Chris Clark Holli McPherson, right, and other volunteers help fill sandbags inside a Grand Rapids City maintenance garage on Market Street in Grand Rapids, Mich., Friday, April 19, 2013. She and other WMEAC volunteers were planning to take part in the annual Grand River clean-up but instead helped with flood control. Volunteers plan to work through the weekend in Grand Rapids to fill sandbags as part of an effort to hold off West Michigan floodwaters. (AP Photo/The Grand Rapids Press, Chris Clark) ALL LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL TV INTERNET OUT
ST. LOUIS — Flood fighters from small Mississippi River hamlets to the suburbs of Chicago staged a feverish battle Friday to hold back raging rivers, after days of torrential rains soaked much of the Midwest.
Mississippi River communities in Iowa, Illinois and Missouri are expected to see significant flooding – some near-record levels – by the weekend, a sharp contrast to just two months ago when the river was approaching record lows. Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana had flooding, too. All told, dozens of Midwestern rivers were well over their banks after rains that began Wednesday dumped up to 6 inches of new water on already saturated soil.
In Quincy, Ill., the normally slow to swell Mississippi River rose nearly 10 feet in 36 hours, National Weather Service hydrologist Mark Fuchs said. One bridge in the town about 120 miles north of St. Louis was closed Friday, leaving one open.
“That’s pretty amazing,” Fuchs said of the fast-rising river. “It’s just been skyrocketing.”
Smaller rivers in Illinois seemed to be causing the worst of the flooding. In suburban Chicago, which got up to 7 inches of rain in a 24-hour period ending Thursday, record levels of water were moving through the Des Plaines River past heavily populated western suburbs and into the Illinois River to the south.
As many as 1,500 residents of the northern Illinois city of Marseilles were evacuated Thursday night when fears of a levee breach were heightened as seven barges broke free from a towing vessel and came to rest against a dam on the Illinois River.
And in the central Illinois town of London Mills, the swollen Spoon River topped a levee, forcing about half of the 500 residents to evacuate. Police Chief Scott Keithley said some homes were half under water, and abandoned cars were sent floating in the torrent of water.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Patty Moyer offloaded a freshly packed sandbag onto a pallet Sunday and stood up panting, sweating under a heavy coat and headband as she worked with roughly 300 volunteers in Grand Rapids.Summoned by city leaders working to minimize impacts of a downtown under siege by a Grand River swelling past its brim, Moyer had been at work for hours with a dozen members of the Forest Hills Crew Team.
The Grand River is expected to crest at multiple locations throughout Greater Grand Rapids on Sunday, particularly downtown and in Comstock Park, where high water forced residents to flee their waterlogged homes in droves.
Such dire predictions prompted city leaders to ask for help filling tens of thousands of sandbags for residents and businesses.
“We were kind of torn because there’s flooding in Ada and Lowell and Grand Rapids,” Moyer said after schlepping a sandbag to a pallet. “One of our (team) board members … heard that we could come down and fill bags, so we jumped on it as quickly as we could.”
At the Grand Rapids Public Works building, 201 Market Ave. SW, the crew team worked amidst what city leaders estimated was 300 volunteers out since 8 a.m. to fill sandbags that will be used to shore up flooded areas along the river. The work will continue all day.
It was the highest turnout so far after three days spent packing 40,000 sandbags that have been dispersed to problem spots throughout the city, including riverside structures downtown such as the Grand Rapids Public Museum.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI — After days spent surging to historic levels, the Grand River finally crested Sunday night in downtown Grand Rapids and Comstock Park.
Measurements from the National Weather Service in Grand Rapids show the river peaked at 21.85 feet downtown around 10 p.m., breaking the record of 19.64 feet set in 1985.
In Comstock Park, the river crested at 17.8 feet around the same time, eking past the 65-year-old record of 17.75 feet set in 1948.
The new benchmarks are the culmination of days of waiting for the swollen waterway to hit its peak after a prolonged period of torrential rainfall last week.
Forecasters had expected the bloated river to peak downtown and in Comstock Park around 2 a.m. Monday, but the figures show it is not expected to rise further.
Months ago I wrote about how Occupy Wall Street was raising money so they could buy up debt at random and pay it off, in a brilliant campaign of radical agorism.
The effort that I am talking about is called “Rolling Jubilee” and the stated mission on their website is to:
“Buy debt for pennies on the dollar, but instead of collecting it, we abolish it. We cannot buy specific individuals’ debt – instead, we help liberate debtors at random through a campaign of mutual support, good will, and collective refusal.”
This idea has brought about many success stories. The group recently announced through their website that they erased over $1 Million in debt from emergency rooms in Kentucky and Indiana.
The average debtor owed around $900 and we will be abolishing the debt of over 1,000 people! We are sending the letters to the debtors as we type this. We are very concerned with the privacy of debtors, but if any of them come forward and want to share their stories, we will make them public. This will be the second in a series of purchases of medical debt. For each one, we will announce it on this blog with extended details.
We’ve also been working long and hard to make sure our finances and operations are as transparent as possible. The all-volunteer Board of Directors, along with the RJ sub-committees (tech, messaging & debt buying) and countless activists throughout the Strike Debt and Occupy Wall Street networks have been working diligently to ensure the Rolling Jubilee accomplishes its mission with dignity, transparency and political effectiveness.
As a friend, supporter and also a critic of the occupy wall street movement over the past year and a half, it has been exciting and interesting to see the loose knit, decentralized movement transform and grow into many different branches that are taking a more local and decentralized approach than we saw from the protests last year.
The patent case pits the future of biotechnology innovation against high farm prices. For now, it looks like innovation is winning.
WASHINGTON — Monsanto’s patent for genetically modified soybeans appears safe in the Supreme Court’s hands. And that’s good news for innovations in biotechnology, computer software and other self-replicating products.
The biggest mystery arising from the justices’ 70-minute consideration Tuesday of an Indiana farmer’s challenge to Monsanto, in fact, was why they had agreed to hear the case at all, since two lower courts already had ruled for Monsanto.
In a classic case of David vs. Goliath, 75-year-old Vernon Hugh Bowman is challenging the agribusiness giant’s patent on soybeans that are resistant to the weed killer Roundup. He bought his first batch of “Roundup Ready” seeds from Monsanto but then bought a cheaper mixture from a grain elevator that included some Monsanto seeds.
It’s the third generation of seeds that’s at issue in the case, because Bowman then began replanting his own herbicide-resistant seeds — and that violated Monsanto’s patent, the company claims.
From Tuesday’s oral arguments, it didn’t seem Bowman had a vote in the room. “You cannot make copies of a patented invention,” said Justice Stephen Breyer.
It’s for that reason Monsanto has required farmers using its seeds to sign an agreement promising not to save and replant harvested seeds. But even if there was no license, the justices seemed to doubt Bowman’s right to create new generations of identical seed under patent law.
Bowman’s attorney, Mark Walters, argued that Monsanto’s patent rights were exhausted after the farmer bought his second round of seeds from the grain elevator. If that was not the case, he said, every grain elevator would be violating the patent, because Monsanto seeds are ubiquitous.
Besides, Walters argued, Bowman’s use of grain elevator seeds “is never going to be a threat to Monsanto’s business.”
Michael Pollan and others on what Roundup-resistant weeds mean for American agriculture.
But not this year.
On a recent afternoon here, Mr. Anderson watched as tractors crisscrossed a rolling field — plowing and mixing herbicides into the soil to kill weeds where soybeans will soon be planted.
Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers’ near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.
To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.
“We’re back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. “We’re trying to find out what works.”
Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water.
“It is the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen,” said Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts.
The first resistant species to pose a serious threat to agriculture was spotted in a Delaware soybean field in 2000. Since then, the problem has spread, with 10 resistant species in at least 22 states infesting millions of acres, predominantly soybeans, cotton and corn.
The superweeds could temper American agriculture’s enthusiasm for some genetically modified crops. Soybeans, corn and cotton that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup have become standard in American fields. However, if Roundup doesn’t kill the weeds, farmers have little incentive to spend the extra money for the special seeds.
Roundup — originally made by Monsanto but now also sold by others under the generic name glyphosate — has been little short of a miracle chemical for farmers. It kills a broad spectrum of weeds, is easy and safe to work with, and breaks down quickly, reducing its environmental impact.
Sales took off in the late 1990s, after Monsanto created its brand of Roundup Ready crops that were genetically modified to tolerate the chemical, allowing farmers to spray their fields to kill the weeds while leaving the crop unharmed. Today, Roundup Ready crops account for about 90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States.
But farmers sprayed so much Roundup that weeds quickly evolved to survive it. “What we’re talking about here is Darwinian evolution in fast-forward,” Mike Owen, a weed scientist at Iowa State University, said.
Say you’re a Hollywood studio who spent a couple hundred million dollars on a blockbuster movie. Someone buys it on DVD, and then proceeds to copy the DVD and sell those copies at a profit.
That would be against the law.
Can you make the same argument about buying patented seeds to grow a crop, and then keeping some of that first crop to reap seeds and grow a second crop? A third?
Play Video
The United States Supreme Court will decide that in a case involving a 75-year-old farmer from Indiana named Vernon Bowman. Monsanto sued Bowman in 2007, claiming the farmer has for years used seeds reaped from a first crop of Monsanto Roundup Ready soybean seeds to grow another crop.
Monsanto said that violates its patent, as farmers sign an agreement when they buy the seeds to only use them once. The resulting crop can be sold for things like feed or oil, not to create another generation of seeds.
From Monsanto’s perspective, what Bowman has done is like the farming version of Napster. From the farmer’s perspective, to force him to buy new seeds every year is a monopoly, and Monsanto’s patent should “expire” after the first crop.
Monsanto won in lower court, but Bowman has appealed, and in a move that caught corporate America off guard, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case next Tuesday.
Dave Mihalovic, Prevent Disease Waking Times
Vigo County has now seen over 84 cases of the varicella-zoster virus (chicken pox) — marked by itchy blisters on the body, fever, stomach ache and headache — since September and the count is currently well over 100.
“Vigo County usually has less than 10 cases a year; however, since the end of September, Vigo County has reported 84 cases which would meet the definition of an unusual occurrence of disease,” Dr. Joan Duwve, M.D., of the Indiana State Department of Health, told the Tribune-Star. “Prompt identification, investigation and control of chickenpox outbreaks are important. Even mild cases can be contagious.”
To cover-up the wild increase for the disease, public health officials are blaming one unvaccinated child as the cause despite 97 percent of vaccinated children contracting chicken pox. More than 85 percent of those vaccinated received FULL VACCINATIONS.
The Indiana Coalition for Vaccination Choice reported on their Facebook page:
Placed another call to the Indiana State Department of Health. Was able to reach the epidemiologist working the chicken pox outbreak. There are a total of 92 cases so far. Only 3 were never vaccinated. 10 had received one vaccine and 79 were fully vaccinated. They are seeing fewer lesions in the fully vaccinated. Zero deaths. Possibly one hospitalization but not sure off the top of their head. Zero complications from chicken pox. We were told that only one chicken pox vaccine was supposed to provide lifelong immunity but this did not turn out to be the case. A booster was added and yet we are seeing a very high rate of fully vaccinated children contracting chicken pox. We asked if another booster will be mandated and told possibly. We asked about vaccine failures and were told this is not vaccine failure because the severity of lesions in the fully vaccinated was less than if never vaccinated and that no vaccine is 100% effective. We were told that if vaccines save one life they are worth it. We asked how many children died from chicken pox before the vaccine. This epidemiologist was unsure.
It’s just another example how vaccines fail the population. Why would any person agree to an injection of harmful chemicals for a claimed preventive measure that DOES NOT EVEN WORK?
Vaccinated populations contract some of the highest rates of disease and more evidence on whooping cough is coming forward to support this claim. Whooping cough, or pertussis, is spreading across the entire US at rates at least twice as high as those recorded in 2011 andepidemiologists and health officials are even admitting that the vaccines may be the cause.
Jane Seward of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia previously commented on case where an outbreak in 23 children also began with a child who had been vaccinated, contradicting the belief that such ”breakthrough” cases are not contagious, Seward noted.
Seward said she cannot yet explain why the vaccine may have been ineffective in specific groups of youngsters. “We’d like to really understand what factors came together to produce it,” Seward added. “We’re not dismissing it.”
The researchers evaluated an outbreak of chickenpox in New Hampshire. A total of 88 parents returned a questionnaire that aimed to gauge prior chickenpox illness and vaccination among the children. In all, 25 children came down with chickenpox between December 2000 and January 2001. The researchers sourced the outbreak to a 4-year-old child who had been vaccinated for chickenpox 3 years prior to contracting the illness.
The child infected about half of his classmates who had no prior history of chickenpox infection. At the time of the outbreak, roughly 73% of kids old enough for chickenpox vaccine had received it, the report indicated.
During an outbreak of chickenpox in Minnesota in the fall of 2002, more than half the children who became infected had been vaccinated with the varicella vaccine.
Dr. Brian R. Lee, at the Minnesota Department of Health in Minneapolis, and his colleagues investigated the outbreak that involved 55 children among 319 attending an elementary school in northern Minnesota.
Vigo County School Corporation Officials Confirmed Thursday an outbreak of chickenpox at one Terre Haute elementary school. “Our nursing staff confirmed five cases of chickenpox at Farrington Grove, which is the definition of an “outbreak”", school officials said. The outbreak will force administrators to vaccinate more than 50 students. School officials plan to work with the Indiana State Department of Health and the Vigo County School corporation to create a plan to get the students the immunizations they need. School officials say they also plan to check the health of the school’s faculty and staff. “The definition of an outbreak is five or more cases under the age of 13 or three or more cases over the age of 13″, said the press release. “If a child has had no shot (s) against chickenpox and parent/guardian refuses, the child will be excluded from school,” said the release. “If a child has had one shot and the parent/guardian is willing to get the second dose, the child will not be excluded from school.”
Biohazard name:
Chickenpox
Biohazard level:
2/4 Medium
Biohazard desc.:
Bacteria and viruses that cause only mild disease to humans, or are difficult to contract via aerosol in a lab setting, such as hepatitis A, B, and C, influenza A, Lyme disease, salmonella, mumps, measles, scrapie, dengue fever, and HIV. “Routine diagnostic work with clinical specimens can be done safely at Biosafety Level 2, using Biosafety Level 2 practices and procedures. Research work (including co-cultivation, virus replication studies, or manipulations involving concentrated virus) can be done in a BSL-2 (P2) facility, using BSL-3 practices and procedures. Virus production activities, including virus concentrations, require a BSL-3 (P3) facility and use of BSL-3 practices and procedures”, see Recommended Biosafety Levels for Infectious Agents.
The chief medical officer of the Indiana State Department of Health says western Indiana’s Vigo County is experiencing the largest known current outbreak of chickenpox in the U.S. Dr. Joan Duwve (DUH’-vee) told the Terre Haute Tribune-Star for a story this week that Vigo County usually has fewer than 10 cases per year but had had 84 since September. The Vigo County health Department has scaled back the number of cases after reporting more than 100 cases earlier in the week. Duwve says it’s not clear why the county is having such a large outbreak. Neighboring Parke County has had cases at one school. Vigo County School Corp. officials excluded 230 students from school last week because of the outbreak.
TERRE HAUTE — The chief medical officer of the Indiana State Department of Health says western Indiana’s Vigo County is experiencing the largest known current outbreak of chickenpox in the U.S.
Dr. Joan Duwve told the Terre Haute Tribune-Star for a story this week that Vigo County usually has fewer than 10 cases per year but had had 84 since September. The Vigo County health Department has scaled back the number of cases after reporting more than 100 cases earlier in the week.
Duwve says it’s not clear why the county is having such a large outbreak. Neighboring Parke County has had cases at one school.
Vigo County School Corp. officials excluded 230 students from school last week because of the outbreak.
States filing petition to secede from the United States
Credits:
watersworld.us
As of Saturday November 10, 2012, 15 States have petitioned the Obama Administration for withdrawal from the United States of America in order to create its own government.
States following this action include: Louisiana, Texas, Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, Colorado, Oregon and New York. These States have requested that the Obama Administration grant a peaceful withdrawal from the United States.
Louisiana was the first State to file a petition a day after the election by a Michael E. from Slidell, Louisiana. Texas was the next State to follow by a Micah H. from Arlington, Texas.
The government allows one month from the day the petition is submitted to obtain 25,000 signatures in order for the Obama administration to consider the request.
The Texas petition reads as follows:
The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government’s neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.
As of 12:46 am, Sunday, signatures obtained by Louisiana, 7,358; Texas, 3,771; Florida, 636; Georgia, 475; Alabama, 834; North Carolina, 792; Kentucky, 467; Mississippi, 475; Indiana, 449; North Dakota, 162; Montana, 440; Colorado, 324; Oregon, 328; New Jersey, 301 and New York, 169. Many more States are expected to follow.
A petition is not searchable at WhiteHouse.gov until 150 signatures have been obtained. It is the originator’s responsibility to obtain these signatures.
The Texas petition can be reviewed and/or signed by clicking here.
It’s either the political theater equivalent of a hissy fit or the start of more than a dozen new countries: Citizens in 15 states have filed petitions to secede from the United States after Tuesday’s election. These include Louisiana (which led the charge), the Republic of Texas, Kentucky, Colorado, New Jersey, Montana, North Dakota, Indiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Oregon. And somewhat hilariously, someone in North Dakota filed a petition requesting New York secede, which seems pretty rude, given they are sort of handling a major natural disaster right now. Although this is largely seen as symbolic, the filers in each state still have a month to gather 25,000 signatures to have their peaceful withdrawal from the U.S.A. considered by the president. Good luck with that. [Source]
Click to see more on msnNOW.com, updated 24 hours a day.
Volcanic activity on Mount Yasur on Tanna Island in Vanuatu, which has been erupting for hundreds of years, has intensified. The Vanuatu Geohazards Observatory has raised its warning regarding Yasur to level two, with expectations of ash and rock falls around the mountain. The volcano reached a level three rating last year, but Vanuatu Geohazards Observatory manager Esline Garaebiti says a threat of that extent is unlikely. However she says people still need to stay clear of the mountain. “This volcano is quite special and the activity is so strong that we maintain it in level two for quite some time and if the explosions are becoming very strong and the projections go further out from the parking area then we will raise the level to level three.”
Damage from Typhoon Bolaven in North Korea, photographed near Komdok on Aug. 31 by KCNA, released Sept. 7 to EPA for international distribution.
Just as another typhoon headed toward the Korean peninsula, North Korea on Friday summarized the damage from the late summer storm season – 300 dead and another 600 injured or missing.
North Korea’s state news agency said that the worst damage came from the typhoon called Bolaven that swept over the peninsula on Aug. 28 and 29.
That storm alone killed 59 people and left about 26,320 people homeless after about 8,000 houses were destroyed by rain and flooding.
For a country that is so poor and inefficient that each year’s summer storms leave it a disastrous wreck, North Korea provides strikingly precise data about the damage.
Since mid-June, storms and floods damaged or destroyed 87,280 homes and left 298,050 people homeless, its news agency said.
It did not say whether they were temporarily homeless from, say, floodwater, or indeed needed entire new homes.
Among the other damage, 92 drinking water systems were ravaged and 16,900 trees knocked down. “More than 17,150 square meters of railroad were washed away and over 300 sections of railway [were] covered by landslides, with scores of tunnels and railway bridges damaged,” it said.
Now comes Typhoon Sanba, which is heading north from the Philippines toward Okinawa this weekend and the Korean peninsula by Monday. It is a stronger storm than Bolaven, which was billed as the biggest in a decade but didn’t turn out that way. Stars and Stripes reporter Dave Ornauer on Okinawa warns that he’s never seen a storm as intense as Sanba is shaping up to be.
By the time it hits the Korean peninsula, its winds will have died down from Category 4 to Category 2 speeds, he estimates. Even so, both South and North Korea are well-saturated. And North Korea is in no shape for another big storm.
One people got injured and several establishments were partially damaged when a tornado hit a town in Zamboanga Sibugay early today, local officials said. The tornado, which is locally called “buhawi”, hit Poblacion village, the town center of Kabasalan town about 3:30 a.m today, said Mayor George Cainglet. According to the responding police, a driver of a bicycle cab identified as Bebot Baricua, got injured when a flying debris hit him on the street, making him the only victim of the tornado. Besides him, the roofs of the public market, particularly under the wet section, and the roof of the garage area of the town police center were also tore by the tornado, the police added. “The damage was minimal but the residents went panic as a result of the sudden weather disturbance,” disaster officer Adriano Fuego told the press. The authorities estimated that the total damage caused by the tornado is just P200,000 (about $4,800), and the business at the public market was temporarily halted due to the disaster.
Northern Taiwan has seen heavy rainfall Saturday due to the combined effects of seasonal winds and a nearby typhoon, the Central Weather Bureau said. Moisture carried by seasonal winds from the northeast, together with the outer rim of Typhoon Sanba, has caused significant downpours in Taipei City, New Taipei City, Taoyuan County and Yilan County. Xindian District in New Taipei was the hardest-hit area, recording accumulated precipitation of 296 millimeters between midnight and 3 p.m. Saturday, bureau data showed. Rainfall in the areas is likely to continue until Sunday, causing daily minimum temperatures to drop to around 23 degrees Celsius, forecasters said. Meanwhile, strong winds reaching 100 kilometers per hour could be felt in coastal areas across the island due to influence from nearby Sanba. However, the typhoon is not expected to pose further threats to the island as it is heading toward the Ryukyu Islands, the bureau said. As of 2 p.m., Sanba was centered 720 km east of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan, moving at a speed of 23 kph in a north-northwesterly direction. It was packing sustained winds of 191 kph, with gusts reaching 234 kph, the bureau said.
Parts of Manila were under six feet (1.8 metres) of floodwater on Saturday after heavy rain lashed the capital overnight, forcing more than 400 people to flee their homes, officials said. There was also a strong typhoon lurking in the region, and although it was moving away from the Philippines and towards Japan, forecasters said it was adding to the wild weather. “Typhoon (Sanba) has no direct effect but the storm enhanced the southwestern monsoon so we will continue to experience rains,” said government meteorologist Gary de la Cruz. Low-lying coastal areas of the capital were hardest hit, forcing people to leave their homes, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said. At least 10 domestic flights were cancelled and universities in affected areas called off classes, the council said.
Landslides triggered by heavy overnight rain in the hills caused extensive damage in six tea gardens, while the National Highway 31A which was blocked was cleared by the Border Roads Organisation on Saturday. Work had to be stopped for the day in Takdah and Lopchu gardens because of the landslide, while Bannockburn, Phoobshering, Ging and Pussimbing reported loss of tea bushes, Darjeeling Tea Association (DTA) Principal Secretary, Sandip Mukherjee said. “Takdah received around 18 inches of rainfall in the last 24 hours. A 40ft road in Takdah has been washed away in four places and five culverts have been damaged in landslides. There is no approach road to the garden factory now,” Mukherjee said. He said 13 labour quarters and two culverts were affected by the landslides at Lopchu. “Tea bushes in an acre have been uprooted in Lopchu and road connectivity within the garden has become a major problem. Given the extent of the damage, no work could be carried out in Lopchu,” he said. Road communication in the Ging tea garden, about 20km from Darjeeling, was hit after three culverts were damaged. “In Phoobshering, 6,500 tea bushes have been uprooted by the landslides. There is no approach road to the factory now. Water has also seeped into the garden factory,” he said. He alleged that constructions under the 100-days work scheme aggravated the situation in the tea gardens. District Magistrate Saumitra Mohan said “The NH31A was blocked at Tarkhola, Melli and Kalijhora but all major roads have been cleared of debris with the help of agencies like the Border Roads Organisation and the public works department.” Mohan, also the principal secretary of the GTA, said an order has been issued to all subdivisional officers and block divisional officers, that any project was to be cleared only after taking into account environmental concerns and technical viability.
At least 20 people were killed as dozens of houses collapsed following a cloudburst in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in north India on Friday. Several people are feared trapped under the debris and rescue operations have been launched, Disaster Management and Mitigation department officials said citing initial reports. According to officials, incessant rains since Thursday followed by a cloudburst in the wee hours Friday have left a trail of destruction in Timada, Sansari, Giriya, Chunni and Mangali villages in the district. River Saryu and Kaliganga are flowing above danger mark following rains since Thursday night. Communication and power lines were disrupted and traffic along several roads, including national highways, in the area has been blocked due to landslides, officials said. The local administration has sought the assistance of the Army in view of the large-scale destruction caused by the cloudburst in Rudrap rayag district.
Yukio “There is no immediate effect on health” Edano, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry who will have technically lost his portfolio on nuclear issues come September 19 (when the new Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Goshi Hosono’s ministry takes over the nuclear regulatory oversight from NISA), approved the resumption of construction of two new reactors.
So much for the Noda administration’s “pledge” to have zero nuclear power plant operating in 2030. (We’re just shocked. Shocked, aren’t we?)
On September 15, Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yukio Edano held a meeting in Aomori City with Governor of Aomori Prefecture Shingo Mimura and the mayors of municipalities where nuclear facilities are located, and told them that he would allow the resumption of construction and operation of Ooma Nucleaer Power Plant by Electric Power Development Co.,Ltd. (in Ooma-cho, Aomori Prefecture) and Reactor 3 of Shimane Nucleaer Power Plant by Chugoku Electric Power Company (in Matsue City, Shimane Prefecture).
両原発の建設が再開されれば、震災後初めての原発建設となる。
It would be the first construction of nuclear reactors after the March 11, 2011 disaster.
In the “Revolutionary strategy for energy and environment” that was agreed upon on September 14, the national government clearly set the target to have zero nuclear reactors operating in 2030. If the government rule of 40 years of operation is applied, these nuclear reactors would be allowed to operate into 2050, which would be a contradiction to the new energy strategy.
Mr. Edano said in the meeting, “As to the nuclear power plants with permits for installing a reactor and for construction plan, we as Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry are not thinking of any change”, indicating the intention to allow the resumption of construction and operation once the Nuclear Regulatory Commission confirms safety. The Commission will be installed on September 19.
In addition to Ooma Nuclear Power Plant and Reactor 3 of Shimane Nuclear Power Plant, Reactor 1 of Higashidori Nuclear Power Plant is also under construction by TEPCO (in Higashidori-mura, Aomori Prefecture). However, Mr. Edano said of Higashidori’s Reactor 1, “TEPCO is not in a position yet to discuss nuclear energy”, indicating that the resumption of construction of Higashidori Reactor 1 would be unlikely at this time.
Currently, only 1 measuring point remains available to measure temperature in RPV of reactor2. [Link]
On 9/14/2012, Tepco released the work implementation plan to install new thermometer to RPV of reactor2, but they didn’t announce when to complete the installation clearly.
BETHESDA, Md. (AP) – A deadly germ untreatable by most antibiotics has killed a seventh person at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Maryland.
Aerial photo of the NIH Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center, Bethesda, Maryland
NIH officials told the paper that the boy from Minnesota died Sept. 7.
NIH says the boy arrived at the research hospital in Bethesda in April and was being treated for complications from a bone marrow transplant when he contracted the bug.
He was the 19th patient at the hospital to contract an antibiotic-resistant strain of KPC, or Klebsiella pneumoniae.
The outbreak stemmed from a single patient carrying the superbug who arrived at the hospital last summer.
The paper reported the Minnesota boy’s case marked the first new infection of this superbug at NIH since January.
There are two dangers presented in this video: 1) The Electromagnetic Event; and 2) The Mega Solar Flare & CME – Music: Instrumental “Soul Survivor” by Akon & Young Jeezy
HAARP:
Emotional & behavioral suppression technology, Silent Sound Spread Spectrum technology, and weather modification are dangerous, unethical, a secret in their truest form, and don’t have a damn thing to do with HAARP — This is what you should know:
1) Things not caused by HAARP: Long Solar Minimum, Jupiter/Saturn Storms, Saturn/Venus Rotation Anomalies, New Radio Emission from Jupiter, Uranus Auroras, the ENA ribbon, and most importunely, earth’s shifting N pole and fading Magnetic Shield. [There is a natural event taking place]
2) Weather Modification that is not HAARP: Radar Rings are different [local VLFs can do it without any help from HAARP], see video called ‘Standing Wave Tank” to see how LF work better on water vapor than HF. Some rings are man made with VLF, others are a natural effect of the EM event; I believe we are trying to stop it.
3) Potential Danger of HAARP: Over-ionization of certain layers or regions, Creating Ozone holes, Increasing our Solar Vulnerability.
4) ****HAARP and the Russian/Norwegian Devices are directly under the auroral electrojet, which is the thing that would kill our grids in a solar storm. The devices are ionospheric heaters capable of expanding the electrojet and scattering the energy.
NIBIRU:
What can I say, there is no star coming in here. That would kill us, and wouldn’t have left any planets here if it had come before. The term ‘dark star’ is a misnomer, it’s not so dark you wouldn’t see it. There IS a possibility that we could see a crossing ‘planet’, but not a star. Here are those possibilities, google will help fill in the blanks.
1) Hypothetical Planet Vulcan [not star trek] happens to be real and comes out from behind the sun.
2) Rogue Planet enters our system. [they outnumber stars in our galaxy]
3) Planetary ‘Birthing’ process where a baby planet comes out of the Sun, Saturn, or Jupiter.
4) A Return to the World described in ‘Symbols of an Alien Sky’
[All but #2 could be lumped in together as caused by an electromagnetic event; I worry this is what is happening now-- Sitchen made many documented errors, and it was the Maya, not the Sumerians, who spoke of 2012]
The highly infectious and sometimes fatal Foot and Mouth Disease infections have been traced in livestock in the Nyingtri region of central Tibet. According to the regional agricultural ministry, a total of 123 live head of cattle and 108 pigs have showed symptoms associated with FMD. After collecting samples, the Chinese National Foot-and-Mouth Disease Reference Laboratory on Thursday confirmed that the livestock were infected with type O FMD. The local authorities have “sealed off and sterilised the infected area, where a total of 612 head of cattle and pigs have been culled and safely disposed of in order to prevent the disease from spreading since the case was confirmed.” While “quietly sending military troops to kill and burry the cattle,” Chinese authorities did not reveal the outbreak to the public. “Insiders say the provincial officials ordered the cover-up in fear that their records might be affected. Further investigation confirmed the disease to be a special type of FMD resistant to the current vaccine.” Following an outbreak of FMD in China’s eastern provinces of Shandong and Jiangsu, which later spread to suburban Beijing in 2005, China had for the first time reported FMD outbreak to the World Health Organisation. FMD is an acute contagious febrile disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids. The disease can potentially cost huge economic loss to farming and nomadic families who make their living from livestock.
Biohazard name:
Foot-mouth disease (FMD)
Biohazard level:
0/4 —
Biohazard desc.:
This does not included biological hazard category.
Symptoms:
Status:
confirmed
15.09.2012
HAZMAT
USA
State of Indiana, Mishawaka [Baycote Metal Finishing]
A large portion of the southside of MIshawaka, Ind. was evacuated overnight after a chemical spill. Firefighters were called to 1302 Industrial Drive just after 8 p.m. after receiving a call of smoke coming out of a vacant building. The building used to be the home of Baycote Metal Finishing. After the fire was out, a firefighter noticed a low hanging vapor cloud in the building and immediately evacuated the area. The area includes about fifty homes, including an assisted living center. WSBT reports about 200 people were evacuated. The Red Cross set up a shelter for evacuees. Residents reported irritated skin and itchy eyes. Officials say this will be a major clean-up effort. This is a developing story. We will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.
The Czech Republic has banned the sale of spirits with more than 20 percent alcohol content as it battles a wave of methanol poisonings that has already killed 19 people. Health Minister Leos Heger says the unprecedented ban is effective immediately and applies nationwide. It covers all possible sales locations, including restaurants, hotels and stores. Kiosks and markets had earlier been banned from selling spirits with more than 30 percent alcohol content. In a brief announcement late Friday, Heger said the measure was taken as the death toll from the poisonings reached 19 and the first person was hospitalized in Prague. Dozens of people have been hospitalized, some in critical condition after drinking vodka and rum laced with methanol. The problem appears largely centered in northeastern Czech Republic.
[In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit, for research and/or educational purposes. This constitutes 'FAIR USE' of any such copyrighted material.]
Holli McPherson, right, and other volunteers help fill sandbags inside a Grand Rapids City maintenance garage on Market Street in Grand Rapids, Mich., Friday, April 19, 2013. She and other WMEAC volunteers were planning to take part in the annual Grand River clean-up but instead helped with flood control. Volunteers plan to work through the weekend in Grand Rapids to fill sandbags as part of an effort to hold off West Michigan floodwaters. (AP Photo/The Grand Rapids Press, Chris Clark) ALL LOCAL TV OUT; LOCAL TV INTERNET OUT
