Bent Water Rod in Spent Fuel at TEPCO's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuke Plant, No One Knows Why or How

Engineers, care to comment?

During the regular maintenance, TEPCO found a bent water rod in one of the spent fuel assemblies in the Reactor 5 Spent Fuel Pool at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa. In another assembly, the company found a bit of cotton-like fiber caught in the spacer.

From TEPCO's press release (Japanese) on October 17, 2012:

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Fuel rod configuration, from "Nuclide Composition and Neutron Multiplication Factor
of BWR Spent Fuel Assembly", Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (November 1999):

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#Radioactive Japan: Government Changes Rules, and 102.8Bq/kg of Cesium in Rice Becomes 100Bq/kg, Rice Safe and Good to Sell

Rice harvested this year in a district in Iwaki City in southern Fukushima was found with 102.8 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium.

Not a problem.

Because under the little-noted guideline from the Ministry of Health and Welfare on March 15 this year before the provisional safety standard of 500 becquerels/kg of cesium expired, you are supposed to round down or up the 3rd digit and use only the first 2 digits. (Jiji article below says the notice was issued on July 5, but the original notice was on March 15.)

So, 102.8 becomes 100. Exactly the safety limit, and that's fine with the Fukushima prefectural government. They say it is "sufficiently safe", meaning the rice will be sold.

From Jiji Tsushin (10/18/2012):

コメ検査で基準値上限＝「十分に安全」と県－福島

Rice tested at the upper safety limit, "Sufficiently safe", says Fukushima government

　福島県は１８日、２０１２年産米のモニタリング検査で、同県いわき市で生産されたコメから放射性セシウムの基準値の限度いっぱいの１キロ当たり１００ベクレルが検出されたと発表した。基準値は超えておらず、県は「十分に安全」（水田畑作課）としている。

Fukushima prefectural government announced the result of monitoring tests of rice harvested in 2012, which showed 100 becquerels/kg of radioactive cesium had been detected from rice grown in Iwaki City in Fukushima. Since it didn't exceed the safety limit, the prefectural government says it is "sufficiently safe".

　県によると、いわき市の旧川部村で１６日に採取した玄米で、セシウム１３４が３９．６ベクレル、セシウム１３７が６３．２ベクレル検出された。合計すれば１０２．８ベクレルで基準値を上回るが、厚生労働省は「（合計値の）３桁目を四捨五入し、有効数字２桁とする」と７月５日付で通知しており、これに従うと１００ベクレルちょうどになる。

According to the prefectural government, unmilled rice from former Kawabe-mura in Iwaki City harvested on October 16 was found with 39.6 becquerels/kg of cesium-134, and 63.2 becquerels/kg of cesium-137. Total would be 102.8 becquerels/kg, exceeding the safety limit. However, the Ministry of Health and Welfare had sent a notice dated July 5, 2012 which stated, "Round off the third digit to the nearest whole number and use the first two digits as significant figure." According to the notice, [Iwaki's number] is exactly 100 becquerels.

　県は安全性確保のため、一定数のサンプルを採取して行うモニタリング検査に加え、全ての県産米（約１２００万袋）を対象に全袋検査を実施中。これまでに、いずれの検査でも基準値を超えるセシウムは見つかっていない。

The prefectural government has been conducting the test to detect radioactive materials (cesium) on all rice (about 12 million bags [of 30 kilograms of rice]) grown in Fukushima, in addition to the monitoring test with a certain number of samples [per location]. So far, no rice has been found with radioactive cesium exceeding the safety standard in either test.

Uh... it has just been found, hasn't it? 102.8 becquerels/kg?

Japanese wiki on rounding numbers says you should be conservative in rounding the numbers when it comes to safety. In this case, if the safety standard is 100 becquerels/kg and the rice exceeded that standard by whatever small margin, it should have been treated as "exceeding the standard", instead of rounding down and declaring it is "sufficiently safe". If anything, it should be rounded up to 110 and ban the sales to be very conservative and safe.

As one of my Japanese Twitter followers suggested, that wiki entry needs a revision: "You should disregard safety when it involves the government policy, and round down the numbers to fit the safety standard to avoid baseless rumors."

By the way, Fukushima Prefecture tested one more sample from the same village in the monitoring test. That sample was found with 71.8 becquerels/kg, which the Fukushima prefectural government dutifully rounded up and printed "72 becquerels/kg".

Last year, there were 3 samples tested from this particular village in Iwaki City. They were all ND.

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Will Lithuania's Referendum Stop the Construction of a New Nuclear Power Plant?

Hitachi's spokesman says the referendum result was "regrettable", according to Daily Yomiuri Online (English).

This referendum is "consultative", meaning it doesn't have the enforcing power. The government will have one month to decide on the resolution. (Wikipedia: Referendums in Lithuania)

Only a minor bump in the road for Hitachi, most likely.

From Daily Yomiuri Online in English (10/17/2012; emphasis is mine), which has more information than the article that appeared in Japanese Yomiuri (10/15/2012):

Hitachi's nuclear plan hits bump / Lithuania referendum on construction project could hurt export strategy

A Lithuanian referendum result has cast a shadow over Hitachi Ltd.'s strategy to increase sales from its nuclear business--and could affect other Japanese companies in the nuclear industry.

Hitachi has signed a provisional contract with the Lithuanian government to construct a nuclear plant in the Baltic nation. But in a nonbinding referendum held Sunday, 62 percent of Lithuanian voters rejected the project, a result that could make the Lithuanian government review it.

A Hitachi spokesman said the result of the referendum was "regrettable."

"We'll closely watch how the Lithuanian government responds to the result," the spokesman added.

Hitachi signed a provisional contract with the Lithuanian government in July 2011 to construct the latest model of a boiling water reactor in Visaginas, eastern Lithuania. The project will cost 400 billion yen to 500 billion yen, and the Lithuanian government plans to use the reactor to supply electricity to all three Baltic countries, including Estonia and Latvia, from the early 2020s.

The Lithuania deal was the first inked by a Japanese company to build a nuclear reactor overseas since the crisis began at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in March 2011. The contract showed the safety of Japan's nuclear technology was recognized internationally, to a certain degree.

Hitachi plans to increase sales of its nuclear businesses from 160 billion yen in March to 360 billion yen in March 2021. However, observers said the company will have to revise its strategy if Lithuania does a U-turn on its nuclear policy.

Other Japanese nuclear power plant companies are concerned the result in Lithuania might affect sentiment in more nations considering building nuclear reactors.

Toshiba Corp. is competing for an order to build a nuclear plant in Turkey with South Korea, Canada and other countries. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. is trying to export a nuclear power reactor to Jordan.

As these companies have no prospect of building a new nuclear plant in Japan since the government reviewed the nuclear energy policy after the Fukushima crisis, they must try to expand their businesses overseas.

However, some experts said the real issue of Lithuania's referendum was the massive spending that would be required for the construction at a time of financial difficulties, not the government's nuclear policy itself.

Many developing countries, including Lithuania, need to increase their power supply to sustain economic growth.

"Those countries have high expectations for nuclear plants that can stably supply a huge amount of electricity," an official of a Japanese nuclear company said.

I think I know what's coming next: a massive amount of interest-free loan from the Japanese government to Lithuania so that it can afford to have a state-of-the-art nuclear power plant.

Newsweek/Bloomberg article says the Lithuanian referendum result may prompt Estonia to commission a second oil shale-fired power unit.

Estonia's oil shale deposits account for 90% of Estonia's power source, and 17% of total deposits in the European Union, according to wiki.

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IAEA Chief Yukiya Amano: ‘We Continue to See Activities’ at Iranian Parchin Site"

Mr. Amano, a career bureaucrat at Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, became the Director General of IAEA after the organization and its then-Director General Mohamed ElBaradei had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

His appointment didn't go smoothly, but in the end his and his government's pledge to the US that he would be instrumental in reining in Iran's nuclear ambition in the interest of the US seems to have finally cinched the election in 2009. (WikiLeaks, as reported by Asahi Shinbun on December 3, 2010.)

From Antiwar.com (10/17/2012; emphasis is mine):

IAEA Chief: ‘We Continue to See Activities’ at Iranian Parchin Site
The IAEA also noted an increase in Iranian enrichment capacity, but the latest report confirmed Iran's uranium was used for peaceful medical research

by John Glaser, October 17, 2012

UN nuclear watchdog chief Yukio Amano said on Wednesday there continues to be some “activity” around Iran’s Parchin military site, although he refused to say what kind of activity or to make any direct allegations that Tehran is hiding anything illicit in its nuclear program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its chief, Amano, continue to push Iran to allow inspections at Parchin, following accusations that Iran was trying to clean up evidence of weaponization of its nuclear program. The activity IAEA officials are seeing it from satellite imagery.

But Parchin is a military site that is not a declared nuclear site, and therefore not under IAEA jurisdiction. IAEA inspectors continue to constantly inspect all of Iran’s declared nuclear enrichment sites and to this day have never found any evidence that nuclear material from these sites has been diverted elsewhere for possible military use.

Many Western observers suspicious of Iran’s nuclear program, which they continue to insist is for purely peaceful uses only, use the unspecific Parchin accusations, along with Iran’s increasing uranium enrichment capacity at its Fordow plant, as indirect evidence that Iran is working towards nuclear weapons.
But the IAEA’s latest report, and Israeli intelligence, conclude that Iran has diverted much of its enriched uranium to peaceful scientific research and medical isotopes, as it promised.

Despite the IAEA’s estimate that enrichment capacity has increased, senior Israeli defense officials told Haaretz that “Iran has moved the wall back by eight months at least.”

And regarding inspections at Parchin, international observers should not be surprised that Iran hasn’t followed every demand and dictate of the inspectors and the Western-led negotiators.

The so-called diplomacy with Iran has been “predicated on intimidation, illegal threats of military action, unilateral ‘crippling’ sanctions, sabotage, and extrajudicial killings of Iran’s brightest minds,” writes Reza Nasri at PBS Frontline’s Tehran Bureau. These postures have spoiled the chance to resolve this issue promptly and respectfully.

After the failed talks in 2009 and 2010, wherein Obama ended up rejecting the very deal he demanded the Iranians accept, as Harvard professor Stephen Walt has written, the Iranian leadership “has good grounds for viewing Obama as inherently untrustworthy.” Former CIA analyst Paul Pillar has concurred, arguing that Iran has “ample reason” to believe, “ultimately the main Western interest is in regime change.”

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#Radioactive Japan: US High School Students Did Visit Fukushima, on "Strengthen Kizuna" Project

A Japanese independent journalist posted this photo on his tweet. It is an air dose measurement of 0.54 microsievert/hour in front of a junior high school in a village in Fukushima Prefecture, and the village name is Tenei-mura (pronunciation: ten'ei).

Remember that before the Fukushima nuclear accident, the average air dose rate in Fukushima Prefecture was one order of magnitude lower.

Now, why did this particular tweet catch my attention? Well that village was one of the locations where the high school students from the US were sent, as part of the "Kizuna" project by the Japanese and the US government to show support and solidarity with the "victims" of the disaster and to spread the correct information about recovery and decontamination effort by the Japanese government by having young people from the US visit Fukushima.

Remember those high school students, who followed the footsteps of the students from Middle Tennessee State University?

The original meaning of 'Kizuna' is "a tie that binds a domestic animal so that it can't escape".

From Fukushima-net.com (no date, but assumed to be in July 2012; part):

米国の高校生が被災地を訪問　天栄などで「キズナ強化プロジェクト」

US high school students visit disaster-affected areas, part of "Project to strengthen 'Kizuna'" in Ten'ei

東日本大震災の復興支援のため、アメリカの高校生たちが10日から天栄村などを訪れ、地元の人たちと交流を深めている。

High school students from the US have been visiting places [in Fukushima] including Ten'ei-mura starting July 10, interacting with the locals to support the recovery from the March 11, 2011 disaster.

外務省の委託事業で、日本国際協力センターが実施する「キズナ強化プロジェクト」の一環。アメリカの高校生が被災した宮城、岩手、福島、茨城の４県を訪れ、復興状況などを視察している。

It is part of the "Project to strengthen Kizuna", which is commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and carried out by the Japan International Cooperation Center. Under the project, high school students from the US are visiting the disaster-affected Miyagi, Iwate, Fukushima and Ibaraki Prefectures and observing the progress of the recovery efforts.

本県は天栄村ふるさと子ども夢学校推進協議会が受け入れ先となり、１０日から１３日までの日程で実施。

In our Prefecture [Fukushima], a council of Ten'ei-mura is organizing the event from July 10 to 13.

アメリカの4つの高校で日本語を学んでいる学生と教師約１１０人が来日している。

110 students and their teachers from 4 US high schools are in [Fukushima]. The students are learning Japanese at their high schools.

...　12日は長沼高、岩瀬農業高を訪れ、日本の高校生との交流を図るほか、天栄村の職員から村内の畑の除染活動について説明を受ける予定。

On July 12, they are scheduled to visit the local high schools to interact with the Japanese high school students [there], and to be briefed by the village officials on the progress of decontaminating the farm lands in the village.

今回のプロジェクトは、アメリカの学生に被災地の復興状況を見てもらい、除染への取り組みを海外に発信してもらおうという狙い。

The aim of this project is to have the US students see the recovery of the disaster-affected area, and have them spread information on the decontamination effort.

The site has a photograph of students wearing "Kizuna" T-shirts and eating "mochi".

Ten'ei-mura is located along the corridor in the middle of Fukushima where the radioactive cloud passed through, between Sukagawa and Shirakawa. Professor Hayakawa's Radiation Contour Map (ver.7) has Ten'ei-mura inside 0.5 microsievert/hour, with a significant chunk of it inside 1 microsievert/hour.

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AP: White House Considering Retaliatory Strike in Libya

Wag the dog.

From Boston Globe, citing AP (10/16/2012):

White House faces dilemma in Libya attack response
Strike forces, drones on alert in North Africa

WASHINGTON — The White House has put special operations strike forces on standby and moved drones into the skies above Africa, ready to strike militant targets from Libya to Mali — if investigators can find the Al Qaeda-linked group responsible for the death of the US ambassador and three other Americans in Libya.

But officials say the administration is weighing whether the short-term payoff of exacting retribution on Al Qaeda is worth the risk that such strikes could elevate the group’s profile in the region, alienate governments the United States needs to fight it in the future, and do little to slow the growing terror threat in North Africa.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is taking responsibility for security at a US consulate in Libya where an assault by extremists on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks killed the four Americans.

Pushing back against Republican criticism of the Obama administration for its handling of the situation, Clinton said Monday in Lima, Peru, that security at all of America’s diplomatic missions abroad is her job, not that of the White House. She made the comments in several television interviews.

‘‘I take responsibility,’’ she told CNN. ‘‘I’m in charge of the State Department’s 60,000-plus people all over the world (at) 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn’t be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They’re the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision.’’

(Full article at the link)

I still remember how the government and the media put the spin on the news of the attack. It was blamed on the anti-Islam movie, or that's how they wanted us to sort of believe.

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OT: US Presidential Debate No.2 in Word Clouds

via Zero Hedge (10/16/2012):

Obama: Governor Romney just got going sure want people jobs

Romney: People get going jobs four years president

Anheuser-Busch provided free beer crafted in small batches to the reporters.

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OT: French TV Depicts Japanese Goalie with 4 Arms, Calling it "Fukushima Effect"

The French soccer (football) team lost to the Japanese team 0 to 1.

From Kyodo News English:

French TV host riles Japan with "Fukushima" comment
Photo captured from a Belgian website that posted an image run by France 2 shows a composite picture of Japan goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima with four arms. A host of the national television station France 2 reportedly angered the Japanese Embassy by showing the picture during a variety show on Oct. 13, 2012, citing the "Fukushima effect" when praising Kawashima for his performance in Japan's defeat of France in a soccer friendly held on Oct. 12.

Well, having 4 arms is nothing. Buddhism deities have just as many, and more. In fact, the Japanese phrase "八面六臂" (eight faces, six arms) is used to depict someone with extraordinary talent and energy, worth several people. Like Mr. Kawashima.

This "Sahasrabhuja-arya-avalokites'vara" statue is a Japanese national treasure. It is from the 8th century, and has 1,000 arms to save people in distress:

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The Economist: Japan's nuclear disaster - Meet the Fukushima 50? No, you can’t

The Economist writer, writing from Iwaki City in southern Fukushima, sounds rather exasperated or sarcastic (or both) in the opening sentence of his article:

IT HAS taken the Japanese government more than 18 months to pay tribute to a group of brave men, once known as the “Fukushima 50”, who risked their lives to prevent meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant from spiralling out of control.

The article ends with:

The media attention is always focused on those in power, who typically do nothing to merit the recognition. The multitudes on the frontline, who put their heads down and do all the hard work are treated as faceless, nameless and ultimately forgotten.

with the writer calling it "one of the tragic flaws of modern Japan".

I seem to be already hearing an "It is the same everywhere in the world, not just Japan" chorus, but as the writer points out in the article, it may be only in Japan where these workers themselves and their families are bullied by people around them for having tried their best to contain the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. For the case of TEPCO workers at the plant, see my post from February this year. The article in that post was written by a reporter from Germany's Spiegel.

I think hardly anyone in Japan paid any attention to the Spiegel article. It will be the same with The Economist's article. It doesn't occur to many that the workers have been treated poorly, not only by TEPCO and by the government but also by ordinary people like them. See no evil, hear no evil.

From The Economist (10/8/2012; emphasis is mine):

Japan's nuclear disaster
Meet the Fukushima 50? No, you can’t

Oct 8th 2012, 4:28 by H.T. | IWAKI

IT HAS taken the Japanese government more than 18 months to pay tribute to a group of brave men, once known as the “Fukushima 50”, who risked their lives to prevent meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant from spiralling out of control. But when the prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, belatedly offered official thanks to them on October 7th something strange was afoot: six of the eight men he addressed had their backs to the television cameras, refused to be photographed and did not introduce themselves by name, not even to Mr Noda (see the image below).

The reason: officials from the government and from Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) quietly admitted that the men wanted to keep their identities secret because they were scared of stigmatisation for being involved in the disaster, such as might lead to the bullying of their children and grandchildren. But Tepco is also muzzling them, presumably for fear that what they say will further discredit the now nationalised company. When I asked if I could at least hand my business card to them to see if they wanted to tell their side of the story, an irate Tepco spokesman answered bluntly: “Impossible.”

There are numerous ways that this incident reflects badly on both Tepco’s and the government’s handling of the situation. Firstly, there is the contrast between the frontline worker’s behaviour and the brazen hypocrisy of Tepco’s management after the accident. I remember Tepco’s then-chairman, Tsunehisa Katsumata (now thankfully retired), nonchalantly blaming everyone but himself when giving testimony to a Diet commission earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the men who worked loyally for him, risking their lives on behalf of his company, still hide their heads in shame.

The government, for its part, has done these men a huge disservice by not acting more quickly to differentiate their heroism from the craven self-interest of the company’s bosses. In the eyes of the public there ought to be no confusion between the two. In Chile, it was easy to see how the country made heroes of the 33 trapped mine workers in 2010, while making villains of their bosses. Nothing like that has happened in Japan. As one government official noted, if this were America, the “Fukushima 50” would have been invited to the Rose Garden for presidential recognition.

Yet even after Mr Noda’s visit, the men do not get the recognition they deserve. Kyodo, a news agency, relegates any mention of them to the bottom of a boring story about decontamination.

An English-language paper, the Japan Times, today at least tells part of their harrowing story, though it doesn’t mention the refusal of all but two of them to be identified. They did not depict themselves as heroes, as they recounted their experiences to Mr Noda. They mostly sounded plain scared. One said he thought “it was all over” after the tsunami of March 11th, 2011 knocked out all the power. Another told of how he sent his staff out into the dark, where they faced the danger of electrocution, to restore the power to a nuclear reactor on the verge of melting down. He was asked by his men whether he thought they would come back alive. They went on regardless.

But the headlines, ultimately, refer back to Mr Noda, not to the Fukushima 50. He gets more of the credit than they do, despite his wooden acknowledgement to the men, that “Thanks to your dedication, we have managed to preserve Japan.” This is one of the tragic flaws of modern Japan. The media attention is always focused on those in power, who typically do nothing to merit the recognition. The multitudes on the frontline, who put their heads down and do all the hard work are treated as faceless, nameless and ultimately forgotten.

(Picture credit: The Economist)

The Economist writer is highly critical of the TEPCO top management, rightly so. But even there, having watched TEPCO's press conference in March last year almost every night and having watched some of the teleconference video TEPCO finally released, I cannot make a sweeping criticism.

(H/T reader 'female faust' for the link)

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(OT) Friday Humor: European Union Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Peace? In Europe?

Nigel Farage, leader of Britain's fiercely eurosceptic UKIP party, added: "This goes to show that the Norwegians really do have a sense of humor." (Reuter's article, below)

The Norwegian committee should have asked citizens in Greece and Spain at least.

The same committee awarded the current US president the same prize for his presidential campaign in 2008. Past recipients for Nobel Peace Prize include Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Dalai Lama, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

To be on the candidate list for a Nobel Prize, someone has to nominate the person or entity to the committee. I wonder who nominated the EU.

As the Reuter article below notes, Norway is not part of the EU, and is doing very well. The article also duly notes an infuriated Greek citizen.

From Reuters (10/12/2012):

(Reuters) - The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for promoting peace, democracy and human rights over six decades in an award seen as a morale boost as the bloc struggles to resolve its economic crisis.

The award served as a reminder that the EU had largely brought peace to a continent which tore itself apart in two world wars in which tens of millions died.

The EU has transformed most of Europe "from a continent of wars to a continent of peace," Nobel Committee Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said in announcing the award in Oslo.

"The EU is currently undergoing grave economic difficulties and considerable social unrest," Jagland said. "The Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to focus on what it sees as the EU's most important result: the successful struggle for peace and reconciliation and for democracy and human rights."

Jagland praised the EU for rebuilding Europe from the devastation of World War Two and for its role in spreading stability after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

While welcomed by European leaders, the award will have little practical effect on the debt crisis afflicting the single currency zone, which has brought economic instability and social unrest to several states with rioting in Athens and Madrid.

On the streets of the Greek capital, where demonstrators have burned Nazi flags to protest against German demands for austerity, the award was greeted with disbelief.

"Is this a joke?" asked Chrisoula Panagiotidi, 36, a beautician who lost her job three days ago. "It's the last thing I would expect. It mocks us and what we are going through right now. All it will do is infuriate people here."

The prize, worth $1.2 million, will be presented in Oslo on December 10. It was not immediately clear who from the EU would be there to collect the cheque and what it would be spent on.

CONCEIVED IN SECRET

Conceived in secret at a chateau near Brussels, what is now the European Union was created by the 1957 Treaty of Rome, signed with great fanfare in the Italian capital's 15th century Palazzo dei Conservatori.

The six-state 'common market' it founded grew into the 27-nation European Union ranging from Ireland's Atlantic shores to the borders of Russia.

At the time the Cold War was in full swing after Soviet tanks put down an anti-communist rebellion in Budapest. Western countries led by the United States had formed NATO and the Kremlin responded with the Warsaw Pact.

But the EU is now mired in crisis with enormous strains between capitals over the euro, the common currency shared by 17 nations and created to further economic and monetary union.

Politicians in Germany, one of the main forces behind the foundation of the EU, were delighted with the award.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe's most powerful leader, said it was a "wonderful decision". French President Francois Hollande, whose country has with Germany formed the EU's main axis of power, said it was an "immense honor".

Helmut Kohl, the chancellor who reunified Germany and pushed the country into the euro, said: "The Nobel Peace Prize for the EU is above all a confirmation of the European peace project,"

After centuries of war on the continent the EU has been at peace within its borders, but its effort to stop war in former Yugoslavia -- an initiative hailed by one minister as "the hour of Europe" -- was a failure.

The British government, less committed to the European ideal than other EU members, made no comment on the prize. Ed Balls, a senior member of the opposition Labour Party, remarked sarcastically: "They'll be cheering in Athens tonight, won't they?"

Nigel Farage, leader of Britain's fiercely eurosceptic UKIP party, added: "This goes to show that the Norwegians really do have a sense of humor."

"I FIND THIS ABSURD"

In Madrid, Francisco Gonzalez expressed bafflement. "I don't see the logic in the EU getting this prize right now. They can't even agree among themselves," the 62-year-old businessman said.

In Berlin, public relations worker Astrid Meinicke, 46, was also skeptical. "I find it curious. I think the EU could have engaged itself a bit better, especially in Syria," she said, near the city's historic Brandenburg Gate.

In the home of the peace prize, many Norwegians are bitterly opposed to the EU, seeing it as a threat to the sovereignty of nation states. "I find this absurd," the leader of Norway's anti-EU membership organization Heming Olaussen told state broadcaster NRK.

Norway has twice voted "no" to joining the EU, in 1972 and 1994. The country has prospered outside the bloc, partly thanks to huge oil and gas resources.

Among those tipped to win was Russia's small Ekho Moskvy radio, a frequent critic of the Kremlin. Editor in chief Alexei Venediktov conceded the prize to a worthy winner.

"We are only 115. They are 500 million. It is an honor (to lose to the EU)," he told Reuters.

(Reporting by Alister Doyle, Terje Solsvik and Reuters European bureaux; Writing by Giles Elgood; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

The award money of $1.2 million is probably enough to hire one or two technocrats at Brussels for a year or so.

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(Video) Inside Containment Vessel of Reactor 1 at #Fukushima Nuke Plant: CCD Camera Dips Into the Water Under the Grating

It took 51 workers (from TEPCO and Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy, most likely) 3 hours on October 11, 2012 to probe again the Containment Vessel of Reactor 1 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant.

TEPCO's handout for the press (Japanese, 10/11/2012) says the maximum radiation exposure for the workers was 1.83 millisievert. TEPCO does not say how many groups of workers went in, and how long each group spent inside the reactor building.

Tomorrow (October 12), TEPCO will send in the workers again (no information if they are the same ones who have been going there every day since October 9) to collect water samples. On October 13, the workers will go there again, and install a thermocouple and a water gauge inside the Containment Vessel, again using the same penetration.

This is the abbreviated version of the full video which is nearly 1 hour and 40 minutes long (which you can download for your record, here):

It is simply infuriating to think all this work may not have been needed if enough people at TEPCO had dared to break the rules and social niceties on March 11, 12, 13. Even more infuriating that most Japanese still don't get it.

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(Photos and Video) Inside Containment Vessel of Reactor 1 at #Fukushima Nuke Plant: 11.1 Sieverts/Hour Radiation

TEPCO had already showed us a glimpse of what it was like inside the Containment Vessel of Reactor 1 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant when the workers managed to

The company released the data on dose rates inside the CV and two videos (one is an abbreviated 3-minute video, the other is the full-length, over 2 hours) on October 10, 2012.

The highest level of radiation inside the CV was recorded right outside the X100B penetration tip, at 11.1 Sieverts/Hour.

According to TEPCO, the maximum radiation exposure for the workers was 2.13 millisieverts. That was much lower than the planned exposure of 10 millisieverts. The workers went in in several groups, so their exposure was nowhere near the 2-plus hours it took for the operation.

From TEPCO's handout for the press (10/10/2012), in English:

TEPCO will measure the radiation levels in the water under the grating, on October 11, and will collect the water sample on October 12.

So, when Prime Minister Noda went to the plant and gave a talk to the plant management on how progress had been made, the workers (TEPCO and Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy) were preparing for this work which might expose them to 10 millisieverts in short time.

From TEPCO's Photos and Videos, 10/10/2012:

Grating:

A bolt, a nut and a hatch:

Drywell spray piping:

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11,000 Pupils Came Down with Food Poisoning, in Germany; Frozen Strawberries from China in School Lunch to Blame

Frozen strawberries served in school lunches in kindergartens and schools in Berlin and other cities in eastern Germany have been identified as the culprit.

Norovirus has been identified from the strawberries. The food distributor says frozen strawberries were imported from China, according to NHK News.

44 metric tonnes of them, according to Germany's Spiegel.

According to Spiegel, the company responsible for giving tainted frozen strawberries to kids is a French company Sodexo, who can provide school lunches at a rock-bottom price of 1.55 euros per meal. The article also points out that the rapidly growing school lunch catering industry is the result of the push by the German government for all-day schools, where children need to be fed. This continues, as no one wants to be responsible for fixing it. (Now that starts to sound familiar...)

From Spiegel International Online (10/9/2012):

Putting Profits Before Nutrition: The Dark Side of the School Meals Business

By Susanne Amann, Sebastian Brauns and Nils Klawitter

Experts now believe that frozen strawberries from China are behind a massive outbreak of the norovirus that recently affected thousands of schoolchildren in eastern Germany. The episode merely illustrates the deplorable state of school lunches, a problem no one seems willing to fix.

The first school lunch that Martha Payne photographed in May consisted of a croquette, a small pizza, a bit of corn and a muffin. The nine-year-old from Scotland gave the meal six out of 10 points for taste on her "food-o-meter" and four out of 10 for healthiness.

Her plan had only been to take a shot in order to show her father that the meal wasn't enough to fill her up, she wrote on her blog. After only a week, Payne had 25,000 hits on her blog, and now hundreds of thousands are reading it.

Whoever looks at the photos will not be surprised by the debate that has been raging in Germany for two weeks about what is actually served to children in school cafeterias. Much more amazing is the fact that it took so long to reach a crisis like the one that has happened in eastern Germany, where more than 11,000 schoolchildren were recently affected by gastrointestinal sickness -- most likely because of what they ate at school.

"We already calculated long ago that an episode like this would happen because the entire system is messed up from beginning to end," says Michael Polster, head of DNSV, an association that advocates healthier school meals in Germany. "Rapidly growing demand is running up against massive cost pressure (and) absurd bureaucracy in an altogether lawless area," he says.

A move by the German government in recent years to push forward an expansion in the number of all-day schools, has prompted explosive growth in the school catering business. Germany has 11 million children attending 45,000 schools, and the number of them being fed at these schools is rising. As a result, the school catering business is becoming highly competitive and growing at an annual rate of 5 percent. Already today, the five largest school catering companies generate combined revenues of some €160 million ($208 million) in the country.

By far the largest of these is the French company Sodexo. Last week, the company and its products quickly fell under suspicion of being at least partially responsible for the mass outbreak of illness in eastern Germany because many of the affected establishments were supplied by its industrial kitchens.

The self-described specialist in "quality of life services" offers an extremely broad range of services, from nursing care to cleaning to catering. The company's global sales are estimated at €18 billion, and its 391,000 employees make it one of the 25 largest employers in the world. The family of company founder Pierre Bellon is believed to be the richest family in France.

Insufficiently Heated Strawberries

After German reunification in 1990, Sodexo made significant investments in its Germany-based operations. The company took over a number of company cafeterias in the states that belonged to the former East Germany, including one in the city of Halle located right next to a former state-owned paint, varnish and flooring plant. To this day, plasticizers are stored in huge tanks in the courtyard near the kitchen, which is surrounded by rat traps. Signs warn about dangers to reproductive health.

The French quickly became sector leaders with rock-bottom prices of €1.55 ($2) per meal and many employees working at dumping wages, according to the NGG union. Today, 65 Sodexo kitchens supply 200,000 daily meals all across Germany.

Questioning of patients and analyses of the supply chain provided indications tracing the cause of the recent epidemic of diarrhea and vomiting to a supplier who provided Sodexo and at least two other catering companies with frozen strawberries from China. The batch involves 44 metric tons of the fruit that were imported into Germany via the port of Hamburg.

According to the findings of a working group composed of state and local officials, "at least 10" of the Sodexo kitchens in eastern Germany had processed and failed to sufficiently heat the frozen strawberries from this delivery. Sodexo describes the episode as a "regrettable isolated case" and says that use of the goods in question was "blocked" after it was announced that the strawberries might be to blame.

Late Friday evening, Sodexo's German operations issued a press release saying that it was "shocked" by the outbreak. The company added that it apologized to all affected children and families and that it hopes that the children have gotten better. In addition to pledging to improve quality control and to take other preventative measures, the company said it would "compensate those affected for the unpleasantness that occurred."

On Tuesday, Germany's center for disease control, the Robert Koch Institute, declared that the contaminated strawberries had been identified and removed, but it also confirmed that one batch of the frozen strawberries had tested positive for the highly contagious norovirus.

(Full article at the link)

School lunches seem to be dumping grounds for cheap and/or unwanted food items, also in countries other than Japan. I'm a bit surprised that this happened in Germany.

Sodexo, Inc.'s website says it is the world leader in "Quality of Daily Life Solutions". There is Sodexo South Korea, but none in Japan. So far.

Speaking of frozen fruits, some cities in Kanagawa Prefecture continue to serve frozen mandarin oranges even if they have been already tested and confirmed to have radioactive cesium. Why? Because the contract with the vendor is more sacred.

It seems Japan will be a great fit for the French company.

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Japanese Net Citizens' (Anecdotal) Response to TEPCO with No Money to Buy Batteries and No Permit to Transport Batteries: "TEPCO Should Have Used Credit, and We Need New Emergency Laws and Regulations"

One month after it was first reported by Asahi Shinbun, some Japanese net citizens on Twitter seem to be slowly realizing what happened on March 13, 2011 when Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant workers didn't have enough money to buy car batteries which would have given them a good fighting chance.

Sadly, their response to this revelation indicates to me the same thing would happen again and again.

The tweets that I've seen on the subject are limited in numbers, I don't have that many followers (4,700, give or take) and I don't follow that many. So the following is nothing but anecdotal.

About TEPCO workers collecting money to go to Iwaki City and buy car batteries at large auto parts stores, managing to buy only 8:

• They should have asked nicely.

• They should have bought on credit.

• Maybe the stores didn't trust TEPCO to sell on credit.

• I'm embarrassed for Japan, what would the world think of us Japanese?

There is no indication that any of them even thought about "other" solutions (see my previous post for some).

About 1,000 batteries from Toshiba stuck in Tokyo because there was no permit to transport them on the highway, I tweeted in Japanese. Not many have read Asahi Shinbun's article (partly because it appeared in the subscribers' only section of the online paper), and they simply do not know about the episode. But I got this response　from an independent journalist:

That's understandable, because we don't have laws and regulations for emergency situations like that. I think there are some who predicted it [that Toshiba or TEPCO waited for the permit while core melt was occurring]. But it is us [the citizens of Japan] who have allowed it [the lack of emergency laws and regulations] to continue. So we have to change many things, but that's hard to do. If an earthquake and tsunami of the same magnitude happened right now, it is likely that we would repeat the same [mistakes].

To him, and to many others in Japan, it is a matter of creating new laws and regulations so that people can follow follow, and NOT of individual initiative and how to start thinking independently. And thinking fast.

I wrote back to him,

It's not the matter of whether you have the laws and regulations in place. If a government bureaucrat told Toshiba or TEPCO they couldn't transport the batteries on the highway without the permit, even as they knew (though they dared not tell the public) the reactor core was melting, Toshiba or TEPCO could simply say, "Oh OK, yes we understand, sir", and start driving to Fuku-I anyway. People are not trained to be bold and cunning, able to make judgment on their own on the fly in a situation like that. So what they might be fined or even arrested afterwards for transporting dangerous stuff on the highway? That would have been much better than having nuclear reactors blowing up one after another.

I'm afraid he doesn't know what I'm talking about. But we're in agreement as to repeating the same mistake in the future.

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PM Noda Visits J-Village, #Fukushima I Nuke Plant: "As a Citizen of Japan, I Thank You."

So far, the news is out on his morning visit to J-Village in Naraha-machi, Fukushima, where met with workers who had remained at the plant during the early days of the nuclear accident, and thanked them for their effort.

Why does he bother? Jiji says it's to show people that the Fukushima nuclear accident is still the number one priority for the administration. For what? At this point, I haven't a clue.

From Jiji Tsushin (10/07/2012):

野田首相、福島第１原発を視察＝作業員らを慰労

Prime Minister Noda to visit Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, to thank the workers

　野田佳彦首相は７日、東京電力福島第１原発を視察するため福島県を訪問した。原発事故現場の視察は就任直後の昨年９月以来２度目。先の民主党代表選で再選を果たし、内閣改造で態勢強化を図った首相は、引き続き政権の最重要課題として原発事故対応に取り組む姿勢を示したい考えだ。

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is in Fukushima Prefecture on October 7 to visit Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant. It will be the second time [for Mr. Noda] to visit the scene of the nuclear accident since September last year, when he became the prime minister. He has been re-elected as the leader of Democratic Party of Japan, and has reshuffled his cabinet to strengthen his position. With the visit, he intends to show that the Fukushima nuclear accident continues to be the first priority for the administration.

　首相はまず、事故処理活動の拠点となっている同県楢葉町の「Ｊヴィレッジ」を訪問。昨年３月の原発事故発生直後、危険を顧みず現場に残って処理に当たった作業員らと面会し、「本当に語り尽くせないご苦労があったと思う。恐怖と過酷な環境の中、奮闘いただいたことに国民の一人として感謝申し上げたい」とねぎらった。

Prime Minister visited the J-Village in Naraha-machi, which has been the staging area for the accident response work. He met with the workers who had remained at the plant despite danger right after the start of the nuclear accident in March last year, and thanked them by saying, "You must have suffered such hardships that you can't even begin to tell us. I would like to thank you, as a citizen of Japan, for your strenuous effort in the middle of fear and harsh environment."

Harsh is an understatement.

I don't know if the quote by Jiji Tsushin is verbatim or abbreviation. I would have liked him to say that and more, as the prime minister of the national government whose official, national policy has been to pursue nuclear energy, instead of as one citizen.

Before he went to J-Village, Noda also met with the policemen patrolling the 20-kilometer radius no-entry zone. According to Yomiuri TV, he thanked them by saying:

「内閣総理大臣として、そして一人の日本国民として、深甚なる敬意と感謝を申し上げます。本当にありがとう」

"As the prime minister, and as a citizen of Japan, I offer my profound respect and appreciation. Thank you very much."

From the words, Mr. Noda seems to appreciate policemen more than the Fuku-I workers.

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#Fukushima Reactor 3 Explosion, Reactor 2 Core Melt, Possibly Because TEPCO Couldn't Break the Rules to Bring Batteries to the Plant

What rules, you ask? Good social rules like "If you want something from a store, you purchase it with money." Or "In order to transport potentially dangerous materials or equipments, you apply for a government permit and wait until the permit is issued." They are all good and proper in peacetime.

TEPCO was no longer in peacetime, starting March 11, 2011. But the company and the workers clearly didn't know how to operate in an extraordinary situation they found themselves in. So they stuck to what they knew best - be a law- and rule- abiding good citizens.

From the teleconference video that TEPCO newly released, at 7:17AM of March 13, 2011 at Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant (Video 05-06 at TEPCO's Photos and Video page for October 5, 2012):

資材班です、すいません。これからバッテリー等を買出しに行きます。えーと、現金が不足しております。現金をこちらに持ち出している方、是非お貸しいただきたいと思います。すいません、申し訳ありませんが、現金をお持ちの方、貸していただけないでしょうか？よろしくお願いします。

This is Materials Group, sorry to interrupt. We are going out to buy batteries and other things. But, uh.., we're short on cash. For those of you who have cash with you here, we would really appreciate if you could lend it to us. We're sorry [and embarrassed] but if you have cash, could you let us borrow it? Thank you in advance.

After this announcement, a senior executive (I believe it's Mr. Komori in TEPCO's Headquarters in Tokyo) is heard muttering, "No money? That is miserable. We have to do something..."

Asahi Shinbun transcribed the entire 150 hours of TEPCO's teleconference video, and has written several articles (subscribers only) about their findings. This battery episode was in the third installment of the series of articles that were published in early September. The following is my summary of the situation, based on the Asahi Shinbun article on September 5, 2012, based on their own transcription of the video:

Early morning on March 13, 2011 (28 hours or so before the Reactor 3 building exploded). TEPCO's workers had figured out that by rigging up the car batteries they could provide just enough power to operate the main steam safety-relief valve (SR valve) to release pressure inside the Reactor 3 Pressure Vessel. Ten 12-volt batteries were all they needed for that operation for the moment, they figured. The problem was that they didn't have 10. They asked the workers with cars to please remove the batteries so that they could be used.

20 car batteries were offered. But they needed more. Much more, in order to monitor the conditions of Reactor 3 and Reactor 2. The monitoring systems in the central control room were also down, because of lack of electricity. They needed the batteries in the order of 50, 100.

Iwaki City was 30 kilometers south of the plant, and there were big auto parts stores in the city. So, TEPCO workers decided to drive down there and buy car batteries at the store.

But 8 car batteries were all they managed to buy in Iwaki City. Asahi Shinbun article doesn't say whether it was lack of money or lack of inventory at the auto parts stores.

It was not that TEPCO's Headquarters in Tokyo had sat paralyzed. It had already ordered 1,000 batteries from Toshiba on March 12 and arranged for having them shipped to the plant immediately.

There was a problem. A government permit was needed, apparently, to transport that many batteries on the highway, and the permit was not readily coming. The vehicle loaded with 1,000 batteries couldn't leave Tokyo unless the issue of the permit was resolved somehow.

In the end, 320 of 1,000 batteries did arrive at the plant, in the evening of March 14, long after the Reactor 3 explosion. The core inside the Reactor 2 Pressure Vessel had already been exposed.

This single episode, I believe, epitomizes what's fundamentally wrong with the Japanese in a crisis situation: They cannot break rules.

So they couldn't monitor the reactors, couldn't open the SR valve, but knew if they had batteries, even the car batteries and plenty of them, they would be able to do both. If they didn't, there would be core melt, and a large amount of radioactive materials would be released. It was not the time to observe rules and regulations imposed by the society or the government.

1. Instead of going all the way to Iwaki City to buy car batteries, they could have stopped any and every car and truck they encountered outside the plant, asked, begged, threatened, the drivers to give up their car batteries because otherwise there would be multiple meltdowns at the nuclear plant.

What would the drivers do? Refuse? Somehow, I don't think so. They could even ask the residents to spread the word that the plant needed car batteries to prevent nuclear catastrophe.

They could have asked the Self Defense Force to round up car batteries from the neighborhood for them. The SDF could still have said "no", though, needing a permission from the prime minister.

2. If they went to Iwaki City, they could have just taken the batteries, instead of trying to buy them, if lack of money was the issue. This was the biggest emergency in TEPCO's corporate life. They could have simply told the store managers to bring all the car batteries in stock and just taken them. They could write a note saying how many batteries and how much, and TEPCO would pay for them later, after the reactors were restored.

What would the store managers do? Refuse to give the batteries to TEPCO unless they they were paid on the spot? I don't think so.

3. If the government was making a fuss about the permit to transport batteries, either Toshiba or TEPCO (I don't know who was in charge of transportation) could have told the government to take a hike and just started driving. Or said nothing to the government and just started driving.

What would the government do? Stop the truck by force? When the reactors were on the verge of blowing up? I don't think so.

4. Also, if the Japanese government was a pain in the neck even in the emergency like that, TEPCO could have asked the US government/military for help. Could you bring the batteries to us? The US military could have easily transported battery vehicles in their Chinooks. Would the US government/military say "No we can't do anything, without the request from your government"? When transporting batteries to the plant might save the reactors from meltdowns? I don't think so.

What would the Japanese government do to the US government/military? Get angry that the US helped stop meltdowns? Let them get angry.

50, or 100 batteries may or may not have prevented the meltdowns, but at least they would have given the workers under Plant Manager Masao Yoshida a fighting chance - a better grip on the situation, a little more control over the reactors, and ability to lower pressure so that they could continue to inject water easily and prevent the core from getting exposed.

Fight or flight. 火事場の馬鹿力 (Extraordinary strength at the scene of a fire). TEPCO tried to fight, that much is apparent from the teleconference videos. But they tried to do so within the boundaries of socially acceptable rules and norms in Japan during peacetime when nuclear reactors were operating normally.

When I read the Asahi's article for the first time, the truth is that it didn't occurred to me either that TEPCO could have broken all the rules in an emergency like this. I just thought, "Bureaucrats are bureaucrats no matter what..." over the permit to transport Toshiba batteries on the highway. I mentioned that to an American friend, who immediately said, "Why did they (TEPCO) have to wait for the permit in a make or break situation like this?"

I'm Japanese after all. I was thinking like TEPCO.

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Democratic Strategist: Look, Romney Cheated! He Took Out Some Suspicious White Object (Cheat Sheet) from His Pocket! ...... Oh Never Mind It Was a Handkerchief...

From CBS News (10/5/2012; part)

Upon Further Review: Mitt Romney May Have Cheated To Win The Debate

...But there was a moment in the debate that will be discussed in the days ahead that everyone missed until yesterday.

A review of the debate tape reveals that, apparently, Mitt Romney needed a cheat sheet to keep the lies straight.

The rules of the presidential debates are clear about not bringing outside notes and presidents and aspirants have followed the rule for decades.

Video of the first eleven seconds of the debate available on YouTube shows Mitt Romney reaching into his pocket at the moment he is out of view of those in front of him, he used the lectern as a shield, and removing what appears to be folded papers from his pocket.

We see this because the camera that was broadcasting was behind Romney. Those in the audience and the moderator may have been shielded from his sleight of hand, but not the viewers.

Romney then proceeds to unfold the item in front of him. ...

Well never mind that he was seen wiping off his face with this suspicious white item.

Then, Democratic strategist Mr. Bill Buck later issued an update after this "Romney cheated!" meme traveled fast and wide on the net, and said it was just a handkerchief after all, and went on to ridicule Romney for carrying a handkerchief in his pocket and using it:

Update (from the same article):

The evidence seems to indicate it was a handkerchief. So there you have it folks. The mystery seems to have been solved.

But ye olde Mitt Romney saying, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, doesn’t seem to hold true for news aggregator that just this week promoted a five year old story that was covered five years ago — and was not a story.

I have no desire to be part of the peddlers of conspiracy and falsehoods like the birthers or the truthers.

I did write an essay pointing out that there were questions that should be asked and that there was suspicious behavior on the part of Mitt Romney.

Those questions have been put to rest. Honestly, I do not know a person that carries a cloth rag in their pocket when they have a runny nose — it is a little gross.

It doesn’t change the fact that it is incredibly stupid to walk into a Presidential debate and sneak something from your pocket. There is advance staff to take care of tissues.

It also doesn’t change the fact that Romney distorted his campaign proposals and presented a very different version of Mitt Romney than the one that has been running for President for more than half a decade.

So it seems that Mitt Romney did indeed memorize his lies rather than bring a laundry list of them with him. And he carries a hanky.

About Bill Buck

Bill Buck is a Democratic strategist, President of the Buck Communications Group, a media relations and new media strategies consulting business based in Washington, DC, and Managing Director of the online ad firm Influence DSP. He has over twenty years of international and national communications experience. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.

I guess there is no news editor at CBS when it comes to verifying an attack piece on the president's foe.

The commenters in the comment section of the article are accusing CBS of furiously deleting comments that ridicule the article. Currently, there are 96 comments, but some are saying at one point there were over 800 comments. The article has been retweeted 8,600 times. If you google "Romney cheated", it returns over 11 million results.

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Great US Employment Number, Stock Market Goes South

A wide-eyed optimistic article on Yahoo Finance I saw earlier (3 hours ago) had a cute headline: "Unemployment Dips, Stocks Rip on Hiring Blip" (by Matt Nesto, Breakout). The writer should have waited till the session is over.

Dow Jones Industrial has traced back to unchanged, with 20 minutes left to trade in regular hours. No doubt there will be a sudden surge in the last few minutes, if not few seconds, but I could be wrong. (So I was wrong. The last pump has already started, with 15 minutes left to trade.)

For a reality-based analysis of the job number, I'd suggest Zero Hedge, here and here.

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Report: US Army Tested Chemical (and Possibly Radioactive) Weapons on St. Louis in 1950s

Sociologist Lisa Martino-Taylor at St. Louis Community College says they may have been radioactive. There is no mention of what radioactive particles, if any, were mixed with zinc cadmium sulfide and sprayed from the rooftops by the US army.

But AP report below mentions one former resident recalling having a powdery substance dumped on her and her friends by the Army planes as they were playing on the street.

From AP News (10/4/2012; emphasis is mine):

ST. LOUIS — Doris Spates was a baby when her father died inexplicably in 1955. She has watched four siblings die of cancer, and she survived cervical cancer.

After learning that the Army conducted secret chemical testing in her impoverished St. Louis neighborhood at the height of the Cold War, she wonders if her own government is to blame.

In the mid-1950s, and again a decade later, the Army used motorized blowers atop a low-income housing high-rise, at schools and from the backs of station wagons to send a potentially dangerous compound into the already-hazy air in predominantly black areas of St. Louis.

Local officials were told at the time that the government was testing a smoke screen that could shield St. Louis from aerial observation in case the Russians attacked.

But in 1994, the government said the tests were part of a biological weapons program and St. Louis was chosen because it bore some resemblance to Russian cities that the U.S. might attack. The material being sprayed was zinc cadmium sulfide, a fine fluorescent powder.

Now, new research is raising greater concern about the implications of those tests. St. Louis Community College-Meramec sociology professor Lisa Martino-Taylor's research has raised the possibility that the Army performed radiation testing by mixing radioactive particles with the zinc cadmium sulfide, though she concedes there is no direct proof.

But her report, released late last month, was troubling enough that both U.S. senators from Missouri wrote to Army Secretary John McHugh demanding answers.

Aides to Sens. Claire McCaskill and Roy Blunt said they have received no response. Army spokesman Dave Foster declined an interview request from The Associated Press, saying the Army would first respond to the senators.

The area of the secret testing is described by the Army in documents obtained by Martino-Taylor through a Freedom of Information Act request as "a densely populated slum district." About three-quarters of the residents were black.

Spates, now 57 and retired, was born in 1955, delivered inside her family's apartment on the top floor of the since-demolished Pruitt-Igoe housing development in north St. Louis. Her family didn't know that on the roof, the Army was intentionally spewing hundreds of pounds of zinc cadmium sulfide into the air.

Three months after her birth, her father died. Four of her 11 siblings succumbed to cancer at relatively young ages.

"I'm wondering if it got into our system," Spates said. "When I heard about the testing, I thought, 'Oh my God. If they did that, there's no telling what else they're hiding.'"

Mary Helen Brindell wonders, too. Now 68, her family lived in a working-class mixed-race neighborhood where spraying occurred.

The Army has admitted only to using blowers to spread the chemical, but Brindell recalled a summer day playing baseball with other kids in the street when a squadron of green Army planes flew close to the ground and dropped a powdery substance. She went inside, washed it off her face and arms, then went back out to play.

Over the years, Brindell has battled four types of cancer — breast, thyroid, skin and uterine.

"I feel betrayed," said Brindell, who is white. "How could they do this? We pointed our fingers during the Holocaust, and we do something like this?"

Martino-Taylor said she wasn't aware of any lawsuits filed by anyone affected by the military tests. She also said there have been no payouts "or even an apology" from the government to those affected.

The secret testing in St. Louis was exposed to Congress in 1994, prompting a demand for a health study. A committee of the National Research Council determined in 1997 that the testing did not expose residents to harmful levels of the chemical. But the committee said research was sparse and the finding relied on limited data from animal testing.

It also noted that high doses of cadmium over long periods of exposure could cause bone and kidney problems and lung cancer. The committee recommended that the Army conduct follow-up studies "to determine whether inhaled zinc cadmium sulfide breaks down into toxic cadmium compounds, which can be absorbed into the blood to produce toxicity in the lungs and other organs."

But it isn't clear if follow-up studies were ever performed. Martino-Taylor said she has gotten no answer from the Army and her research has turned up no additional studies. Foster, the Army spokesman, declined comment.

(full article at the link)

For UK's Daily Mail, there seems to be no doubt it was "radioactive" ("Revealed: Army scientists secretly sprayed St Louis with 'radioactive' particles for YEARS to test chemical warfare technology", 10/4/2012). Daily Mail's article has a bit more about "radioactive materials":

However, Professor Martino-Taylor believes the documents she's uncovered, prove the zinc cadmium silfide was also mixed with radioactive particles.

She has linked the St Louis testing to a now-defunct company called US Radium. The controversial company came under fire, and numerous lawsuits, after several of its workers were exposed to dangerous levels of radioactive materials in its fluorescent paint.

'US Radium had this reputation where they had been found legally liable for producing a radioactive powdered paint that killed many young women who painted fluorescent watch tiles,' said Professor Martino-Taylor.

In her findings, one of the compounds that was sprayed upon the public was called 'FP2266', according to the army's documents, and was manufactured by US Radium. The compound, also known as Radium 226, was the same one that killed and sickened many of the US Radium workers.

The Army has admitted that it added a fluorescent substance to the 'harmless' compound, but whether or not the additive was radioactive remains classified.

Radium 226's half life is 1,600 years. It is an alpha emitter, so unless you inhale it... uh... the residents did, didn't they?

Radium 226 was also the radioactive material found in several locations in Setagaya-ku, Tokyo in October and November last year. (See my post.)

(H/T reader 'La terra non ha uscite di emergenza' for Daily Mail article)

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OT: Obama-Romney "Big Debate", Who Won?

Chris Matthews of MSNBC seems to think it was decidedly Romney. He was apparently so frustrated that after the debate he demanded President Obama watch his and his colleagues' shows at MSNBC to learn a thing or two.

From Real Clear Politics (10/3/2012):

Chris Matthews Freaks Out At Obama After Debate: Romney Was "Winning"

"Tonight wasn't an MSNBC debate tonight, was it?" Chris Matthews said after the first Obama-Romney presidential debate concluded on Wednesday night.

"I don't know what he was doing out there. He had his head down, he was enduring the debate rather than fighting it. Romney, on the other hand, came in with a campaign. He had a plan, he was going to dominate the time, he was going to be aggressive, he was going to push the moderator around, which he did effectively, he was going to relish the evening, enjoying it," Matthews said.

"Here's my question for Obama: I know he likes saying he doesn't watch cable television but maybe he should start. Maybe he should start. I don't know how he let Romney get away with the crap he throughout tonight about Social Security," Matthews complained.

Matthews then demanded that President Obama start watching cable news, specifically his program.

"Where was Obama tonight? He should watch -- well, not just Hardball, Rachel, he should watch you, he should watch the Reverend Al [Sharpton], he should watch Lawrence. He would learn something about this debate. There's a hot debate going on in this country. You know where it's been held? Here on this network is where we're having the debate," Matthews said.

"We have our knives out," Matthews said, admitting his network is trying their best to defend Obama and his policies. "We go after the people and the facts. What was he doing tonight? He went in their disarmed."

"He was like, 'Oh an hour and half? I think I can get through this thing. And I don't even look at this guy.' Whereas Romney -- I love the split-screen -- staring at Obama, addressing him like prey. He did it just right. 'I'm coming at an incumbent. I got to beat him. You've got to beat the champ and I'm going to beat him tonight. And I don't care what this guy, the moderator, whatever he thinks he is because I'm going to ignore him," Matthews said.

"What was Romney doing?" Matthews asked. "He was winning."

"If he does five more of these nights, forget it," Matthews added. "Obama should watch MSNBC, my last point. He will learn something every night on this show and all these shows. This stuff we're watching, it's like first grade for most of us. We know all this stuff."

Washington Times, near-polar opposite of MSNBC in terms of political leaning, thinks so too. The paper says Obama was the worst since Jimmy Carter (against Ronald Reagan), and that's an insult to Mr. Carter.

From Washington Times after the debate (10/3/2012):

HURT: Obama the debater: Making Jimmy Carter look awesome

Party like it’s 1980!

Bewildered and lost without his teleprompter, President Obama flailed all around the debate stage last night. He was stuttering, nervous and petulant. It was like he had been called in front of the principal after goofing around for four years and blowing off all his homework.

Not since Jimmy Carter faced Ronald Reagan has the U.S. presidency been so embarrassingly represented in public. Actually, that’s an insult to Jimmy Carter.

The split screen was most devastating. Mitt Romney spoke forthrightly, with carefully studied facts and details at the ready. He looked right at the president and accused him of being miles out of his depth.

Mr. Obama? His eyes were glued to his lectern, looking guilty and angry and impatient with all the vagaries of Democracy. This debate was seriously chaffing him.

What exactly was Mr. Obama’s strategy here? Did he figure with so many people unemployed in this abomination of an economy he should go for the sympathy vote? Like voters could relate to a guy who is just scared pantsless that he is about to lose his job?

In the middle of the blood-letting segment about jobs, Mr. Romney said good-naturedly: “This is fun.”

Almost pleading, Mr. Obama reached out to the moderator for a lifeline: “You may want to move onto another topic.”

When an unexpected noise went off behind him, Mr. Obama wheeled around to look as if to ask, “Time to go?”

(Full article at the link)

Mr. Obama is very good at reading English off his teleprompter, that's for sure. He is not good at holding a two-way conversation on the fly without his teleprompter. Mr. James Carville tries to make excuse for Mr. Obama by saying Romney "came with a chainsaw", as if being prepared and ready to shred the opponent to pieces is a bad thing in the presidential debate.

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