New Data Supports Previous Fairewinds Analysis, as Contamination Spreads in Japan and Worldwide

“Newly released neutron data from three University of California San Diego scientists confirms Fairewinds’ April analysis that the nuclear core at Fukushima Daiichi turned on and off after TEPCO claimed its reactors had been shutdown. This periodic nuclear chain reaction (inadvertent criticality) continued to contaminate the surrounding environment and upper atmosphere with large doses of radioactivity.

In a second area of concern, Fairewinds disagrees the NRC’s latest report claiming that all Fukushima spent fuel pools had no problems following the earthquake. In a new revelation, the NRC claims that the plutonium found more than 1 mile offsite actually came from inside the nuclear reactors. If such a statement were true, it indicates that the nuclear power plant containments failed and were breached with debris landing far from the power plants themselves. Such a failure of the containment system certainly necessitates a complete review of all US reactor containment design and industry assurances that containments will hold in radioactivity in the event of a nuclear accident. The evidence Fairewinds reviewed to date continues to support its April analysis that the detonation in the Unit 3 Spent Fuel pool was the cause of plutonium found off site.

Third, the burning of radioactive materials (building materials, trees, lawn grass, rice straw) by the Japanese government will cause radioactive Cesium to spread even further into areas within Japan that have been previously clean, and across the Pacific Ocean to North America.

And finally, the Japanese government has yet to grasp the severity of the contamination within Japan, and therefore has not developed a coherent plan mitigate the accident and remediate the environment. Without a cohesive plan to deal with this ongoing problem of large scale radioactive contamination, the radioactivity will continue to spread throughout Japan and around the globe further exacerbating the problem and raising costs astronomically.” Source.

Looks Like Irene May Become Major Category 3 Hurricane, Carolinas Targeted

Update: Make that a Category 4.  Read here.

By Kristina Pydynowski – “Irene is destined to strike the southeastern United States later this week as a major hurricane. Residents in the Carolinas are urged to begin preparations.

The AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center is expecting Irene to target the Carolinas after emerging from the Bahamas later this week.

AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski has the latest details on how bad it will be for the Carolinas.

Irene strengthened into the season’s first hurricane as it pounded Puerto Rico early Monday morning.

The hurricane will continue its assault on the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean prior to reaching the Bahamas.

As Irene plows through the Bahamas, the storm is forecast to become a major Category 3 hurricane this week.

Exactly when and where Irene moves onshore with its torrential rain, destructive winds and flooding storm surge depends on how soon the storm tracks in a more northward fashion instead of its current northwestward heading.

The AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center currently expects landfall to be somewhere between the North Carolina-South Carolina and Wilmington, N.C., the first part of this weekend. Since the track has had a tendency to shift east, residents farther northeast along the North Carolina coast need to pay close attention to this storm as well.

According to Sosnowski, ‘Often, the worst effects of a hurricane moving in this manner are on the northeastern quadrant of the storm, which would involve at least part of eastern North Carolina.'” Read more.

Post Gaddafi: A Free and Democratic Libya? Not So Fast – Libyan Draft Constitution Declares Sharia Law the ‘Principal Source of Legislation’

I’m shocked.  Just look at their ‘new’ flag.  It’s obviously secular, includes multiple colors never seen on any Islamic flags, and doesn’t even hint at the suggestion of being influenced by Sharia Law …

By Lachlan Markay – “The dust has not yet settled over the Libyan capital of Tripoli since rebels took control over the weekend. But already, a draft constitutional charter for the transitional state has appeared online (embedded below). It is just a draft, mind you, and gauging its authenticity at this point is difficult. There is also no way to know whether this draft or something similar will emerge as the final governing document for a new Libyan regime.

As both the Morning Bell and Washington in a Flash noted today, Heritage Fellow Jim Phillips recently pointed out that Islamist forces ‘appear to make up a small but not insignificant part of the opposition coalition,’ and must be prevented ‘from hijacking Libya’s future.’ Parts of the draft Constitution allay those fears, while others exacerbate them.

Much of the document describes political institutions that will sound familiar to citizens of Western liberal democracies, including rule of law, freedom of speech and religious practice, and a multi-party electoral system.

But despite the Lockean tenor of much of the constitution, the inescapable clause lies right in Part 1, Article 1: ‘Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).’ Under this constitution, in other words, Islam is law. That makes other phrases such as ‘there shall be no crime or penalty except by virtue of the law’ and ‘Judges shall be independent, subject to no other authority but law and conscience’ a bit more ominous.” Read more.

Canada: Powerful Tornado Kills Man in Goderich, Ontario, ‘This Is The Worst Damage I’ve Ever Seen’

“The most powerful tornado to hit the province in years swept through the southwestern Ontario town of Goderich Sunday afternoon, killing one person and devastating the picturesque community on the shores of Lake Huron.

Downtown businesses, century-old buildings and several churches lost their roofs and upper floors as the twister ripped through the town.

Images show downed power lines, trees and debris strewn across streets, while witnesses described cars being picked up and thrown like toys.

Police identified the victim as Norman Laberge, 61, of Lucknow, Ont., who was working in a salt mine in the town when the storm hit.

At least 37 people have been treated for minor injuries and no one has been reported missing, said Ontario Provincial Police Insp. Bill Klym.

Randy Mawson of Environment Canada said the town was battered by winds of up to 300 kilometres an hour, considered an F2- or F3-level tornado.

The province hasn’t seen a storm that powerful since 1996, he said.

‘This is the worst damage I’ve ever seen,’ said Mawson, who has been investigating storms for 36 years.” Read more.

 

US: Electrical Doomsday Near, ‘It Would End Life As You Know It’ Warns Congressman

“In a recent speech at the Heritage Foundation, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett told the audience he is not part of some lunatic fringe.

To assure his audience of his lucidity seemed necessary before the Maryland Republican listed dark predictions of what might happen if the nation does not prepare for catastrophic electrical failure from a solar storm or a nuclear bomb.

‘It would end life as you know it,’ Bartlett said at a panel assembled to discuss the effect of an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, unleashing irreversible destruction on the nation’s electrical grid.

Bartlett said the threat is real enough that Congress should force utility companies to protect critical transformers in preparation for an EMP event.

So far, the science fiction community has proved more interested than Congress in EMP events, devoting space in novels and movies to a doomsday scenario where electricity is out for years as the United States struggles to recover…

Experts think it actually would take a nuclear bomb detonated miles high in the sky to render electrical grids useless.

EMPs instantly destroy most anything electrical, similar to how a direct lightning strike disables appliances plugged into your home, but EMPS are much more destructive than lightning.

They easily overpower surge protectors, knocking out electrical grids all over the country, potentially even all over the world.” Read more.

CIA expert: North Korea perfecting EMP ‘doomsday’ weapon to use against US – “A former CIA nuclear weapons expert analyst is warning that the nuclear weapons rogue state North Korea is perfecting are designed to cripple the US infrastructure with a devastating electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Why is a North Korean EMP weapon potentially so dangerous? An EMP weapon is similar in many respects to a massive solar flare. Both create titanic upsurges of erratic flux in electrical fields. 21st Century America is especially vulnerable to such an attack. A nuclear burst designed to generate an EMP wave would create instant havoc to the electrical grid of a country, knock out the infrastructure, destroy most computers and servers, and disrupt the entire fragile mosaic of national distribution.” Read more.