Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Open Thread


Open
Thread



Japan tsunami and earthquake - Live coverage - Guardian:
"Japan's nuclear crisis is equivalent to number six on the INES scale of nuclear accidents, Kyodo news agency has quoted the French Nuclear Agency as saying.

The INES – International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale – ranks incidents from one to seven, with one described as "anomaly" and seven as "major accident".


New York Times on nuke disaster
One wonders if Obama will take his girls swimming in the waters around the collapsing nuclear plants after what Keith Olbermann said:
... even President Obama applauded while trying to pitch the same Doomsday Machines to us two years ago, turned out to be not so safe after all, and there’s no reason to assume our antiquated nukes are somehow even as impervious to disaster as Japan’s obviously weren’t.
(FOK News Channel). FOK is Keith's website at the moment.

New Oil wars in the mid-east as the peak of oil wars approaches ...
Elections won't cure the shhhhhh quiet disease
in this post Peak Of Sanity world
Letter to My Fellow Michiganders ... from Michael Moore

Monday, March 14th, 2011

AFL-CIO Protest Page | Working Families Facebook Event Page | MoveOn Protest Page | Bus Times & Locations | Rachel Maddow Explains Rick Snyder's Attack on Middle Class

Fellow Michiganders (and honorary Michiganders around the world):

The call has gone out and I'm asking everyone who can to take Wednesday off and head to the State Capitol in Lansing to protest the cruel and downright frightening legislation currently being jammed down our throats.

What is most shocking to many is that the new governor, who ran against the Tea Party and defeated the right wing of his party in the primaries -- and then ran in the general election as "just a nerd from Ann Arbor" who was a moderate, not an ideologue -- has pulled off one of the biggest Jekyll and Hyde ruses I've ever seen in electoral politics.

Governor Snyder, once elected, yanked off his nice-guy mask to reveal that he is in fact a multi-millionaire hell-bent on destroying our state and turning it over to his buddies from Wall Street.

In just 8 short weeks he has:

* Gotten the House and Senate to pass bills giving him "Emergency Management" powers such as the ability to appoint a corporation or a CEO who could literally dissolve town governments or school boards, fire the elected officials, nullify any local law and run your local governmental entity. That company then would have the power to immediately declare all collective bargaining contracts null and void.

* Proposed giving business a whopping 86% tax cut while raising personal taxes by 31%! And much of that tax hike he believes should be shouldered by -- I kid you not -- senior citizens and the poor! He says these two groups have not been "sharing the sacrifice" the rest of us have been burdened with. So his budget proposes a $1.8 billion tax CUT for business and a $1.75 billion tax INCREASE for the rest of us, much of it from the poor, seniors and working people -- even though the top 1% in Michigan ALREADY pay a lower state tax rate than everyone else does!

* Together with the legislature, introduced over 40 anti-labor bills in just the first two months of this session! They have wasted no time and have caught most people off guard. Much of this is being rushed through right now before you have a chance to raise your voice in objection.

These actions are breathtaking when you realize they will drive our already battered state straight into the ground. What we needed right now was an inspiring leader to help us reinvent Michigan and to find creative ways to create new jobs and lift us out of our economic depression. The rest of the country may call what they're experiencing the "Great Recession," but few argue that Michigan is suffering a "one-state Depression."

I know many of you are filled with a great sense of despair and a justifiable loss of hope these days in Michigan. But you must not let things get even worse. You must stand up against these Draconian measures and this outrageous attempt to rip our democratic rights from us by turning our state over to well-paid hacks from Wall Street and corporate America. They see our state as one big fire sale -- and they are licking their chops to get their hands on what is still a state rich in natural resources and industrial infrastructure.

Please show up at noon on Wednesday for our first mega-rally against this insanity. Hundreds of groups are already organizing car pools and buses. You can right now just declare yourself an organizer and get your friends and neighbors committed to being in Lansing. If ever there were a day to call in sick, Wednesday is it (because this IS sick). Students, if ever there were a day to cut class and become a participant in your democracy, Wednesday is it. This event needs to be HUGE -- and I believe it will be if you will simply be there and take a stand.

Much attention has been paid to Wisconsin in recent weeks. Well, they got nothing on what's going on here in Michigan. Rick Snyder is Scott Walker on steroids. There's never been what even the AARP calls "an all-out attack" like this on us. Trust me, you will rue the day you sat home and did nothing while thieves posing as politicians stole your Great Lakes State from you.

Don't let it happen. Be at the Capitol by noon on Wednesday for the largest demonstration the state has ever seen.

Go Spartans! Go Wolverines! Go Everyone Else In Between!

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

11 comments:

  1. Disaster upon disaster everywhere it seems.

    That Gov. Walker dude that M. Moore is dealing with has the same chameleon characteristics that Obama has.

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  2. We may be at the start of the great unraveling as we speak and not even know it. Certainly all the pieces are in place now for the final meltdown to ensue.

    Dangerous Radiation Levels Reported at Japan's Stricken Nuclear Plant

    GLOBAL MARKETS: European Stocks Slide; Euro Weakens Further

    Mideast Stocks Fall, Led By Saudi Arabia on Gulf Stability Concern, Japan

    Speculation has already been rife that Japan would dump US securities holdings to raise cash for rebuilding efforts (which are obviously still a way off until the radiation mess get's dealt with). What that would mean for already flagging confidence levels in the dollar is unsure, but it can't be good. Throw in an oil shock and worldwide political turmoil...

    The war of all against all is clearly on the horizon now, like a giant tsunami wave, approaching grimly and resolutely, about to wash over us all.

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  3. I hate to tell Michael, but demonstrations are a joke. These guys LAUGH at demonstrations as the ultimate "demonstration" that protesters have no power and are putting it on public display.

    What WILL have effect? What comes next. When the bottom falls out, which it's about to, the gloves will come off, and we WILL find out who's really in charge. We may not like the answer, but we WILL find out either way.

    My prediction? Government crackdowns will win the day initially, but they'll prove increasingly ineffectual thereafter as the government weakens and the people's resolve stiffens.

    Eventually (which could be surprisingly immediately), the entire governmental edifice we've taken for granted all our lives is coming down. Think about it, once the dollar alone (among many other official symbols) collapses and becomes mere kindling, what reason will anyone at all have to pretend allegiance to Washington? No more taxes, no more government, no more civil and social services provided, no more anything except the haves and the have nots, and a whole lot of suppressed rage after years of theft by the elite plutocracy. Oh yeah, this one's got all-time historical disaster written all over it. And we ALL have a REAL LIVE part in the movie!

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  4. Evacuations begining now, China goes first. So, how far south is Okinawa?

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  5. Kathy,

    Okinawa is south of Alabama ... ;)

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  6. Thousands of times more radioactivity could be released on the world in the current Japan nuclear crisis than the Hiroshima bomb of WW II released:

    "In work for the State of Nevada, we estimated that 10 tons of irradiated (what the industry calls "spent") nuclear fuel was equivalent to 240 times the amount of cesium-137 released by the Hiroshima bomb. Ten tons is the amount of irradiated fuel that would be contained in a shipping container or cask used to transport the fuel. Why so much more cesium than the Hiroshima bomb? Because an atomic explosion occurs in milliseconds, but a nuclear reactor operates continuously for years. Many more fissions means much more fission products, including cesium You do the math. If Unit 4 operated for 35 years and produced 30 tons of irradiated fuel per year and each ton is equivalent to 24 times the amount of cesium-137 produced by the Hiroshima bomb, then each fuel pool could contain on the order of 24,000 times the amount of cesium-137 produced by the Hiroshima bomb, if all the produced irradiated fuel remains in the fuel pool .. " (Marvin Resnikoff).

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  7. And the nuke danger index is now up to 6 out of 7. Anyone doubt that officials were downplaying this on purpose to prevent the panic for as long as possible? Is government lying EVER a good thing, especially when lives are at stake? Seems like the Japanese have major issues in this regard, just like we do.

    Speaker of bald-faced liars:

    Fed Says Recovery Is Firm, Jobs and Inflation On The Rise

    Prediction: Unlike his predecessor Alan Greenspan before him, the lying pr**k Ben Bernanke will not escape the wrath of the masses when TS very shortly HTF. Old Ben might be smiling and joking right now, but he and his ignorant side kick Geithner are gonna find the going pretty rough very shortly, and I'd advise both to make sure their life insurance policies are paid in full before the meltdown begins. Even MOMCOM's got better sense than to stand up for these two charlatans, not that the resulting dollars will be worth anything anyway...

    As events all over the world are proving as we speak, when the masses finally realize that they have nothing, they very shortly thereafter realize they have nothing to lose either. That day's almost arrived...

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  8. The proverbial S is H'ing TF in Japan as we speak, as reactor #4 is apparently going up in smoke and wholesale evacuation of the area is finally beginning. It appears that worst case scenarios are all coming true - but even worse - that the Japanese government has suspected/known as much for some time now, and has merely been lying to its people - "for their own good" - of course! If the fallout begins to impinge on Tokyo and vicinity, which it almost certainly will, then OH BOY!, are the Japanese (and the world economy) in for some REAL fun then!

    And half way across the world, it's now becoming painfully evident that the US - you know, the "good guys" who ride in and save the day - are in on and clearly signaled the fix in Bahrain. In a story that was all over NPR this afternoon - you remember them, the ones whose federal budget is about to be eliminated if the GOP NeoNazi's get their way - it's now widely surmised that SecDef Gates' recent visit was merely a behind closed doors US approval for the ongoing military crackdown, all to protect Bahraini desert vacation properties no doubt.

    Yes indeed, boys and girls, the chips are beginning to fall in place now. Forget 2012. We've got have some serious global bullshit going down as we speak, and guess what? The fire's only beginning to get warm.

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  9. USS Washington?, 170 miles south of newk meltdown threat has moved away due to radiation alarm on ship going off.

    Volcano on west coast of Japan resumes blasting off.

    Experts in newk energy and safety claim the Japanese expierence is proof we need to build new reactors.

    Velvet leads an Inupiaq from Kotzebue under Burled Arches setting new record in the annual recreation of the Serum Run.
    http://www.adn.com/2011/03/15/1756664/kotzebues-baker-wins-iditarod.html# Go Green transportation!

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  10. Nice riffs.

    The showdown will be between the ecosystem and civilization.

    Civilization is scheduled to lose.

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