Instead of attacking WikiLeaks, fix what it exposed – Stripes – Independent U.S. military news from Iraq, Afghanistan and bases worldwide
September 15th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Japan’s Earthquake and Radiation Updates: JP Govt lied all along
July 29th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Japan’s Earthquake and Radiation Updates: JP Govt lied all along.Japanese authorities posted online maps showing the fallout of radioactive cesium and iodine from a “nuclear cloud” that floated over the greater Tokyo area, home to more than 40 million people, on March 15.
The newly released information presents a more troubling scenario than originally described in March and April by government officials, who tended to downplay or withhold bad news to calm a public enduring food shortages and hundreds of aftershocks.
Two weeks ago, state broadcaster NHK showed a simulation of a “nuclear cloud” on March 15 blowing south from Fukushima and dropping cesium on the greater Tokyo area and even beyond the Mount Fuji volcano in Shizuoka province.
Japan’s central government at that time denied the existence of such a cloud, and Tokyo’s governor asked people to go back to work as normal, despite a mass exodus of foreigners that week after warnings from the U.S., French, German and other governments.
Chatter Box Hires Veteran Call Center Expert
June 23rd, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Chatter Box Enters Agreement to Buy Call Center in Cebu
June 14th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Japan’s Earless Rabbit Sparks Worries About Radiation, Mutation
June 14th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
It’s no Godzilla, but an earless rabbit allegedly born near Japan’s severely-damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant has become the latest poster child for the side-effects of radiation exposure.
The bunny — purportedly captured on video just outside the crippled plant exclusion area and posted on YouTube on May 21 — has become big news in Japan and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere, stoking fears that contamination from the damaged facility could cause genetic mutations.
But both rabbit experts and radiation researchers told AOL Weird News the bunny’s bizarre looks could have a less sensational explanation.
Though the longterm environmental effects remain unclear, there’s no denying that the radiation emitting from Fukushima Dai-ichi, about 140 miles northeast of Tokyo, poses a major health risk.
However it’s hard to say whether this earless bunny’s strange appearance can be blamed on radiation, according to F. Ward Whicker, professor emeritus at Colorado State University’s Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences.
“Yes, radiation can cause mutations that can be occasionally expressed as obvious birth defects, such as shown in the video,” Whicker wrote in an e-mail. “However, to say this is the result of contamination from the Fukushima accident is a stretch, because natural radiation, as well as many other chemical substances in the environment and other fact
In most cases, the cause of congenital birth defects in humans and other animals cannot be determined, he said.
“So far as science has shown, there have never been mutations produced by ionizing radiations that do not occur spontaneously as well.”
News reports from around the world have cast the bunny as a “nuclear rabbit” or a “mutant rabbit,” citing the fact the animal and was born and raised on “possibly contaminated” outdoor grass in the Fukushima prefecture’s Namie City.
But nuclear historian Richard Rhodes says a link between the earless rabbit and radiation “is highly unlikely.”
The evidence, Rhodes says, can be found in research conducted in the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
“In the years after World War II, there was a major American commission that looked into the health ramifications of the atomic bombings, and it found no genetic changes in the populations of Hiroshima or Nagasaki,” said Rhodes, who has written extensively on the bombings. “There were no birth defects attributed to the bombing, and no genetic consequences.”
In fact, the earless rabbit’s strange appearance may not be caused by genetic factors at all.
Far removed from radiation concerns in Japan, Mary Cotter, a licensed veterinary technician and New York City chapter manager for the House Rabbit Society, has had two run-ins with earless rabbits.
“I’ve never encountered a rabbit that is born with no ears, but mother rabbits are assiduous groomers,” Cotter said. “A mother can enthusiastically over-groom and chew off a baby’s ears.”
Maternal over-grooming can leave young rabbits looking like they were born without ears, though close investigation could reveal jagged edges of flesh surrounding their auditory canals.
Cotter believes that was the case for two earless rabbits — fittingly dubbed “Stubs” and “Nubbins” — that she has taken into her care.
With only one video as evidence, it’s impossible to know why the bunny has no ears, said Dana Krempels, a rabbit expert and University of Miami biology professor.
“It is pretty much impossible to say whether this anomaly is due to radiation. But it’s very unlikely, in my opinion, that a failure to develop ears could be due to a single mutation,” said Krempels, who heads the Miami chapter of the House Rabbit Society.
Mutations and epigenetic changes are hard to track, varying greatly between subjects.
“But if more baby bunnies with physical anomalies show up in this area, it’s certainly a red flag,” she said.
Huffington Post has attempted to contact the YouTube poster who submitted the video, but has not gotten a response.
Homeless Boy Wows Judges on Korea’s Got Talent – Inspirational Videos
June 8th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Homeowner FORECLOSES and PADLOCKS Bank of America
June 8th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Instead of a bank foreclosing on another homeowner, the Florida homeowners foreclosed on a bank and had sheriff’s deputies foreclose on the North Carolina based bank, Bank of America.
It started five months ago when Bank of America filed foreclosure papers on the home of a couple, who didn’t owe a dime on their home. The couple actually paid cash for the house.
The case went to court and the homeowners were able to prove they didn’t owe Bank of America anything on the house. In fact, it was proven that the couple never even had a mortgage bill to pay.
A Collier County Judge agreed and after the hearing, Bank of America was ordered, by the court to pay the legal fees of the homeowners’, Maurenn Nyergers and her husband. The Judge said the bank wrongfully tried to foreclose on the Nyergers’ house.
After an excess of 5 months of the judge’s ruling, the bank still hadn’t paid the legal fees, and the homeowner’s attorney did exactly what the bank tried to do to the homeowners. He, rightfully, seized the bank’s assets.
“They’ve ignored our calls, ignored our letters, legally this is the next step to get my clients compensated, ” said attorney Todd Allen.
Sheriff’s deputies, movers, and the Nyergers’ attorney went to the bank and foreclosed on it. The attorney gave instructions to to remove desks, computers, copiers, filing cabinets and any cash in the teller’s drawers.
After about AN HOUR of being locked out of the bank, the bank manager handed the attorney a check for the legal fees.
“As a foreclosure defense attorney this is sweet justice” says Allen.
Allen says this is something that he sees often in court, banks making errors because they didn’t investigate the foreclosure and it becomes a lengthy and expensive battle for the homeowner
Super Typhoon Songda Approaching Okinawa, US Military bans Alcohol
May 28th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Airmen and Marines on Okinawa are banned from drinking alcohol this weekend if and when incoming Super Typhoon Songda nears the island, according to both services.
The ban goes into effect when the storm is within 12 hours of making landfall and the military announces a Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness 1 warning level, which was expected to occur sometime Saturday afternoon.
Songda has had wind gusts from 160 to 200 mph and is the first major storm to threaten Okinawa this year, though the official storm season does not begin until June 1.
In a prepared statement Thursday, the 18th Wing commander, Brig. Gen. Ken Wilsbach, said typhoons “can pose a significant challenge to military operations on Okinawa — a challenge that requires complete readiness of personnel to prepare for a storm’s arrival and to resume full operations after a storm passes.”
All active-duty servicemembers are covered by the alcohol ban, including those people on leave and those on TDY who are awaiting transportation.
Civilians are not covered but are “encouraged to refrain from alcohol consumption” during the storm.
The alcohol ban will remain in effect until Songda passes and the military declares the situation all clear, according to Wilsbach’s announcement.
Liquefaction: Land Sinkage from Earthquakes
May 10th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Chiba Sidewalks Dropping from Liquefaction
As the rest of the world continues on with its own environmental disasters – Japan continues to grapple with the massive amounts of destruction caused by the great 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, tomorrow marking two months its two month anniversary. The aftermath in Tohoku and the nuclear crisis in Fukushima has left the Japanese government reeling with where to begin.
Chiba, home to Japan’s Disneyland largest concern is not damage from tsunamis, which dissolved towns in the east after the barrage of earthquakes along the pacific plate, but “land liquification.” Much of Tokyo’s real estate (particularly near Tokyo bay and other coastal areas) is artificial (landfill) – positively reacting to large earthquakes by turning its land mass into liquefaction. The ground sinks beneath a person’s feet; residential and commercial structures, roads, parks, power lines are slowly sinking into the earth with each aftershock or subsequent earthquake. Parked cars have sunk into the asphalt whereby it is half visible from the ground. The prestigious bay area home to tall luxury condos and newly built homes to young families has turned into a quicksand land mass within hours. This area was once the beach and ocean 30 decades ago. People chose to reside in this area in hope of a raising their families in the new communities of Chiba. 
Urayasu and Ichikawa are attempting to secure a solution as to this date, the liquified areas have made roads inaccessible to much of the public. 
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