Fukushima Now Ten Chernobyls into the Sea? Workers Sacrificing Themselves
New readings show levels of radioisotopes found up to 30 kilometers offshore from the on-going crisis at Fukushima are ten times higher than those measured in the Baltic and Black Seas during Chernobyl. …
The health impacts on workers at Fukushima are certain to be devastating.
After Chernobyl, the Soviet government sent more than 800,000 draftees through the seething wreckage. Many stayed a matter of 90 seconds or less, running in to perform a menial task and then running out as quickly as possible.
Despite their brief exposure, these “liquidators” have suffered an epidemic of health effects, with an escalating death toll. Angry and embittered, they played a significant role in bringing down the Soviet Union that doomed them.
At Fukushima, a core of several hundred workers essentially sacrificed themselves in the early stages of the disaster. They courageously entered highly contaminated areas to perform tasks that almost certainly prevented an even worse catastrophe.
David Brenner, the director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University Medical Center, said of the workers: “Those are pretty brave people. There are going to be some martyrs among them’.“
“I don’t know of any other way to say it, but this is like suicide fighters in a war,” said University of Tokyo radiology professor Keiichi Nakaga.
Since the disaster struck in Japan, about 800 workers have been evacuated from the damaged nuclear complex in Fukushima. The radiation danger is that great.
However, CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that a handful have stayed on the job, risking their lives, to try to save the lives of countless people they don’t even know. The exact number of workers is unclear and has been reported to be anywhere from 50 to 180.
Although communication with the workers inside the nuclear plant is nearly impossible, a CBS News consultant spoke to a Japanese official who made contact with one of the workers inside the control center.
The official said that his friend told him that he was not afraid to die, that that was his job.
Cham Dallas, who led teams responding to the Chernobyl disaster, said that kind of response is not out of the normal for some workers in the nuclear energy sector.
“(In) my experience of people in the action area of nuclear power is much like that,” Dallas said. - xenophilia
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Argentina: Official Commission To Study UFOs is Presented
Source: Clarin.com.arDate: 05.27.2011
Scott Corrales - Inexplicata - Consisting of experts in various fields, it came about due to the number of sightings in the country.
As Clarín informed readers a few weeks ago, the official Comisión de Investigación de Fenómenos Aeroespaciales (Aerospatial Phenomena Research Commission) was presented yesterday at noon, consisting of both civilian experts and Argentinean Air Force (FAA) personnel.
Operating out of the Condor Building, the FAA’s current headquarters, it will start to receive reports in coming days – through the www.fuerzaaerea.mil.ar website – on sightings, and begin work on the most representative cases of recent times.
It is a dependency of the General Major Secretariat of the Argentinean Armed Forces and will consist of technicians attached to the National Meteorological Service, engineers, pilots from the National Administration of Civil Aviation, radar and satellite positioning technicians, computer experts and geologists.
The inaugural ceremony was presided by Capt. Mariano Mohaupt, the FAA’s spokesman. Also present was Brig. Gen. Ernesto Omar París, Secretary General, who remarked: “This commission will conduct a scientific study of aerospatial phenomena. With this we have achieved an important goal for our institution.”
From its origins, the FAA was strengthened by the collaboration of civil aeronautics experts. “Today it seeks to attract members of society who may provide their experience in the study of these events, which require a higher degree of certainty,” stated Mohaupt.
Mostly, these will be experts who have been working for several years in the field of ufology. Among them are Alberto Brunetti of the Grupo Investigador de Fenomenos Aeroespaciales Desconocidos (GIFAD); Carlos Alberto Iurchuk, systems analyst and independent researcher of sidereal phenomena, and Carlos Fergusson, coordinator of the Red Argentina de Ovnilogia (Argentinean UFO Nework – RAO). There will also be collaboration from Andrea Simondini of the CEFORA group, which also studies these cases. One of the reasons that led to the creation of this new agency is “the increase in sightings by people. However, the goal is not to prove the existence of life on other planets, but rather, to approach unknown phenomena from a scientific perspective and reach the truth. Because these are ultimately the goal of our study,” according to Mohaupt. The team also includes Marcelo Módica of Comisión Nacional de Actividades Espaciales (CONAE), specializing in satellite information. It will be in charge of “examining the terrain and analyzing images received.”
Among the benefits to be gained from the amalgamation of civilians and military men, Fergusson notes that “there will be great progress in means and methodology. It is crucial to reach the scene of the events and have scientific assistance. There will also be a system of witness interviews that will prove very useful.”
And while technology assists these anomalies hunters, something more is always needed. “It is true that the Internet made us independent, because if you approach any observatory and ask for a sky chart, they’ll turn you away. Astronomy, except back in the 1950s, is very reluctant to approach this subject,” adds Brunetti. The reason for this mistrust is that “they look at the skies all the time, but do it through a telescope, which looks beyond the atmosphere. In other words, a UFO could fly in front of them and it’s likely they won’t see it.”
Among the procedures to be undertaken, the first thing is to dismiss the possibility of movements in the sky. “There is no need to create false expectations among the people. For this reason we have a decision-making body that will evaluate items and dismiss those that are speculation,” explains Simondini.
Astrologers often pick up objects that they cannot explain. “The first thing is to eliminate the passing of a satellite, space junk, balloons or weather capsules, rockets, meteorites ...even the International Space Station (ISS) can lead one to confusion,” says Iurchuk.
Great stuff! Thanks Scott
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Spain: The Astún Yeti (2007)
By Javier ResinesInexplicata - The story we remember today in our blog prompts us to take a small step back in time. Small, in that we are going back to late May 2007, which isn't so far away from us...
Taking advantage of the good weather, Carlos S. Ollés - the event's protagonist - decided to make a visit to the Pyrenees with his two daughters. In the afternoon, as they walked back toward their car, having visited the ski slopes of Astún, the eldest daughter pointed out a footprint that caught her attention beside the trail. The small group approached and attested that the mark on the ground indeed resembled that of a bare foot - albeit an enormous one - and with a disproportionately large big toe.
This was not the first time that Carlos came across mystery in the form of a footprint: in 1992, on the opposite slope of the same mountain, he was with a group of friends in the valley of Canal Roya, heading toward the summit of Pico La Raca along a trial when he discovered some strange prints in the snow. According to his own account, "they were larger and deeper than normal, and the big toe was most prominent of all." He was likewise startled by "the distance between strides, which were somewhat impossible to follow given the sloping terrain."
What creature could have left those unusual marks in at least two separate occasions, separated by a distance of some 10 kilometers? An unknown hominid that dwells in the Pyrenaic Region, or a tourist bent on playing a joke?
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Snakes On A Train
Hundreds of rail passengers fled in terror when dozens of deadly snakes were found on a train travelling from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi in Vietnam. A guard and conductor were checking tickets as passengers got on in the central city of Quang Ngai on Thursday evening and spotted the live king cobras and cobras under a seat.
People fled the carriage as panic broke out, and the smuggler was able to escape in the chaos. The reptiles, which are extremely venomous and can kill a human within just 30 minutes, were being carried in four see-through cloth bags.
One passenger, Pham Van An, 20, said: "Some of the snakes were very big, and looked terrifying. Most people ran away. But some people went to look at them and the cobras rose up. Then police took the snakes off the train." Officers handed the snakes over to Quang Ngai province's wildlife protection officers for release into the wild.
Nguyen Van Han, chief of the Quang Ngai Forest Protection Department, was unable to say how many snakes were in the bags, but said they weighed a total of 45kg (99lb). Authorities believe the endangered creatures, which are protected under Vietnamese law, were to be sold to restaurants in Hanoi. - sky