for UCS called, “Seismic Shift: Diablo Canyon Literally and Figuratively on Shaky Ground,” maintains the earthquake hazard in the 1970s, when the Diablo Canyon plant was proposed and constructed, led its designers to protect against seismic activity no greater than 0.4 g-forces. That was before two other major active fault lines in the region were discovered and estimated to cause a ground motion of around 0.75 g-forces. PG&E has not made any structural adjustments or modifications to account for this discrepancy.

Credit Suisse Documents Point to Mortgage Lapses

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON, The New York Times

MARCH 9, 2014

The documents are noteworthy because Credit Suisse, unlike many other major banks, has refused to settle large lawsuits stemming from the mortgage crisis. The bank has long maintained that its operations were held to a high standard and that the mortgage investments it sold lost value largely because of the broad housing collapse, rather than its practices.

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During the housing boom, Credit Suisse was a fairly big player, bundling $203 billion worth of mortgages into securities that it sold to private investors between 2005 and 2007. By comparison, Countrywide Financial, a more prominent mortgage lender, sold $277 billion of those securities during that period.

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But the Swiss bank has come under the microscope in recent months. In late February, four of its top executives, including Mr. Dougan, testified before Congress about the bank’s involvement in helping United States citizens hide money overseas and avoid taxes. Mr. Dougan contended that only a handful of bank employees were involved in the questionable activities and that Credit Suisse had improved its compliance. And last year Kareem Serageldin, a former mortgage trader at Credit Suisse, was found guilty of hiding more than $100 million in mortgage bond losses at the bank by inflating the bonds’ value as the housing market collapsed. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

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Also included in the legal filing was a script circulated via email among executives at the Credit Suisse mortgage unit in June 2006. The script, describing mortgage lending, is based on the “You can’t handle the truth” courtroom scene between Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise in the film “A Few Good Men.”

In the script, the role played by Mr. Nicholson is changed to that of a loan officer challenging an underwriter who is questioning the quality of his loans.

“You scoff at sales divisions and you curse our lucrative incentives, commissions and bonus plans,” the script reads. “You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know: that while the cost of business results are excessive, it drives in the loans. And my very existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, drives REVENUE! You don’t want to know the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at staff meetings … you want me on that sales call. You NEED me on that sales call.”

Ask any Modern Monetary Theorist and they’ll tell you the difference between Bitcoin and a currency is that it’s not legal tender, that is to say that it’s not mandated by the State as acceptable payment for all debts, public and private.

Instead this libertarian fantasy is a mere illusion of a commodity, not even as useful as gold which you can’t eat but at least has the properties of non-reactivity, conductivity, and ductility.

Third cryptocurrency exchange becomes hacking victim, loses Bitcoin

By Charlie Osborne for Zero Day

March 6, 2014 — 10:27 GMT (02:27 PST)

Poloniex, a Bitcoin trading post similar to Mt. Gox, has lost 12.3 percent of the Bitcoin stored in hot wallets on the website. However, in stark contrast to how Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles handled his company’s Bitcoin losses, the owner of Poloniex, Tristan D’Agosta — a.k.a. Busoni — admitted to the loss and asked users how they would like to be compensated.

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Mt. Gox, once the dominate Bitcoin trading post online, closed its doors last week and filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan following years of undetected infiltration that resulted in the theft of 750,000 customer-owned Bitcoin, as well as Mt. Gox’s store of roughly 100,000 coins, in total worth almost $500 million. System design flaws, hackers and poor accountancy practices have been blamed for the massive financial losses.

Flexcoin follow suit and closed after hackers stole 896 Bitcoin — worth approximately $606,000 — and the trading exchange did not have the funds or resources to recover.

For Bitcoin, Secure Future Might Need Oversight

Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times

MARCH 5, 2014

To save their nascent currency, Bitcoin’s backers may be forced to alter their philosophy and embrace the same messy humans – auditors, insurers and even regulators – that the currency’s most ardent supporters have long abhorred. This raises two difficult questions: Can human oversight integrate into Bitcoin’s free-for-all ethos quickly enough to render Bitcoin safe? And, can Bitcoin be made safer without tamping down on the very openness that proponents say makes Bitcoin such a cheap, efficient and innovative financial platform? At the moment, the answers are still very much up in the air.

Continue reading the main story

Some in the more mainstream part of the Bitcoin world – firms that have sought venture capital and are trying to appeal to ordinary investors and large businesses – say they’re up to the challenge. They are working to set up stringent technical and financial audits of trading sites, and to create insurance mechanisms so that holders of Bitcoin won’t be wiped out by catastrophic losses like the one at Mt. Gox. There are even efforts to pursue government oversight.

CEO of bitcoin exchange found dead in Singapore

By Associated Press

Published: March 6

The American CEO of a virtual currency exchange was found dead near her home in Singapore.

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Postings on her Facebook page showed her to be a believer in the potential of virtual currencies.

Last month, she linked to an article on entrepreneurs suffering depression, commenting above the link: everything has its price.

Contractionary Policy Is Contractionary.

Osborne faces £20bn black hole in UK public finances, says report

Nicholas Watt, The Guardian

Friday 7 March 2014 04.26 EST

George Osborne is facing a £20bn black hole in the public finances, which means austerity may have to continue until 2020, according to research by the Financial Times.

In a blow to the chancellor, who hopes to run a budget surplus in the next parliament, the research suggests austerity may have to last a year longer than expected because the government will not be able to rely on economic recovery to eliminate part of the deficit.

Osborne is already committed to imposing £25bn in spending reductions between 2016-17 and 2017-18, which would have to include £12bn in welfare cuts.

The FT analysis of models by the Office for Budget Responsibility suggests Osborne will have to go even further. The chancellor, who will deliver the penultimate budget before the general election on 19 March, has said he will rely on spending cuts rather than tax increases to eliminate the remainder of the budget deficit. The FT’s research suggests that even greater cuts will have to be made to welfare, local government and police because other key areas of spending, such as the NHS and schools, are protected.

But don’t worry.  I’m sure those Confidence Fairies will be along any minute now to fart themselves some Unicorns and Rainbows.

We’ve all heard about the problems with BPA and how it leaches an Estrogen-like chemical.  Well it turns out almost all plastics do that though many are unstudied.

Transcript

The Scary New Evidence on BPA-Free Plastics

And the Big Tobacco-style campaign to bury it.

By Mariah Blake, Mother Jones

March/April 2014 Issue

“(A)lmost all” commercially available plastics that were tested leached synthetic estrogens-even when they weren’t exposed to conditions known to unlock potentially harmful chemicals, such as the heat of a microwave, the steam of a dishwasher, or the sun’s ultraviolet rays. According to (George) Bittner’s (professor of neurobiology at the University of Texas-Austin) research, some BPA-free products actually released synthetic estrogens that were more potent than BPA.

Estrogen plays a key role in everything from bone growth to ovulation to heart function. Too much or too little, particularly in utero or during early childhood, can alter brain and organ development, leading to disease later in life. Elevated estrogen levels generally increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer.

Estrogenic chemicals found in many common products have been linked to a litany of problems in humans and animals. According to one study, the pesticide atrazine can turn male frogs female. DES, which was once prescribed to prevent miscarriages, caused obesity, rare vaginal tumors, infertility, and testicular growths among those exposed in utero. Scientists have tied BPA to ailments including asthma, cancer, infertility, low sperm count, genital deformity, heart disease, liver problems, and ADHD. “Pick a disease, literally pick a disease,” says Frederick vom Saal, a biology professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia who studies BPA.

BPA exploded into the headlines in 2008, when stories about “toxic baby bottles” and “poison” packaging became ubiquitous. Good Morning America issued a “consumer alert.” The New York Times urged Congress to ban BPA in baby products. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) warned in the Huffington Post that “millions of infants are exposed to dangerous chemicals hiding in plain view.” Concerned parents purged their pantries of plastic containers, and retailers such as Walmart and Babies R Us started pulling bottles and sippy cups from shelves. Bills banning BPA in infant care items began to crop up in states around the country.

Today many plastic products, from sippy cups and blenders to Tupperware containers, are marketed as BPA-free. But Bittner’s findings-some of which have been confirmed by other scientists-suggest that many of these alternatives share the qualities that make BPA so potentially harmful.

U.S. appeals court says BP bound by Gulf spill accord

By Jonathan Stempel, Reuters

Tue Mar 4, 2014 2:20pm EST

By a 2-1 vote, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans late Monday upheld a December 24 ruling by U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans, authorizing the payments on so-called business economic loss claims. It also said an injunction preventing payments should be lifted.

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Barbier ruled that BP would have to live with its earlier interpretation of a December 2012 settlement with businesses and individuals harmed by the spill, in which certain businesses claiming losses were presumed to have suffered harm.

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“The settlement agreement does not require a claimant to submit evidence that the claim arose as a result of the oil spill,” Circuit Judge Leslie Southwick wrote for the majority.

Terms of the settlement “are not as protective of BP’s present concerns as might have been achievable, but they are the protections that were accepted by the parties and approved by the district court,” the judge added.

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Steve Herman and Jim Roy, who represent the business claimants, said in a joint statement: “Today’s ruling makes clear that BP can’t rewrite the deal it agreed to.”

Juneau, in a statement, said the decision “appears to clear the way” for the resumption of payments on business economic loss claims, and that he will resume making such payments upon a formal direction from the district court.

(h/t Gaius Publius)

Forty-one years ago, when I used to get up at 5 a.m. to get on gas station lines with my parents, I started hearing about “energy independence” – a secure source of supply for our energy needs. Today, energy independence soon will be a reality.

For China. Thanks to the Keystone XL pipeline.

Q. Cui bono? (“Who benefits?”) A. China.

The Chinese economy consists of taking raw materials and energy, making that into stuff, and then selling that stuff – a/k/a “manufacturing.” Chinese leaders understand that in order for that model to work, China needs steady supplies of raw materials and energy. [But] how do you get a steady supply of energy, in a world where those supplies are dominated by a cartel, and are concentrated in a part of the world prone to war? In America, we’ve been trying to puzzle that out for four decades, without success.

Well, the Chinese have figured it out. They’re going to get their energy from Canada, a stable country, and pass it through the United States, another stable country. They will pay the Canadians the world price for oil. They will pay us nothing, or next to nothing. So Uncle Sam is Uncle Sucker.

And not for the first time. For the past decade, China has pursued an utterly unscrupulous and incredibly successful strategy in “trade” with the United States. China has been importing from the United States roughly $50 billion in goods each year, much of it food, raw materials and energy. China has been exporting to the United States roughly $350 billion in goods each year, mostly manufactured goods. And China has been buying roughly $300 billion in U.S. assets each year, mostly U.S. Treasuries. So we buy their stuff, putting their people to work. And they buy our assets, driving us deeper and deeper into debt. America loses – twice.

Now China has peeled off a tiny portion of that trade surplus, just $30 billion, and audaciously is trying to parlay that into permanent energy independence. China has put that money into Canadian tar sands.

Canadian tar sands are easily one of the dirtiest energy sources on Planet Earth. Does China care? No. As Deng Xiaoping used to say, “it doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.” China’s leaders are so indifferent to environmental concerns that they have no problem with 8-year-olds in Beijing contracting lung cancer from pollution – but they get upset when the U.S. Embassy in Beijing puts an air quality monitor on the roof, and posts the readings on the internet. Canadian tar sands are a very, very black cat, but China’s leaders care only about catching mice.

Chinese leaders have seized key elements of the world industrial supply chain, like rare earths. According to our government, they engage in pervasive industrial espionage. They have threatened American companies like Apple, Google and Walmart. In short, they know how to play the game.

All of the oil that passes through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline has to be sold in the United States. Why not the same rule for the Keystone XL Pipeline? But instead, we allow a tax-free zone, to facilitate Chinese energy independence at the expense of our own. Why does Uncle Sam have to be Uncle Sucker?

There are plenty of reasons to be against the Keystone XL pipeline. Environmentalists recognize it as the ultimate “bonfire of the vanities” – planet-wide carbon bonfires. The pipeline passes through an active earthquake zone. One bad spill could permanently poison the Ogallala Aquifer, which provides drinking water to millions of people, and 30% of our irrigation.

Here is another reason, perhaps the best reason of all: It doesn’t do us any good. China, yes. The Koch Brothers (who own the refining capacity that would be used), yes. Us, no.

When are we finally going to have a government with the courage to ask that simple question: Does it do us any good? Cui bono?

Courage,

Rep. Alan Grayson