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A disturbing news story this morning: radioactive water is found outside the plants. There is no way to stop this water from entering the environment. Water retrieval is hampered by the fact that all holding tanks for radioactive water waste are full. The water seeping into a trench outside the Number two reactor at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeast Japan had a . . . → Read More: Radioactive water outside of Fukushima plant And in the posts today there was a confirmation of what I had read: the workers were walking in their own street shoes covered with plastic booties. This is criminal. The workers should have the best protective clothing that Japan can provide, including waterproof and chemical proof boots. These things should have been on-site. When reading about the burns on the feed of the workers in Fukushima Daiichi, I remembered reading this report last week about Natalia Manzurova, one of the few survivors among those directly involved in the long cleanup of Chernobyl. Her advice was heartfelt, but perhaps not possible for all the Japanese affected – “Run away as fast as possible” Dana Kennedy interviewed Manzurovna . . . → Read More: Chernobyl clean up person to Japanese: Run Away as fast a possible. Daily Yomiuri Online reported that Tokyo Power company (TEPCO) knew of a leak in the Number 3 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi prior to sending repair workers into the area. Most startling was the fact that the presence of the leak was not shared with workers pulling a power line into the damaged reactor, who last week walked through radioactive water pooled on the . . . → Read More: TEPCO sent workers down into basement without telling them it was ‘hot’ The WSJ had an blog article today on the economic cost of the earthquake in Japan. Disaster modeling company Eqecat estimates a total insured loss from the earthquake and tsunami to be $12 billion to $25 billion. The estimate includes losses from the effects of earthquake shaking, ensuing tsunami and fires, and losses to car, marine, life, and personal accident insurance. By contrast, . . . → Read More: Japan losses may go up to $35B In an absurd manner the Obama administration has chosen with the passing of FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Comliance Act) to penalize almost ALL US Citizens living abroad while trying to close loopholes for tax cheats. This will of course have a profound long term negative effect on US export competitiveness, but the administration does not care. The penalties and the reporting requirements are . . . → Read More: Catch-22: Americans abroad have problems with local bank accounts I love reading Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism…. if only because she can come out with these type of quotes: this proposal is just another example of throwing taxpayers under the bus to save the banks from suffering the consequences of their incompetence and criminality. The article in total is a great indictment of the Administration’s program to get rid of Freddie and . . . → Read More: Throw the Taxpayers under the bus RJ Eskow wrote a piece in the Huffington Post on the Administration’s proposal to clean up the foreclosure mess. I will comment on it separately later. But I want to use it to deal with a long conversation I had with a friend about how the ideology from people on the right seems to try to blame a liberal conspiracy of Fannie/Freddie and . . . → Read More: Freddie/ Fannie-Barney Frank Liberal conspiracy to sell poor people too much house. Michael Monk over at Firedoglake found a very great video snippet. I am shamelessly copying the link from the video from his blog post here so you can look at the video in embedded style… Obama says: And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put . . . → Read More: Will Obama find those shoes? The NY Times today had a longish article by Matt Bai on Governor Christie of New Jersey which contrasted his communications strategy with that of the NJ Teachers union. It was somewhat unfavorable for the Union. Christie the stand-up comedian against the whining, ad hominem and off topic meandering of the heads of the teachers. I, for one, would wish that the teachers . . . → Read More: More Firing at the Teachers |
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