Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Monday Mar, 14, 2011 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Japan 2. Reactors 3. Bananas 4. Wisconsin 5. Wobbly 6. Righthaven 1. Japan. The Japanese suffered one of the 3-5 most powerful earthquakes ever measured late last week. As of this writing, it was measured somewhere between 8.9 – 9.1 Richter. It was followed by a thirty foot high tsunami that may have killed up to 10,000 people. Video of the tsunami was broadcast in real time. In some places, the sea came in and did not go out. Highest waves in Alaska were five feet at Shemya near the end of the Aleutian Islands. Most of the post-quake news coverage has been about the reactors that were damaged by the quake and the tsunami. More about that later. The USN stationed a carrier battle group offshore Japan to provide humanitarian aid. They are closely measuring radiological emissions from the damaged reactors. Our prayers go out to the Japanese. There are numerous places to donate assistance. My experience is that faith-based assistance is the best choice. 2. Reactors. As of this writing, there were six reactors that are in trouble. They sit within 90 miles of the epicenter of the quake. All were shut down immediately when the earthquake hit. Unfortunately, when a reactor is shut down, there is still residual heat being generated by the daughter fission products remaining in the core. This may be as much as 3% of the rated output of the reactor and tails off over time. Light water reactors like these must therefore be actively covered with fresh water to carry the heat away, which also means that you have to keep pumping in new water or cooled water onto the core as long as there is excess heat. The water also needs to be as clean as possible so that there are no impurities to be activated by the continuing nuclear decay. In normal operations, this residual cooling is provided by offsite power, onsite diesel generators, and finally battery power. Unfortunately, the tsunami following the quake knocked out external power and killed the diesel backup generators. Battery power was exhausted after eight hours and portable generators airlifted into the plants were not able to be hooked up due to wiring difficulties. As of this writing, at least two of the six reactors have partially melted fuel elements due to lack of water. The power companies decided to pump seawater with boron onto the exposed cores. This combination rendered the reactor cores unusable for future power generation. Essentially, the operators sacrificed the existing reactors in an attempt to control any release of radioactive stuff into the outside air. It also appears that they have been storing steam boiled off some of the cores for a while in an attempt to allow tritium activated heavy water to cool down to the point where it can be released. When you overheat water sufficiently, it will disassociate into hydrogen and oxygen. The first two building explosions appear to be caused by ignition of hydrogen and oxygen. Last night there were another one or two explosions. Media coverage of this drama has been little short of disgusting, focusing entirely on a reprise of the China Syndrome or Chernobyl. What they have not told the general public is that the power plants were between 30 – 40 years old. They were designed to survive a 8.0 Richter earthquake. Yet they survived a 8.9 – 9.1, an order of magnitude more powerful quake. The problem was the 30’ high tsunami that wiped out all internal power to the plants. This will be a long and expensive cleanup. And the power companies have serious problems and will for many days to come. Do not believe anything that you read in the media about the problems. You can find updates here: http://mitnse.com/ 3. Bananas. One of the little games the greens, EPA, courts, and anti-nuke scaremongers play with radiation is comparative dangers of various exposure levels. Typically they never give numbers, substituting instead multiples of background levels or reportable levels of radiation. Unfortunately, these multiples never give you any idea about what is really going on. Anthony Watts wrote a column mid-February in Watts up With That about the banana equivalent dose of radiation as a way to put this all in perspective. Bananas are high in potassium. There is a radioactive isotope of potassium called potassium-40 that is common in nature, meaning that when you eat a typical banana, you get a dose of radiation. For a medium banana, this is around 520 picocuries. Eat a banana every day for a year, and you dose yourself with 3.6 millirems. The radiation measured after Three Mile Island 30 years ago in milk amounted to 1/75 of a banana per 12-ounce glass of milk. The thing is that everything is radioactive to a certain level and we live in a radioactive world. We take a dose every year. If you live in the mountains or at altitude, your dosage level here in the US is about three times that of people who don’t, yet cancer rates do not reflect any difference. Our instruments are very good and can measure radiation down to very low levels. It is the ignorance of what we regularly live in here in the natural world that allows the media to scare everyone to death about radiation releases. More on the Watts banana dose from here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/16/going-bananas-over-radiation/ 4. Wisconsin. The Battle for Wisconsin ended last weekend with the passage of the legislation that changed the ability of public employee unions to collectively bargain for benefits and pensions. Wayward democrats who were out of state for over three weeks came back into town and held a campaign rally. Obama’s Organizing for America is reportedly funding a series of recall initiatives for Republicans in the legislature. The Wisconsin Tea Party is also collecting signatures to recall democrats who left the state, shutting down the state government for three weeks. The protestors, who consisted mostly of out of state goons and college students from U of W in Madison were paid $40/day and given a free meal for taking part in the protests, so this was not a protest, for them. It was their part-time job for a while. Finally and in a not so distantly related story, Obama’s NLRB ruled late last week that threats of physical violence against non-union people did constitute a hostile work environment. It is Good to be King. These clowns had better be careful with their bully-boy routine, as there are people out there who don’t mind fighting back and eventually will. 5. Wobbly. The Republican revolution in the House appears to be going wobbly as we approach the second continuing resolution of funding the government. There is a growing fear that the House leadership does not want to step up to the plate and defund ObamaCare. The problem is that ObamaCare was passed as the ultimate self licking ice cream cone, legislation that not only authorizes spending, but has its very own continuing appropriation buried within it. Essentially, it is crafted so that it automatically funds itself to the tune of $105 billion yearly without congress having to do anything. This is why the democrats last year refused to pass a budget. This is why they are perfectly happy this year with a series of continuing resolutions, for they continue spending at last years’ levels. This is why the House leadership must step up and change House rules like they have done over 120 times this year already to allow the next continuing resolution to defund ObamaCare. Mark Levin has been excoriating them daily on his radio show. Hannity has covered it also. Time to contact your favorite congress critter and demand they defund ObamaCare before it is so embedded that it will be impossible to cut out. 6. Righthaven. There is a real nasty Las Vegas law firm that specializes in copyright protection lawsuits. Their particular approach is to build their clientele among the print media and sue bloggers and commenters who refer to content from the web sites of their clients without authorization. Lawsuits typically demand $150,000 and surrender of domain names to Righthaven. They have harassed a lot of bloggers and made a lot of money via this extortion racket through threatened court costs that bloggers cannot afford. Righthaven made the mistake of going after an equally nasty group of vermin when they sued the Democrat Underground several months ago. The DU countersued, as they have deep pockets via their connection to Soros. The DU won their case and has been pushing its advantage in court much to the chagrin of Righthaven which is now squealing like a stuck pig complaining about the DU running up court costs as they fight having to pay legal fees for the lawsuit they just lost. We will wish the DU well, as they have done a service for all bloggers out here. More later - - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. 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