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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Monday, May 17, 2010

17 May - Risk Assessment

Diagram of nuclear waste and the nuclear fuel ...Image via Wikipedia

A New Clue to Explain Existence

Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratoryare reporting that they have discovered a new clue that could help unravel one of the biggest mysteries of cosmology: why the universe is composed of matter and not its evil-twin opposite, antimatter. If confirmed, the finding portends fundamental discoveries at the newLarge Hadron Collider outside Geneva, as well as a possible explanation for our own existence.




Iran nuclear fuel swap: Who can make the fuel rods?

 Nuclear specialists say that the fuel Iran needs to power its reactor – which produces medical isotopes, and was supplied by the United States in 1967 – is a time-consuming and complicated process currently beyond Iran’s capability.Argentina in the early 1990s converted Iran’s reactor from one that used highly enriched uranium – 93 percent, suitable for making weapons – into one that required the 20 percent fuel. They also provided 120 kg of the fuel.

“That fuel provided by Argentina has been eked out over the last 17 years, and it's now run out – that’s why Iran needs new fuel,” says John Large, a London-based independent nuclear expert. “Not only does it need a new fuel core – about 30 to 40 kg to put in the reactor straight away – but it needs about … 10 kg … per year.”
The deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey with Iran will be sent for approval this week to the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Russia is likely to be called upon to enrich uranium to 20 percent – a process that some A passion to clean up the Pacific Ocean's great 'garbage patch'estimate would take six to nine months – and France will be asked to fabricate the fuel rods.
Those are the roles those countries were ready to play in October. France and Argentina are two of just a handful of countries that can make the necessary fuel rods today.

Iran's nuclear pact is not a done deal




Public Works Are Hard to Do

We need some more real talk about environment-impact reports and community input

The paradox of ARRA is that even though the stimulus package was sort of enormous, in the aggregate there’s been no net public sector stimulus whatsoever once you take state and local government into account
Brian says:
Bloix is quite right. Here in Canada and in the US, despite claims of “shovel-ready” urgency, all governments rapidly turned their attention to pork barrel projects as if that was the only kind of construction available – for the worst of political reasons.
In the City where I worked, there’s upwards of $1.5b in deferred maintenance – supposedly the highest priority for city budgeting, and at least 3/4 of it could have been started with a simple 30-day bid and a day’s worth of planning and approvals. Yet if a single dime of stimulus money went to maintenance and repair, it’ll be a surprise to me, since the pattern there and across the country was pork, pork and more pork. In fact, since the Feds here in Canada insisted on matching contributions, the net effect was often to take funding *away* from basic maintenance.



A passion to clean up the Pacific Ocean's great 'garbage patch'

Mary Crowley’s project wants to enlist fishing vessels to help attack the mass of floating plastic garbage known as the North Pacific Trash Gyre.



Time Warner Cable Stands Up To Automated Copyright Infringement Filing Factory

( Hm. Perhaps. )






Pesticides in kids linked to ADHD



Researcher advises parents to buy organic, wash produce

Exposure to pesticides used on common kid-friendly foods — including frozen blueberries, fresh strawberries and celery — appears to boost the chances that children will be diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, new research shows.




 14th Amendment.
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
( Better tell Obama ) 
The Constitution doesn't say the government can give you and take away from you basic human rights, it says you are born with them and they are yours alone.





Facing South

Air tests from the Louisiana coast reveal human health threats from the oil disaster

The media coverage of the BP oil disaster to date has focused largely on the threats to wildlife, but the latest evaluation of air monitoring data shows a serious threat to human health from airborne chemicals emitted by the ongoing deepwater gusher.
Today the Louisiana Environmental Action Network released its analysis of air monitoring test results by the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA's air testing data comes from Venice, a coastal community 75 miles south of New Orleans in Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish.
The findings show that levels of airborne chemicals have far exceeded state standards and what's considered safe for human exposure.

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