Ummm....so the radioactive water has been leaking under the building, into the ground, and therefore into the water table and the ocean....

And they're going to stop it by building a wall around it?

Remember the Peter Principle? Something about businesses hiring and promoting ignorant and incompetent people because they're easier to control? I think we're seeing the culmination of the Peter Principle. Obviously the most ignorant and incompetent people are now in charge of everything.

I've got a better idea. Why don't we just take the heads of governments and the captains of industry and build a wall around THEM? Sure it might take years, but the pay-off would be immeasurably greater.

I have been saying this since they resorted to wildly dumping water on the exterior of the plant via helicopter or any other method they can think of. Those are the acts of desperation. And yet no one seems to be asking where that water has gone, and how radio active is the water that is being boiled off... Or should I say/ask how radioactive is the stream that is rising up out of where the water is being dumped? No one is asking or saying squat about that.

OMFG!

Brad, Thank you for not burying this story as other so-called media outlets have done. I made a small contribution to Bradblog for actually delivering news others dare not provide. My question is what of the radiation constantly being released into the atmosphere?

When the news about Fukushima broke, I started minmizing the amount of time I spend outdoors and trying never to go out in the rain, which is when most of the radiation in the atmosphere falls to earth.

Rather than buy Potassium Iodide tablets, I put a couple of drops of tincture of iodine, the kind marked "Not for internal use," in a glass of water every day and drink it.

I use that fancy, expensive pink Himalayan salt instead of regular salt, because some of the minerals in it might help block the body from absorbing other radioactive isotopes.

And I take apple pectin, which was used for children after Chernobyl, and is said by some to have the ability to bond to and remove ionizing radiation from the body.

And yes, Ernest, I cuss a lot.

But the one thing I WON'T do is vote to delegate my power, transfer my authority, and grant my consent of the governed, to a government that refuses to take public opinion into account when making policy decisions and cannot be held accountable. They can kill me, but they'll never be able to say that I voted to allow them to do it.

A recent Gallup poll, only 11% of the electorate trust Congress. So why do they keep voting for an institution they don't trust? Because the corporations spend billions of dollars getting out the vote and convincing people that they are voting for or against political parties, individual candidates, or specific issues, rather than granting their consent of the governed to an undemocratic government in which they have no direct voice and which they cannot hold accountable.

And when the ancient nuclear power plants in the USA start melting down, those voters, even when dying of cancer, will eagerly vote to grant their consent of the governed to allow a government they can't hold accountable to decide whether or not to build more reactors. I call it suicide by vote.

Paul asks, "....what of the radiation constantly being released into the atmosphere?"

Oh, that? The government says that it is within acceptable limits, so there's no need to concern yourself.

You DO believe everything the government says, right?

Thank you Mark for your excellent information and comments!

I have potassium iodide...do we need to take it now? I have an 11 year old son (my husband passed away.) I really feel ill informed. I am very upset with our "govern"ment! Are there any other sites I can tell the few friends I have so we can be more aware? This is really unbelievable it is not on the news.

Paul @ 4 said:

Brad, Thank you for not burying this story as other so-called media outlets have done. I made a small contribution to Bradblog for actually delivering news others dare not provide. My question is what of the radiation constantly being released into the atmosphere?

a) Thanks for the support. Greatly appreciated (and much needed) as you know. b) Of the "radiation constantly being released into the atmosphere" - There are different types of radioactive isotopes, some of which decay at faster rates than others. Unfortunately, I've been stuck in WI (and elsewhere), so haven't gotten to follow the absolute latest on radiation numbers, but have been trying to keep a sidelong glance at anything overtly unusual. Haven't seen anything like that.

While, as Mark Smith snarks, one may not wish to trust the government, there are independent groups who I believe are much more trustworthy out there, such as Greenpeace, Public Citizen, Union of Concerned Scientists who are doing their own monitoring and analysis and I believe they'd be waving bright red flags and sounding sirens if there were serious concerns here in the U.S.

It's a long way from here to Japan (even here on the West Coast) and any overly dangerous amounts of radiation would have to move quickly without being disbursed or decaying before it reaches here. If that was happening, I have some faith in the public interest groups that they would be sounding very loud alarms about it.

Alicia Salerno @ 7 asked:

I have potassium iodide...do we need to take it now? I have an 11 year old son (my husband passed away.) I really feel ill informed.

See my reply to Paul above. No, I don't think it's necessary to take potassium, but, of course, I'm no expert. I do, however, rely on 'em in offering my opinion. So check some of those groups I mentioned above if you'd like more info.

I think it's important to note that, in the reports I've so far read on this, the "meltdown" in question may have been occurring for quite some time, but is only now being admitted to. (In the days following the initial shut down, they did admit to what they called a "partial meltdown", whatever that meant).

So it doesn't seem to me that this is a case of a sudden explosion, or something like that, as we saw at Chernobyl, or even in the early hydrogen explosion days of Fukushima. So that's why I suggest there is no more need for potassium iodide in the U.S. today than there was yesterday or last week, in case that offers you any more comfort.

But, again, check in with some of the groups I mentioned above for a more expert take on all of this. And, as I can find notable news myself, of course, I'll continue to update the story here at The BRAD BLOG (and via the Twitters at http://Twitter.com/TheBradBlog).

Well, being kinda into natural health stuff myself, I tend to give credibility to this website, which others might not:

Fukushima radiation taints US milk supplies at levels 2000 percent higher than EPA maximums

http://www.naturalnews.c...2048_radiation_milk.html

I believe that GreenPeace may have started monitoring radiation near Japan, but not within the US. The only thing I could find on the Union of Concerned Scientists website was from when the news first broke and it was in the nature of attempting to predict the possibilities rather than being based on actual measurements. And there is nothing whatsoever on the Public Citizen website about them monitoring radiation in the US.

I did find this, however:

http://nukefreetexas.org...ation-data-from-doe-nrc/

"Three groups – Friends of the Earth (FOE), the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) and Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) – announced today that they have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get to the bottom of what led the U.S. government to call for a 50-mile evacuation radius for Americans near the Japanese reactor crisis in Fukushima...."

But that's from an anti-nuke group and they are merely noting that some other groups have filed a FOIA request for US government data on radiation in Japan, not in the US.

Since Obama had plans to build more nuclear power plants, I doubt if any organization that is tied in any way to the Democratic Party would be willing to ask difficult questions at this time.

What we know for sure is that TEPCO and the Japanese government were unsure of the full extent of the damage. So either the US government was also unaware of the full extent of the damage, or it was aware of it and didn't bother to inform TEPCO or the Japanese government. Or us, for that matter.

I don't happen to think that the radiation in US milk is from anything other than Fukushima, or that it arrived in the US in any way other than atmospherically. Nor do I believe that iodine would be the only radioactive isotope that reached here in that manner, whether or not anyone is monitoring other isotopes. I could be wrong, but I think I read somewhere that radioactive iodine has a shorter half-life than other isotopes like cesium, strontium, and plutonium.

While some say that there are acceptable levels of radiation, others say that there is no safe level of radiation. It took our government 50 years to ban x-rays for pregnant women, and it is now widely accepted that even a single x-ray can cause damage to a fetus. So levels of radiation that are shrugged off as being no more dangerous than a single x-ray, are, by our government's own standards, still dangerous for pregnant women.

My thinking is that while an adult has millions of cells in their body, and an inhaled or ingested particle of ionizing radiation might not develop into a full-blown cancer for twenty or thirty years, a small child has many fewer cells, and a developing fetus might have only a few hundred, or at an earlier stage only a few dozen cells. So what might be tolerable for an adult, could wreak total havoc with a fetus.

Mainstream people will trust mainstream sources. Not being a mainstream type of person myself, I prefer alternative sources. And I much prefer actual measurements to assumptions or speculation. I would certainly never think that if our government and various large organizations haven't warned us about something, there must be no danger. But that's just me. I recall that our government told the nearby residents that above ground nuclear testing was perfectly safe and that they should bring their families to watch the A-bomb tests. So when our government says that anything nuclear is safe, I tend to be extremely skeptical.

In fact, I had a lengthy argument with somebody on a mailing list when we first heard the news about Fukushima, and he kept insisting, with tons of expert documentation to back up his assertions, that the Fukushima reactors could never reach meltdown due to their design. I had no expert opinions or scientific documentation whatsoever to support my belief that it could happen, so he and some others on the list had nothing but contempt for my views. Funny thing, though--it seems as if my non-expert, unscientific opinion turned out to be correct.

Well, they say even a stopped clock is right twice a day. It certainly doesn't mean that people should stop relying on credible sources and listen to crackpots like me.

Thanks for all the replies! Nice to see actual discussion rather than what passes for comments at AOL and other --- forgive me --- "lame-stream" websites. I don't mean to be an alarmist, but grew up in the nuclear duck-and-cover age hearing about the half-life of radiation. If Fukushima has a global impact on food supplies and human life, maybe ignorance is bliss. If that is the case, why panic the masses? Life was simpler when dealing with things like leprosy (not me personally).

Holy schnikes. I've heard neither hide nor hair of this development in the lamestream media.

But fuck it, eh? We shot the bad guy in the eye. We're all safe now.

The fingerprint of the 21st Century denial is it is "worse than expected".

We see it everywhere because government has been practicing propaganda for decades, and they sometimes believe their own BS.

That leads to disaster.

Brad, you might want to highlight in the article itself that this meltdown isn't something that happened just now.

People are panicking for the wrong reasons and I bet they'll be a fair number of iodine poisonings from people scanning headlines and freaking out...

We've been discussing the various permutations of all this, none of then good, over at FDL:

http://my.firedoglake.co...n-unit-1-reactor-vessel/

Yes, Zapkitty, iodine is poison. My tincture of iodine bottle says clearly in big letters, "CAUTION: POISON!"

It says it is 2% iodine, the kind we used to put on cuts and scraped knees when I was a kid, but I have no idea how strong it is compared to potassium iodide tablets.

Many years ago I was a guest for a couple of weeks at the home of an elderly woman (she probably wasn't any older then, than I am now!), and I noticed that she had a very curious habit. Every day she would put two drops of tincture of iodine, the kind marked "Poison! For external use only!" in a glass of water, stir it with a spoon, and drink it down. When I asked her why, she said that it was protection against radiation. Well, that was meaningless to me at the time, so I didn't think about it. But she was very healthy, danced a strenuous polka with her family, and didn't seem to have any ill effects.

Many years later Chernobyl happened, and when they started talking about radioactive iodine, I remembered watching Esther putting iodine in a glass and drinking it. So I got a little bottle of iodine and started doing the same thing. I did it for a few months and then forgot about it. I don't know if it helped, but it certainly didn't have any ill effects on my health.

And when I heard about Fukushima, I poked around in my medicine cabinet for the iodine, and started doing it again. I've been drinking two drops in a glass of water every day since I first heard the news, and it doesn't seem to have harmed me. But then I might, at age 71, be sturdier than the average person.

I haven't seen this advised anywhere, ever, and never heard of anyone else doing it. It is just something that I once encountered in my travels (Esther was a relatively affluent and well-educated woman, by the way), and happened to remember.

I certainly wouldn't advise that anyone else do the same thing. Iodine really is a poison and I could very well be poisoning myself. But I intend to keep right on doing it until those reactors stop leaking, and maybe for a while afterward.

Remember the silly old joke about the guy who walks around snapping his fingers and somebody asks him why and he says, "It keeps the elephants away." They ask, "What elephants?" and he says, "See! It works!" Well that's me and my iodine.

I recommend against iodine or any cure for an unknown and hopefully nonexistent threat. I have seen somebody eat their own poop "in my travels" --- that doesn't make it a good idea.

... Mark E. Smith said...

Yes, Zapkitty, iodine is poison. My tincture of iodine bottle says clearly in big letters, "CAUTION: POISON!"

Yeah, along with th words "For external use only."

And guess what?... it works just as well if applied externally and without the risk of internal poisoning. 8 ml applied to the skin of the abdomen or forearm is what was used in a study on the subject.

Potassium iodide is used in fission accident situations for one specific purpose: to saturate the thyroid gland with iodine so that the gland will not be so prone to take in the radioactive isotope of iodine that is released in fission plant accidents.

This "greed for iodine" evolved because iodine is a required element for health and humans who don't live near the sea needed to hold on to all the iodine they came across. The thyroid thus grabs onto it and holds onto it... but to the gland there is no difference between normal iodine and the radioactive isotope of iodine.

So when the thyroid encounters radioactive iodine it stores it away just like normal iodine. And then thyroid cancer.

Thus potassium iodide is to be used in a fission emergency before or soon after possible internal exposure to radioactive iodine. Then the thyroid gland is stocked up with normal iodine and thus does not take in the radioactive version of the element so readily.

Side note: Waiting too long to take extra iodine after exposure can make the problem worse as the radioactive iodine already in the gland is not used up by the body as quickly and thus stays longer in the gland.

Iodine has no other effect and will not stop radiation damage.

Iodine antiseptic solution can be and is used for improvised water purification. The dose you say you've been using is several times the recommended dose for that use.

And that's all I'll say on the subject.

Try this site for information on radiation cover-up here in the US.
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/

For a quick look at some of the latest news on the nuclear crisis in Japan, and multiple links to other sources for similar information, you can go here:

My link didn't show up. Here is another to a YouTube video on the leaning of Reactor 4. An entire building will start leaning when the underlying ground is being eroded away through some process. The pouring of thousands of tons of water, which then flows somewhere can be a vehicle for that erosion. Not only do you then leak radioactive water, but also could be undermining the structural integrity of the entire building, which then will likely result in even more radiation being released. Pandora's box has been opened, and governments hiding the truth will not stop the consequences. Here is the link to the YouTube video:

Received this from Mark Crispin Miller.

Peace,
Sark

How much radiation's hitting North America from Fukushima? Quite a lot, apparently...
link: http://wp.me/pkFiL-7sE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haMePBnkJhY

Fake clouds. That's the answer. Just paint fake clouds on everything in a baby blue background and everything will be just peachy keen jim dandy. Be sure of it umm hmm. Like mustard on french fried potatoes. Umm hmm.