24 Aug 2013

Fukushima disaster’s owners Tepco admit three leaking tanks were second hand

Why the wages of Fukushima spin is Death
The Slog: In today’s (Saturday) press conference of 24th August 2013, Tepco announced that the three leaking tanks have been reused – ie, recycled. It stated that the three tanks were initially installed in a different area, which then had 20cm of land subsidence in July of 2011. The base concrete sank underground. Instead of abandoning the potentially damaged tanks, they reused them in what can only be seen as a cost-cutting exercise. Let all those who robotically oppose regulation now read on.

The more Fukushima unravels, the more it resembles the famous 1970s disaster film, The Towering Inferno: poor design, contractors cutting corners, and then deliberately watered-down warnings leading to loss of life on an unnecessary scale. Except that on this occasion, it isn’t 200 people trapped on the 102nd floor, it’s the entire ecosystem of Planet Earth at risk.

Dutch Blues & Bubble Markets - Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert with Ann Pettifor

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the Dutch blues and the pay per gaze advertising coming to a pair of glasses near you. Max proposes a scheme of mortgages collateralized by food stamps. In the second half, Max talks to Ann Pettifor of PrimeEconomics.org about the Alice in Wongaland economy in the United Kingdom where people borrow from payday lenders in order to live

The IMF's "Containment Strategy" For Europe: Fingers Crossed

Tyler Durden's picture Yesterday, IMF head Christine Lagarde appeared on Bloomberg TV where in addition to confirming that she is the second coming of 'Kill Bill' ...

... had some words of clarity on the IMF's strategy vis-a-vis Europe. To wit:

"The latest numbers that we have received, in particular from Germany, are encouraging, whether it's manufacturing, whether it's service activity, whether it's exports. That is heading in the right direction, but it needs to be sustained over time. And I'm crossing fingers for the eurozone..."

World learns to manage without the US

By Spengler: The giant sucking sound you here, I said on August 15 on CNBC's The Kudlow Report, is the implosion of America's influence in the Middle East. Vladimir Putin's August 17 offer of Russian military assistance to the Egyptian army after US President Barack Obama cancelled joint exercises with the Egyptians denotes a post-Cold-War low point in America's standing. Along with Russia, Saudi Arabia and China are collaborating to contain the damage left by American blundering. They have being doing this quietly for more than a year.

Moral Panics: a useful political tool?

By : In 2010 I found myself in the middle of a moral panic, so began reading around the subject and watching how moral panics unfold. The panic was around East End strip pubs where I worked and that had been in the area for decades. Usually family businesses, run by the matriarch of the family, and an accepted part of the East End. Then a panic hit and suddenly these places were the gates of hell and all that was evil in the world emanated from them. People who had previously been oblivious to them were suddenly on a crusade. I went to a ‘debate’ in October 2011, called ‘Lap-Dancing: a choice or exploitation’ which demonstrated the mechanisms of power and politics perfectly and shocked me.
A small lobby group whips up fear until they create a panic. The narrative then moves on to ‘Something must be done!/Won’t anyone think of the children!’ and when it gets to this point you have manipulated your audience correctly and you will be able to legislate. But there was also a lot of manipulating being done to those who were creating the moral panic. A group that called it’s self Communities Against People Exploitation, that claimed to be helping the East London community, had a ‘feminist’ spokeswoman. This woman would give the full dramatic performance about the evils of ‘pornification’, ‘objectification’, ‘sexualisation’ throwing out all the fashionable buzzwords to appeal to her audience. However a little investigation using the Land Registry and the good old Internet showed that she was not running this organization. It was actually run by a man who lived in leafy Surrey but, surprise surprise, owned property right next to one of the strip pubs he was trying to close down. From this moment on I lost what little respect I still had for the 3rd wave feminist movement.

UK JUSTICE IS STILL BLIND

But it’s also deaf to the citizenry’s rights, dumb about threats to liberty, unable to smell mendacity, and acquiring a taste for privilege
gingerdiggerSmile all you like, you’re still 
a Digger & a Ginger
The Slog: Another day goes by, and the jolly romp of those above the law continues with ever broader smiles. How about this for a “free press” snippet from yesterday’s Guardian:
‘The trial of former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks has been delayed by seven weeks….The trial will now not start until 28 October – after Mr Justice Saunders adjourned the case for legal reasons at a hearing in the Old Bailey on Wednesday. Those reasons cannot be reported.’
I understand sub judice as well as the next man, but in our current ‘culture’ of secret privilege, I think we deserve to know just a little more than this. Brooks was charged nearly thirteen months ago, so one wonders why “legal reasons” have suddenly popped up. And while I can appreciate that during house conveyance, it is standard practice for idiot legals to find a problem on the day of exchange, this isn’t really what we’re talking about here.

EMERGENCY FALSE FLAG ALERT: Latest Syrian Chemical Attack Follows History of False Flag Provocations

corbettreport: In this exclusive clip from the forthcoming edition of the Jack Blood Podcast, James Corbett and Jack Blood dissect the latest reports of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, occuring just two days after a UN chemical weapons team arrived in the country. James goes over the history of false flag chemical provocations in the country and the reasons why we should doubt the quickly-forming official narrative that this attack was perpetrated by Assad's military.

Iran Foreign Ministry condemns false flag use of chemical weapons in Syria

A Syrian victim receives treatment at a hospital in Aleppo following a chemical attack at Khan al-Assal village on March 19, 2013.
UK BANNED Press TV: Iran Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria, saying Tehran is “deeply concerned” about the use of such weapons in the Arab country.

"We are very concerned about reports of the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and we strongly condemn the use of such weapons," Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Araqchi said on Saturday.

Referring to an alleged deadly chemical weapons attack in the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday, Araqchi said that "There are documents [showing] terrorist groups are behind this attack,"

He also said the incident was a setup to implicate the Syrian government at a time when UN inspectors are visiting the country to investigate the alleged prior use of chemical weapons.

Dynamic Thinking 'School is generally a complete failure'

AI
By :
QUESTION: Marty, you have mentioned how everyone tends to reduce events to a single cause. Is this the problem you refer to as the lack of dynamic thinking? Is there a way to change this?
ANSWER: Yes. But it takes work on an individual basis. I studied not just my own thinking process in trying to create a computer program, but I dove into the depths of trying to comprehend the brain and its function. To be able to create a true thinking machine, I had to grasp how the brain functioned from the ground up. Artificial Intelligence offered by 99% of the people out there is simply imitating the brain with look-up tables. Real Artificial Intelligence has to reason on its own. That is what has to be achieved – not mimics.

The Pentagon Is Preparing A Cruise Missile Attack Against Syria

Earlier today, in "US Refines "Military Options" Ahead Of Syrian Strikes", we reported on what we thought was now inevitable especially since it was in agreemenet with what we predicted with absolute certainty over a month ago in "US Prepares For "Kinetic Strikes" Against Syria."  There we said: "The pre-story here is well-known to most: in a repeat fabulation of the Iraq "WMD" lie, the US and the entire developed world "found" Syria to have crossed a red-line when it used chemical weapons, despite subsequent reports that it was the Syrian rebels, aka Qatari mercenaries, who were the party responsible for chemical weapon use. No matter though: the public media campaign was hatched, and merely waited for the catalyst. That catalyst may be imminent..."
Sure enough, a month later the convenient catalyst emerged when this Wedensday, despite the entire world watching Assad (and as Iraq WMD inspector Rolf Ekeus stating the obvious in  "It would be very peculiar if it was the government to do this at the exact moment the international inspectors come into the country"), we are meant to believe that the Syrian leader launched the biggest nerve gas attack in the history of the Qatari, Al-Qaeda and CIA-funded and organized Syrian rebellion.