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Yup, because that raise in premiums was really the effect of the ACA. Newsflash: health insurance premiums rose an average of 13% every year from 1999-2009. Source: http://ehbs.kff.org/pdf/2009/7937.pdf

Also out of pocket costs were increasing 5% a year on top of that. Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62O1DJ20100325

So yeah, I HIGHLY doubt that the ACA caused even a penny of that increase. If it did, it was because some exec there said "Hey, we can claim the ACA is causing us to raise rates and raise them even more than usual."

Funny thing, I'd imagine desomorphine or meth from Novartis or Merck & Co. doesn't have these problems. Oddly their heroin is pure too, not black tar, and I imagine their cocaine isn't half cut.

That's because Novartis hasn't moved production of their heroin to a plant in India yet ... http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/16/us-ranbaxy-fda-alert-idUSBRE98F0RX20130916

As for the second part, people in this country don't get turned away because they're poor, they get medicare or medicaid (depending on age).

Some do. Some don't. Some have too much money for medicaid, but not enough to pay for a big hospital bill. Some charge hospital bills on their credit cards, and then go bankrupt when they can't pay them (sticking you and me with the bill). Some can't get credit cards, and use the Emergency Room for health care. Some just die.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/09/17/us-usa-healthcare-deaths-idUSTRE58G6W520090917

"Reuters) - Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year -- one every 12 minutes -- in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care, Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday."

Every nation gets the government it deserves.

A government program that feels its duty is to review the contents of every American email, phone call, and SMS, regardless of such superficial things like 'warrants'? You own it, Americans. After decades of inviting the federal government to fix your problems, this is what you get. From the Midwest corn farmers enjoying their subsidies to the inner city food-stamp-reared-baby-machines, Americans have sold themselves for pennies on their liberty. Worse, you don't even get a good deal with your Faustian compromises. You awarded yourselves a universal healthcare program that is neither universal nor financially sound. Your social security program seizes your salary and barely beats inflation on returns (if you even get it back).

This is what you get. You've handed so much of your agency to your political class, they can't help but think they can make the best decisions for you. Perhaps that's why the wealthiest counties in America ring the capital. Perhaps that's why your representatives make 300% per capita GDP in salary and have an average net worth nearly 30x the average American family's. Perhaps that's why they see fit to exempt themselves from the laws they write.

You've fed the megalomaniacs. Good luck telling them you want your 'privacy' back.

You've never been through a European airport where the police were armed with automatic weapons then? Maybe you need to travel more.

Foreign visitors to U.S. hit record in 2011

Anyone can post anything on the internet, it might not even be true. Whilst perusing the summary, I was misled into thinking that TFA was linked at reuters. But it turns out that I just burned up another instance of the NYT from my monthly allotment. I never get used to it. silly me.

The details are of no interest to anyone in power, but patterns are.

It has already been made public that huge volumes of email, actual phone conversations are recorded.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-57589495-38/nsa-spying-flap-extends-to-contents-of-u.s-phone-calls/
http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/15/yes-actually-the-nsa-says-they-can-eaves
http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/irs-audit-emails-warrant-aclu/

And further, the NSA leaks content to local and state law enforcement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/10/the_nsa_dea_police_state_tango/

So the this whole discussion about meta-data is moot. When you can archive, transcribe and catalog content, who needs metadata?

who knows why or who it benefits, but it certainly isn't the people of the UK.

Is that your evaluation based on many years of experience with the intelligence agencies? Or is it the snark of a passing minute on the internet?

NSA helped foil terror plot in Belgium, documents, officials say
Police arrest 10 over Belgian 'Islamist terror plot'
Belgian police raid homes in connection with Syrian terror groups recruits
Two Belgian "terrorism" suspects detained in Yemen
Fearing terror attack, Belgium arrests 14

The internet has KILLED sales of ANYTHING that can be distributed as a computer file.

Napster 1.0, The Pirate Bay, YouTube, and the Bittorrent protocol are noteworthy examples of this trend.

Face it, people LOVE to share information--IP laws be damned!

In light of this, the ONLY WAY IP content creators can get paid is to adopt 'adware', 'sampleware', 'ransomware', or 'Kickstarter' models of funding their projects.

Adware - 'Payware' sold via conventional, push-based advertising. Time has proven this method to be wasteful, expensive, and offers poor return on investment.
As proof, I offer this anecdote: I read recently that GM passed on paying $4 million dollars for a 30-second ad during the 2013 Superbowl football game--saying the cost was just too expensive.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/us-gm-superbowl-idUSBRE84H0Z920120518

Sampleware - Content creators release free samples of their work on the internet with their website/online store URL imbedded in it. Then they let the internet and word of mouth do the rest to funnel money into their pockets to sustain and reward them via sales of their 'payware'...if that happens. Even then, their 'payware' might be re-distributed for free anyway which leads to...

Ransomware - The product is done and waiting to be released to the world at large via the internet. The creators are paid (handsomely) for their efforts and the completed work is released where it will be available to be copied and recopied endlessly--even posted to ad-clogged 3rd party download sites (like The Pirate Bay). The developers get paid so they can eat, save for the future, and maybe have enough left over to 'tide them over' while they craft their next work.

Kickstarter - The money is raised first via crowdsourcing before the product is developed and released by the creators. This can be thought of as a 'prepaid ransom' (see ransomware above).

Because of how banks are raising reserve ratios across the board, both due to more stict regulations and by choice,the money supply would decrease significantly if new currency wasn't issued to make up for the shortfall.

TFA/S mentions shadow banking system . Now the definition that pops up if you follow the link is (with my emphasis):

The shadow banking system is a pejorative term for the collection of non-bank financial intermediaries that provide services similar to traditional commercial banks.
...
The core activities of investment banks are subject to regulation and monitoring by central banks and other government institutions - but it has been common practice for investment banks to conduct many of their transactions in ways that don't show up on their conventional balance sheet accounting and so are not visible to regulators or unsophisticated investors.

Now, a shadow banking system not subject to any outside scrutiny and with an estimated value of $100 trillion... do you sleep well at night on the account of banks raising reserve values? I mean, how can you tell of the fractional reserve they are using inside the $100 trillion value shadow banking provide enough cover?

Inflation is, if anything, too low right now, at least in the US.

A matter of trust, isn't it? Do you trust the same (type of) people that drove the world economy into GFC to act sensible and stop the inflation within the "safe zone"? With no external oversight, what would be their incentive to act responsible?
If inflation is too low, how come the house prices rose even if the sale volume dropped? Can you find any other explanation consistent with the price rise/sales dropping except an (at least, fear of) incoming significant inflation?

Here's an example: price rises but the buying power's erroded (a low sales situation should drive the price lower - aka deflation. It happens in the reverse, so what do you think this is a symptom for?).

...
(if you are tempted to lecture me on "what actually inflation means", how the index is computed or anything on that line, don't. Let me stay a crackpot, I'll let you keep your head deeply stuck into your own ass and we can both agree to disagree).

Govt can index everything to inflation and print money. Have computers take care of the indexing so it's seamless. Then inflation is revealed to be the psychological game of control that it really is; not a necessary consequence of increasing the money supply.

You reckon? You didn't create enough value for the new money you printed, so inflation does really exists (with the yesterday dollar, you are now able to buy less things than before). The only "psychological game" (computerized or not): because the buying power is erroded, "consumers" scramble to buy now rather than tomorrow, creating an "artificial demand" and thus the oh-so-needed-illusion the economy started to work. In reality:

* the "99%" of the people will start trying to "invest" in something that won't depreciate that easy - why do you think the house prices are the first to jump, even when new homes sales are low?

* the "1%" guys (which would be expected to "trickle down the money"), having "protected" their wealth during the worst part of the bust, are now creating the "shadow market" and are multiplying the new money in the "quantitative easing" by unregulated fractional reserves - there's no way there is a $100T value actually created during GFC.
Guess what? They're fuelling already a new "boom" with the hope to sweap another chunk of whatever liquidity is still in the system.
You can think of their strategy as pooring more gas over a fat stain and absorbing it into the rag they use to "clean" the stain: granted, the already absorbed fat will suffer a dillution as well, but some more fat will still be sucked from the fabric

My guts are telling me the bust is direly close this time: the US creditors (paid now with money more worthless as the time passes) as well as the "mortgage derivatives buyers of the past" may have learnt something in between. If persisting in this game, it will be quite short and I guarrantee you: the victims will still be the "99%"

That one went down, this one from Reuters works:
http://live.reuters.com/Event/Raising_the_Costa_Concordia

Is there any example of the FBI or NSA misusing any of the data they are supposed to collecting?

Yes, there is. The Special Operations Division of the DEA used NSA intercepts to target people for arrest. "After an arrest was made, agents then pretended that their investigation began with the traffic stop, not with the SOD tip, the former agent said. The training document reviewed by Reuters refers to this process as 'parallel construction.'"

Tough talk from an anonymous coward...

who cares?

the content of his message was a productive addition to the discussion that's all that matters

that's the point of anonymity

I wouldn't bother posting this, except that your ridiculous kind of bullshit posturing and insistence on privacy-invading log-in's are the same *bullshit* that underlies this move by facebook.com to get rid of Social Fixer.

Social Fixer was a threat to facebook.com's business model simple as that. It's written into their IPO in the section that describes threats to company revenue. They say that legislation or other rules or policies that give users control over their data is a threat to their revenue.

Sure we all know that's how they work, but don't you see how having it in a **legally binding contract** creates a certainty of a type of behavior that none of them can now control?

due to their IPO it is a **mathmatical certainty** that facebook.com INC will do this as a matter of Standard Operating Procedure.

Every 'Social Fixer' in the world should expect this.

as to parent, you need to completely reverse your understanding of anonymity and human interaction

All this news is underlining is that the exchanges are having more of their crumbs stolen by independent parties... if you want reform, start with brining transparent to the stock marker exchanges and their skimming off the top practices. The cost to society is enormous.

The point is not that they won't, but that they could, thats the key of being in control of the information. If that information could be gathered also in another way it would be checked out, Will them be willing to do it? I doubt it.

In the other hand, when the NSA is ordered to give key parts of its information, they lie, no matter what prosecutors and judges say, in fact when they lied to the congress (that should be worse), didn't ended in jail, in fact, got even more control over possible threats on them. So there is not even the "would be unfair to them" moral concern on releasing faithful information to them that only you control and can tell if is the right one or not. Regarding the terrorism part, the NSA admitted that none of this surveillance ever prevented a terrorist attack, while they clearly targetted Google, Petrobras and others, this is by far more about protecting and empowering corporations (by stealing trade secrets, or even sabotaging, competition) than caring about people.

The Iraq war intelligence is obviously fake to everyone, seeing as the man that manufactured it admitted to faking them. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB234/index.htm

There is no evidence that the actions of Bush I or Clinton were based on false evidence.

Why are you so fixated on Bush II?

Did you see what Putin just did to Obama? Now the Russian plan that's the subject of the Slashdot article this thread is under won't even come up for discussion at the UN until Obama renounces all possible use of force against Syria.

Obama got totally and bloodily HORSE FUCKED by Putin over Syria.

So much for Obama's "red line", eh? Utter lack of credibility. Yeah, that's good.

Must be the reason why they spied on Petrobras oil firm. The reason everyone lost their privacy and the trust on internet as a whole is in part that some US oil corporations wanted to steal information on where are oil reserves to other foreing oil companies.

"I don't think that most US citizens are against intervention."

Reuters poll of from yesterday -- 56% oppose intervention in Syria, 19% support intervention.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/03/us-syria-crisis-usa-idUSBRE97T0NB20130903

Personal office poll today. 86 out of 88 people said bomb them. There goes your poll stats.

There are also reports and scary links showing up between a lot of influential people saying that you're full of shit and likely an SEA member.

Interesting link I saw this morning on the makeup of the Syrian rebel forces:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/05/us-syria-crisis-usa-rebels-idUSBRE98405L20130905

Can you cite an example of "lots of radioactive steel parts" becoming cars?

Not in the US, and not cars but here are references to elevator buttons http://uk.reuters.com/article/2008/10/22/oukoe-uk-france-lifts-radioactive-idUKTRE49L69320081022 And belt buckles. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/05/29/asos_investigation_into_radioactive_belts_demonstrates_scrap_metal_problem.html Bonus link to the EPA http://www.epa.gov/radtown/orphan-sources.html

"I don't think that most US citizens are against intervention."

Reuters poll of from yesterday -- 56% oppose intervention in Syria, 19% support intervention.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/03/us-syria-crisis-usa-idUSBRE97T0NB20130903

http://www.techpowerup.com/190121/massive-fire-at-sk-hynix-facility-in-wuxi-china.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/04/us-hynix-suspension-idUSBRE9830SP20130904

Try reading any news source that isn't American based.

Just today Putin was calling your Foreign Sec a liar because he claimed Al Qaeda are definitely not in Syria - http://rt.com/news/putin-syria-interview-ap-387/

The French have apparently contributed to the "rebel cause" in a rather unplanned way

And the recent (5 days ago) claims that the sarin gas attack was a rebel mistake and the weapons were provided by the Saudis, also mentioned numerous Saudi fighters in the region. No link here, as there isn't a single source that I would actually subject my browser (or eyes) to - but a quick google has a seemingly endless list of conspiracy sites touting the story.

The slide deck is available.

Aside from the 'WTF is AT&T doing with over a quarter-century of phone records that would justify the cost of storing them, anyway?' angle, there are a few... concerning... elements.

1. The searches aren't "warrantless" in the strictest sense; but apparently most of them occur by the process of 'administrative subpoena', which requires no judicial oversight. The DEA has the power to get one simply by asserting that it needs one because drugs. (Sections 506 and 507 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970). Given that the features of the program include turnaround times of an hour or less, barring atypically complex queries, there is clearly very limited review going on. It isn't the DEA running raw SQL queries; but the separation between it being the 'DEA's database' and 'AT&T's database' appears to be fairly limited.

2. Pretty much everything in the section of the presentation entitled "Protecting The Program"(starts on page 8): The program is 'unclassified' but "All requestors are instructed to never refer to Hemisphere in any official document" and there are specific instructions on how to conceal Hemisphere as the source in an investigation by using it first, to guide further subpoenas, and then retroactively building a case only on the subsequent subpoenas, in order to conceal, from the court and everyone else, the role of Hemisphere. As they describe the process:

When a complete set of CDRs are subpoenaed from the carrier, then all memorialized references to relevant and pertinent calls can be attributed to the carrier’s records, thus “walling off” the information obtained from Hemisphere. In other words, Hemisphere can easily be protected if it is used as a pointer system to uncover relevant numbers.

In special cases, we realize that it might not be possible to obtain subpoenaed phone records that will “wall off” Hemisphere.

In these special circumstances, the Hemisphere analyst should be contacted immediately. The analyst will work with the investigator and request a separate subpoena to AT&T

This practice of evidence laundering would appear to be very similar to the "Parallel Construction" process described as in use by the DEA for other giant secretive data sources (with 'Parallel Construction' being the term for "recreating" a fictional chain of evidence that excludes the existence of sensitive data sources. Less friendly audiences might call this 'perjury'...)

reported by fantasists and alarmists like Arne Gunderson as exploding, imminently collapsing, bulging, disintegrating, sinking into the ground and catching fire ever since the accidents happened.

Nice job of making it seem like a piece of cake to remove those rods, and throwing an ad hominum at Gundersen. But you are the one living in a fantasy. Plus you're a shill and / or a liar for denying that the building blew up, and was leaning / bulging and had to be shored up.

Here in reality, it's a wee bit trickier:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/08/14/us-japan-fukushima-insight-idUKBRE97D00M20130814

Let's start with the part that clearly shows you to be a liar when you said, "it should only take a month or two to empty the pool of fuel bundles"

The process will begin in November and Tepco expects to take about a year removing the assemblies, spokesman Yoshikazu Nagai told Reuters by e-mail. It's just one installment in the decommissioning process for the plant forecast to take about 40 years and cost $11 billion.

Fucking liar - even TEPCO expects a year to remove the fuel bundles - if everything works out ok and serious problems are not encountered.

And how you lied about the "alarmists" concerned about the building exploding:

Tepco has erected a giant steel frame over the top of the building after removing debris left behind by an explosion that rocked the unit during the 2011 disaster.

Oh, so, yeah, the building DID explode; you claim it is "fantasists and alarmists" setting their hair on fire, but it denialist liars like you who are the problem.

INADVERTENT CRITICALITY

        "There is a risk of an inadvertent criticality if the bundles are distorted and get too close to each other," Gundersen said.

        He was referring to an atomic chain reaction that left unchecked could result in a large release of radiation and heat that the fuel pool cooling system isn't designed to absorb.

        "The problem with a fuel pool criticality is that you can't stop it. There are no control rods to control it," Gundersen said. "The spent fuel pool cooling system is designed only to remove decay heat, not heat from an ongoing nuclear reaction."

...

        Removing the rods from the pool is a delicate task normally assisted by computers, according to Toshio Kimura, a former Tepco technician, who worked at Fukushima Daiichi for 11 years.

        "Previously it was a computer-controlled process that memorized the exact locations of the rods down to the millimeter and now they don't have that. It has to be done manually so there is a high risk that they will drop and break one of the fuel rods," Kimura said.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4118245&cid=44647517

Posting anon to preserve mod points already used in this thread.

heh.
Should I be watching the BBC or PBS?

We're left with trying to news from multiple sources and trying to piece together the truth. Yes, Russia Today is a propaganda outfit. Do they do propagandize any more than Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN? The BBC? PBS?

I guess the question then is did Turkish police really find 2kg of sarin gas and arrest the Syrian rebels who were transporting it?
We may never really know the truth on that. English-language sources:
http://rt.com/news/sarin-gas-turkey-al-nusra-021/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22720647
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/30/us-syria-crisis-turkey-idUSBRE94T0YO20130530

Spanish media did pick it up, so if you can read Spanish - http://www.abc.es/internacional/20130531/abci-sarin-siria-201305301816.html
Apparently Fox News also reports on this stuff, but only in Spanish:
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/espanol/2013/05/30/detienen-en-turquia-con-gas-sarin-doce-islamistas-radicales-segun-la-prensa/

"Rubbish, show me what was misquoted."

You have to quote something to be misquoted, the fact you didn't quote anything and just made stuff up makes it kind of difficult for me to quote anything. If you want to see what I'm referring to you could just follow the thread back up, it's not difficult.

"Citation is required, I see no evidence anywhere. No, some blogger's opinion from the UK does not count. Facts only."

Read the news, any news source on the issue will do. In fact, the fact you haven't explains why you're woefully misinformed on this topic. See here for example:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-syria-crisis-russia-idUSBRE97O09820130825

Relevant quote:

"Russia, which has suggested that Syrian rebels may have carried out the attack"

"You could have found by searching for "United Nations finds rebels guilty". You obviously didn't try very hard to search."

I did that exact search and the only thing from the UN was a suspicion from a specific individual at the UN:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22424188

Quote:

"According to their report of last week, which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated."

Even she accepts there's no incontrovertible proof. All the links from that search are either speculation by private individuals or Del Ponte's viewpoint. There is no official UN ruling on the issue. In fact, on Google by the 6th link it starts talking about Sierra Leone, if this is widespread and common knowledge as you claim that the UN has officially claimed that the rebels definitely used chemical weapons then there would be pages of hits from such a search. You're confusing opinion and suspicion with fact, which is quite ironic given that's what you're claiming the US shouldn't base an attack on Syria on.

You need to link to the official UN ruling itself, or at least a site that references it or just admit you were wrong. Linking to vague third party sites of private individuals with little credibility that don't even back up your claim of official UN condemnation does nothing for your argument.

"The Syrian Army is now planting IEDs and blowing them up huh? Come on now, you can't really be that daft can you?"

You really don't have the slightest understanding of this conflict do you? You know Assad's forces are comprised of not just the Syrian military but Hezbollah, and pro-Assad paramilitaries? The latter of which both very much have IEDs as their modus-operandi, especially against witnesses to a massacre they just caught red handed committing.

But anyway I'm done, it's clear you're arguing from a point of complete lack of understanding on the topic. You obviously have absolutely no idea given that you think Assad's forces comprise only of the Syrian military itself, given that you think it's still in question as to whether a chemical attack even happened. I really can't be bothered to waste any more time on someone who can't at least even keep up with the current news on the topic and at least have a basic grasp of the various players involved in the conflict on both sides. You're lazy and forming an opinion on next to no information, that's a guaranteed recipe for ignorance and you've proven that. Well done.

And to top it off, Larry Ellison's Oracle team has been caught cheating... http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/26/us-sailing-americascup-cheating-idUSBRE97P0LD20130826

Ellison is real piece of work.

I think Heinlein's "By His Bootstraps" visited a future where our protagonist worked at a junkyard where they took brand-new, off-the-lot cars and crushed them.

Well, I have to wonder where all the cars which go unsold in the USA are going now... 2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/12/07/us-autos-ports-idUSTRE4B61NA20081207... 2012, http://washingtonexaminer.com/cars-stacking-up-at-port-of-baltimore/article/44053

more money. Use the NSA to spy on drug usage/distribution and use that as evidence http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

Italy tried that http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/19/us-usa-panama-cia-idUSBRE96I0V320130719

Didn't Turkey ask for NATO to get involved?
Ambassadors from the alliance's 28 member nations held an emergency late-night meeting at NATO headquarters, at Turkey's request, to discuss the strike.

And again:
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Tuesday a poison gas attack in Syria last week which killed hundreds of people constituted a "crime against humanity" and poses a test for the international community.
[...]
Turkey, a NATO member bordering Syria, has emerged as one of Assad's most vocal critics during the two-and-a-half year conflict, sheltering half a million refugees and allowing Syrian rebels to organise on its soil.

I'm not sure how you consider that "staying out of it"...?

If enough little guys get together

You mean like the BRICS nations?

If enough little guys get together they can be stopped by the big boys too. (Article is on how some 401(k) members were banned from trading, in their own 401(k), based on newsletter information.)

RT is infamous for being virulently anti-American; it's a Russian news organization with an agenda that is fairly obvious at times. Now, that said, Der Spiegel is a totally valid news organization...so can someone provide something directly from that, instead of interpretation by people with their own agenda regarding this?

Ah, never mind: here you go: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/25/us-usa-security-nsa-idUSBRE97O08120130825

There are now resources devoted to detecting steganography on public networks like Facebook. It's been known for many years (think late twentieth century) that Al Quaeda was using steganography to hide documents. There were more convenient routes for communicating and probably better ones, but they went with stego, using porn as the cover. When you see stories like this one:

Exclusive: Pornography found in bin Laden hideout: officials

remember that extensive archives of digital porn, arriving on hand-couriered usb drives, doesn't mean porn-addiction but video-based steganography.

The Russians do it too. See this story from 2010:

How even the dumbest Russian spies can outwit the NSA

Don't think for a second that known stego routines aren't now checked for in collected data from sources like Facebook (PRISM).

dumb question..... but why aren't they removing the radioactive rods or whatever from that particular site and storing them else where? or is it a giant melted mess?

Actually a very good question. And the answer is: yes, removing the fuel rods and making them safe in permanent storage is a very sensible thing to want, and TEPCO is planning to start doing this this November.

The bad news, as I understand it, and the reason why they haven't done this obvious thing until now, is that moving fuel rods is very dangerous since you don't want to get two rods too close to each other otherwise you get a criticality event (a small fission reaction). While radioisotopes can give you cancer or make you very sick, a criticality could kill you in days. And while the rods in the fuel pools aren't melted like the cores are, they have been badly shaken by the earthquake, tsunami and explosions, and they've been drenched in corrosive seawater for two years. I'm guessing that could mean that they're likely to be jammed in their framework, maybe shaken loose, possibly with their cladding decayed, some of them in pool 4 may already have burned, and all this will make handling them a very difficult and dangerous manual process.

See the articles (latest link included) by El Reg's Lewis Page :

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/21/omg_new_crisis_disaster_at_fukushima_oh_wait_its_nothing_again/

Great - he's the same twunt that claimed that no radiation could possibly survive past the fence enclosing Fukushima - at about the same time the first explosion happened.

His reaction was to say, "Oops, seems a bit worse than I thought", right? No, of course not. Even though there's corium blown a mile and a half from the reactors. Even though there were multiple melt-downs. Even though on-site experts with experience in nuke plants claim they don't know exactly what's going on (unlike omniscient Lewis fucking Page). Even though arguably the most dangerous steps still lie ahead - removal of spent fuel from its pool in the now-reinforced reactor 4 building.

So no, he's a blight on El Reg and I, for one, shall not be reading what his bullshit apologist rantings have to say; I'll remain here in reality and hope for the best with the spent fuel and radioactive water storage.

And let's not forget that reactor 4, where the spent fuel pool boiled / leaked dry, was not in operation at the time of the 'quake / tsunami.

News from reality, instead of from Page's ridiculous pro-nuclear, nothing-can-possibly-go-wrong, ignore-those-explosions ranting:

INADVERTENT CRITICALITY

"There is a risk of an inadvertent criticality if the bundles are distorted and get too close to each other," Gundersen said.

He was referring to an atomic chain reaction that left unchecked could result in a large release of radiation and heat that the fuel pool cooling system isn't designed to absorb.

"The problem with a fuel pool criticality is that you can't stop it. There are no control rods to control it," Gundersen said. "The spent fuel pool cooling system is designed only to remove decay heat, not heat from an ongoing nuclear reaction."

...

Removing the rods from the pool is a delicate task normally assisted by computers, according to Toshio Kimura, a former Tepco technician, who worked at Fukushima Daiichi for 11 years.

"Previously it was a computer-controlled process that memorized the exact locations of the rods down to the millimeter and now they don't have that. It has to be done manually so there is a high risk that they will drop and break one of the fuel rods," Kimura said.

Bush was to be the keynote speaker at Keren Hayesod's annual dinner on February 12 in Geneva. But pressure has been building on the Swiss government to arrest him and open a criminal investigation if he enters the Alpine country.

Criminal complaints against Bush alleging torture have been lodged in Geneva, court officials say.

Bush cannot safely leave the U.S. since the rest of the world considers him a criminal.
It's pretty rich that he can move freely within the U.S. since that probably the nation he hurt the most next to Iraq and Afghanistan.

And reading the comments, especially on the Reuters article, is depressing. There is a lot of hate out there, and blind devotion to the overlords.

Level 0 is called "deviation", an event with no safety concern.

"TOKYO, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Contaminated water with dangerously high levels of radiation is leaking from a storage tank at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, the most serious setback to the clean up of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

The storage tank breach of about 300 tonnes of water is separate from contaminated water leaks reported in recent weeks, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co said on Tuesday.

The latest leak is so contaminated that a person standing half a metre (1 ft 8 inches) away would, within an hour, receive a radiation dose five times the average annual global limit for nuclear workers. After 10 hours, a worker in that proximity to the leak would develop radiation sickness with symptoms including nausea and a drop in white blood cells.

"That is a huge amount of radiation. The situation is getting worse," said Michiaki Furukawa, who is professor emeritus at Nagoya University and a nuclear chemist."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/20/japan-fukushima-leak-idUSL4N0GL16I20130820

The Amazon story of delivery of books/electronics and even adult products is showing how big they've grown. That coupled with a no hassle return policy makes them more compelling than Best Buy for example that rakes you over the coals if you return something. When I go to my local Fry's electronics for example, I look at it and say that it's becoming more of an everything store mimicking Amazon but even Fry's is now getting to be a so-so retailer and most likely I'll look at Amazon first before considering buying at Fry's. That's a sad statement of how good Amazon has become and how poor local retailers are becoming which just throws more competitive advantage Amazon's way.

Now Amazon is branching into Food delivery, which awhile back there was the Pea Pod delivery service, which largely failed along the lines of what folks discussed here: Quality of what was delivered. If Amazon can tackle the quality issue and I'm sure they will I think a lot of mom and pop grocery stores in large cities in this country should worry. Like Walmart that came in a crushed small town retailing Amazon will be in a position to threaten Walmart and other large chain stores, Target, Sears, KMart, JCPenny. Walmart suddenly woke up last year and stopped selling Amazon goods in their stores because they saw the threat.

Why are people unable to parse simple English? They are not "laying off 90% of their system administrators" - they didn't say "we're going to lay off 90% of our sys admins." They said "we're going to take admin privileges away from 90% of the people who have sysadmin privileges." The job doesn't cease to exist just because you can't type "rm -rf /*"

NOWHERE in the coverage of Gen Alexander's remarks has he said they were planning to lay off 90% of their IT workforce. What he said was this:

Before the change, "what we've done is we've put people in the loop of transferring data, securing networks and doing things that machines are probably better at doing," Alexander said.

This is a case of the NSA saying, "we've given sys admin access to far too many people, and we're going to restrict that now."

But even, they pulled a fast one - the GOOG traded on the market are lower class shares... with no dividend, ownership, or voting rights.

This doesn't make any sense. Who would buy a share without the possibility of receiving dividends? You're also wrong about no voting rights, though they did skew the rights 10 to 1 in favor of the Google founder shares. Only very recently were they cleared to issue a new class of non-voting stock.

• 2 Senators on the intelligence committee said the violations revealed in the Post article were just the âoetip of the icebergâ

• Glenn Greenwald notes: âoeOne key to the WashPost story: the reports are internal, NSA audits, which means high likelihood of both under-counting & white-washingâ.(Even so, the White House tried to do damage control by retroactively changing on-the-record quotes)

• The government is spying on essentially everything we do. It is not just âoemetadataâ ⦠although that is enough to destroy your privacy

• The government has adopted a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act which allows it to pretend that âoeeverythingâ is relevant ⦠so it spies on everyone

• NSA whistleblowers say that the NSA collects all of our conversations word-for-word

• Itâ(TM)s not just the NSA ⦠Many other agencies, like the FBI and IRS â" concerned only with domestic issues â" spy on Americans as well

• The information gained through spying is shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes. The agencies are instructed to intentionally âoelaunderâ the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way ⦠and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges

• 2 Senators on the intelligence committee said the violations revealed in the Post article were just the âoetip of the icebergâ

• Glenn Greenwald notes: âoeOne key to the WashPost story: the reports are internal, NSA audits, which means high likelihood of both under-counting & white-washingâ.(Even so, the White House tried to do damage control by retroactively changing on-the-record quotes)

• The government is spying on essentially everything we do. It is not just âoemetadataâ ⦠although that is enough to destroy your privacy

• The government has adopted a secret interpretation of the Patriot Act which allows it to pretend that âoeeverythingâ is relevant ⦠so it spies on everyone

• NSA whistleblowers say that the NSA collects all of our conversations word-for-word

• Itâ(TM)s not just the NSA ⦠Many other agencies, like the FBI and IRS â" concerned only with domestic issues â" spy on Americans as well

• The information gained through spying is shared with federal, state and local agencies, and they are using that information to prosecute petty crimes such as drugs and taxes. The agencies are instructed to intentionally âoelaunderâ the information gained through spying, i.e. to pretend that they got the information in a more legitimate way ⦠and to hide that from defense attorneys and judges

They went after other groups as well, including liberal and progressive groups

Thanks for the liberal spin Mr Curiously AC.

In reality those documents released by your fellow liberals don't mean what you think they mean - they do not refer to the targeting that conservative groups undergo (not even past tense, the targeting continues to this day)

Sorry, but almost all the targeted groups did engage in political campaigning, quite a bite more than allowed by law. The real scandal is that they got away with it.

While our military spending is rather excessive I get the impression that Europe rather enjoys our spending on our military as it means they get to spend less on their militaries and enjoy the influx of US dollars into their countries. As a side bonus they get to divert those funds they would have to spend on their own defense elsewhere and can point out how much less they spend on defense than the US. Personally I would love to see us bring all of our troops home starting with Europe, the middle east, and South America as those are the easiest to unwind. There are a few instance that will take a bit more to unwind like active ares (Afghanistan, South Korea, Africa) but I would love to see us out of every country that isn't the US or its territories within the next 4 years. The only other issue I see is with keeping shipping lanes open and free of piracy which the US Navy puts a lot of effort into doing which seems to be a valid function but other countries should be stepping up to the plate more with this as well.