Friday, May 29, 2015

SUICIDES IN FUKUSHIMA ... JAPNESE GOVERNMENT GRABS LAND FROM DISPLACED CITIZENS

THE RADIATION AND CONTAMINATION THAT HAS CONTINUED FROM THE FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI #1 NUCLEAR PLANT HANGS LIKE THE PROVERBIAL SWORD OF DAMOCLES OVER THE HEADS OF ALL WHO WERE EVACUATED, AND, REALLY, ALL OF JAPAN. 

JAPAN SITS ASTRIDE ONE OF THE MOST SEISMICALLY ACTIVE FAULTS ON THIS PLANET.

JAPAN HAS ACTIVE AND AWAKENING VOLCANOES, FREQUENT "SUPER TYPHOONS", TSUNAMIS ARE WELL KNOWN THERE.

AND NOW IT HAS A RUNAWAY, MULTI-REACTOR NUCLEAR MELTDOWN ONGOING AFTER 51 LONG MONTHS, MORE THAN 4 YEARS, WITH NO END IN SIGHT, NO HOPE TO STOP THE DAILY POISONING OF THE ENVIRONMENT, NO PRESENTLY KNOWN WAY TO EVEN BEGIN A CLEANUP OF THE AREA . 

SOME CITIZENS JUST CAN'T STAND UP TO THE BLEAKNESS OF THEIR FUTURE, THE UNCERTAINTIES, THE CONSTANT BETRAYAL BY TEPCO AND GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS, THE UNENDING LIES AND COVERUPS, THE LOSS.

DEPRESSION TAKES ON A WHOLE NEW MEANING WHEN FACED WITH ALL THIS PREYING ON OVERSTRESSED HUMAN MINDS.

AN ENTIRE WAY OF LIFE FOR THESE PEOPLE IS GONE FOREVER, HOMES THAT WERE OCCUPIED FOR GENERATIONS AS WELL AS NEW HOMES ARE ALL UNINHABITABLE, THE LAND THEY LOVED IS IMPOSSIBLE TO LIVE ON SAFELY.

SOME LOST EVERYTHING, INCLUDING FAMILY MEMBERS. 
THERE ARE STILL OVER 15,000 MISSING PERSONS FROM THE EARTHQUAKE/TSUNAMI DISASTER THERE. 


SOME SIMPLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO FACE ALL THIS, SO THEY DECIDE NOT TO...THEY CHOOSE SUICIDE.   



AUG. 2014   
Officials said Iwate and Miyagi, the two other prefectures hit hardest by the earthquake and tsunami, had fewer disaster-related suicides.
The number was 30 in Iwate and 37 in Miyagi.

Since 10 people in Fukushima took their lives in 2011, the number has risen steadily, reaching 13 in 2012 and 23 in 2013.
As of July, 10 suicides in the prefecture had been recorded this year.

Factors such as suicide notes and relatives’ statements are used to help determine whether 3/11 contributed to a person’s death."

THE PROBLEM WITH THESE STATISTICS IS (1) THEY ARE GOVERNMENT STATISTICS, AND THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT HAS DECLARED THAT EVEN NEW CANCERS, BIRTH DEFECTS, RADIATION SICKNESS, ET AL, MUST NOT POINT TO FUKUSHIMA FALLOUT! 

NEITHER WOULD SUICIDES BE ALLOWED TO BE REPORTED, WOULD THEY?
AND, (2) SOME FAMILIES MAY NOT REPORT SUICIDES BECAUSE OF THE SOCIAL STIGMA INVOLVED, ESPECIALLY IF A DEATH CAN BE BLAMED ON SOMETHING "NATURAL" OR "ACCIDENTAL". 

WE'VE ALL SEEN FAMILIES IN DENIAL AFTER A FAMILY MEMBER TAKES HIS/HER OWN LIFE.

Court rules TEPCO liable for damages in woman’s suicide
September 04, 2014
"In the first such ruling by any court, Fukushima district court ruled on August 26 , 2014, that TEPCO was responsible for causing one of at least 130 suicides linked to the March 2011 meltdowns. 

WHAT HAPPENED?
As a result of the regional radiation contamination, Hamako Watanabe, 58, was forced to evacuate from Yamakiya with her husband and their children. 
The government assigned parents and children to different locations
The family lost its livelihood and its home.
In July 2011, Hamako Watanabe set herself on fire and killed herself.
In May 2013, her surviving family sued TEPCO for $900,000. 
The court awarded them about $490,000. 

Previous, similar suicide lawsuits had been settled through pre-trial mediation. After this decision, TEPCO issued an apology."
AN APOLOGY?  

BUT NOT AN APOLOGY THAT INCLUDED THE FACT THAT TEPCO KNEW FULL WELL THAT THEIR DAIICHI PLANTS LIE RIGHT OVER A MAJOR FAULT WHICH HAS SPAT OUT HIGH MAGNITUDE EARTHQUAKES HISTORICALLY, LONG BEFORE NUCLEAR ENERGY OR WEAPONS WERE KNOWN, AND THAT, WITH THOSE EARTHQUAKES, THERE HAD BEEN HORRIFIC TSUNAMIS LIKE THE ONE OF 3/11. 
ONLY THE GREEDY WOULD DENY THAT, RECOGNIZE THE HAZARDS OF BUILDING A MULTI-REACTOR NUCLEAR FACILITY OVER SUCH A FAULT, AND THEN BUILD THOSE TWO PLANTS ANYWAY.
[THERE IS A DAIICHI #2 FACILITY, NEARBY.]

THEY SCRIMPED ON COST, SAFETY AND QUALITY AND LOOK WHAT THAT DID!
TEPCO ALSO KNEW THAT THE #1 PLANT WOULD SIT ATOP A MAJOR AQUIFER AND ANY SMALL LEAK COULD CONTAMINATE WATER SUPPLIES MILES AWAY!  
TEPCO KNEW THAT DAIICHI COULD CONTAMINATE TOKYO'S DRINKING WATER, POISON MILLIONS OF PEOPLE!

AN INDEPENDENT PANEL OF EXPERTS CHARGED TEPCO WITH FAILURE
TO CONSIDER ALL THE ABOVE BEFORE BUILDING THOSE PLANTS, AND ALSO
FOUND THAT THE DAIICHI MANAGEMENT DID ALMOST NOTHING TO WARN
RESIDENTS OR WORKERS OF THE INITIAL MELTDOWNS OR EXPLOSIONS.  

IN ABOUT A MONTH, THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA ALMOST STOPPED REPORTING ANYTHING ABOUT THE FATES OF THE SURVIVORS, THE DISPLACED RESIDENTS OF FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE AND SURROUNDING AREAS. 
NONE REPORTED ON THE UPSWING IN SUICIDES IN APRIL, MAY, JUNE...
IT WAS AS IF THE WHOLE WORLD CHOSE TO IGNORE THE PEOPLE, IGNORE WHAT WAS HAPPENING TO THE PEOPLE.

HERE IS WHAT WAS HAPPENING WHEN NO ONE WATCHED, OR CARED...

Spring, Sakura and Suicide
"As if to take advantage of the precise timing of the media evacuation, the municipal government of Minami-soma city, Fukushima Prefecture began implementing a blueprint planned some time earlier.  In the dead of night on Monday April 16th, the city lifted the no-entry regulations and changed evacuation zone designations that had stood since March 12, 2011.  The decision allowed people to return to the district of Odaka and some parts of the Haramachi district.   Watanabe Ichie, a volunteer from Tokyo who witnessed the scene near the roadblock into the zone observed that: “several police vehicles with flashing red lights arrived after 23:00 on April 15th. By 0:15, all the vehicles had gone”. “After that, all that remained was the light from the traffic signals.”  The following morning, cars moved freely inside the once-prohibited area.
The 56-year-old mayor of Minami-soma has been single all his life and has no children.
In interviews, he tends to downplay the risk of radiation. In the first week of May 2011, he even joked:  “Fukushima is not the same as Hiroshima or Nagasaki. No one even knows for sure how many people died as a result of the Chernobyl disaster. Regardless of radiation, the cancer rate in our world is quite high. Yet people appear to be afraid of radiation, which is like a ghost that never appears.”
The city reopened the no-entry zone in May, insisting that radiation levels in Odaka and some parts of Haramachi had fallen enough to be safe.  However, some residents are unhappy with this decision. Shibaguchi Takashi (42), a former acupuncturist and the father of a 6-year-old daughter Nana, refuses to return to his home inside the former exclusion zone, preferring his temporary accommodation.  “The city says that the radiation level is completely safe, but when my neighbors checked the radiation level under the eaves of my house, it was over two microsieverts.” (henceforth, μSv) He added:  “I am sure that radioactive materials released immediately after the explosion are unchanged on the leaking roof. I believe it is too dangerous to go back there.”
Even if it were safe, Odaka has other problems: “There is no reconstruction of public facilities and infrastructure, and I wonder how we can make a living there.”  

The area is like a wasteland.  There is almost no life, most facilities are closed, the shopping street is dead and everything has basically frozen in time since March 11, 2011.  

In many places, water is leaking as the tsunami and earthquake shifted the ground. Debris from the disaster is scattered everywhere, and houses, shrines and infrastructure are badly damaged.  

April is a symbolic month in Japan because thousands of students enter new schools. Some public schools in the city that were closed amidst fears of high radiation are now able to reopen, based on the results of the local governmental reports on decontamination.  

But Miura Bansyo, a Buddhist priest and anti-nuclear activist, has disputed government claims that schools are safe.  He and other members of his NGO confirmed radiation of 2 – 9 uSv per hour at a number of spots on the school route around the Ishigami Daiichi Elementary School in February 2012.
Disregarding his warnings, the elementary school was reopened on February 27th, accommodating hundreds of pupils.  

Suzuki Tokiko (64), who lives near the Yonomori Park, detected 0.97 uSv per hour there with her own dosimeter on April 20th. When she informed the city, she says they responded that “The radiation level is low and you can enjoy cherry blossom viewing without problems.”

CHILDREN PLAY THERE.

After the crisis began on April 19th, 2011, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology announced that the amount of radiation a child can be exposed to in one year is 20 millisieverts.

This figure is 20 times higher than the former exposure ceiling of 1 millisievert per year. 
Dr. Koide Hiroaki, assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Nuclear Reactor Experiment Research Center, criticized those standards in a discussion with the author in January:  “Japan is supposed to be a law-abiding country. So, legally, we should not expose ordinary people to more than 1 millisievert a year”, he said.
He explained, “I am considered ‘a radiation worker’ since I work at a radiation research laboratory at Kyoto University. The upper limit of radiation exposure per year for me is 20 millisieverts."
“The government is pushing this standard on ordinary people, including children. That is a very high exposure level that goes beyond the imagination,” he said angrily.
In the beautiful season of spring, under a bed of Sakura petals, there is a hidden facet of life here that the Japan media and the state do little to publicize — the surging suicide rate among evacuees.
Local counselors in northeast Japan agree that suicide cases among the evacuees in temporary houses is rising due to their isolated and hopeless situation after being evacuated from their communities.
Many people in the devastated areas are suspicious of the official statistics. Has the government fabricated the figure to avoid panic?

Why is the suicide rate in Tohoku so low despite the fact that articles even in the mainstream media have highlighted the problem of suicides in temporary housing?
Domae Syogo, who heads a local NGO called  “Kyodo-No-Tsudoi Net” in Iwaki city, 40 kms from the radiation exclusion zone, does not believe the government’s figure. He reports that at least 50 people have taken their own lives in temporary houses in Iwaki city. The elderly are the most vulnerable. “In most cases, the evacuees live in isolation and lack communication with others. They choose to die by starvation, refusing to eat.”   Domae himself has been a witness to inspections conducted after the suicide of an evacuee.
Domae says that the official suicide figures have been fabricated to save face.  “Nobody in the bureaucracy wants to take responsibility for the deaths of these people. In order to conceal their fault, police and city officials press hard for cover-ups, such as by classifying the suicides as accidents or death from sickness.”
Suicide cases are expected to grow.
Dr. Noda Fumitaka, a psychiatrist at Yotsuya Yui Clinic in Tokyo, explains why.  “In the first year after the disaster, people do not have enough room to consider their own psychological health as they are striving so hard to restore their material lives to where they were before the disaster.  What they lost returns to them with the strongest impact at around the first-year anniversary.”
“Mental care, especially during this crucial period is vital and we need to take care of these people,” he stresses. At the same time, the number of volunteers coming to Fukushima and northeast Japan has plummeted and many volunteer groups face bankruptcy and the shutdown of their activities for want of donations and staff.
A Crime Wave in the Wake of Disaster
Behind the doors, in Iwaki city, there is another story that rarely appears openly in the media. Violent crimes conducted by nuclear workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Iwaki city is the staging area for workers from the plant.
 Every three months, hundreds of new faces have been coming to the city in rotation; the average period that a worker can work on site is about three months due to the cap on radiation exposure.
[WORKERS ARE LIMITED TO 3 MONTHS EXPOSURE, BUT NOT THE CHILDREN AND ADULTS LIVING THERE!] 

Fujinami Keiko, a mother of a high school girl, explained why journalists have not publicized these cases: “The Japanese media do not want to escalate the confrontation against TEPCO, a major sponsor, by picking up on the crimes of their subcontracted workers.”   
LIES ABOUT CONTAMINATION
Possibly angry at this situation, on April 21st a 62-year-old nuclear worker broke the silence on the continued leakage of contaminated water from Fukushima Daiichi.  Speaking to me, he requested anonymity for fear of losing his job. He supervises a construction site aimed at building a new facility to extract radioactive materials such as cesium and strontium from the contaminated water used to cool the plant’s crippled reactors. He revealed that the current facility removes only cesium and that other radioactive materials such as strontium cannot be cleaned up.
After being used to cool the reactors, the water contains massive amounts of radioactive substances and is put into the water-processing facility so it can be recycled for use as a coolant. “Everyone there knows that the amount of water is huge but does not speak about it. Anyone who works there understands that nothing can be done except to leak the water!” he stressed. "Everyone criticizes North Korea for its missiles. But what about Japanese morality? The contamination will spread all over the world, reaching to Kamchatka, Hawaii and the U.S. soon,” he added.
Toward the end of our conversation, he said, “You know, in Japan, there is ‘honne’ (honest feeling) and ‘tatemae’ (polite-face). “Our tatemae is that we are doing our utmost to stop the leakage of contamination, and our honnne is that we are dumping massive amounts of contaminated water into the ocean.”
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in December announced a new standard for safe drinking water of 10 becquerels of cesium per kilogram.  The ministry had previously set a provisional standard of 200 becquerels per kilogram (cesium), 300 bec (iodine), 20 bec (uranium) and 1 bec (plutonium) for drinking water, according to the official press release on March 17th.
 [Makiko Segawa, "After The Media Has Gone: Fukushima, Suicide and the Legacy of 3.11," The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 19, No. 2, May 7, 2012.]  
WE OFTEN READ ABOUT POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER.  
SURELY ALL WHO SURVIVED THE MULTIPLE CATASTROPHES ON 3/11 COULD SUFFER FROM THAT.
SURELY, FACING SUCH DAILY CHAOS AND UNCERTAINTY AS THE REPORTER RELAYED TO US THE PEOPLE ARE EXPOSED TO, SUICIDES WOULD SKYROCKET.

WE MAY NEVER KNOW HOW MANY, BUT ONE SUICIDE THAT MAY HAVE BEEN PREVENTABLE, HAD TEPCO AND THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT BEEN HONEST, RESPONDED HONORABLY WITH GREAT CARE FOR THOSE CITIZENS, IS ONE SUICIDE TOO MANY!

THE JAPANESE HEALTH MINISTRY OBVIOUSLY DOES NOT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE HEALTH OF THOSE SENT BACK INTO CONTAMINATED AREAS TO DIE SLOWLY. 
WHO CAN HELP THESE PEOPLE?
SOMEONE MUST!

FOR ANOTHER LOOK AT THE REALITY OF LIFE FOR THESE SURVIVORS, PLEASE READ
The faces of Fukushima's fallout
"Almost everyone in the town of Namie heeded the evacuation orders.
Masami 
 Yoshizawa is one of the few people still living there today. Although he made the decision to stay, he doubts that many of his neighbors will return. “How do you change this most contaminated area into towns where people can live?” he asked. “Our towns have turned into Chernobyl. …And if people return, what will they do? They won’t return.”After testing positive for internal exposure to cesium 134 and 137, Masami has undergone careful monitoring at a radiation research hospital.
The scale of it all is difficult to swallow. But America Tonight traveled to the region and met some of the individuals who are most affected by, and affecting, the aftermath. Meet the people fighting to rebuild, the workers decontaminating the land, the families too terrified to return home, the advocates chanting “never again” and the people who have profited off it all."

HOW CAN ANYONE GO BACK WHO KNOWS WHAT'S STILL GOING ON?
TEPCO AND THE GOVERNMENT CONTINUE THE LIES AND COVERUP!
Fukushima Diary reports that “Tepco and the government of Japan have been saying though molten fuel had a core-concrete reaction in [the] pedestal, but [has] stopped sinking in the concrete.” Now Tepco is starting to admit the fuel may be “outside of [the] pedestal", Tepco needs to investigate the sub-basement floor of Reactor 1. It is reported that the feasibility of inspection would be confirmed in the end of 2015”. 
Maybe they are now getting ready to admit it is indeed outside the concrete floor."

NOT YET.
THEY MAY NEVER ADMIT IT, BUT THERE IS A WAY TO FIND OUT AND TEPCO BLEW THAT OFF!

IT'S CALLED MUON COSMIC RAY SCANNERS.

TEPCO SAID THAT COSTS TOO MUCH AND THEY ARE OUT OF MONEY.
FROM BEFORE DAIICHI #1 WAS BUILT UNTIL NOW, TEPCO HAS TRIED TO "GET OUT CHEAPLY", MAKE MORE PROFITS, ACCEPT SHODDINESS INSTEAD OF QUALITY, AND DAMN THE LIVES THAT HAS COST AND WILL COST! 

AS NANCY FOUST OF SIMPLY INFO EXPLAINED:

"At some point the true state of Daiichi will have to be made public. The true state must be known and understood in order to do the needed research towards whatever resolution is determined to be the end goal. Right now that is fuel retrieval so the buildings could eventually be torn down. The muon scans are a step in that direction. They can use those to establish if any fuel is left in the reactors or not.

 If you remember back to 2011 TEPCO was insisting that most of the fuel was still in the reactor vessels. As more data is completed TEPCO is forced to admit reality.
The next step after the muon scans for units 1-3 is to put the Hitachi shape changing robot into containment. If that goes as planned it will tell them where the fuel is, or isn’t. That is going to be the huge bit of data. Once the fuel is located and disclosed the extent of the meltdowns will have to be admitted. IMHO this is why LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) is so intent on getting reactors restarted right now."  

BUT TEPCO SOMEHOW FOUND A WAY TO CONDUCT A MUON SCAN...JUST ONE PROBLEM:
THEY "FORGOT" TO TELL TOSHIBA TO SCAN THE BOTTOM OF THE REACTOR TO SEE IF THE FUEL HAD BURNED THROUGH INTO THE GROUND.

LATER, TOSHIBA SAID THAT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN DANGEROUS TO ITS EQUIPMENT AND THOSE WORKING ON THE WALL TO SCAN THE BOTTOM OF THE REACTOR, BUT ASSURED THE PRESS THAT THEY FOUND NO FUEL IN  THE SCANNED REACTORS.
THE REACTORS ARE EMPTY!
WHERE IS THE CORIUM?


AND NOW THE LAND GRABS BEGIN!

NOW THE GOVERNMENT THERE CONSPIRES TO HIDE THE EVIDENCE ON THE VERY LANDS OF THOSE WHO ARE SUFFERING THE MOST!  

IF THE LANDOWNERS REFUSE TO SELL, JUST LIKE HERE IN THE U.S., THE GOVERNMENT CAN EITHER TAKE THEIR LAND OR CLAIM THEY MUST "LEASE" IT AT A CRIMINALLY LOW  PRICE.
September 29, 2014
Landowners near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have voiced frustration at the government’s plan to buy up their properties to build intermediate storage facilities for radioactive soil and other waste.
Ministry officials said they plan to purchase land at around half of its value before the nuclear accident.
The officials said compensation for housing would depend on the age of buildings. They said landowners who decline to sell but allow usage of their plots would be paid 70 percent of the purchase price."

WHY NOT SECURE A PERMANENT "WASTE STORAGE SITE" NOW, NOT MORE TEMPORARY STORAGE? 
WHY CONTAMINATE YET OTHER TEMPORARY SITES WHEN A PERMANENT SITE COULD BE HAD NOW?
OR CAN ANY SUCH "PERMANENT" SITE BE HAD IN A NATION WITH SO LITTLE LAND MASS, SO LITTLE ROOM FOR SUCH A SITE WITHOUT ROBBING PERHAPS MORE INFLUENTIAL, OR URBAN CITIZENS? 

These thousands and thousands of bags all hold radioactive waste and contaminated soil. 
They’re piled up across Fukushima Prefecture at about 900 temporary storage sites.
The storage facilities will hold the waste for about 30 years. 
Central government officials are still trying to find a permanent storage site outside of Fukushima."

[I STRONGLY SUGGEST THE BAGS BE PERMANENTLY STORED IN THE ANAL ORIFICES OF EVERY TEPCO EXECUTIVE, EVERY AGREEABLE ABE STAFF MEMBER WHO LOVES TO BOW TO TEPCO, THE 'HIGH-UPS AT THE NUCLEAR ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION (NERC), THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY (IAEA), AND ALL INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WHO REFUSE TO STEP IN AND GET THIS CLEANED UP, NO MATTER HOW WE HAVE TO DO IT.]

BUT THEY WANT TO STORE ALL THE WASTE AS FAR FROM TOKYO AS POSSIBLE, AND FAR FROM THEIR HOMES, THOSE INVOLVED IN THE UNENDING POISONING OF THE PLANET! 
DUMP IT ON THOSE ALREADY HOMELESS AND SICK AND SUFFERING! 
THEY'LL STORE IT "SAFELY", DON'T WORRY!
THEY "PROMISE"...AGAIN.
 

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF TONS OF WASTE AND GROWING DAILY. 
WE DON'T KNOW HOW SECURE THESE TEMPORARY SITES ARE, NOR IF THESE FIGURES ARE CORRECT. 
TEPCO HAS LIED SO MUCH IN THE PAST, AS HAS THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT, THAT THEIR OWN CITIZENS WON'T TRUST THEM ANYMORE, SO, WHY WOULD WE TRUST ANYTHING THEY HAVE A HAND IN?

THIS SHOULD BE AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERN, AN INTERNATIONAL OUTCRY FOR HELP FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO DO AS THEIR GOVERNMENT TELLS THEM.  

MANY ARE TOO POOR TO LEAVE, TO ESCAPE, TO GO SOMEWHERE SAFE.
AND MANY CLING TO HOPE THAT SOMEHOW, SOME DAY, THEY CAN SAFELY RETURN TO THE LAND SO MANY GENERATIONS OF THEIR FAMILIES LIVED ON.

THOSE WHO LOSE THAT HOPE ARE ALL IN DANGER OF SUICIDAL THOUGHTS.

THE LEAST THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT CAN DO IS PROVIDE COUNSEL, HELP, SOME WAY TO REACH OUT AND FIND A WAY TO EVACUATE AS MANY AS NEED EVACUATION, REMOVE THE PARENTS WITH CHILDREN, SAVE LIVES!

SAVE LIVES, NOT KILL THEM ALL! 


THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS ABOUT THE MAFIA THERE, THE ONES CREATING MORE PROBLEMS FOR SURVIVORS TO COPE WITH, BUT DOES NOTHING TO STOP THIS EITHER!
"The Japanese mafia, known as the Yakuza, is one of the largest criminal organizations in the world, and has craftily infiltrated the Fukushima cleanup industry. With hundreds of subcontractors that make it hard to monitor the money trail, most of the estimated 50 Yakuza gangs in Fukushima leapt to the task of recruiting workers – sometimes through unseemly means, like rounding up the homeless. They can then skim their wages, keep the profits and even violently retaliate against those who object." 
SUICIDES UP IN JAPAN?
WE CAN SEE WHY! 
WHAT I CANNOT SEE IS WHO CAN HELP THOSE WHOM THEJAPANESE GOVERNMENT KEEPS KILLING! 






FOR FURTHER READING, VIEWING:

~RETURN TO FUKUSHIMA

Health studis explode the myth of the ‘safe’ nuclear power plant

 ~ From a Woods Hole report :
The release of radioactivity from Fukushima–both as atmospheric fallout and direct discharges to the ocean–represents the largest accidental release of radiation to the ocean in history.
Concentrations of cesium-137, a radioactive isotope with a 30-year half-life, at the plants’ discharge points to the ocean peaked at more than 50 million times normal/previous levels.
Concentrations 18 miles offshore were higher than those measured in the ocean after the Chernobyl accident 25 years ago.
~http://nuclear-news.net/2015/04/06/
~http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/01/04/japan-nuclear-disaster-update-19/
~http://on.aol.com/video/suicide-in-fukushima--the-unspoken-legacy-of-a-disaster-518380935

~http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-crisis-continues-worse-than-first-reported-effects-more-lingering-than-hiroshima-or-nagasaki/5399322

~http://ecowatch.com/2013/12/11/japans-new-fukushima-fascism/

KILLER DRONES , UNREGULATED AND AUTONOMOUS

SOME ARE TINY, SOME ARE VERY REALISTIC IN THEIR MIMICRY OF BIRDS AND INSECTS, BUT ALL ARE CAPABLE OF CARRYING SOME TYPE OF WEAPONRY, WHETHER A DROP OF POISONOUS SUBSTANCE OR AN EXPLOSIVE.

NOW, THEY'RE BEING TAUGHT TO THINK AND REACT ALL ON THEIR OWN.


ARE WE READY FOR AUTONOMOUS DRONES?
CAN WE TRUST SUCH THINGS NOT TO GO WRONG?

                                          DARPA'S HUMMINGBIRD DRONE


                                         UNDERWATER ATTACK DRONES
x

                                                        "BUG" DRONES

                                  Swarm robots cooperate with a flying drone

THE NEW WEAPONS RACE   DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) HAS BEEN HASTILY DEVELOPING TWO NEW TYPES OF DRONES AND BOTH WILL BE AUTONOMOUS KILLERS, CAPABLE OF HUNTING IN PACKS AND MAKING DECISIONS "ON THEIR OWN".

THE SMALLEST IS ABLE TO DELIVER A LETHAL LOAD OF EXPLOSIVES STRONG ENOUGH TO "BLOW A PERSON'S HEAD OFF", AND THESE ROBOT DRONES CAN HUNT IN PACKS QUICKLY AND EFFECTIVELY IN URBAN AND RURAL SETTINGS.

AS DARPA DEVELOPS THESE, THEY WILL BE ALLOWED TO "MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS", AND THAT IS WHERE A LOT CAN GO TERRIBLY WRONG, VERY QUICKLY.

THIS "TREND" IN WEAPONRY HAS ALREADY BEGUN, AND ANYONE WHO DOES NOT BELIEVE WE ARE IN A NEW 'ARMS RACE' TO CREATE THE MOST DANGEROUS SUCH WEAPONS, AND DO SO FASTER THAN ANYONE ELSE, JUST DOES NOT KNOW OUR MILITARY AT ALL, NOR DO YOU KNOW OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

GIVEN A 'PANDORA'S BOX', OUR MILITARY WILL OPEN IT EVERY SINGLE TIME. 


FROM AN ARTICLE IN A UK NEWSPAPER:
(There are several videos in the article.)

"The U.S. Air Force is developing tiny unmanned drones that will fly in swarms, hover like bees, crawl like spiders and even sneak up on unsuspecting targets and execute them with lethal precision. 
The Air Vehicles Directorate, a research arm of the Air Force, has released a computer-animated video outlining the the future capabilities of Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs). The project promises to revolutionize war by down-sizing the combatants.

The project, which is based at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was revealed in the March issue of the National Geographic magazine.

The promotional video begins with a swarm of tiny drones be dropped on a city from a passing plane. 
The drones will work in concert to patch together a wide, detailed view of the battlefield - singling out individual targets without losing sight of the broader scene. 

The video demonstrates how MAVs could be used to sneak up behind unsuspecting targets and kill them with a single, lethal shot."
IN THIS NEW RACE FOR DOMINANCE AND ONE-UPMANSHIP, "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE" WINNER, AND ALL OTHERS WILL BE LOSERS.
NO ONE WANTS TO LOSE THIS RACE!

WE'VE BEEN HEADED IN THIS DIRECTION FOR QUITE SOME TIME NOW, THIS "ROBOT AUTONOMY", THIS "INDEPENDENT DECISION MAKING" BY DRONES AND OTHER ROBOTICS. 
BUT AS STUART RUSSELL, COMPUTER SCIENTIST AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE RESEARCHER AT BERKELEY RECENTLY WROTE IN THE JOURNAL 'NATURE':    

"Technologies have reached a point at which the deployment of such systems is -- practically, if not legally -- feasible within years, not decades."


These weapons "have been described as the third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms," Russell wrote.
Lethal autonomous weapons systems could find and attack their targets without human intervention. 
For example, such systems could include armed drones that are sent to kill enemies in a city, or swarms of autonomous boats sent to attack ships.
Some people argue that robots may not be able to distinguish between enemy soldiers and civilians, and so may accidentally kill or injure innocent people.
Should we support or oppose the development of deadly, autonomous robots?
There are already artificial intelligence systems and robots in existence that are capable of doing one of the following: sensing their environments, moving and navigating, planning ahead, or making decisions. "They just need to be combined," Russell said.  

Already, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the branch of the U.S. Department of Defense charged with advancing military technologies, has two programs that could cause concern, Russell said. The agency's Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) project aims to develop tiny, unmanned aerial vehicles designed to travel quickly in urban areas.
And the Collaborative Operations in Denied Environment (CODE) project involves the development of drones that could work together to find and destroy targets, "just as wolves hunt in coordinated packs," Jean-Charles Ledé, DARPA's program manager, said in a statement.
Current international humanitarian laws do not address the development of lethal robotic weapons, Russell pointed out.
But without a treaty, there's the potential for a robotic arms race to develop, Russell warned. Such a race would only stop "when you run up against the limits of physics," such as the range, speed and payload of autonomous systems.
Developing tiny robots that are capable of killing people isn't easy, but it's doable.
 "With 1 gram [0.03 ounces] of high-explosive charge, you can blow a hole in someone's head with an insect-size robot," Russell said. 
"Is this the world we want to create?" If so, "I don't want to live in that world," he said.
Other experts agree that humanity needs to be careful in developing autonomous weapons."  
"CODE intends to focus in particular on developing and demonstrating improvements in collaborative autonomy: the capability for groups of UAS to work together under a single human commander’s supervision. 

The unmanned vehicles would continuously evaluate themselves and their environment and present recommendations for UAV team actions to the mission supervisor who would approve, disapprove or direct the team to collect more data. 
Using collaborative autonomy, CODE-enabled unmanned aircraft would find targets and engage them as appropriate under established rules of engagement, leverage nearby CODE-equipped systems with minimal supervision, and adapt to dynamic situations such as attrition of friendly forces or the emergence of unanticipated threats.

CODE’s envisioned improvements to collaborative autonomy would help transform UAS operations from requiring multiple people to operate each UAS to having one person who is able to command and control six or more unmanned vehicles simultaneously. 

Commanders could mix and match different systems with specific capabilities that suit individual missions instead of depending on a single UAS that integrates all needed capabilities but whose loss would be potentially catastrophic. 

This flexibility could significantly increase the mission- and cost-effectiveness of legacy assets as well as reduce the development times and costs of future systems.
“Just as wolves hunt in coordinated packs with minimal communication, multiple CODE-enabled unmanned aircraft would collaborate to find, track, identify and engage targets..." 

WHAT COULD GO WRONG, EH? 
WHAT...COULD...GO VERY, VERY WRONG?

APPLIED TECHNOLOGY...TRUST IT OR FEAR IT?
 "Japan and Korea plan to deploy humanoid robots to care for the elderly, while the United States already fields thousands of robot warriors on the modern battlefield. 

Artificial limbs, organs and bionic eyes
Check. 
Man and machine increasingly look alike, and at some point the difference may not exist. 
But on a brighter note, humans won't worry so much about robots once they've merged with them. 

ROBOTS have brought their tireless efficiency to everything from assembly line work to humdrum gene sequencing in labs, and have appeared in growing numbers on real-life battlefields — although the latter can lead to the different problem if robots stage a rebellion, or even just have a weapons malfunction. 

For now, robots complement rather than replace elements of the human workforce and armed forces due to limits on their intelligence. But they're evolving quickly, and a few have even begun 
tinkering with science themselves.A science-savvy robot called Adam has successfully developed and tested its first scientific hypothesis, all without human intervention. 


Thousands of drones and ground robots have been deployed by many nations, and particularly the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

An automatic antiaircraft gun killed human soldiers on its own when it malfunctioned during a South African training exercise. 

Military researchers refer to "Terminator" scenarios, and seriously discuss how armed robots are changing the rules and ways of modern war.

Great Britain has established a network of satellites for the purpose of coordinating all those drones and other military assets. It shares the same name as a certain villainous artificial intelligence that dominates the "Terminator" movies — Skynet.


TELEPRESENCE
WE, ALL OF US USING THE INTERNET, HAVE ATTAINED "TELEPRESENCE"...WE ARE 'VIRTUALLY' WHERE WE ARE NOT. 


FOR EXAMPLE, WE ARE HERE IN THE TEA ROOM, BUT WE AREN'T.

WITH THE CLICK OF A MOUSE, WE CAN BE HIGH ABOVE EARTH, LOOKING DOWN WITH THE CREW OF THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION...BUT WE AREN'T REALLY THERE, EITHER.


TELEPRESENCE.... WE CAN BE WHERE WE AREN'T, BUT WE AREN'T ACTUALLY WHERE WE ARE. 

DON'T THINK ABOUT THAT TOO LONG...IT GETS MORE THAN A LITTLE CREEPY! 


"Developing a virtual human is the greatest challenge of this century," said John Parmentola, U.S. Army director for research and laboratory management.

Marsella and other researchers working with Parmentola have even floated the idea of someday testing their AI (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE) in online video games, where thousands of human-controlled characters already run around. 

That would essentially turn games such as "World of Warcraft" into a huge so-called Turing Test that would determine whether human players could tell that they were chatting with AI."

COULD WE TELL?
SHOULD WE ALLOW THIS TYPE TECHNOLOGY TO PROCEED?

IS THERE ANY WAY TO STOP IT NOW, IF WE WANTED TO? 

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

PEER-REVIEWED STUDIES FAIL...AGAIN

IT WASN'T THAT LONG AGO I DID A BLOG ABOUT THE FALLIBILITY OF PEER-REVIEWED STUDIES AND THE JOURNALS WHO PUBLISHED THEM.
[SEE THAT BLOG <HERE>]

AT THE TIME, ONLY A FEW HAD COME OUT VERY PUBLICLY TO ADMIT THE FALLIBILITY OF SUCH STUDIES AND JOURNALS, BUT THE ONES WHO DID SO HAD SHONE A LIGHT ON THE EASE OF TRICKERY, HOW SIMPLE IT IS TO "FOOL SOME OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME", AND BRAVELY SHOWED US THE FACTS.

TODAY, AFTER A FEW DAYS OF "MEDIA STORM" ANOTHER SUCH STUDY BIT THE DUST IN A VERY BIG WAY, AND NOW SEEMS LIKE EVERYONE IS JUMPING ON THE BANDWAGON TO EXPOSE PEER REVIEW AS QUESTIONABLE, TO SAY THE LEAST.

IVAN ORANSKY OF 'RETRACTION WATCH' SAID TO CBS NEWS:
 "If this story, because [of] the amount of attention it's getting, helps reporters, in particular, to think twice about covering the latest study that sounds a bit too good to be true, the whole kerfuffle -- whatever the downsides of it are -- [it] has accomplished something."  


He estimates there are at least 500 retractions a year, up more than tenfold since 2001. Stunningly, about two-thirds of these retractions are due to  misconduct on the part of the researchers, including faking data and  plagiarism. That averages out to one retraction a day attributable to dishonest  reporting by scientists.  
And, Oransky pointed out, that's only the ones who get caught.  
"The number of people who are convicted of a crime does not necessarily reflect the number of people who have committed a crime," he told CBS News.  
In an op-ed in The New York Times Friday, Oransky and Marcus wrote, "Retractions can be good things, since even scientists often fail to acknowledge their mistakes, preferring instead to allow erroneous findings simply to wither away in the back alleys of unreproducible literature. But they don't surprise those of us who are familiar with how science works; we're surprised only that retractions aren't even more frequent."   
The latest controversy began in December, when a political science graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, named Michael LaCour published a study in the prestigious journal Science that found that gay canvassers were more effective than straight pollsters in effecting long-term change in voters' opinions on gay marriage.   
Last week, two researchers hoping to replicate his findings unearthed inconsistencies in LaCour's study that cast doubt on his methods. In light of their investigation, LaCour's coauthor, Columbia University professor Donald P. Green, wrote to Science requesting a retraction.  
"Michael LaCour's failure to produce the raw data coupled with the other concerns noted above undermines the credibility of the findings," he wrote. "I am deeply embarrassed by this turn of events and apologize to the editors, reviewers, and readers of Science."  
That day, Science published a so-called "expression of concern," something Oransky said journals do not do lightly.  
It said, in part: "Science is urgently working toward the appropriate resolution, while ensuring that a fair process is followed. In the meantime, Science is publishing this Editorial Expression of Concern to alert our readers to the fact that serious questions have been raised about the validity of findings in the LaCour and Green paper."  
Speaking about [the} impending retraction decision, Oransky said, "We should be concerned about this and it should force us to think about the incentives that scientists are working under and whether or not peer review is equipped to pick up misconduct and fraud."

NO, NO IT IS NOT EQUIPPED TO PICK UP FRAUD.
ONLY WHEN OTHERS TRY TO REPLICATE A STUDY CAN SUCH FALLACIES, SUCH MANIPULATIONS AND OUTRIGHT LIES BE TRULY UNCOVERED. 
BY REPEATED STUDIES, ALL STUDIES CAN BE VERIFIED OR DISPROVEN. 

TO TAKE JUST ONE STUDY AS FACT IS INHERENTLY STUPID OF ANYONE WHO DOES SO. 
"THE JOURNAL SCIENCE" IS NO EXCEPTION.

AS I SAID IN THE PREVIOUS BLOG, I COULD "CREATE" A STUDY THAT SHOWS PIGS CAN FLY AND CONVINCE THE MASSES IT'S TRUE!
AT LEAST, UNTIL OTHERS TRY IT AND SHOW ME TO BE A FRAUD. 

THEN AGAIN, MAYBE A COHORT, A "PARTNER IN CRIME" WILL SWEAR HE/SHE REPLICATED MY "FINDINGS", AND, TOGETHER, WE SCAM THE WHOLE WORLD! 

AND MAYBE MANY OF LIKE MINDS WOULD ALSO VOW THEY, TOO, DUPLICATED EVERY STEP OF MY STUDY, AND, YES,PIGS CAN FLY!

IT IS AS SIMPLE TO DO AS THAT! 

IT HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE MANY TIMES, SOMETIMES TAKING DECADES TO SORT OUT, TO UNCOVER, TO SHOW HOW LUDICROUS A "STUDY" IT WAS! 

PEER-REVIEWED...WHICH PEERS?
WHOSE PEERS? 

LIKE A CARTOON SHOWED THAT I UPLOADED ON THE OTHER BLOG, THE "PEER" LOOKING AT THE PAPER FROM A DISTANCE, SAYING, "YUP, LOOKS GOOD TO ME!", THAT IS EXACTLY HOW PEER REVIEW WORKS. 

AM I SAYING NO PEER-REVIEWED STUDIES ARE VALID? 
WHY, YES, YES I AM SAYING THAT, WITH THE QUALIFIER THAN NO STUDY, PERIOD, IS WORTH ITS SALT UNLESS ALMOST ANYONE CAN REPLICATE IT, CONDUCT A SIMILAR STUDY AND FIND THE SAME THINGS. 

WE JUST SHOULD NEVER, EVER TAKE ONE SET OF SCIENTISTS' WORD FOR ANYTHING. 

"QUESTION EVERYTHING, EVERYONE" SHOULD BE THE ORDER OF THE DAY. 

DUPLICATION, REPLICATION, "PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM" AND GET THE SAME RESULTS...NOW WE HAVE A STARTING PLACE.  
GO BACK IN A YEAR OR TWO AND TRY AGAIN...
SAME RESULTS?
FANTASTIC!

IF NOT, INVALID, YES? 

PEERS CAN ONLY READ, MAYBE THINK A LITTLE. 
HOW MANY PEERS SPEND WEEKS, OR EVEN DAYS REVIEWING ANY STUDY? 

GLAD YOU ASKED! 
IS A PEER REVIEW...

"...somebody pouring [sic] all over the paper, asking for raw data, repeating 

analyses, checking all the references, and making detailed suggestions for 

improvement? 

Such a review is vanishingly rare."

SO, NO, "PEERS" DON'T GENERALLY DO THINGS THAT WAY. 

IT'S A QUICK READ, A "HMMMM", THEN BACK TO THE EDITOR...TAAA-DAAA!

"PEER-REVIEWED' ALL DONE! 

IRONICALLY, ONE OF 'THE WRITERS AT 'SCIENCE' (MAGAZINE) POINTED THIS
OUT, BEFORE'SCIENCE' (THE JOURNAL) GOT CAUGHT BEING SCAMMED!


THE MUD IS ON THEIR FACES NOW! 

"Having an authentic name, representing a real research institution, and offering actual scientific results are apparently not required for publication in many open access journals, Science has found. A completely invented scientist—“Ocorrafoo Cobange”—who worked at a fabricated institution—“the Wassee Institute of Medicine in Asmara”—was able to get the same terribly faked paper accepted for publication in 157 journals. “My hope is that now that we have a map of at least some of the good versus bad journals, scientists can submit their paper to one of the good guys and for the same amount of money get the real deal,” John Bohannon, the Science correspondent who did the investigation, told NPR."

"GOOD VERSUS BAD JOURNALS", IS IT? 

THEN SCIENCE (THE JOURNAL) IS A BAD JOURNAL NOW, YES?

YES!

NOT ONE WHIT BETTER THAN THE REST! 

HOW MANY FAKE PAPERS HAS GOOD OLD "SCIENCE" PUBLISHED?

HOW CAN WE EVER KNOW?

NOT ALL THE FAKES HAVE BEEN EXPOSED....YET!  

BUT, HERE'S THE MOST RECENT FEW, YES, FEW, MORE THAN A COUPLE! 

Archive for the ‘science (journal) retractions’ Category 

"SCIENCE" IS NOW A "QUESTIONABLE PUBLICATION"!
WHO CAN WE TRUST, RIGHT?

"
Many of the journals were already flagged by Beall's List, which catalogs questionable publications, but others were present in the Directory of Open Access Journals, which aims to list credible publications. 


One example Bohannon highlighted in his report was a journal published by Sage, which was named “the Independent Publishers Guild Academic and Professional Publisher of the Year” in 2012. 

“The Sage publication that accepted my bogus paper is the Journal of International Medical Research. Without asking for any changes to the paper's scientific content, the journal sent an acceptance letter and an invoice for $3,100,” Bohannon wrote."


RETRACTIONWATCH.COM HAS ASKED FOR A SIMPLE "TRANSPARENCY INDEX" FROM ALL THE "JOURNALS", SOMETHING TO...

 "...signal to the scientific community how willing editors and publishers are to share how they make decisions. For example, we write, the index could include:
  • The journal’s review protocol, including whether or not its articles are peer-reviewed; the typical number of reviewers, time for review, manuscript acceptance rate, and details of the appeals process
  • Whether the journal requires that underlying data are made available
  • Whether the journal uses plagiarism detection software and reviews figures for evidence of image manipulation
  • The journal’s mechanism for dealing with allegations of errors or misconduct, including whether it investigates such allegations from anonymous whistleblowers
  • Whether corrections and retraction notices are as clear as possible, conforming to accepted publishing ethics guidelines such as those from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) or the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) 
IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK? 

OBVIOUSLY IT IS.

NOBODY IS VOLUTEERING!



No. There are ways to search Medline and the Web of Science for retractions, but there’s no single database.
We’ve been approached about creating one, and would love to take on that project, building on the categorization that we already offer in our right-hand column.
We even have some ideas about how it could pay for itself. But we’d need some help."
I DOUBT THEY'LL GET MUCH HELP BECAUSE THEIR WORK WILL SIMPLY EXPOSE OUR ILLUSTRIOUS SCIENTIFIC AND MEDICAL COMMUNITIES FOR WHAT THEY ARE...SELF-SERVING FOLK WHO JUST WANT TO BE RECOGNIZED, FURTHER THEIR CAREERS, GO DOWN IN 'HISTORY', OR WHATEVER...

AHHHH, FAME...YOU OFTEN ROB US OF HONOR AND TRUTH! 

AND FORTUNE, YOU GLITTERY SWINDLER!

YOU, TOO, OFFER US LITTLE OF TRUE SUBSTANCE!   

AS I SAID BEFORE, KEEP ASKING ME FOR "PEER-REVIEWED" PAPERS/STUDIES,  AND I'LL KEEP LAUGHING AND GIVING THEM TO YOU.

WANT A PEER REVIEW ON FLYING PIGS....ANYONE?