The Ultimate Disaster?

murph fixing the electrical line to the well pump. Keeps on keepin' on...


by murph

We have seen comments and observed that the MSN has completely dropped the Japan story. It flat out isn’t there any more. Why?

On Carolyn Bakers site there is an article at this address that is worth reading; http://carolynbaker.net/2011/05/12/new-the-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-in-perspective-by-dr-helen-caldicott/

The article by Dr. Helen Caldicott has some lacking in my opinion, but never the less is an important article. She does not talk about the specific types of radiation particles and their half-life that she says are blanketing most of the world, including the US.

Admittedly, I have no adequate means check out her assertions. Her credentials are impressive (that I’ve checked) and for the life of me, I cannot fathom an agenda in putting out this kind of information, other than maybe making money talking doom and gloom. So, assuming that her information is credible and mostly true, we really are doomed as a species, if not right now, at least within 20 years or so, the amount of time for all humans and most other life to die of cancers from radiation exposure.

She also reported on the affects of radiation from the use of depleted uranium in war munitions. According to her report, in the areas of heavy usage of depleted uranium, doctors are telling women not to get pregnant, that the increase in drastically deformed babies is astounding, like 80%.

So, if Caldicott is correct in her assessment, we are doomed. The lucky ones will die of old age or some accident before we start seeing this come into focus.

This brings up the argument again, why would the PTB poison even them selves if this were all true? Again, I have to repeat my thinking on this. If true, the PTB doesn’t believe it is a threat to them, or they have some kind of protection we don’t know about, or they flat out don’t give a damn.

A very small percentage of folks on this planet have the means of living in a radiation proof 100-year shelter. And even if you did, what would you emerge to after the supplies run out? Land poisoned so badly that you dare not eat what is growing, including animals from the ocean.

She asserts that in the US and in Europe that if it rains, don’t eat out of your garden. So just where do you get your food that is safe? I guess the hydroponic garden in your 600 yr radiation proof shelter. That’s something to look forward to, particularly if you have a few billion dollars to buy your way into one or build your own. Although, after having to live underground for long enough for it to be safe to come out, after multiple generations have grown up in that environment, I’m not so sure that what would be left would also be worth saving.

It appears to me that we can take this information a couple of ways. We shrug our shoulders and just keep on trucking for as long as we can and stock up on gentle poisons for when it becomes obvious that we can’t continue. Or, we deny that as a reality. Or we go on a rampage. All three of those alternatives contain sub categories of course. Maybe we all should just pray to god or gods for deliverance. Although I haven’t seen much response from gods these days for all that is besetting mankind.

I rather suspect that Caldicott is, at the least, partially right, and that’s the reason we don’t get any news about it. Mankind has created a stew of radioactivity that rather dramatically affects living things, even if it is delayed by 20 years. Although, it hasn’t taken 20 years for the effects to show up in the use of depleted uranium in war according to Caldicott.

The bill COICA 2.0 in congress right now will effectively shut down all ability to find out the truth about much of anything from the Internet. MSM in print or TV sure doesn’t seem inclined to tell us much of anything. In a way, I can understand that. If Caldicott is correct, and that information was put out for general consumption, what would be the consequences? Like you, I have several scenarios running through my mind and none of them very pleasant.

Those of us that were around in the 1950’s will recall the nuclear war fears, and all the back yard fallout shelters and often hysteria that accompanied the times around that subject. Satan personified in the form of the Soviet empire was a continual threat, and all the issues surrounding that concept were foremost in our minds. McCarthy and his minions come to mind right off, and the Cuban missile crisis, the Berlin wall, etc. I was just a young kid back then, but I recall the war drills and fairly constant references to the Russkies threat. Now, it appears that we have some new threats to worry about. Terrorists are around every corner, suitcase nuclear bombs, plagues, poisoning of the environment gone viral, a crazy acting sun, space objects hitting the earth or at least coming close by and causing havoc. Now we have the radiation threat that is man made and no amount of money, ingenuity, military build up or political double speak and international posturing is going to do a damned thing about it. If this is indeed of the seriousness the Caldicott indicates, every single person on this planet will eventually be affected to a greater or lesser extent. My father, years ago, (a biology teacher) insisted that mankind was going to poison itself to extinction from human made waste. He wasn’t thinking of a worldwide radiation problem, but it appears that radiation could be the ultimate threat to human survival and that surely can be classified as human made waste product.

Harry Bellefonte years ago did a comedy routine that lasted some 20 min or so where he was giving an archeology report by a extraterrestrial archeologist on the planet earth after all the humans had killed themselves off. It is an obscure recording and I might just have a copy of it somewhere in my archives. It sure rang true with me. I ought to search around and see if I can find it.

Sure would be interesting to see what off-planet archeologists would find in 1-2 thousand years on this planet and what their conclusions would be. Humans as a species have shown themselves incredibly stupid (despite the brilliant ones among us) and do not appear to want to change that. The conclusions and consequences we see before us were neither necessary nor inevitable. We may have come to the point where nothing will stop any of it from happening. One more cosmic experiment turned to shit.

Of final mention that is not a disaster pending, in the sense of radiation or the sun going mad, but that of our MSM handling of the coming elections. I am talking about it in all its forms. Generally, the only TV we watch is the news in the evening while we eat supper. Of course, most evenings it is really bad for the digestion. The TV coverage of candidates is probably the most influential part of elections and who gets elected. We have not heard one word on the TV about Ron Paul running. Now whether you like him or hate him, he is running as a Republican and we haven’t heard one word on the news that recognizes that fact. My conspiracy meter is pegging out on this. Tell me people out in digital land, have you seen or heard anything about Ron Paul running as a Republican? I hear all kinds of stuff about candidates that I have never heard of, and way too much about Palin and Romney and Newt and the rest of the dumbrepug crowd.

For those of you that want to do further research, here are a few more tidbits. Scientists are getting data that the core of the earth is changing, affecting the surface; Or how about the spectrum being emitted by the sun is changing; Or Cliffs projections into 2013 show absolutely no data at all, ie, no humans left to get data from, or at the least, no internet activity at all; Or George Ure’s charts and graphs showing a correlation between sunspots and earthquakes; Or the testing of some municipal water supplies in Texas showing increases in radio nucleotides in the water supply and the lowering of the water standards to afford non compliance by the water works. The list keeps expanding every day it seems.

One last little tidbit if anyone thinks we aren’t living in a fascist state. In Missouri a family has been fined for selling $4000 worth of young rabbits on the market in one year. They have been fined $90,000 for selling over $500 in a year of the rabbits and not filling out the paper work and for not having been inspected. If they don’t pay the fine soon, the added charges go up to $1.3 million. Also, google “companies that no longer accept cash” and make a list of all you can find. It will blow your mind; at least it did for me. If that isn’t enough, do some digging around for states are having the police on a traffic stop asking how much cash you have with you. If it is over a few hundred dollars, they can confiscate it, your car and luggage and toss you in jail for suspicion of drug trafficking.

A year or two ago Freeacre and I commented that it seemed like bad news was coming in on a daily basis. Now it seems like it has accelerated considerably. If I discount half of it as rumor or exaggerated or just flat out not true, the other 50% is alarming indeed. When that other 50% is verified over and over by other sources, you can’t help but repeat the mantra; “We are so doomed”.



... need more pie. This one has a gluten-free crust.

Calamities and Disasters

... scene from "Grapes of Wrath." The Jode family. Gotta love 'em.

by murph

Ras is a hard act to follow. After that incredible first hand account of the tornadoes in Alabama, I’m not all that sure what should follow.

All of the recent disasters will have some first person accounts of what they experienced. One thing that bothers me is the strictly human-interest side that permeates the mass media. You know, the inane questions like; What’s it feel like with your home being leveled behind you? Well duh Mr. TV interviewer, it isn’t something that feels good for sure”. Or; “Think you will be able to salvage anything from your house being torn to pieces? Well Duh Mr. TV interviewer, I sure as hell don’t know, you see anything left I should take to the school gymnasium we’re staying in? Hell, our place was being foreclosed on anyway, guess it’ll save bulldozing it down now won’t it. By the way, what is your salary for coming out and asking me these stupid question?”

My opinion of course, but it sure seems silly to be living in an area that has tornadoes every year and having an above ground stick built house. Same idea for moving to a flood plain area. For cripes sake, at least put the house up on stilts or have pontoon footings or something. But I guess it’s a game of statistics. What is your chance of getting flooded out or hit by a 200 mph wind in a tornado? Is there ever a sufficient amount of insurance for these chances? At least that is affordable?

Where we live, we are surrounded by over 40 cinder cones. The second largest caldera (Newberry caldera) in the country (next to Yellowstone) is just 20 miles away. We joke that we have our place volcano insured. At least it’s quite inexpensive. Of course if one of them really gets active, it wouldn’t make much difference because we live so close to them. The 35+ feet of volcanic ash we live on top of didn’t get there by someone hauling it in and dumping it over the whole area.

When we look closely, just where in the country could you choose to live where natural disasters are near zero probability? Humans have to live with that possibility no matter where they live. Flood plains along major rivers would be very high risk. Mudslides in mountainous areas are also high risk. So are major forest fires in forested areas. That real nifty mountain retreat or second home in a national forest has a lot of built in risk to it. Just ask the folks in S. California. One really intense drought year and you better have your bug out bag by the door.

Then we have the man made disasters like in Japan. Miss-designed and short of sufficient emergency preparedness just might be the death of the Japanese society. We’ve got a bunch of the same age and same designed reactors here in the US. There are 25 of them and 5 sit on or by the New Madrid fault line. The reactors in CA are a newer design but some of them have very inadequate tsunami barricades and quite a few sit on or near fault lines. And, of course, we still haven’t figured out what to do with spent radioactive fuel rods. Obviously the Japanese plants didn’t either, posing a real danger to the rest of the world.

And speaking of Japan and the radioactive particulates falling out of the sky, I’ve been looking at some of the data and forecasts. Please notice that the MSN hasn’t mentioned it for a couple of weeks now. At least at this time, having a lethal dose of radiation from that disaster appears to be pretty long odds. But, continued exposure to low dose (non lethal in the short term) radiation for long periods of time has even worse effects on living things, at least according to what I have dug up. We have got to face up to the fact that nuclear reactors are dangerous pieces of technology. Just how much of the future are we willing to expose to this danger to keep the lights on? At this time nuclear reactors supply only about 20% of our electrical production. Dams, coal fired plants and natural gas plants supply most of the rest. Wind farms and panels supply only about 2%. And even those present hazards, just not as immediate and extreme. The coal fired plants are very hazardous too, but are not quite as lethal as the nuclear stuff. We sure haven’t solved the emission problems from them and probably never will. Meanwhile the world is playing economic games with the carbon credit scam.

The May 4 posting by the Archdruid is in my opinion one of his best. In this post he points out that the energy and resource depletion forces some choices on us. One choice involves, on a personal level, the voluntary reduction of energy and resources so that the personal impact won’t be so severe. Things like learning to produce your own food to a large extent, learning new skills that will provided real and needed inputs to the folks around you and by various means, reducing your energy consumption, so that you can survive at a reduced level of convenience and consumption. While that kind of choice will not reduce significantly the overall consumption by society, it does give one a leg up on survival as the empire continues to collapse. One argument against that position that I have seen more than once over the last several years is that; since personal reduction won’t change anything for the broader society, might as well enjoy it while you can, after all, everyone else is gorging themselves and you might as well do so too. That is; why put up with inconvenience and hardship now when nothing will change the outcome. Besides, some magical technology just might come on line and it won’t be necessary after all.

One of the things that the Archdruid leaves out in this post is an ethical/moral consideration. How can you justify, morally or ethically, the excessive and unnecessary use of resources and energy when so many people have very little of it? Or, while it won’t change the overall situation, can you justify contributing to it? Somehow, the argument that; “because everyone else is doing it I can do so also with no moral consequence”, seems a bit wanting in my view.

There is a huge amount of essays, books, and interviews posted on the web concerning what is going to happen, what the consequences are going to be, and what this will all end up looking like. It’s all speculation of course; the more thoughtful ones at least try and connect the endless dots out there that indicate their favorite scenario. The problem that I see is that there is no political will or social movement of consequence that will lessen the effects of any kind of collapse or disaster scene. Where we are living, there is a mixed bag going on. A good local friend recently told me that it appears that folks living around here are going to be cut off (by state approved means) from heating their homes with wood. Now of course if the situation deteriorates far enough, the state will not be able to enforce this. But in the meantime, it will be one more burden on the populace that will have pretty heavy impacts. They are also now considering legislation that forces those that insist on heating with wood heaters that they buy the hideously expensive approved heaters and then you must have it installed by a licensed and approved installer at another huge cost. From my own experience a number of years ago, just the cost for the approved and least expensive installation parts ran around $1000 and the cheapest wood stove that is approved runs around $2500-$3000. I had talked to an installer about putting a unit in my garage and he wanted in the neighborhood of another $1000 to do it. Maintenance of these approved wood stoves is high also. While they are much more efficient and give off a lot less CO2 etc. the flue will not get hot enough to keep it clear of creosote. So that means cleaning the chimney several times during the winter, or hiring someone to do that. It also turns out that pellet stoves are not all they were promoted for; pellets are expensive and vary in quality and availability.

The last entry for this post is indeed a calamity. We were told by an acquaintance just lately that there is an herbicide that is being used for growing grass hay, principally for horses, that has a base of a chemical called pyralids and is sold under a bunch of brand names, and was developed by Dow chemical co. (Damn, I don’t get to swear at Monsanto over this one.) This herbicide passes through the animals into the manure. If used as a compost or soil amendment, it poisons the ground and will kill off a vegetable garden and it lasts for years. And low and behold, the April-May issue of Mother Earth News has an article on the stuff. This chemical also kills off legumes so you probably won’t find it in Alfalfa hay. It’s not a rumor, it is true. Our local feed store related that there was a salt block that had pyralids in it that was used as a salt lick for beef cattle because it kept away flies and other parasites off the animals. It also became a part of the muscle tissue. Of course the questions comes up about how long a meat animal that eats this chemical has to be in quarantine until the chemical leaves the body, if ever. The FDA finally banned them. Talk about a supper efficient mosquito repellent for humans? One of the local feed stores called his distributor for fertilizers and herbicides while I was there. The guy he talked to said that as described, this was an impossibility, no such chemical exists. So, all you gardeners out there be very careful where you get your compost and manure. If you can’t get verification of the source, don’t use it.

I tell ya folks; these companies are trying to poison us all. And here I was naïve enough to think there were laws against doing things like that. Getting rid of many of the regulatory parts of government accelerated with the Ronnie Ray-gun years and really accelerated during the last Bush administration and even Obama is continuing it. Government at your service don’t ya know.