Japan-Half Life Of Fear

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The Half-Life of Fear

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach wants to reassure athletes that radiation won’t taint their food when they compete in the Summer Games in Tokyo next year.

Bach’s recent comments at the United Nations came after South Korean officials announced they would expand inspections of Japanese food products that began in 2011 after the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, reported Japanese news agencies.

The news was one example of the lingering effects of the meltdown, which was triggered by an earthquake and a massive tsunami that killed thousands.

Another is liability. Or rather, who should be held to account for the nuclear accident, which forced 160,000 people to evacuate their homes in northeastern Japan and rendered the coastal area around the plant uninhabitable, the New York Times wrote.

A Japanese court recently acquitted three former executives of the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that operated the plant, triggering protests. “It would be impossible to operate a nuclear plant if operators are obliged to predict every possibility about a tsunami and take necessary measures,” one of the judges concluded.

TEPCO is still liable for civil penalties – earlier this year a court awarded $39 million in damages to some evacuees – and it must still clean up the plant, a process that could take 40 years.

Many Japanese citizens weren’t pleased. CNN noted that prosecutors only charged the three men after relatives of those who perished in the aftermath of the disaster launched a public campaign for justice. “How can the court make this ruling?” said a protester after the verdict in a video in the Daily Mirror, a British tabloid. “We cannot understand and cannot accept it.”

Meanwhile, the Japanese government isn’t helping calm the people’s fears. Former environmental minister Yoshiaki Harada recently suggested that TEPCO should pour radioactive water from Fukushima into the Pacific Ocean, reported Popular Mechanics. The company has more than 1,000 tanks containing more than 1 million tons of contaminated water generated at the site. Workers are simply running out of room to store the irradiated liquid. The site produces around 350 tons of contaminated water every day.

“The only option will be to drain it into the sea and dilute it,” said Harada at a recent press conference. “The whole of the government will discuss this, but I would like to offer my simple opinion.”

Local fishermen told the Guardian they are scared. The disaster nearly crippled their industry. Officials conduct stringent testing of seafood harvested in the region to ensure its safety, but polls indicate that many customers understandably would think twice about eating sushi from the waters around the plant.

Like the isotopes floating in the sea, fear doesn’t dissipate quickly – or easily.

The Vela Flash: Forty Years Ago | National Security Archive

The Vela Flash: Forty Years Ago | National Security Archive

A Great Television Journalist Talks About Trump's Flawed Iranian Policy

First, Fareed gives his take on the central flaw in President Trump’s Iran strategy: a failure to know one’s enemy, contradicting the advice famously offered by Chinese strategist Sun Tzu.
 
“In The Art of War, he goes on to say, ‘the flawed general is incapable of fathoming the enemy … easily angered, hasty to act, and arrogant.’ In one line, that perfectly describes the Trump strategy,” Fareed says, now that Trump’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, and his application of “maximum pressure” through sanctions, has provoked Iran to retaliate.

Plastiglomerate

Humans will now be forever inscribed into the Earth’s geological history. 

Our everlasting signature? Plastic-infused stones.

The newly identified stone, according to a report from The Geological Society of America, has been officially named plastiglomerate. It is formed when plastic trash melts and fuses together with natural materials such as basaltic lava fragments, sand, shells, wood and coral, resulting in a plastic-rock hybrid.

Researchers say the new material is likely to last a very long time, possibly becoming a permanent marker in Earth’s geologic record.

In the photo above: An example of clastic plastiglomerate found on Kamilo Beach. Clastic type is a combination of “basalt, coral, shells, and local woody debris“ that are “cemented with grains of sand in a plastic matrix.”

“In the future, when people see [plastiglomerate] in the rock record, they’ll be able to know, ‘Well, OK, people at this time were polluting the planet [with plastics]. What a travesty that these people were doing that,’ “ Patricia Corcoran, a geologist at the University of Western Ontario and study lead author, told The Huffington Post.

“Now that could be one side of the coin,” she explained. “The other is that people continue to do this and it’ll just become the norm to have this type of material preserved for all eternity.”

This discovery, as the New York Times reports, might be another indication that Earth has “entered a new geological era“ referred to as the Anthropocene epoch — the period of time wherein humans began to leave significant and lasting impacts on the planet’s landscape and atmosphere. Earth is currently in the Holocene epoch, which began almost 12,000 years ago.

In the photo above: Fragment containing plastic pellets and “confetti” — small pieces of plastic from different sources — with woody debris.

Corcoran and her team traveled to Hawaii to observe the new substance after learning about it from sea captain and oceanographer Charles Moore, who discovered cases of plastiglomerate on Kamilo Beach on Hawaii’s Big Island in 2006.

Kamilo Beach, also considered one of the world’s dirtiest beaches, became the perfect spot to observe this new substance because of how the ocean’s currents push garbage, plastic debris and other ocean pollutants onto its shores, as it does in other beaches on the southeastern shores of the Hawaiian Islands.

Researchers first assumed that the melted plastic was a result from possible flowing lava from Hawaii’s active volcano, but discovered their samples were a result of beachside campfires that took place within their surveyed area. They point out in their report that while campfires were “responsible for the plastiglomerate on Kamilo Beach, it is conceivable that the global extent of plastic debris could lead to similar deposits where lava flows, forest fires, and extreme temperatures occur.”

While surveying Kamilo Beach, Corcoran and her team found plastic debris with markings that indicate they have traveled all the way from places like Asia and Russia. A lot of that debris, Corcoran said, is coming from the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

But plastiglomerate is likely to exist across the globe.

“We find plastic debris — and an abundance of it — on many shorelines in places like India, Africa, even on the shoreline of Iceland,” Corcoran said. “Plastic is everywhere,” and inevitably, it will become melded with beach sediment.

So, what can we do to permanently reverse the damage we’ve done with plastic pollution? Corcoran said every country on the planet would have to suddenly agree to never use plastics again, which, she notes, is extremely unlikely.

But “we can all pitch in and help through beach cleanups and not using as many plastic products,” she insisted. “Maybe by raising awareness [of how serious the problem is], people will start to say, ‘OK, that’s kind of disgusting so maybe ... I should think twice before I buy a bunch of balloons or use a straw. Even small things make a difference.”

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Politicians Lie And Many People Die

Madame President:

    Your morning briefing...all of us face a dilemma in life, if we tell a lie to a government official it is a crime. In the US the law is 18 USC 1001 with a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison and a $250,000 US fine. I am sure that Argentina, Brasil, Canada, Iran, Europe, Japan, China, Singapore, etc. similar statutes are on the books. On the other hand, politicians and government officials can lie to us and face little or no consequences.

   Let us go back in time. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson got elected president on a promise to keep the US out of World War I. He lied. His goal was to bring the US into World War I. The result is 166,000 Americans died. In 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt got reelected to an unprecedented 3rd term promising the American people that he would keep us out of World War II. He was a close friend of Sir Winston Churchill. His intention all along was to bring the US into World War II. What followed caused the deaths of roughly 400,000 Americans with another 70,000 missing and never accounted for. Adolf Hitler came to power and turned the German economy around. By 1938 the German people were enjoying prosperity and great hope in life. Had Hitler died then, he would have gone down in history as one of Germany's great leaders. He promised the German people that he would not bring them into another world war. While telling this lie, he was planning to invade Poland and the Soviet Union. What followed was the bloodiest war in human history. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson won reelection promising the American people that they would face no new wars. While telling this lie, he was already planning for a big war in Vietnam. The result was over 58,000 Americans died as well as roughly 3.25 million Vietnamese.

    Now we have President Trump promising the world that he does not want a war with Iran. While telling this lie rest assured that military officers at the Pentagon and military officers in other countries are already preparing for such a conflict. My first wife Maria would have a folksy saying about this as follows: "I am quitely sure that something is cooking."

Saudi Arabia And Iran-What Happens Next?

Good Morning All:

   Saudi Arabia just suffered some heavy damage to their oil industry by drones sponsored and provided by Iran. Will the Saudis sit back and "turn the other cheek?" I think not. Their armed forces are equipped with some of the latest US technology. I sense retaliation against the Iranians coming. Israel may or may not "come to the party," depending on if Netanyahu is reelected.

   If the Iranians are hit hard, they will strike back. The US will be sucked into the battle. The Russians will see it as a golden opportunity to distract the US and make a lot of money selling arms,food,medicine to the Iranians. (I suspect that you would only see Russian military forces deployed if an actual land invasion of Iran was mounted by the US.) The Straits of Hormuz will be disrupted with a huge spike in oil prices and major damage to the economies of Japan, India, and China.

   In almost 71 years of life, I have learned that the quickest way to lose friends is to give investment advice. I will tell you what I am doing. My trading account is heavy in GLD (gold), SLV (silver) and SWAN (A brilliant ETF that Bloomberg loves. It is structured for Black Swan events like what could happen next.) You will also find BA (Boeing-military budgets will increase if the US is drawn into a conflict.)

   I sincerely hope that this doesn't happen. Many people will suffer and die.

Do You Need A Degree From An Elite College To Have Success In Life?

Madame President:

     Your Sunday newspaper...I have many things to be proud of in you, Pedro, and Luah. All of you have incredible educational achievements. Of equal importance, all of you worked hard and earned your educations in a completely honest manner.

   Right now there is a big scandal in this country about wealthy parents who paid large bribes to get their children into elite colleges like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, University of Southern California, UCLA, etc. The largest bribe was a stunning $6.2 million paid by the owner of a Chinese pharmaceutical company to get his daughter into Stanford. There is a long list including one actress who paid a $500,000 bribe to get two of her daughters into elite schools. One person who paid a $15,000 bribe already got 14 days in jail. Many other still face sentencing. If they had been honest, they could have made large contributions to these colleges. It would have helped their kids to get in honestly.

   There is some question about the value of getting a degree from elite colleges. On one hand let us look at the educational institutions of our last few presidents as follows:

President Bush I   BA Yale

President Bill Clinton: Yale Law School (Hillary Clinton also graduated from Yale Law School)

President Bush II: BA Yale and MBA Harvard

President Obama: Harvard Law School honors graduate (Michelle Obama also graduated from Harvard Law School)

President Trump: Attended Wharton Graduate School of Business

    There is another side of this debate questioning the value of these elite schools. Only 23% of the Ivy League college graduates make it into the top 1% of wage earners in the US.

       Let us look at the curious case of Elena E. Torello, MD. She graduated from the University of Buenos Aires Medical School. Elena spent most of her life speaking Spanish. Before coming to the US, Elena read English but could not speak it. When she arrived here and took the three tests for her US medical license, she scored in the top 5% of those medical school graduates taking the test. She was right up there with graduates of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford Medical Schools. She got accepted to the very competitive Kaiser San Francisco residency program. She did so well there that she was offered a job at Kaiser San Francisco when she graduated. Getting a job as a doctor at Kaiser is like getting accepted to the US Navy Top Gun fighter pilot's school. (Only 1% of the fighter pilots are selected.) Getting hired is not the last obstacle to having a career at Kaiser. After a probationary period, your fellow doctors must vote you in as a shareholder. When Elena started her career at Kaiser, her first office had previously been occupied by a Stanford Medical School graduate who had failed to be voted in.

   A degree from an elite college is not an absolute necessity in life or an absolute guarantee of success.

--

A Miracle On September 11, 2001

Everyone an incredible woman named Barbara Arietta lives here in Pacifica. On 9-11-2001 she got the devastating news that her son had been killed on the flight that originated in Boston and crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. She was seen by grief counselors. Then she got the biggest and happiest surprise of her life. Her son called her. He told her that he was fine. He told her that he had decided not to take the flight.

September 11 In My Life

Madame President:

     Your morning briefing..23 years ago today I was on a Greyhound bus. It started in Houston, went to San Antonio, onto El Paso, Phoenix, Indio, California and Los Angeles. My bus ticket went all the way to San Jose, California. I was tempted to get off in Los Angeles because I knew that city. I stayed on the bus. I had to find a newspaper reporter named Gary Webb. I knew that my ex-wife Maria was there and hoped that the kids were with her. As the bus pulled into San Jose around three in the afternoon, I had an old-fashioned transistor radio. I listened to a Portuguese music station. I had no job and less than $200 in my pocket. I was 47-years old and starting my life over. On September 11, 1998, I was having dinner at the Crowne Plaza Mexican Restaurant in the Willow Glen section of San Jose. Six US Marshals arrested me for contempt of court for failing to obey a judge's order. This cost me 6 months in jail. On September 11, 2001, we had the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC. As I watched on television, I was sure that a major war was starting. I called my stepson Pedro and wife Elena to make sure that they were OK.

   Today at 17:00 I go to the memorial service for Reverend Fernando Carvalho. He was the man who died on his 58th birthday at the pool last Friday morning. He leaves behind a wife, two children, and four grandchildren. The late President John F. Kennedy had a favorite saying as follows:

    "Life is always unfair."

Beloved Pastor Fernando Carvalho Died On His 58th Birthday While Swimming

https://www.mpchurch.us/

Detection of the First Soviet Nuclear Test, September 1949 | National Security Archive

Detection of the First Soviet Nuclear Test, September 1949 | National Security Archive

A Great Man Runs For Presidenr

Former S.C. congressman Mark Sanford announces Republican primary challenge against Trump https://wapo.st/2LAKdpi

Jack's Pearl Of Wisdom for Tuesday September 2, 2019

Can Low-Gravity Kill Cancer Cells?

Can low gravity kill cancer? 

We’ve been sending humans to space for more than half a century now, but there is still so much to learn about how a low-gravity environment impacts our physiology. An Australian scientist has been looking into such matters through simulation studies here on Earth, and with early indications that space can kill off the majority of cancer cells without the need for drugs, is now preparing to launch his experiments toward the International Space Station for further investigation.

There are quite a few studies that have been completed or are ongoing at the International Space Station that explore the effects of low-gravity on living organisms and human physiology.

NASA has previously studied cellular changes of mice and mussels on the ISS to gain new insights into the human immune system and looked into how the microgravity environment can lead to vision impairment. The agency’s twin study, meanwhile, comparing the biology of an identical twin who spent almost a year at the ISS with the other who did not, continues to be one of the more intriguing examples.

But the intricacies of how cancer cells behave in the microgravity environment remains largely unexplored. Biomedical engineer Joshua Chou has been conducting experiments in his laboratory at the University of Technology Sydney to advance our understanding of this, using a micro-gravity simulator to observe how cancer cells respond and the potential reasons why.

“Prior to this research, most focus has been on the genetic expression of cancer under microgravity,” Chou explains to New Atlas. “But no one has looked at the mechanisms, and the strategy of how we are approaching this is to identify the sensing receptors in the cancer, in hope of tricking them.”

Scientists hope to learn more about the behavior of cancer cells by launching them into space

Chou and his student Anthony Kirollos exposed ovarian, breast, nose and lung cancer cells to the micro-gravity simulator for a 24-hour period, and found that it caused 80 to 90 percent of them to die, as first reported by the ABC. The scientists believe this is because the lack of gravitational force on the cells influences how they communicate with one another and makes them unable to sense their surroundings, something they call mechanical unloading.

“I have to clarify that microgravity does affect other cells, like bone cells, that is why astronauts lose bone,” Chou tells us. “But having said that, the different tissues and organs in the body respond differently, and it’s just that we found bone and cancers are super sensitive to the effects of microgravity.”

Why this mechanical unloading effect hits cancer cells harder than most is one of the questions Chou hopes to shed some light on when he launches his experiment for the ISS next year. In the first Australian research mission to the ISS, the cells will be packed into a device smaller than a tissue box and studied within the micro-gravity environment for a period of one week.

“Twenty-four hours before launch, we will introduce the cells into microfluidic devices, they will go up to the ISS and the experiment will be carried out for seven days, but won’t return until after 28 days at the ISS,” Chou says. “Then of course we will do analysis upon its return. But we also designed technologies to study them while they are alive on the ISS.”

Sending cancer patients to space for treatment certainly seems a fanciful idea, and Chou isn’t looking to change that through his inventive line of investigation. The hope is that the experiments can shed light on the specific receptors and sensors behind the mechanical unloading effect on cancer cells, so scientists can design drugs that mimic the same effects here on Earth.

"I see what we are developing on working in conjunction with existing therapies and not replacing anything,“ Chou says. “What we hope is that it will increase efficiency of current drugs to give the patient an added advantage by disrupting the normal function of the cancer. Because if the cells can't 'function as a team' then it becomes easier to kill them.”

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