Society's ChildS


Nuke

Ya think? Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority says ocean contamination likely at Fukushima - leak is "strongly suspected"

Mari Yamaguchi
Associated Press via Yahoo News
Wed, 10 Jul 2013 11:51 UTC
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Japan's nuclear watchdog said Wednesday that the crippled Fukushima power plant is probably leaking contaminated water into the ocean, a problem long suspected by experts but denied by the plant's operator.

Officials from the Nuclear Regulation Authority said a leak is "strongly suspected" and urged plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. to determine where the water may be leaking from and assess the environmental and other risks, including the impact on the food chain. The watchdog said it would form a panel of experts to look into ways to contain the problem.

The watchdog's findings underscore TEPCO's delayed response in dealing with a problem that experts have long said existed. On Wednesday, the company continued to raise doubts about whether a leak exists.

TEPCO spokesman Noriyuki Imaizumi said the increase in cesium levels in monitoring well water samples does not necessarily mean contaminated water from the plant is leaking to the ocean. TEPCO was running another test on water samples and suspects earlier spikes might have been caused by cesium-laced dust slipping into the samples, he said. But he said TEPCO is open to the watchdog's suggestions to take safety steps.
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Ambulance

Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina condo deck collapse sends 21 people to hospital


ClarionLedger.com
Wed, 10 Jul 2013 11:36 UTC
More than 20 people were taken to hospitals after a second-story deck on a condominium in Ocean isle Beach collapsed onto a patio below.

Brunswick County emergency officials say the deck collapsed about 8:15 p.m. Tuesday.

Emergency services director Anthony Marzano says the injuries included cuts and broken bones but none of the injuries was life-threatening.

Thirteen people were taken to Grand Strand Regional Medical Center in Myrtle Beach, S.C., where 11 were treated and released. One person was admitted to the hospital with a broken leg and a second with a broken ankle.

Seven were taken to Brunswick Novant Medical Center in Supply and one was flown to New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington.
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Roses

Former chief of Fukushima nuclear plant dies from cancer

Mari Yamaguchi
Associated Press
Tue, 09 Jul 2013 11:09 UTC
Masao Yoshida
© AP/Kyoda News
Tokyo, Japan -- Masao Yoshida, the man who led the life-risking battle at Japan's crippled nuclear power plant when it was spiraling into meltdowns, died Tuesday of cancer of the esophagus. He was 58.

Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Yoshimi Hitosugi said Yoshida died at a Tokyo hospital. TEPCO officials said his illness was not related to radiation exposure.


Comment: LIE!


Yoshida led efforts to stabilize the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami knocked out its power and cooling systems, causing triple meltdowns and massive radiation leaks.

Recalling the first few days when the three reactors suffered meltdowns in succession, Yoshida later said: "There were several instances when I thought we were all going to die here. I feared the plant was getting out of control and we would be finished."

Yoshida was an outspoken, tall man with a loud voice who wasn't afraid of talking back to higher-ups and was known to his workers as a caring figure. Even then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who was extremely frustrated by TEPCO's initial lack of information and slow handling, said after meeting him that Yoshida could be trusted.

On March 12, after Unit 1 reactor building exploded following a meltdown, Yoshida kept pumping in sea water into the reactor to cool it, ignoring an order from the TEPCO headquarters to stop doing so as Kan feared a possibility of sea water triggering a fission chain reaction. Yoshida was initially reprimanded for disobeying the order from above, but later praised for his judgment that eventually helped keep the reactor from turning worse.

"I bow deeply in respect to his leadership and decisiveness," Kan said in his Twitter entry Tuesday.
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Heart - Black

California female inmates sterilized: 'more cost effective than welfare' says doctor

Shannon Argueta
Addicting Info
Mon, 08 Jul 2013 15:11 UTC
female inmates
© @Now.MSN Not only is it morally wrong to pressure women into having this procedure, it is against the law. Federal law makes it illegal to use federal funds to pay for inmate sterilizations.
A horrifying picture of modern-day eugenics is emerging in California, the state that was once known as the country's most prolific sterilizer, with as many 20,000 people losing their ability to procreate between 1909 to 1964. They were so well-known for their practice of preventing the 'inferior' from breeding that historians say Nazi Germany contacted the state's eugenics leaders in the 1930s. You know they must have been doing something terribly, terribly wrong if Hitler was seeking their advice.

That shameful past is coming back to haunt the state as a new report emerges that almost 150 female prison inmates were sterilized between 2006 and 2010 without state approval. The report released by The Center for Investigative Reporting claims that at least 148 women received tubal ligations during that time frame. Records show that between 1997 and 2010 the state paid $147,460 to doctors to perform the surgery on inmates.
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Stormtrooper

Texas troopers under fire for yet another perverted roadside strip-search


RT
Fri, 05 Jul 2013 14:54 UTC
road trip
© Reuters / Andy Newman
Two Houston women have filed a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Public Safety claiming they were subjected to a humiliating roadside body cavity search that left them violated and traumatized.

"I was embarrassed, in a bikini, on the side of the freeway. And it hurts so bad to even go through something like that," 27-year-old Brandy Hamilton told KTRK News.

Hamilton and 26-year-old Alexandria Randle were driving home to Houston after spending last year's Memorial Day at a nearby beach with family and friends when Texas Trooper Nathaniel Turner pulled them over for speeding on the side of Highway 288 and ordered them to exit their vehicle. The women were still wearing their bathing suits and were not permitted to put clothes on or cover up before exiting the car.

The trooper claimed to smell marijuana in the car and called a female trooper to search the women's body parts for drugs, despite numerous pleas from the ladies.

"The male officer, his words verbatim were, 'We're gonna get familiar with your womanly parts," Hamilton told KXAN.
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USA

Fox news panel laughs at the idea that government should fear the people

Anthony Gucciardi
Story Leak
Tue, 09 Jul 2013 04:13 UTC
After labeling NSA leaker Edward Snowden a traitor and a terrorist, the Fox News Watch panel exploded with laughter at the very notion that the government should fear the people.


Right after one panelist devilishly referenced the concept that the government should fear the people as a joke, even referencing the concept as tracing back to Thomas Jefferson, the crew couldn't stop from laughing at the very idea that the people are meant to keep the government in check. And of course it is an idea that is fundamental to not only upholding the Constitution itself (the fabric of our nation), but to keep the continuous threat of absolute corruption and tyranny in check.
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Padlock

30,000 California prisoners launch largest hunger-strike in state history


RT.com
Tue, 09 Jul 2013 14:25 UTC
Prison
© AFP Photo/Getty Images/Kevork Djansezian
Around 30,000 inmates held in prisons across California have taken the first steps towards engaging in what could become the largest hunger strike in state history.

Prisoners at 11 state facilities began refusing meals early Monday, after months of plotting a demonstration which they hope will bring change to a number of longstanding grievances against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation - particularly the practice of indefinitely housing some detainees in total isolation.

In a letter obtained by the LA Times, protesters reportedly demanded that the state retire its current solitary confinement policies and allow inmates accused of prison gang involvement to spend a maximum of only five years in isolation. Currently there is no limit on how long inmates thought to be connected to internal gangs can spend in Segregated Housing Units (SHUs). According to the LA Times, 4,527 inmates at four state prisons are now living in such units - including 1,180 at Pelican Bay State Prison in northern California, where the demonstration was hatched.

"The principal prisoner representatives from the PBSP SHU Short Corridor Collective Human Rights Movement do hereby present public notice that our nonviolent peaceful protest of our subjection to decades of indefinite state-sanctioned torture, via long term solitary confinement will resume today...consisting of a hunger strike/work stoppage of indefinite duration until CDCR signs a legally binding agreement meeting our demands, the heart of which mandates an end to long-term solitary confinement (as well as additional major reforms)," reads the letter, which is posted on Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity website.
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Arrow Down

Gases to be dispersed across New York subway stations as part of 'drill'

Dan Nosowitz
PopSci
Tue, 09 Jul 2013 13:30 UTC
Subway Station
© Dan Nosowitz2nd Avenue Subway Station, Sans Gas.
No need to fear, though: it's an experiment to see exactly how gases are dispersed through the hundreds of miles of New York City subway tunnels.

Starting today, New York City authorities will be releasing perfluorocarbon gas into several subway stops, some above and some below ground. Sounds scary, but isn't: perfluorocarbon is a harmless gas, odorless and colorless, and it's being used in the largest airflow experiment ever undertaken.

Perfluorocarbon tracers, or PFTs, are used because they're artificial and do not occur in nature, so a very small amount can be detected fairly easily. The work of detection will be done by a large team from three national labs: the Brookhaven, Argonne, and Los Alamos National Laboratories. About 100 interns in addition to professionals from the labs will be constructing and monitoring small black-and-grey boxes in dozens of locations all around the city, all dedicated to checking the air for these tracers.

Those locations aren't merely in the subway; the thing about New York's extensive, massively complex subway system is that it's the quickest way for airborne contaminants to race through (nearly) all portions of the five boroughs. So these testing boxes will be installed on subway platforms, sure, but also on telephone poles above ground.
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Health

'Utter chaos' as man crushed by antique firetruck at Independence Day parade

Nick Sambides Jr.
Bangor Daily News
Thu, 04 Jul 2013 09:41 UTC
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© Gabor Degre | BDNA man died in an accident during the 4th of July parade in Bangor. The person died as an antique tractor and antique firetruck collided, but Police are working to find out what exactly happened.
An accident cast horror on Bangor's Independence Day celebrations when an antique firetruck crushed to death the rider of an antique John Deere tractor during the Fourth of July parade, police said.

Firetruck riders told police that a mechanical failure caused the truck to go out of control in front of a large crowd of parade-watchers and slam into the rear of the tractor as both turned onto a downhill stretch of Water Street at 12:40 p.m. Thursday, police said.

The firetruck "stalled and started to roll" as it turned onto Water Street from Main Street. That might have caused the truck's braking system to fail, speculated Tammy Haskell, who said she was standing at Main and Water streets when the accident occurred.

"It rear-ended the tractor and the [tractor] driver was not expecting it," Haskell added. "I saw the driver flying through the air. The tractor rolled onto him and [then] the truck" hit him.

"I saw the tractor tip over by the truck and somebody was underneath it," said witness John Bunker, 27, of Bangor. "I heard people screaming, people saying to stop the truck. Then I heard over a loudspeaker somebody saying to clear the area."
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Ambulance

7-year-old falls off vehicle, dies in Annapolis, Maryland parade


CBS Baltimore
Thu, 04 Jul 2013 09:37 UTC
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Tragedy at the Annapolis Fourth of July parade. A young boy is dead after an accident involving one of the parade floats.

Monique Griego has the very latest.

Police say a 7-year-old boy was riding in a vehicle in the parade when he somehow fell off.

It's still not clear whether he died because of the fall or whether he was struck and killed by another vehicle.
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