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DeSwiss
DeSwiss's Journal
DeSwiss's Journal
December 25, 2012
Published on Dec 18, 2012
In this Monday's video, Fairewinds investigates a recently released report from Tokyo Electric. Arnie Gundersen discusses TEPCO's latest analysis that, almost two years after the accident, fully substantiates Fairewinds long held position that the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 was the result of a detonation shock wave. Arnie also discusses troubling reports that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been avoiding the analysis of damage to many nuclear plants' emergency cooling systems (Ultimate Heat Sink) from storm surges, tsunamis or dam failures. The ramifications of both of these issues on old designs and also the AP1000 are also analyzed in depth.
http://www.fairewinds.org/
http://www.fairewinds.org/content/more-lessons-fukushima-daiichi-accident-containment-failures-and-loss-ultimate-heat-sink
http://www.fairewinds.org/donations
More Lessons From the Fukushima Daiichi Accident
Published on Dec 18, 2012
In this Monday's video, Fairewinds investigates a recently released report from Tokyo Electric. Arnie Gundersen discusses TEPCO's latest analysis that, almost two years after the accident, fully substantiates Fairewinds long held position that the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 was the result of a detonation shock wave. Arnie also discusses troubling reports that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been avoiding the analysis of damage to many nuclear plants' emergency cooling systems (Ultimate Heat Sink) from storm surges, tsunamis or dam failures. The ramifications of both of these issues on old designs and also the AP1000 are also analyzed in depth.
http://www.fairewinds.org/
http://www.fairewinds.org/content/more-lessons-fukushima-daiichi-accident-containment-failures-and-loss-ultimate-heat-sink
http://www.fairewinds.org/donations
December 24, 2012
- The only thing that's changed since this article was first printed with regard to America's penchant for the senseless killing of innocents, is the improved ability of Americans to avoid even recognizing, let alone doing anything about the causes of violence at its core. However, there is one thing we all need to understand, [font color=red]the lesson will be repeated until it is learned[/font].
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School Shootings and White Denial
AlterNet
By Tim Wise
March 5, 2001
I can think of no other way to say this, so here goes: white people need to pull our heads out of our collective ass.
Two more white children are dead and thirteen are injured, and another "nice" community is scratching its blonde head, utterly perplexed at how a school shooting the likes of the one yesterday in Santee, California could happen. After all, as the Mayor of the town said in an interview with CNN: "We're a solid town, a good town, with good kids, a good church-going town…an All-American town." Yeah, well maybe that's the problem.
I said this after Columbine and no one listened so I'll say it again: white people live in an utter state of self-delusion. We think danger is black, brown and poor, and if we can just move far enough away from "those people" in the cities we'll be safe. If we can just find an "all-American" town, life will be better, because "things like this just don't happen here."
Well bullshit on that. In case you hadn't noticed, "here" is about the only place these kinds of things do happen. Oh sure, there is plenty of violence in urban communities and schools. But mass murder; wholesale slaughter; take-a-gun-and-see-how-many-you can-kill kinda craziness seems made for those safe places: the white suburbs or rural communities.
And yet once again, we hear the FBI insist there is no "profile" of a school shooter. Come again? White boy after white boy after white boy, with very few exceptions to that rule (and none in the mass shooting category), decides to use their classmates for target practice, and yet there is no profile? Imagine if all these killers had been black: would we still hesitate to put a racial face on the perpetrators? Doubtful.
MORE
By Tim Wise
March 5, 2001
I can think of no other way to say this, so here goes: white people need to pull our heads out of our collective ass.
Two more white children are dead and thirteen are injured, and another "nice" community is scratching its blonde head, utterly perplexed at how a school shooting the likes of the one yesterday in Santee, California could happen. After all, as the Mayor of the town said in an interview with CNN: "We're a solid town, a good town, with good kids, a good church-going town…an All-American town." Yeah, well maybe that's the problem.
I said this after Columbine and no one listened so I'll say it again: white people live in an utter state of self-delusion. We think danger is black, brown and poor, and if we can just move far enough away from "those people" in the cities we'll be safe. If we can just find an "all-American" town, life will be better, because "things like this just don't happen here."
Well bullshit on that. In case you hadn't noticed, "here" is about the only place these kinds of things do happen. Oh sure, there is plenty of violence in urban communities and schools. But mass murder; wholesale slaughter; take-a-gun-and-see-how-many-you can-kill kinda craziness seems made for those safe places: the white suburbs or rural communities.
And yet once again, we hear the FBI insist there is no "profile" of a school shooter. Come again? White boy after white boy after white boy, with very few exceptions to that rule (and none in the mass shooting category), decides to use their classmates for target practice, and yet there is no profile? Imagine if all these killers had been black: would we still hesitate to put a racial face on the perpetrators? Doubtful.
MORE
- The only thing that's changed since this article was first printed with regard to America's penchant for the senseless killing of innocents, is the improved ability of Americans to avoid even recognizing, let alone doing anything about the causes of violence at its core. However, there is one thing we all need to understand, [font color=red]the lesson will be repeated until it is learned[/font].
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December 22, 2012
NTDTV - Published on Dec 21, 2012
- Chinese Propaganda Ministry airs ''V for Vendetta?'' Okay I admit that I did not see this coming......
CCTV's Airing of "V for Vendetta" Draws Speculations
NTDTV - Published on Dec 21, 2012
- Chinese Propaganda Ministry airs ''V for Vendetta?'' Okay I admit that I did not see this coming......
December 19, 2012
- It would appear that China's leaders are taking their ''great leap forward'' in the direction of the Caymans.......
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Dirty Money Costs Developing World $6 Trillion, Led By China: Report
December 17, 2012 | Stella Dawson | Reuters (chicagotribune.com)
WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (TrustLaw) - Crime, corruption and tax evasion have cost the developing world nearly $6 trillion over the past decade, and illicit funds keep growing, led by China, a financial watchdog group said in a new report.
China accounted for almost half of the $858.8 billion in dirty money that flowed into tax havens and Western banks in 2010, more than eight times the amounts for runner-ups Malaysia and Mexico. Total illicit outflows increased by 11 percent from the prior year, Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based group that campaigns for financial accountability, said in its latest report released on Monday.
"Astronomical sums of dirty money continue to flow out of the developing world and into offshore tax havens and developed country banks," said Raymond Baker, director of GFI.
"Developing countries are hemorrhaging more and more money at a time when rich and poor nations alike are struggling to spur economic growth. This report should be a wake-up call to world leaders that more must be done to address these harmful outflows," he said.
MORE
WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (TrustLaw) - Crime, corruption and tax evasion have cost the developing world nearly $6 trillion over the past decade, and illicit funds keep growing, led by China, a financial watchdog group said in a new report.
China accounted for almost half of the $858.8 billion in dirty money that flowed into tax havens and Western banks in 2010, more than eight times the amounts for runner-ups Malaysia and Mexico. Total illicit outflows increased by 11 percent from the prior year, Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based group that campaigns for financial accountability, said in its latest report released on Monday.
"Astronomical sums of dirty money continue to flow out of the developing world and into offshore tax havens and developed country banks," said Raymond Baker, director of GFI.
"Developing countries are hemorrhaging more and more money at a time when rich and poor nations alike are struggling to spur economic growth. This report should be a wake-up call to world leaders that more must be done to address these harmful outflows," he said.
MORE
- It would appear that China's leaders are taking their ''great leap forward'' in the direction of the Caymans.......
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December 18, 2012
DER SPIEGEL
By Nicola Abé
12/14/2012
Gilles Mingasson/ DER SPIEGEL
For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn't be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world.
The container is filled with the humming of computers. It's the brain of a drone, known as a cockpit in Air Force parlance. But the pilots in the container aren't flying through the air. They're just sitting at the controls.
Bryant was one of them, and he remembers one incident very clearly when a Predator drone was circling in a figure-eight pattern in the sky above Afghanistan, more than 10,000 kilometers (6,250 miles) away. There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs, as Bryant recalls. When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact.
"These moments are like in slow motion," he says today. Images taken with an infrared camera attached to the drone appeared on his monitor, transmitted by satellite, with a two-to-five-second time delay. With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says.
MORE
The Woes of an American Drone Operator
{A soldier sets out to graduate at the top of his class. He succeeds, and he becomes a drone pilot working with a special unit of the United States Air Force in New Mexico. He kills dozens of people. But then, one day, he realizes that he can't do it anymore.}DER SPIEGEL
By Nicola Abé
12/14/2012
Gilles Mingasson/ DER SPIEGEL
For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn't be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world.
The container is filled with the humming of computers. It's the brain of a drone, known as a cockpit in Air Force parlance. But the pilots in the container aren't flying through the air. They're just sitting at the controls.
Bryant was one of them, and he remembers one incident very clearly when a Predator drone was circling in a figure-eight pattern in the sky above Afghanistan, more than 10,000 kilometers (6,250 miles) away. There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs, as Bryant recalls. When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact.
"These moments are like in slow motion," he says today. Images taken with an infrared camera attached to the drone appeared on his monitor, transmitted by satellite, with a two-to-five-second time delay. With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground. Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says.
MORE
December 16, 2012
- Love, love, love. Love is all you need.....
Tiny Texas Town Opens Its Homes To 76 Children In Need
TODAY News
By Scott Stump, TODAY contributor
December 14, 2012
The tiny Texas town of Possum Trot has no stoplights, no street names -- and one huge heart. Over the last 16 years, 25 families in the working-class community have adopted 76 children in need, opening their homes in a town that is struggling financially to the point where the local food bank is empty and has been closed for months.
Sixteen years ago, W.C. Martin, the pastor of the local Bennett Chapel Baptist church, helped organize his congregation to help foster children in need, believing they should have regular homes after so much hardship.
“It’s not a whole lot that we have to offer children right here in Possum Trot,’’ Martin told NBC News’ Craig Melvin. “But love, peace and joy and happiness – we can offer them that.’’ Martin and his wife, Donna, have adopted four children themselves.
“The challenge with the kids is (them not) really, really trusting the love that you have to give them unconditionally,’’ Donna Martin told Melvin. “Some of them were beaten, molested by family members, just the most horrible things.’’ The foster families have gone to great lengths to care for their children despite often facing their own difficult financial circumstances.
“Our financial struggles, they’re devastating,’’ Donna Martin said. “But you can’t bring these kids into your home and not prepare them for their future.’’
MORE
By Scott Stump, TODAY contributor
December 14, 2012
The tiny Texas town of Possum Trot has no stoplights, no street names -- and one huge heart. Over the last 16 years, 25 families in the working-class community have adopted 76 children in need, opening their homes in a town that is struggling financially to the point where the local food bank is empty and has been closed for months.
Sixteen years ago, W.C. Martin, the pastor of the local Bennett Chapel Baptist church, helped organize his congregation to help foster children in need, believing they should have regular homes after so much hardship.
“It’s not a whole lot that we have to offer children right here in Possum Trot,’’ Martin told NBC News’ Craig Melvin. “But love, peace and joy and happiness – we can offer them that.’’ Martin and his wife, Donna, have adopted four children themselves.
“The challenge with the kids is (them not) really, really trusting the love that you have to give them unconditionally,’’ Donna Martin told Melvin. “Some of them were beaten, molested by family members, just the most horrible things.’’ The foster families have gone to great lengths to care for their children despite often facing their own difficult financial circumstances.
“Our financial struggles, they’re devastating,’’ Donna Martin said. “But you can’t bring these kids into your home and not prepare them for their future.’’
MORE
- Love, love, love. Love is all you need.....
December 14, 2012
- I can hear the oldtimers now: ''Turn off that infernal racket will you? It's enough to wake the dead!!!''
In the market for life-after-death entertainment? Take PAUSE - The CataCombo Sound System©™
[font size=4]Sound System Coffin Lets Audiophiles Rock Out For Eternity[/font]
GIZMODO
Dec 13, 2012 10:40 AM 5,677 24
Andrew Liszewski
It almost looks like an over-the-top prank by the Onion, but this $30,700 coffin—equipped with speakers and a wireless streaming sound system—is apparently real. Even its name, the CataCombo Sound System, seems like something made up for an SNL commercial parody. But if you can't bear the idea of spending the afterlife without your favorite playlist, this is the coffin for you.
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MORE
GIZMODO
Dec 13, 2012 10:40 AM 5,677 24
Andrew Liszewski
It almost looks like an over-the-top prank by the Onion, but this $30,700 coffin—equipped with speakers and a wireless streaming sound system—is apparently real. Even its name, the CataCombo Sound System, seems like something made up for an SNL commercial parody. But if you can't bear the idea of spending the afterlife without your favorite playlist, this is the coffin for you.
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MORE
- I can hear the oldtimers now: ''Turn off that infernal racket will you? It's enough to wake the dead!!!''
December 13, 2012
- The only upside here is that she won't be allowed to ''counsel'' anyone with her ignorance, bigotry and stupidity, so there's that. But whomever made this decision at EMU should have his/her ass kicked.....
Mich. Counseling Student Expelled Over Refusal to Treat Gay Client, Wins Case
Source: edge on the Net
by Jason St. Amand
Web Producer / Staff Writer
Wednesday Dec 12, 2012
Julea Ward
A counseling student from Eastern Michigan University, who was expelled from the school’s counseling program over her refusal to treat a gay client, has resolved her legal case against the college, the Detroit Free Press reports. It was announced on Tuesday that officials from EMU have settled Julea Ward’s 2009 lawsuit and that the college will awarded a $75,000 settlement.
"EMU has made the decision that is in the best interest of its students and the taxpayers of the state of Michigan to resolve the litigation rather than continue to spend money on a costly trial," Walter Kraft, EMU’s vice president for communications, said in a statement.
The lawsuit was initially filed three years ago by the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative Christian legal group, on behalf of Ward, who was training to be a grade school counselor through the college’s Graduate School Counseling Program. Officials from EMU expelled the student because of her views on the LGBT community as she declined a gay client treatment.
Officials argued that she was not following the American Counseling Association’s code of ethics but Ward cited her religious beliefs as the reason why she couldn’t help the gay client. In January, Ward was allowed to argue "religious discrimination" in her suit against the school.
Read more: http://www.edgeonthenet.com/news/national//139782/mich_counseling_student_expelled_over_refusal_to_treat_gay_client,_wins_case
- The only upside here is that she won't be allowed to ''counsel'' anyone with her ignorance, bigotry and stupidity, so there's that. But whomever made this decision at EMU should have his/her ass kicked.....
December 12, 2012
A List That Explains Our Foreign Policy Short-comings.
Republic of Congo, 7.1
Ecuador, 7
Ghana, 6.8
Colombia, 6.7
Iceland, 6.5
Italy, 6.2
South Africa, 6
Sweden, 5.9
Greece, 5.8
Germany, 5.7
New Zealand, 5.5
UK, 5.5
Canada, 5.5
Spain, 5.5
France, 5.3
Australia, 5.2
Russia, 5.2
USA, 5.1
Ireland, 5
Romania, 5
China, 4.3
India, 4
Thailand, 4
South Korea, 3.8
North Korea, 3.8
- What is it? Yeah, you probably guessed right! It also probably explains why North Korea's leaders spend all their money on rockets instead of food.......
December 10, 2012
Read more: http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/15588437/storm-bopha-returns-to-philippines/
Victims Beg For Food After Philippine Typhoon
Source: 7News Yahoo AU (AFP)
December 10, 2012, 12:11 am
NEW BATAAN, Philippines - Desperate families begged for food Sunday, days after a typhoon brought death and destruction to parts of a southern Philippine island, as the storm returned to the north of the country. Northern areas escaped with heavy rain after the storm weakened. But scenes of hardship were everywhere in southern areas that last week felt the full fury of the strongest typhoon to hit the country this year.
Officials said 548 people are confirmed dead, most of them in the southern island of Mindanao. Civil defence chief Benito Ramos said the number of missing had shot up to 827 from previous figures of 500 unaccounted for, after reports of more missing fishermen came in.
In the Mindanao mountain town of New Bataan, which took the brunt of Typhoon Bopha, families lined the roads holding signs begging for food. "Have mercy on us, please donate," read one sign held by a group of ragged children. "We need food," read another sign displayed by a group standing amid ruined banana plantations.
Farmer's wife Madeline Blanco, 36, said her family was trying to make do while sheltering in a tent on a basketball court. "We were given rations but it was not enough. Just rice, bread and noodles. It is not enough for me and my four children," she told AFP.
NEW BATAAN, Philippines - Desperate families begged for food Sunday, days after a typhoon brought death and destruction to parts of a southern Philippine island, as the storm returned to the north of the country. Northern areas escaped with heavy rain after the storm weakened. But scenes of hardship were everywhere in southern areas that last week felt the full fury of the strongest typhoon to hit the country this year.
Officials said 548 people are confirmed dead, most of them in the southern island of Mindanao. Civil defence chief Benito Ramos said the number of missing had shot up to 827 from previous figures of 500 unaccounted for, after reports of more missing fishermen came in.
In the Mindanao mountain town of New Bataan, which took the brunt of Typhoon Bopha, families lined the roads holding signs begging for food. "Have mercy on us, please donate," read one sign held by a group of ragged children. "We need food," read another sign displayed by a group standing amid ruined banana plantations.
Farmer's wife Madeline Blanco, 36, said her family was trying to make do while sheltering in a tent on a basketball court. "We were given rations but it was not enough. Just rice, bread and noodles. It is not enough for me and my four children," she told AFP.
Read more: http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/15588437/storm-bopha-returns-to-philippines/
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