brahmburgers

Here's a brief news interview with Arnie Gundersen - where the radiation breaches in to the Pacific are discussed.

For those of us who are concerned about what's in the things we ingest, this radioactive stuff just adds to the toxic soup. We're already concerned about MSG, about pesticides and herbacides in Thai produce, pathogens in meat, fish, eggs.

A test was done on fish in hundreds of N.American lakes, seaboards and rivers (which are generally cleaner than the same in Asia), and all fish tested had mercury at potentially harmful levels. .....and now we've got a new issue to be concerned about: radioactive toxicity.

It would be bad enough if the radiation were the result of a one-off event, like a nuclear bomb, but the Fukushima plant is one of many N plants worldwide - and hundreds of N plants are on the drawing boards in dozens of countries.

Even in lieu of what we're hearing about Fukushima, humans are still preparing to crank out more plants!

Then there are the intentional toxifications of this small planet, like when S.Hussein ordered the Kuwaiti oil fields torched. Ok, sorry, I'm straying further off-topic.

I'm relatively lucky, as an increasing proportion of my family's food is home-grown - with zero pesticides of course. But I still buy canned and bottled items from afar. Won't be buying seaweed anytime soon, though.

BBC mentioned this morning that China is suspending all activity on its nuclear plants until Dec. 2012 (20 months), and possibly beyond. China had been planning 40% of the world's new plants.

That's got to be good news for the Koreas, Japan and Taiwan, as they're the most directly downwind from China.

Now, for those of us in Thailand (and downwind from Thailand), ....if we could just get some similarly sane commitment from Thailand's EGAT.

Other news: TEPCO's expenses are getting so bloated that some biz experts think it's inevitable that Japan's gov't will have to get involved in a bail-out, which will probably mean partial or complete public ownership of the utility, which has earnings of about $6 billion/yr.

Good photo, above, of the black smoke belching mess by the ocean. Those orange spots in its depths give graphic dimension to the phrase, "...burn in the fires of hell.'

BB's note: it will be interesting to see whether other nationalities will slap lawsuits on TEPCO. The effects of radiation are spreading - through the Pacific region and beyond. Americans and Canadians aren't shy when it comes to suing people for damages. Expect to see some serious fallout (pun intended) from the N plant failure for many years.

Perhaps it's time for damage control to try to do more to try to keep radioactive water from reaching the ocean.

The tanker idea mentioned pages earlier is interesting. Has there been action on that in Japan? Since the immediate zone around the plant is and will likely continue to be a dead zone for decades, perhaps they could dig a sink hole on the landward side of the plant. Transfer the most radioactive water to percolate there. It's not a cure-all solution, but it may be the lesser of the hazardous options currently available.

A lot of people really resent all that highly radioactive water going in to the world's oceans and food chain. Personally, I don't eat hardly any sea food/products (mainly because of mercury), but most people still ingest items from the sea, including seaweed (sushi, etc).

there was a faulty link for one of the Mother Jones articles. Here's the correct link for their 'Radioactive Oceans' report.

BB's note: if you think Japanese officials are screwing up (in planning/siting their N plants, and their attempts at problem solving nuclear mess) - just wait until Thailand has a major problem with one or more of their planned 5 nuclear plants.

Radioactivity in the Ocean: Diluted, But Far from Harmless (Yale)

http://e360.yale.edu..._harmless/2391/

Japan's Radioactive Ocean (Mother Jones)

http://motherjones.c...dioactive-ocean

Radioactive Fish and Birds (Mother Jones)

http://motherjones.c...s-dangers-japan

Mother Jones magazine, out of San Francisco, has always been miles ahead of the others in the assessment dept. Hundreds of times over past decades, they've come out with reports that governments/businesses have denied, and it's later proven that MJ was correct, and the government/business heads were covering up. Their investigative reporting is second to none.

The knock-on affects of dumping radioactivity in the air and water will go on and on for decades, and it will effect people worldwide - some more and some less. It's more than an economic catastrophe for many people (farmers, fisherman, etc). Among other things, it's a case of a relatively few people (TEPCO heads and gov't/political/biz big shots) polluting a significant part of the planet with their selfish and ill-thought-out nuclear plans.

expert = a former drop of water turned to drizzle at high pressure.

They could put the water in a tanker, take it somewhere and dump it in the sea. Or take it somewhere, dump it on land, and let it find its own way to the sea. Or they could avoid a lot of messing about, and put it directly in the sea, which is conveniently close to the plant in any case.

Do you have an empty swimming pool in your backyard? Perhaps you could offer to have them pump the radioactive water in there - or, if not a swimming pool, how about just letting the water percolate in to your lawn - and water the vege garden.

I once traveled across the sea of Cortes in a ferry from La Paz to Matzatlan Mexico. I noticed ship workers taking big plastic bags full of all sorts of trash, including plastic, styrofoam, old batteries, and who knows what else, and just dropping the bags over the side of the boat in to the sea. I made a mention, in my broken Spanish, about 'how about keeping the trash, and dumping it in a landfill when we make landfall.' They just grinned and said, Por la madre!' (for the mother). Proposing the Japanese dump radioactivity in the sea is the same sort of mind-on-vacation mentality.

....just one nuclear plant with six reactors (only three of which where operating) will require an estimated 30-years (at least!) and from $120 Billion to $150 Billion to contain and decommission. That is almost half of the total property damage done by the quake and tsunami combined. And that doesn't even begin to include compensation to the people who used to live within the 12 mile exclusion zone (that will likely never be able to return), nor (considering it's in Japan!!) the real estate value of all the land within the ultimate exclusion zone. Half (or probably more!) of the total cost of the quake and tsunami combined (which will likely be rebuilt in 5 years or less) from just one nuclear plant. Is this a reasonable benefit/cost ratio?

Of course, nothing like that could befall proposed Thai nuclear plants. EGAT, by way of their 175 million baht 'feasibility study' tells us Nuclear Plants are safe, cheap, and clean. Burns and Roe, American nuclear plant designers, were paid nearly $6 million to come up with that reassuring assessment. They're experienced engineers, so they should know.

So, someone speaks out against Police corruption in a private diplomatic cable, Assange leaks it with malicious intent and two innocent diplomats end up losing their jobs and perhaps their careers. Way to go Julian! Azzhole. :realangry:

I agree. Assange is a grandstander who pretends to be for transparency - yet his actions contribute to careers being trashed and relationships between countries getting strained.

Diplomats, like politicians, have roles to play. Of course they can't be as frank in all scenarios as they'd like to be. That's why it's called diplomacy. My father was a career diplomat. When I was a kid and described something in rosier terms than it warranted (in order to not offend someone), my parents and their friends would smile and say, "well done for putting it so diplomatically."

The not-so-bright Ecuadorian Prez has shot himself in the foot. What would have been a smutty little short-term item (the leak) is now, thanks to him, blown up to become an int'l issue.

one hyphenated word explains why Facebook is wildly overvalued: ad-block

Facebook gets most of its revenue, other than fat loans, from advertisers. However, most web users have ad-blockers, which are almost as common an accessory as anti-virus programs. If an increasing # of Facebook users don't see ads, then the ads decrease in value. In awhile, advertisers (incl. MSFT, which is a big advertiser there) will begin to realize Facebook members aren't seeing their ads. Advertisers are business people, so you can expect they're behind the 8 ball in the realization dept.

$50 billion is ridiculous valuation. If I was a shareholder in Facebook, I'd cash out sooner than you can say 'bogus valuation.'

Here's a link that tells why Facebook is grossly overvalued, and they don't even mention the 'ad-block' factor.

Dumping something into the ocean is about the worst thing that they could do.... Can also someone explain to me why they didnt put the water in an oil tanker??? or just on a regular boat in a container, or oil trucks???

Several reasons:

1. They didn't think of it. Asians in general, are not giants of innovative solutions to problems.

2. They don't want to ruin an oil tanker (economics).

3. What would they then do with a tanker full of water?

4. If the contaminated water kept coming, they would then need additional tankers.

5. Who wants to attach the hoses, and man the ship? Where would it dock?

How about food which is MSG free, or pesticide free.

A few years ago, we heard about a declaration by Bkk authorities that trucks bringing fresh produce to the city would be inspected to see whether their veges/fruits had too much pesticides. One truck was inspected, then program was dropped.

There should be dedicated areas, strictly enforced, for throwing water.

I wish I could be police chief in my town of Chiang Rai for the 10 days of water throwing. I would provide my men with 500 plastic handcuffs each, and instruct them to disable all water throwers who were outside the designated water throwing areas. The offenders would be strung, wrist to wrist, for hundreds of meters, and cut loose after a minimum 5 hours detention. Second offenders would be strung until a day after the water throwing is over.

Too harsh? Not as harsh a penalty as befalls the people (mostly young women) who are thrown off their moving motorbikes by a bucket full of water thrown full force, at point-blank range by a strong young man.

Trying to lessen the harm of Songkran in Thailand, is like trying to lessen the rip offs by jet-ski operators and tuk tuk drivers in Phuket. It can't happen, because authorities are culturally castrated from being effective. They have the testicular fortitude of eunuchs - unable to stand up to rowdies.

If Thailand wants to catch up with the rest of the world, (or just catch up with other SE Asian countries) in English proficiency, it should make it easy for native English speakers to come here and teach. A degree means little. A person can be a good teacher whether they have a degree or not. A degree is mostly a means for Universities to make money and for the privileged to gain advantage over the not-so-privileged. Many of the greatest teachers in history never had a degree. Did Aristotle have a degree? Neither Bill Gates and Steve Jobs ever got a college degree - yet Thai schools would be compelled by law, to disallow either from teaching here in Thailand.

What they need is English speaking teachers with proper educational qualifications. Not some numpty with a TEFL. It takes years to train as a teacher, not six weeks. Aristotle would have had a degree if they were handed out then.

Bill and Steve weren't teachers, they were just good at making money, an entirely different animal to teaching anything.

We may not agree about what constitutes a good teacher. You appear to believe that credentials make the teacher. I lean to the premise that teaching is an innate skill, somewhat like being proficient at playing music.

A few side notes: I have a Thai friend (parents are Burmese Karen) who speaks English rather well. I had to grin when, years later, I met his teacher, who was also Thai and who made the same mistakes in English grammar and pronunciation that his student had embraced.

From listening to Thais speaking English for a quarter century, I have concluded that there are grammatical and pronunciation mistakes which come down the tubes from the highest levels of the English teaching establishment. It may be partly faulty textbooks (I've seen bunches of mistakes in textbooks) and it may be partly from the upper echelon Thais who teach budding English teachers. The mistakes formulated on high, trickle down to the students.

Incidentally, one of the most fluent Thai English speakers I've had the pleasure to meet, was a young man who, at the time, had never left his Thai town. I asked him how he became so fluent in English. He told me it was from diligently listening to BBC's radio program. I believe that 'learn English' BBC program was canceled a few years ago - if so, that's a shame.

Anyone notice what time of year it is? Yes it's the prelude to Songkran, but that's not what I'm alluding to.

It's Reds rioting time of year. Yes, that's right, for the past two years in a row, the Reds have commandeered the headlines with rioting in Pattaya and Bangkok (2009) and then last year, when they took over downtown Bkk.

So, I'm happy to point out that, for the first time since 2008, the Reds are not doing their annual rioting in Bangkok.

Yea!

Is this an improvement in Thai democracy or what?

I suppose the trouble is, as shown on this thread, that most members of the public don't understand the facts well enough to know when to be scared, and when not to be. SC

I'm not scared. Indeed my personal safety is more secure, here in northernmost Thailand, than Bangkok, Pattaya or Phuket - which in turn are more secure than many parts of the world. Parts of Hawaii used to paradisaical, now it's got oceans (and lifeforms within) of questionable safety.

I've been 100% opposed to nuclear for power generation for decades and have recently (within the past 3 years) become active against Thailand going nuclear. my booklet

It's not about me. It's not about anyone being scared. It's about concern for others, concern for other living things, and concern for this one finite planet. Despoiling the earth and the oceans is as dire to someone like myself as poisoning people or animals or plants. I'm not alone with these sentiments. There are Native American tribes who don't want spent nuclear rods stored in mountains bordering California and Arizona for similar reasons. There are those who can say 'Who gives a fat flying fudgebowl about what happens inside a mountain in a desolate part of the world!"

Well, maybe it's not easily explainable in a couple paragraphs on a blog, but it's true. There are many people who care about such things and who are doing all they can to thwart the radioactivication of this planet. Now the planet's largest body of water is being polluted with radioactivity. None of us knows how severe, how widespread that toxicity will be over the coming decades. I resent the Japanese for building those reactors (the engineering and the chosen site, etc), and I resent all others who are frantically building those monuments to toxicity worldwide. They'd build them (and/or store the spent rods) in Antarctica if they could get away with it.

It's sounds childish to say 'I told you so' ....but we did! Often and loudly! And we're still trying to tell those who will listen; 'Nuclear reactors are not the best (nor cheapest nor cleanest nor safest) ways to generate electricity.'

Years ago, in Jakarta, the gov't there took all the bicycle taxis and dumped them in to a ravine. Ka-pow-eeya.

Some day, Phuket might get a leader who has the guts to do the same (in a more environmentally-friendly way) with the tuk tuks. Every day that passes, is a day closer to eradicating those rip offs.

And how about shuttle buses from the airport to the busiest tourist areas? In a more decent country, that would have been implemented from the get-go.

Well, at least those hot heads had the cojones to attack a strategic target. Usually they just find some dummy to strap on a bomb belt and tell him/her to walk in to a crowded market and - kah-boooom!

Yes have to admit I was taken in, The irony of it ,which got so many people up in arms is that it did not suprise anyone. Not one poster said: No this can't be true, even though a few did see through it as an April 1 prank. The thing is people believed it, me included. It just goes to show that a lot of people expect the rediculous to happen here in Thailand. Anyway good fun and did stur up a lot of emotion. :whistling: :whistling: :lol:

What you are saying is very true. It is or is about to become law in Cambodia. So know reason why Thailand shouldn't take it up. But then again me thinks even the Thai government know when they are on to a good thing?

jb1

I admit I was taken in by it, but kept reading and commenting on it even after it became clear it was an A.F.joke.

The post mentioned that a 50+ yr.old would not be allowed to marry anyone younger, which somehow gave it away - as there was no leeway given for wanna be brides who may be in their 30s or 40s.

As mentioned earlier, its believability was largely due to knowledge of how Thai government works. In the past years, there have been laws against women wearing spaghetti straps or too tight shirts in public. The visa rules are ever changing and always ridiculous - forcing many visa runners to take return jet plane trips every month. There are laws which punish non-smoking farang for allegedly dropping a cig butt, yet the same judicial system has no laws against harboring a murderer. There are no laws in Thailand compelling a deadbeat dads to pay for innumerable children they've sired, yet it's seriously frowned upon to step over a person's ankles - who is sitting on the ground.

- HELL EXPLAINED BY A CHEMISTRY STUDENT

The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona chemistry mid term, and an actual answer turned in by a student.

The answer by one student was so 'profound' that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well :

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely.. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, 'It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,' and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct..... ....leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting 'Oh my God.'

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED AN A+.

The Belgians and the Israelis make some excellent automatic weapons, small and medium scale. The Thai military would be smarter to purchase hundreds or thousands of such items for the price of a sub with 10 years remaining in its lifespan.

As the Americans are finding, low cost (even low tech) weapons (used by their adversaries) can be effective in knocking out expensive high tech weapons. One of the most effective weapons in the US arsenal is a bomb which is essentially a gas tank. It's dropped by parachute, while spinning and emitting a large cloud of gas. An ignition, and - ka-boooom - all oxygen in a square Km is burned, and every living thing either burns or asphixiates. A high schooler could build one in his garage.

A simple hand grenade could knock out the effectiveness of the world's most expensive high tech aircraft carrier, if dropped in the launch chute on deck.

Kasikorn Bank had been able to verify one cheque and cashed out a 4-million-baht cheque from Canada.

Doesn't reflect very well on the bank - to get hoodwinked in to cashing that check for those guys.

They should rename it placebopathy. Boy, I wish I could make 1/1,000th of the money spent on homeopathy - essentially selling water for medicinal prices. They are able to skirt FDA regulations because they call it 'remedy' instead of 'medicine.'

Actually, even many real drugs have been shown to have no better results on patients than placebos. The percentage difference (64% improvement from expensive drug vs 62% improvement from placebo given by people in white coats, for example) ....is negligible.

Think about the tens of billions of dollars spent each year on drugs - most of which are no better than sugar pills, .....and how that money might be better spent - could be used to train my pet brontosaurus to crap in the compost bin on command.

Who is running the island ?? The taxis or the goverment ???

You just know this. Thailand is governed by gangs, Sicily maybe the birth place of the Mafia, but Thailand is where Mafia have made extortions a way of life

I visited Phuket a few times. None enjoyable because of reasons mentioned above. The last time, two things happened to start off my evening in Patong: The first was a security guard walking up to me and blowing a whistle directly in my ear at full force - for no reason (maybe to share a grin from his buddy). The second was a large truck blowing his air horn downtown while going through red lights.

To answer the question, 'who is running Phuket?' - it's the taxi mafia and other groups of thugs, like the jet ski.

punks. The mayor and authorities can obviously not stand up to the taxi drivers, and do what's needed to be done.

A Tokyo Electrical Power Company (TEPCO) worker has spoken out over the firm's power plant control failures and culture of silence.

I don't want to sound Asia- or Thai-bashing, but the 'culture of silence' is a factor in this dire predicament.

I might use the phrase 'culture of blindly accepting', and it's ingrained in Asian cultures to always defer to higher ranking individuals. In some applications, it's good, but in other scenarios it can be problematic. All of us who reside in Thailand know how tolerant Thais are. I remember reading a letter to the newspaper years ago about a farang woman who was nearly suffocating in a train, because no one would speak up to ask to have a window opened (apparently the worker on duty thought it better to keep all windows closed shut). The farang woman was the only one in a train full of suffering people, to have the gumption to speak up and open a window herself.

We see similar scenarios every day, with painfully loud music, with cars speeding across zebra crossings, etc ad infinitum. The other factor is Asians and Thais accepting all that's handed down by authority with no questions or little alternative suggestions. If you were a teacher, and you told your Thai students 'whales fly in the air and butterflies lie at the bottom of the ocean' ...not one student would speak up to challenge such a statement. All the students would just stare at the front of the room and nod knowingly. Similarly, has there ever, in the history of Thailand, ever been a government worker who spoke out publicly against one of his/her superiors - accusing them of doing something wrong?

That's at least partly why the Japanese nuclear technician didn't speak up earlier when he saw problems at the plant - and why, even now, he can't speak up using his name. It's just contrary to the Asian way of being. I lump the Thais and Japanese together in this missive, because Thailand is hell-bent on going nuclear, and I foresee the problems now befalling Japan - happening in Thailand on a larger scale.