Today is the beginning of a new decade for me. I put out a list of 39 things I wanted to accomplish on my 39th year on this earth and I am proud to say that I completed most of them over the year. Now on to a new decade of my life and more adventures to come.
Thank you to everyone who followed me on my crazy "driving around the USA in my tent adventures" for the past year, and the year before that. It was an incredible few years and I hope to experience many more things to come. As I did before, I will compile a list and share that with you.
As I mentioned, the past three years I have been wandering around the country with my dog, camera and tent. I made the decision to go back to school for a year to see where that takes me. I am always up for learning and it will keep me in the same place for a while. This doesn't mean that I won't take a break for adventures here and there. I plan to continue this roller coaster ride called life.
I look forward to more and sharing it here with you.
Of course, that was not reported...and according to the general press and officials the meltdown has not happened yet and is only partial.
Who can you believe? Certainly not the the officials or our administration. Libya seems to make a good alternate headlines to the dangerous headlines that should have been coming out of Japan and all over our news regarding Fukushima and the humanitarian crisis it is creating.
A few readers have pointed me to an interesting NPR interview with the Canadian physician Kevin Patterson (link). He describes his medical work in Afghanistan and the Canadian arctic treating cultures with various degrees of industrialization. He discusses the "epidemiological transition", the idea that cultures experience predictable changes in their health as they go from hunter-gatherer, to agricultural, to industrial. I think he has an uncommonly good perspective on the effects of industrialization on human health, which tends to be true of people who have witnessed the effects of the industrial diet and lifestyle on diverse cultures.
A central concept behind my thinking is that it's possible to benefit simultaneously from both:
The sanitation, medical technology, safety technology, law enforcement and lower warfare-related mortality that have increased our life expectancy dramatically relative to our distant ancestors.
The very low incidence of obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease and other non-infectious chronic diseases afforded by a diet and lifestyle roughly consistent with our non-industrial heritage.
But it requires discipline, because going with the flow means becoming unhealthy.
Few people seem to take a stand when it comes to the markets and to attempt to be honest about that stand. I absolutely stand by my post of last Friday exactly as it was written. Nothing for me has changed. The reason that I gave the market till the first few days of this week was that the most likely scenario for my systems is to take more than one entry into a trade. The Russell 2000 system had only one entry short as of the close last Friday. At least one or two more entries seemed logical. Today we got the third short entry for that system and the largest size entry so far in the trade. If I am end up being wrong, then I tried and I will probably not going have great performing trades here. I have a few points I would like to make before I have to go out to a meeting.
Volume was incredibly light in the professional futures markets.
The S&P500 sold off after large trades hit bid near the highs...while shorts continued to get squeezed in the Russell and the Mid Caps.
There were a lot of small size trades lifting the asks this afternoon in the Russell. These traders are mot likely setting themselves up for disappointment.
Everyone can now clearly see the the sell off was a wave 4 - which it most probably was not.
The dollar held its ground and bonds are not confirming equities.
The NASDAQ 100 has many many components that are clearly putting in a-b-c wave counter trend pushes.
Most Elliott wavers are looking for the infamous wave 5 and then then really really infamous wave 3 down. They will most likely not be in either trade successfully.
Volume really sucked (oh, I said that)
VIX not comfirming market highs.
Copper not rallying.
Stops were taken out and markets diverged literally one going up while the other was going down. Selling was also stronger than people are asuming on the nasdaq and s&p500. Confusion amongst the markets is not a sign of a strong market.
Financials are NOT performing
I have major cycles short on the Euro and long on the Dollar
A perfect A-B-C symmetry and major trend line was hit on the Russell - dead nut.
Same trend line off highs also was sold on the S&P500.
The consensus has everyone looking up because this market defies logic and the patterns look enticing...nothing like a well laid trap!
I view it, that out of a market seemingly able to ignore every rational interpretation of risk and reward, confidence is way too high and a major crash is pending
Today's rally made very little rational sense, as is common of all things in the markets, was on low volume and certainly has pushed the envelope for the end of the month window dressing...as I see it, for each stretch to the upside to correponding pressure downward will increase...nothing has changed with regard to any of the comments I made on friday last week. I had not necessarily expected to get more entries into the current trades...but I wanted to share the current trades we are in for the Russell 2000 and S&P500, in case it may be helpful in these crazy times.
But there is no oil there...so, Obama and friends will quietly ingnore the deaths and civil war going on there. Perhaps France will come to their aid and order a No-Drive zone...and get a UN resolution going...Well, I doubt it...the powers that be are too busy trying to protect Oil and prop up the stock market for a few insolvent banking buddies to be bothered with thousands lives at risk in a country that barely makes the US news...
The fact that these types of incongruencies are fostered out in the open by our government, the UN and other governments involved in the Libya offensive, is simply rediculous and demonstrate the values that are really at stake here. As I said earlier, this is a sad bunch. Perhaps, Hillary Clinton can sit nodding her head in affirmation of all the civillians that are absolutely not being injured and lives being ruined by us chosing our route. The reality is that there were other ways to go about a humanitarian mission than blowing people up and gettting us into another war. But perhaps is will distract us from other things that we should be paying attention to.
Ironically, the government is still arguing about the budget and the debt ceiling. This issue is still lurking and waiting to torpedo something. The republicans can't seem to do math and the democrats skipped math class entirely. Republicans promised to reduce the deficit in a meaningful way - somehow that meaningful way has turned from much talk into only $60 billion in cuts which is kind of like going to McDonald's and deciding to reduce the bill by going from a supersize meal to a large one. What are these charletan's smoking? Now, lest I only complain about the republican's (I see dems and repubs as one party anyway), our man Obama (not to mention most of the domcorats currently in power) has done more to bankrupt this country than any other president (likely more than almost all the presidents before him when combined) and decides that imperialist ventures with no exit plan are on the table right when we are having trouble raising the debt ceiling? Wonder what will happen as this debt ceiling and budget issue heats up in the context of a math inhibited, moderatly IQ'ed and manhood inhibited president and a similarly handicapped Ben BURNanke? With both of these guys knowing only one manuever, how to get in...and no idea how to get out...the dollar is going to go through the roof!
I do not imagine that there is any way that anyone in their right mind can take anything Obama said on his Libya update seriously...he basically said absolutely nothing...but I actually feel like I know less about the implications of the official US and allied stance for this mission now than before his address... In fact, the only real question is going to be how long do we really think we will be there and how will we pay for it - which was a subject he rightly avoided to focus on. What we are left with is to attempt to read just how large and decpetive Obama's lies are about these matters... And this is not behavior that I feel proud of as representing a positive image of America. What about the many other conflicts that resulted in tremendous loss of life that never even made the US news let alone require military conflict. Ofcourse, Obama and many of the republican reviewers who endorsed the mission after his speach will only tell you to ingore that we have no idea who we are really supporting on the ground, or really how many civillian lives we are damaging - they only tell you the superficial marketing hype. That's the problem. And its also why we have a depression going on in this country because leadership uses outright deception to sell its adgenda's.
Clearly the reason that the US feels like it needs to interfere in every conflict throughout the globe is that the nation is marginally deficient with regard to penis size while slightly gifted and therefore struggling with a deep male identity conundrum. Apparently when you get a bunch of relatively smart males with slightly diminished manhood together - there is no conflict they don't want to be involved in and no borrowed money that they don't want to spend.
Japan is in crisis. We all know that, however, the NASDAQ 100 apparently less aware than it should be. What is interesting here is that there is a lot of technology manufacturing that has been completely taken off line in Japan. Much of this manufacturing is for components that are built using proprietary capabilities and hardware only available in Japan. The intellectual property and patents required to implement it are not for sale or available at this point. Perhaps over time, Japanese companies will diversify more of their technologies via licensing and non-domestic manufacturing. In any case, reproducing these capabilities is not a simple situation as it is simply not possible to recreate the facilities, manufacturing technologies or capabilities somewhere else. I is simply too expensive, not an option or too time consuming or some combination. The resulting condition brings up several important questions:
Will Japanese manufactures come back online soon?
Will components manufactured in Japan be considered contaminated if the Fukushima issue remains in the picture?
Will companies be willing to make the required capital investments in R&D and manufacturing to bring component manufacture closer to home.
My answer is something I discussed in my posts this weekend. The Japanese government has not made it possible for companies to plan their futures. Every time a piece of information comes out it is found to be unreliable, therefore, people stop committing resources and planning based on untrustworthy data. This situation will significantly delay Japanese technology manufacturing coming back on line and ramping to normal levels for quite some time.
The Nasdaq 100 companies for example could attempt to build components themselves, but that is not a reasonable commitment for them at this time or in this economic environment. They don't have the technology patents, resources and infrastructure that Japan has built over these many years. American companies concentrated on delivery of the end-product not the manufacture of its components. They will chose to wait this out hoping that Japan or Japanese companies figure out a realistic solution...which may end up being quite some time. During this time their sales will likely be dramatically impacted and they will be forced to make significant cuts and resource adjustments. I see the technology space as extremely risky here and am surprised that dramatic optimism that people seem to have for it. It was risky anyway and people have been getting a sell-job from analysts anyway, but with the Japan issue there is simply no reason to buy Technology companies with exposure to Japanese production and manufacturing.
All in all this is going to take a long time for the technology space to come back to normal. Companies like CSCO, HP and AAPL have a lot of exposure to Japanese technologies and if things don't start to get back to normal really fast...they will not be able to cope without dramatic changes.
This is a rather interesting video that I recalled this weekend that was made before the Libya operation in early march. There are many insightful observations in this interview and given how accurate Celente has been as was in this interview, I think its worth reviewing again.
We live in troubled times with leaders who lack integrity and values. The Libya operation (War) is hollow and a tremendous smoke screen for western leaders. Kind of like promoting solving a debt problem with more debt...they actually successfully floated "...solving a humanitarian problem with more killing". The European situation is one that I discussed in depth starting in 2009 - EURO on a trip to oblivion and one which will likely play out in the US in some form or another as people become more and more frustrated with the financial, governmental and regulatory systems that transfer their assets and hard work into the hands of others...sometimes in totally different parts of the country and more disturbingly and frequently to other countries entirely.
I think this video adds very good color to the situtation and certainly puts Barrosso's and Van Rompuy's performance in their recent press conference in a rather dim light. These guys are truly either entirely pathological or totally out of touch...
Where have I heard that before? And yes, they said they would not likely have to use it either. Both the idea of a Bazooka and its preventative confidence building capability were actually a sign of just how fearful things really were. BTW when they did use the Bazooka it just made things worse.
Now the EU thinks more fluff, sell-jobs, accounting control fraud and fancy instruments will allow them to run roughshod right over business 101. They actually seem to think that they can generate jobs and profits with an agenda designed to create losses...but they now have a 500 Billion Euro ($750 billion dollar - that sounds familiar too BTW) Bazooka that they assure as they will never need. Van Rompoy and Barroso - I believe you. I also believe that radiation levels 30 miles outside of Fukushima are perfectly safe and will schedule my trip there promptly.
Van Rompuy, who must be living in a parallel reality, actually says "...they have fundamentally improved the EU and financial system over the last year and those results are clearly and there". I could not agree more with all the obvious improvements so clearly on the record: Portugal - finished, Iceland blew the EURO off, Ireland - finished, Spain, Greece and many Eastern Euro participants - broke and will be finished soon and NO sovereign autonomy or power to manage individual domestic economic systems or relationships with their constituents...YES Van Rompuy, I can see the improvements and the results...very impressive job you have done. What's more - you now have a 500 Billion Euro Bazooka you apparently don't need...things look just peachy don't they. (personally, I think the Farage's comment comparing you with a damp rag was too optimistic.)
Consider the fact that this contingent can effectively declare a military operation and force its members to pay for it whether they like it or not? That my friends is NOT democracy...nor is it a sound platform for a financial and constitution system.
Next, consider that the EU watched each of its failing members descend into insolvency without doing a thing about it. Apparently it only realized that Ireland was a problem when it was too late...and these guys are fixing everything and on top of all the issues. The reality is that not only did the EU not see the insolvencies early enough to do something about them, but their policies and responses to the problems actually encouraged them and once revealed made them worse. What is funny is we are giving guys who have proven to be dangerous with a weapon a bazooka with the expectations that it will be preventative when in fact they will likely use it at some point and actually blow something else up.
Ironically, the US is attempting to implement another preventative financial Bazooka: UNLIMITED FDIC coverage for checking accounts and commercial clearing accounts. The question would come to mind: "Why Now?" What secret are you hiding and wealth transfer are you planning that you need to sneak this little tid bit in FDIC?
It is absolutely amazing to me that I can find nearly NO redeeming quality in leaders for the West. I believe this is due to their near total corruption by debt money blackmail and cronyism. People like Ron Paul and Nigel Farage are examples of people who I feel would not be corrupted by this regime and whom I do approve of. But I can list on one hand the politicians I feel represent their constituents rather then their personal interests...this will change as these corrupt politicians and bureaucrats are removed from office and prosecuted by a very unhappy public. This will change as countries secede from the European Union and states distance (potentially secede) from the United States Union. As this process progresses, seceding governments will begin to begin to reflect their constituents and their revenue, financial and currency systems will begin to have a salient relationships to their constiutents needs and economic capabilities.
The performance of these two clowns in this video is an abomination.
I beg to differ with many of the high level assertions of this article I an including in this post:
Japan has failed miserably to communicate effectively
Tepco has actually been deceptive and has not been timely with urgent announcements
Risks are better over estimated than underestimated In the case of Fukushima the objective of the some media, most press releases and announcements has been the opposite
The best way to get people back to work and productive is to give them credible actionable information and instructions, something they can count on and trust rather then question and fear. That simply has not happened, so we should expect lack of trust and fear to delay people's planning and therefore, a very slow bounce back to productivity in Japan "IF" nothing more catastrophic happens.
My thoughts are there are a lot more credibility and agenda issues than just the ones I list above in this article. If that's the case, it would render the article totally useless or probably far worse.
And we wonder why we have riots in so many countries at once? Theft (via accounting fraud, hidden taxes, fraudulent conveyance enabled by a corrupt debt money system) and deceptive, unreliable and untrustworthy information from leadership will certainly do it. Next stop for NATO, I mean Obama, after its deceitful invasion of Libya - Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Why should it not? Any citizen in an oppressed country who can not afford general necessities and sees arrogance like we are seeing from NATO in attacking a sovereign nation for any Orwellian reason they can come up with, will become only too easy to antagonize and too angry to control. But don't let Obama tell you otherwise...he will attempt to restrain them regardless of what he states publicly or hat he campaigned on...Nobel Peace Prize be damned.
March 26, 2011 Countering Radiation Fears With Just the Facts By DENISE GRADY
As soon as David J. Brenner heard about the undersea earthquake and subsequent tsunami that devastated northern Japan on March 11, he checked a map of the region’s nuclear power plants. One, because of its coastal location and reactor design, looked particularly vulnerable: Fukushima Daiichi. He hoped he was wrong.
Less than a day later, ominous reports of failed cooling systems and radiation leaks at that plant began to emerge. Dr. Brenner, director of the Center for Radiological Research at Columbia University — the oldest and largest such center in the world — found himself called on repeatedly to explain what was happening with the failed reactors and to assess the radiation risk to public health, both in Japan and around the world.
Dr. Brenner, 57, a native of Liverpool, England, is a physicist who has spent his career studying the effects of radiation on human health. He has published research showing that CT scans increase the cancer risk in children, and he recently testified before Congress, saying that the widespread use of whole-body X-ray scanners at airports would produce 100 extra cases of cancer each year in the United States.
He thinks CT scanners and the people who use them need more regulation to make sure the scans are medically needed and the doses of radiation as low as possible. He believes that even low doses increase the risk of cancer, and that there is no “safe” level or threshold below which the risk does not rise — even if that risk cannot be measured statistically.
But for all his concern about potential harm from radiation, he does not foresee a public health disaster resulting from the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi.
From the start, he has spoken with a scientist’s caution, respect for facts and numbers, and keen appreciation of how much is simply not known or, at this point, even knowable. The situation changes constantly, and the path to the truth can be dicey, twisting through parties with passionate agendas for or against nuclear power, information meted out by government and industry, and public fears of radiation that many scientists consider wildly exaggerated.
How to explain the facts without scaring people needlessly? How to reassure without seeming to sugar-coat or patronize? The last thing people want, Dr. Brenner said, is a guy like him in a white coat on TV smugly telling them everything is fine.
“People are very worried, which is not surprising,” he said. “We want people to be able to make some kind of realistic assessment.”
In the week or so after the earthquake, he did about 30 interviews with reporters, he said, “some good, some dreadful.”
Some interviewers tried to push him to say the danger was much greater than he believed it to be. He resisted, and canceled one appearance when he realized that the host group had a strong anti-nuclear agenda.
“I try to keep my political views separate from my academic life,” he said.
Asked whether he was for or against nuclear power, he paused, then said, “I think there is a role for safe nuclear power.”
From the beginning of the troubles at Fukushima Daiichi, he has said that the Japanese plant is not, and will not become, Chernobyl. The Soviet reactor, which had no real containment structure, blew up in 1986 and spewed its contents far and wide. The Japanese reactors, though damaged, do have containment vessels, and the government acted quickly to evacuate people from the areas around the plant.
But he thinks the events in Japan should be a call to action for the United States. “This country and Japan have a fleet of aging nuclear reactors,” he said.
Early on, Dr. Brenner said that Fukushima Daiichi would probably turn out to be similar to the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States, which has never been found to have effects on public health. As conditions deteriorated at the Japanese plant, he said he thought the outcome would be somewhat worse than that at Three Mile Island, but not much worse.
But he expects cases of radiation sickness among the workers at the contaminated plant, and, he added, “I fear there will be fatalities.”
He said it was possible that there would be some cases of thyroid cancer — probably too few to prove a connection statistically — years from now among people exposed as children to milk, water or produce contaminated with radioactive iodine.
So far, it seems unlikely that the accident will create a vast uninhabitable zone in Japan like the one that Chernobyl left in what is now Ukraine, Dr. Brenner said. Extensive fallout of radioactive cesium occurred at Chernobyl, and it takes many years to decay to safe levels. That kind of fallout has not occurred in Japan.
Over all, he said he thought the Japanese government was doing a good job of providing reliable information to the public — but that it has not always done so. At first, there was a delay in releasing radiation readings around the plant. And when officials announced that radioactive iodine had been found in milk and vegetables, and yet initially declared them safe, Dr. Brenner said, he “screamed loud” and spoke out to reporters about it. There was simply no reason to risk consuming them, he said.
Radioactive iodine is taken up by the thyroid gland, particularly in children, and a vast majority of the 6,000 cases of thyroid cancer caused by the Chernobyl accident occurred because people were not told to stop giving their children local milk. The milk was contaminated because it was produced by cows grazing on grass coated with fallout.
Potassium iodide pills are widely recommended to protect the thyroid gland from radioactive iodine, but Dr. Brenner said it was better just to stop drinking milk until the threat had passed.
His message changed, however, when radioactive iodine turned up in tap water in Tokyo. Though the public was advised that babies, children and pregnant women should not drink the water, Dr. Brenner conceded that some exposure might still be hard to avoid, and that using potassium iodide was a reasonable precaution.
“I’ve been maybe a little overstrong in saying that potassium iodide doesn’t have a role to play,” he said. “But usually the problem is milk. To me, the levels in water came as a surprise.”
In recent years Dr. Brenner’s research has focused on responses to terrorism. He finds himself in the odd position of having directed the development of a machine that he hopes will never be used, the Rapid Automated Biodosimetry Tool, or Rabit. Its purpose is to test blood samples — up to 30,000 a day — for signs that people have been exposed to a significant dose of radiation.
The Rabit was meant to be used in the event of a terrorist attack — a dirty bomb, for instance — in which large numbers of people fearing they had been exposed to radiation might overwhelm clinics and emergency rooms. Small blood samples could be drawn at many locations and sent to the Rabit; people with signs of exposure could be monitored and treated if necessary.
The radiation releases in Japan so far have been much lower than what the Rabit was designed for.
He may have inherited his knack for industrial design from his maternal grandfather, a mechanical engineer who was one of the inventors of the Kit Kat candy bar and the machinery to mass-produce it.
His office holds two prized possessions: a 1961 photograph of John Lennon and George Harrison with Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles’ original bass player; and the desk used by the first director of the Columbia radiological center, in 1915. It came with a drawerful of tobacco pipes.
On a recent afternoon, the venerable desk was strewn with maps and graphs of radiation levels around the Fukushima plant. Unable to find the one he wanted, Dr. Brenner accused a colleague of having made off with it, and was cheerfully rebuffed. Television interviews were scheduled and a photographer was on the way; he winced and said that lately he had had no time for a haircut. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/science/earth/29brenner.html?pagewanted=print
This morning, I had a conversation with Dr. Randy Tobler on his radio show "Vital Signs", on 97.1 FM News Talk in St Louis. Dr. Tobler is an obstetrician-gynecologist with an interest in nutrition, fitness and reproductive endocrinology from a holistic perspective. He asked me to appear on his show after he discovered my blog and found that we have some things in common, including an interest in evolutionary/ancestral health. We talked about the history of the American diet, the health of non-industrial cultures, what fats are healthiest, and the difference between pastured and conventional meat/dairy-- we took a few questions from listeners-- it was fun.
The show is available as a podcast here (3/26 show), although as far as I can tell, you need iTunes to listen to it. My section of the show starts around 8:20.
I saw St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard on an Internet interview the other day and was stunned by his lack of knowledge and his distortions of fact. He is a baby by the looks of things, not to mention a clear Bernanke brown noser.
He can not have real experience in anything resembling a productive enterprise given his clear niavete but apparently has a few letters after his name from a Fed approved school...just like Bernanke. Apparently, Bullard feels it necessary to tout the success of a obvious failure with the entire Quantitative Easing program. Apparently he is nearly as out of touch as BURNanke and does not understand that people are rebelling against the system...specifically a system of slavery that is also increasing the challange of doing essential things like begin able to afford to eat and drive to work?
BullTURD is an idiot and I can not understand how he got his job? Why is he there? What are his accomplishments? Why is he spending so much time in the press these days? What is he trying to sell?
Why do these people even call themselves journalists. Just tell me the damned story, why is it necessary to spin everything? It is simply an insult to our intelligence to suggest that the water radiation levels spike 1,250 times than normal but "...in fact, in many cases, radiation readings have gone down." WTF...do you think we are idiots and we think "...a spike of 1,250 times normal" means something extreme is NOT going on...We do not need to be reminded that meaningless measurements upwind of the plant went down in the same time as they spiked 1,250 times normal somewhere else. Readings in the areas that went down will likely be up tomorrow when the wind blows that direction. Why not just report the rise as it is? Why not do the report of lower levels objectively or as a separate report rather than a qualifier to a clearly extreme situation?
We do not need to be reassured that these levels will infact do little harm to the aquamarine ecosystem or fish. It is just amazing how far you will go CNN, Reuters, Thompson to trump up a positive slant on something where it is not required. Fish are definately being harmed by this radiation. Do you think we are idiots? Would not you not do the opposite and make the same effort to distort facts in the pessimistic vein if it served your agenda? Why should we trust that you are attempting to report anything in good faith when you insert an unneccesary "...the effect on aquatic life may be relatively minimal." type BS. You know that its not likely to be minimal yet you go throught the effort to say it. Why just not say nothing? Just what is the meaning or objective of trying to talk this stuff down?
The events are exploding before your eyes CNN and you are not offering ANY credible service to your readers. You are simply encouraging people to tow the line, play the game and smile while they scream. This is the same crap we have to deal with in the economic reporting. You tell us the markets went up because of the great (manipulated and fraudulent) jobs numbers at 10:30 am and when the Dow is down 300 points at 4:00 pm you tell us the markets were down on those very same jobs numbers yet you still try to convince us that the numbers were good and things are looking up at the same time. Why is it necessary to editorialise and spin every report. Why is it necessary to take the only thing that you really require as a reporter, "CREDIBILITY", and shred it? The mass media especially the corporate shareholder owned media should be ashamed of itself. In some cases, information from the media can make a difference that is significant to one's life - in those cases, apparently we know we can not rely on CNN and most probably nearly any of the corporate government mouthpiece media firms.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
Levels of radioactive iodine in seawater just offshore of the embattled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant spiked to more than 1,250 times higher than normal, Japan's nuclear and industrial safety agency said Saturday.
Samples taken Friday morning from a monitoring station 330 meters off the coast were significantly higher than results from the previous morning, when the level was 104 times above normal.
The measurements also showed high levels of cesium and were taken outside the discharge canal for the plant's Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 reactors.
Readings from a short distance away, outside the Nos. 5 and 6 units' discharge canal, showed lower but still high radioactive iodine levels some 284 times above normal.
These high levels suggest there may have been some sort of leakage directly into the ocean -- unlikely to be because of atmosphere emissions or rain alone, said an official with the Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the nuclear plant.
A Tokyo Electric official told CNN that authorities are not sure why the levels spiked. The official speculated that the radioactive iodine may have been swept off the coast recently into the Pacific Ocean or the tainted water may have seeped from turbine buildings for two nuclear reactors that have shown the presence of radiation 10,000 times the normal amount.
Still, an official with Japan's nuclear safety agency told reporters Saturday that -- while drinking such tainted seawater would be dangerous, given the radiation's potential to cause cancer -- the effect on aquatic life may be relatively minimal.
The latest data, from Friday, posted online by Japan's education, science and technology ministry show continuing evidence of airborne radiation in prefectures around the nation. Still, in no cases is the exposure considered harmful to human health -- and, in fact, in many cases, radiation readings have gone down.
In the Fukushima prefecture where the plant is located, officials had screened 87,813 people for radiation exposure as of Thursday, Japan's nuclear safety agency said a day later in a news release.
Of those 98 people had tested above limits for exposure, but once their clothes were removed and other measures taken, the exposure levels dropped and there was no effect on health.
Dylan Ratigan is one of the few people who would not deal with the limits that Jeff Immelt, GE, his Washington cohorts and CNBC wanted to push on him to spin data and stories to their liking.
We have destroyed Libya's air-force as the first accomplishment to enforce a so-called no-fly-zone. Given that the job of destroying the airforce is now complete...we do not need a no-fly-zone operation anymore - just some enforcement resources. However, we are not there for humanitarian reasons. Therefore, we are there as a distraction and as a perversion of the imperialist policies of the west and its centrally planned debt based financial terrorism program. This is just one example of the insanity going on right now...let alone the misdirection of it.It may seem strange to bring this up in this way...however, we are in Libya for financial reasons not humanitarian ones...and those financial reasons are a part of the financial terrorism propogated by the Fed, the EU and IMF insolvency generation machine.
I added this Obama Address on 3/26 at 10:00 am...can we believe anything he says?
Now how about the non-Obama version...you know the one with out the lies and disinformation:
People have had enough.
To understand the difference between the official reassurances and denials and reality...just watch this initial report of the Fukushima event. Here Japan boldly asserts claims that it does not have and distorts the information it does have. Given that backdrop, RT did the best report at the time of the emerging disaster and unlike the US media did not try to put a cherry on top of it. Who do you trust? Whom can you trust?
Disinformation is everywhere...Japan, the EU, Obama, BURNanke, and our mystery government data and yes that includes the GDP revision published today. The only news I currently reference is from non-US or non-mainstream media outlets. I suggest the you will need them in the very near future so here are the links:
The founding fathers would be horrified to see what we have accomplished with our world. I am warning, in the most emphatic terms...I think one should get out of this market. A very large market event is at risk of occurring, in my opinion, and will likely begin combustion early next week. Explosions are likely to be everywhere and in many forms and not limited to financial markets. Gold and Silver will not likely be spared either...so, those commodities are likely at significant risk right now too, despite the widely held belief to the contrary. This is a quick post, just to let you know my thoughts. I do not have time for a long post...please forward anything of use on my blog to any friends and family. Given my vantage point - things are about to get very very very very ugly. I said it in a previous post - "trades now are about self-preservation" - please keep that thought in your mind. My attitude is to evaluate risk and reduce it to something that is comfortable and managable.
Most people would not make a post like this, however, I see no benefit to sitting around waiting when de-risking is a viable option and consideration of ones risk at this moment in history is of more importance than at any time in recent history. The result of this post for me is postive whether the events trigger early next week or not.
For your information, all of my major market systems are short or will be at the close today. I will post more details and research this weekend...But I want to get this out before the close.
I would like to reiterate that I am all too happy to short these contracts to those who want them. Ridiculous...this is a gift...not to mention a sad commentary on the manipulated state of our socialized and cronyized markets. I believe that we will see a total collapse in the markets as soon as Monday or Tuesday...but certainly it is in the cards in the not distant future. I do think that an adverse event is far higher odd for next week than most are aware of. By collapse I mean a single day with a greater than 6% to 7% decline possible substantially more.
Today two large macro funds over here have gone wildly long s&p. Not long. We talking 250% net long. It looks like concerted action on gdp dgrades from gs and bofa are the letter delivered to ben on qe3. Huge directional bet with new capital put at work. Most likely the two institutions are coordinating action with offices in connecticut. Check inflows of blue chip hedge funds in jan feb. Apply 2.5 leverage. We are talking about some 40-60bn put at work primarily on eminis at the moment. Whether some external force will leave them high and dry i don't know. But if anything seemed to be at least not too irrational up to now, in this third wave, be ready for real rock and roll. - an apparent rumor on zerohedge.com from a European trading desk...
First the ES traded the typical 1.8 million contracts. As this is the workhorse of the indexes...we are talking about $108 billion of total flow. Additionally, the large SP contract traded only 4,300 contracts for $1 billion of flow. The SP contract trades 60,000 to 100,000 contracts regularly so who came up with this idea must not be checking basic facts - there was no room for a $60 billion trade with out some evidence of it and volume expansion. In addition to this, volume has been significantly sub par during the previous raly days, one would thought the idea of two players acumulating over 1.1 million ES contracts would have caught on and triggered some contagious buying...but nothing is visuble in this very low quality and lw volume tape. So, We did not get the volume that could possibly reflect thus trade. However, yet again professional sellers sold the highs while the dollar put in a higher low and an a-b-c move down. If someone wants to believe that the BURNanke can get away with QE3 right now at the risk of getting himself drawn and quartered and run out of town and that person wants to go long $60 billion of ES contracts...believing that QE3 can make heaven out of horse manure, then I am quite happy to short it to them.
Sorry to say it, but the Tokyo annex of the US and the Fed debt monetization system has provided so much disinformation regarding Fukushima that it has permeated our press and markets with inspired and pure manipulation. The gig is up and officials should be preparing us...
I see very little chance that the fuel in Fukushima can be cooled which puts hydrogen events on the table...this thing needs a sarcophagus and we need to prevent any new catastrophic hydrogen events - what's the plan? what are these guys doing? what is the US doing other than scrubbing the decks of its aircraft carriers to get the radiation off them and sending missiles into Libya? what is the world doing other than trying to distract us with a no-fly zone? In the name of humanity and human rights and in order to protect civilians...WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Missiles are not the correct answer!
Systems added short equities indexes after covering nearly 50% of swing short positions yesterday and will likely add to positions on the close today. Also added long dollar and short EURO today. I feel embarrassed to be talking about a trade in light of the insanity that Bernanke and his sidekick Obama are pushing via their policies that exacerbate, create or distort the human condition. However, trading at this point is not just about trading its about self-preservation.
I wish for the best, but fear for the worst. The official silence is deafening.
A few people have sent me a new study claiming to demonstrate that half a tablespoon of safflower oil a day improves insulin sensitivity, increases HDL and decreases inflammation in diabetics (1). Let me explain why this study does not show what it claims.
It all comes down to a little thing called a control group, which is the basis for comparison that you use to determine if your intervention had an effect. This study didn't have one for the safflower group. What it had was two intervention groups, one given 6.4g conjugated linoleic acid (CLA; 50% c9t11 and 50% t10c12-CLA) per day, and one given 8g safflower oil. I have to guess that this study was originally designed to test the effects of the CLA, with the safflower oil group as the control group, and that the interpretation of the data changed after the results came in. Otherwise, I don't understand why they would conduct a study like this without a control group.
Anyway, they found that the safflower oil group did better than the CLA group over 16 weeks, showing a higher insulin sensitivity, higher HDL, lower HbA1c (a marker of average blood glucose levels) and lower CRP (a marker of inflammation). But they also found that the safflower group improved slightly compared to baseline, therefore they decided to attribute the difference to a beneficial effect of safflower oil. The problem is that without a control (placebo) group for comparison, there's no way to know if the improvement would have occurred regardless of treatment, due to the season changing, more regular check-ups at the doctor's office due to participating in a study, or countless other unforeseen factors. A control group is essential for the accurate interpretation of results, which is why drug studies always have placebo groups.
What we can say is that the safflower oil group fared better than the CLA group, because there was a difference between the two. However, what I think really happened is that the CLA supplement was harmful and the small dose of safflower oil had no effect. Why? Because the t10c12 isomer of CLA, which was half their pill, has already been shown by previous well-controlled studies to reduce insulin sensitivity, decrease HDL and increase inflammatory markers at a similar dose and for a similar duration (2, 3). The safflower oil group only looked good by comparison. We can add this study to the "research bloopers" file.
It's worth noting that naturally occurring CLA mixtures, similar to those found in pastured dairy and ruminant fat, have not been shown to cause metabolic problems such as those caused by isolated t10c12 CLA.
Below is just a sampling of all the people promoting dollar propaganda that is feeds the bearish dollar appetite. This is a partial list and I can point to many professors and guys with letters after their name who promote the same misinformed thesis. Please remember that letters behind your name did not halp most figure out how to price and model or understand the economy into 2007-2008 and they offer the same value now as they did then. The only one who acknowledges that is WAY in the future is Jim Rogers and he is too optimistic - however, he is long the dollar now FYI. He is the only one of this group who would stand much chance of making you money either. Right now the press is full-court headlining the impending death spiral of the dollar...every analyst is looking to beat up the dollar at the bottom with the exception of a few and the technicals and commercials are telling quite a different story. Commercials doubled net log positions on the dollar in one week..this is a very rare occurrence...
Investment Legends - “Dollar Collapse Inevitable”
Jim Rogers is a self-made billionaire, author of the best-sellers Adventure Capitalist and Investment Biker, and a sought-after financial commentator. Bill Bonner is the president and founder of Agora, Inc., a worldwide publisher of financial advice and opinions. Peter Schiff is CEO of Euro Pacific Precious Metals (www.europacmetals.com) and host of the daily radio show The Peter Schiff Show (www.schiffradio.com). Jeffrey Christian is managing director of CPM Group (www.cpmgroup.com) and a prominent analyst on precious metals and commodities markets. CPM Group produces comprehensive yearbooks on gold, silver, and platinum group metals Walter J. "John" Williams, private consulting economist and “economic whistleblower,” has been working with Fortune 500 companies for 30 years. Steve Henningsen is chief investment strategist and partner at The Wealth Conservancy in Boulder, CO Frank Trotter is an executive vice president of EverBank and a founding partner of EverBank.com Dr. Krassimir Petrov is an Austrian economist and holds a Ph.D. in economics from Ohio State University. Bob Hoye is chief financial strategist of Institutional Advisors and writes Pivotal Events
The reality that there is a significant naked short on the dollar requiring covering and it will likely require a much stronger and longer rally in the dollar than people would possibly be expecting before the shoe, ultimately and way in the future, actually drops.
It is important to remember that in a debt money system, there is NO MONEY WHEN THERE IS NO DEBT, less debt available equals higher prices for cash. Debt is contracting at a much faster rate globally and domestically than the Fed can create it. Until people can come up with a way of a debt money system violating these rules then the pressure will be for a dollar shortage until such time as there is an official debasement and this will have to be a government decision and is not something that the fed has the capability, despite the impression that it may, to implement. There is NOT an infinite amount of debt that the Fed can purchase as you can see from the pressure being put on them and monetization is currently their primary way of new debt money. The reality is if you look at the housing numbers which are less than half the sales in 1960's when the population was 100+ million less...the banks are not creating credit, sovereign debt is defaulting and many other instruments are in the process. This creates a headwind of debt destruction that is much bigger than anything the Fed can throw at it. Therefore, in a debt money system, when there is plenty of new debt money, prices for cash will be weak. In a debt money system, no debt equals no money and therefore prices for cash will be strong. You can easily figure out which situation we are in.
Inflation is not the problem in this picture, its deflation and though the process of getting to where we are going is not a smooth path, we will get there. Various forces have created imbalances in the system and created price bubbles that people are mistaking for real credit inflation. But the money driving these asset bubbles does not have velocity and is coming from the monetization that the fed is doing which is really only benefiting a relatively small and isolated fraction of the economy. Hence, we do have fractured, artificial and temporary inflationary pressures in assets that entities who are directly accessing this Fed effort can use to make their balance-sheets look marginally better when marked to market. However, the most significant element of their portfolios still is based in the housing markets and as we have seem these portfolios are being torn to shreds. This is deflation due to shortages of new debt money available to artificially inflate prices.
The myriad of analysts and investors who can not understand this theorem or believe that the Fed and print unending amounts of new debt into existence are saddly totally misinformed, mistaken and in for a very very long ride indeed. This ride will make the bear's travails over the last 2 years look like a cake walk. One DOES NOT want to be owning commodities, stocks or any other inflationary or debt financed investment during this very long ride, though commodities do have utility and some should perform much better than stocks or municiple or corporate bonds.
It's been a while since I've blogged and for those of you who are stopping by and wondering what's going on, I apoligize. I've been doing this and that and haven't found the time to stop by here. Well, here I am again! Yesterday I was asked to shoot a photograph for an ad for blueberry bakery celebrating the one year anniversary of Moxi roller skate shop in Long Beach. I love cake and derby girls so of course I was happy to be a part of it!
The vision was to get a couple of derby girls fighting over a cake pop in typical derby style. Looking oh so tough but so cute at the same time. I don't know how these women do it. I used to roller skate around my neighborhood as a kid in my quads and thinking about it now makes me a little nervous. It's not that I don't want to do something fun, it's just a long way down if a small pebble gets in the way of a long stride.
I am six foot tall so it would make me about six five in skates. A long way down...and oh yeah, I am about to turn 40 with minimal health insurance, so there's that too.
It doesn't keep me from admiring these woman who participate in the sport. I've been to a few bouts in Long Beach and my photographs are on the Long Beach Roller Derby's website as well as many more on my photograph website.
For today, it was about cake pops and roller skates. I met these ladies early in the morning and once we got to the shop, it was time to strip down to their skating attire. As this was happening, a man happened to be standing in the right place at the right time to get a glimpse of two women stripping in the middle of the street. I'm sure as he stood there, he had no idea about what was about to happen. From the look on his face, I think it might have been his lucky day.
Thank you ladies for being such great models! I look forward to the next bout!
for the catastrophically damaged pumps...certainly no american media is showing this...
As a side note...it certainly looks like a sophisticated disaster and emergency enterprise that they have going on over there. The people who are working there are heroic...but it looks very disorganized indeed.
this will ultimately be a huge move, the sloppy central bank driven BS that took the dollar to an overshoot on the downside due to the Japan intervention will sling shot the index to new highs beyond most peoples wildest expectations. The insolvency that will be revealed and created over the near-term future is and will be astounding. I shorted the EURO this AM and added dollar index futures this afternoon and evening and will continue to build the position. The Dollar is one position where, at this point, I am willing to buy strength if the setups are worthy. Below are charts.
As you may be aware, and after large profits in my pervious shorts, I am short all the major indexes again as of yesterday and today.
Today's rally was likely pretty close to a one day wonder...maybe there is a little upside left to complete the retracement but the bullish blindfold is not likely to survive very well or long. Everyone and their brother agrees: "Buy Japan"...my question: do any of these people actually do any research at all? Well, its characteristic for us to get a good dose of dis-information before reality dispels it.
The reality is that when ever Japan has had a significant natural disasters that influence its economy and confidence, the reactions are a multi-down wave affairs...usually bouncing after they decline well over 20% from the levels prior to the event and requiring over 6 months to tire the sellers. Now, this is not just a normal event and Japan's economic condition is not normal economic condition so this will be bigger and take longer. They are hiding massive amounts of insolvency off-balance sheet and are insolvent on-balance sheet already without another trillion dollars required for the response to this disaster. The "mis" and "dis" information provided by Japan will likely ensure that their reward will be rather severe. One way or the other, Japan has quite a long way to go before it has a meaningful bounce...please see my chart on the long-term Nikkei yesterday. Again, its characteristic for us to get a good dose of dis-information before reality dispels it.
Then there is our "change you can believe in" president who's only change that I can see is his name and blame. He is obviously both a republican and a democrat and has no intention of living upto any election claim that he has made. Why would one expect a guy who campaigns on such a superficial and duplicitous hook line to be anything other than a salesperson of the highest order. However, now he is trying to sell a cronyist oil war as protection for civilians in Libya. Clearly helping the Libyans is not a realistic foundation for this totally un-thought-out and badly planned air assault in yet another oil rich country. The reality is that we would have waited another few years to attempt to do anything there (as we did in Yugoslavia) if it were not for oil. Mind you that this transgression will not remain in Lybia but will spread like a virus till it reaches Iran and Saudi Arabia. And we thought that anti-American sentiment was bad in the past - just wait and see what it becomes in the future.
The reality is that, there are many, many cases in which the west's influence brought much more pain, death and discomfort rather than safety and prosperity that it purported to bring. Iraq is just one of the recent examples...millions of civilian lives trashed, thousands of troops killed and trillions of dollars thrown down the drain which will most likely be blowing up in our faces in the not too distant future. We have enough to worry about at home but this "Nobel peace prize winning" president of ours can't find anything to do with war or conflict that he does not like...from Guantanamo to Afghanistan to Libya and I am sure quite a few other over commitments that he is preparing to make...not one thing scales us down, improves our economy or moves us toward freedom or prosperity as a nation. The special interests, unions and banks are quite happy with that agenda and will make sure he gets their votes after he runs roughshod over our country. Again and again, its characteristic for us to get a good dose of dis-information before reality dispels it.
My systems initiated new shorts on today's rally and odds are much higher for real selling than most of those "Buy Japan and everything else in sight on 500% leverage" people are expecting. In the next few dayswe could be on our way to taking out recent lows...hold on to your blindfolds.
I have been expecting the forces that be to attempt to convey some stability in the Japan situation regardless of the underlying facts. This weekend we did get the positive reassurances from the fearless and totally crediblity lacking officials. On friday, the Russell 2000 was very strong relative to the other major markets and that is usually a leading indictor. Additionlly, the general backmail attempts going on around the middle east to quell revolutionary civilians and predicatable western support for the oil interests (surprise, surprise) for another week or two could setup a confidence attempt in the markets...as the charts seem to suggest.
I crtainly DO hope that there is improvement and stability to the Japan siutation, though I still feel like it is inappropriate to think or plan for anything but more misinformation and distortion from officials around the world. Given the looks of the larger picture for the markets around the world from Bombay to the Dax to the S&P500, there is considerable risk. Generally, the world is making a mad dash for cash because you can't buy food and supplies with silver or stocks at the local purveyor just yet. Banks don't want to take alternate assets as payment either...so stress in the financial system and lack of new credit from banks are creating a demand and need for cash. If cash remains in short supply in the bigger picture then assets will remain under pressure.
This video describes clearly the issue that I touched on earlier in that the reactors are clustered in close proximity and can make it impossible to handle containing damage in related but independent reactors. The reality is that a perfectly operating/capable reactor may not be so perfectly operable or capable after people and maintenance resources are not able to reach the site. If there are other explosions or events that could further damage the capability to control the other reactors or handle related facility emergencies.
Again, reports like this are NOT on the US or Japan's media.
Nuclear Plant Designer Masashi Goto Says Japanese Government Suppressing Scale Of Crisis
A former nuclear power plant designer has said Japan is facing an extremely grave crisis and called on the government to release more information, which he said was being suppressed. Masashi Goto told a news conference in Tokyo that one of the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi plant was “highly unstable”, and that if there was a meltdown the “consequences would be tremendous”. He said such an event might be very likely indeed. So far, the government has said a meltdown would not lead to a sizeable leak of radioactive materials.
Mr Goto said the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant were suffering pressure build-ups way beyond that for which they were designed. There was a severe risk of an explosion, with radioactive material being strewn over a very wide area – beyond the 20km evacuation zone set up by the authorities – he added. Mr Goto calculated that because Reactor No 3 at Fukushima-Daiichi – where pressure is rising and there is a risk of an explosion – used a type of fuel known as Mox, a mixture of plutonium oxide and uranium oxide, the radioactive fallout from any meltdown might be twice as bad.
He described the worst-case scenario: “It is difficult to say, but that would be a core meltdown. If the rods fall and mix with water, the result would be an explosion of solid material like a volcano spreading radioactive material. Steam or a hydrogen explosion caused by the mix would spread radioactive waste more than 50km. Also, this would be multiplied. There are many reactors in the area so there would be many Chernobyls.”
He accused the government of deliberately withholding vital information that would allow outside experts help solve the problems. “For example, there has not been enough information about the hydrogen being vented. We don’t know how much was vented and how radioactive it was.” He also described the use of sea water to cool the cores of the reactors at Fukushima-Daiichi as highly unusual and dangerous
Click play on this video object below to view live radiation readings in California. Normal background radiation can range from 5 CPM to 60 CPM – anything above 100 should raise an alarm
from Reuters:
History tells us that government have habitually lied about radiation, air quality and the true scope of health threats to the American people. Only through the use of private monitoring stations will we be able to confidently gauge the true levels of radiation hitting the west coast, and we won’t know the full extent of the danger Americans face until Monday at the earliest.
Suggesting that levels of radiation leaks from the stricken Fukushima plant are being grossly underreported by Japanese authorities, a Swedish government agency told Reuters yesterday that not only will the radiation reach North America, but it will subsequently cover the entire northern hemisphere.
De Geer said he was “convinced it would eventually be detected over the whole northern hemisphere,” according to the report, adding that radioactive particles would “eventually also come here,” referring to Europe.
The Swedes can be trusted to know a thing or two about detecting radiation. While the Soviets were furiously engaged in a cover-up of the Chernobyl disaster which occurred on April 26 1986, Swedish workers at the Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant were the first ones to detect the fallout from the accident two days later on April 28
