Paul Krugman Will Claim Hurricane Sandy a Great Economic Stimulus

Paul Krugman Will Claim Hurricane Sandy a Great Economic Stimulus.  From his Krazy Keynesian mindset, as long as the the amount of damage done to New York and et-al is great enough to cause significant rebuilding without effecting the capability to rebuild, the economy will be much better for the destruction.

 Basically, this Krazy Keynesian belief is the equivalent to believing that hiring teenagers to break windows around town is a great economic stimulus to society in general; provided of course that the teenagers  don't break the windows at the window factory.  On an individual level, its the equivalent of rationalizing littering as a modality to create street sweeper jobs.

So instead of crying  over the hurricane damage to your purse,  bask in the warmth that all of these destroyed taxis might just give a GM a chance to force Chevy Volts on the Taxi Czars and you as a patron.

M3.9 Earthquake in Arkansas,

There was a magnitude 3.9 this morning in Arkansas just west of Memphis and North of Forrest city.
Earthquakes in this region are interesting because even small ones can be felt over long distances and large ones can shake the entire eastern seaboard.

In fact, from Dec 1811 to Feb 1812  THREE magnitude 8 earthquakes hit back to back to back,  each about 1 month apart. These quakes rang church bells in Boston and made the Mississippi river flow backwards for 3 days as it filled the newly created Real Foot Lake in Tennessee.

So when a 3.9 hits we pay attention, and apparently so does the government. Back in 2008 a magnitude 5.1 quake hit Evansville Indiana, we felt is and its aftershock over 200 miles away here in Saint Louis. Fast forward to Januarary 2011 and FEMA was putting out RFI's for just tons of temporary shelters, , blankets body bags, and 140 million of MRE's. The purpose of those RFI's seemed to be to identify potential suppliers should a quake hit the New Madrid fault zone.

The MRE RFI even  resulted in this headline Did FEMA Expect Midwest MegaQuake by 2014? in Science magazine, but for some reason they did not  report the other associated RFI's for shelters, blankets and body bags.  

[VERY GOOD TEMPORARY STL NEWS] Spring & Summer 2012 Fallout UPTAKE Contamination Appears Low

Even though we have detected long half life in Saint Louis area rain, we have indications that the radioactive Fukushima fallout which came down on the Saint Louis area during the drought of 2012 was not taken up by the plant product(s) we have had tested.

We will have more information available after we further crunch through the data, and there may still be some counter indications to come. But as it stands now, we will likely lower our PERSONAL risk assessments for food grown in the Saint Louis area between Spring and Summer of 2012; with the possible exception of food products grown in watershed bottom lands.

We believe the radioactive contamination risks to be higher west of the Sierra and Cascade mountain ranges; as shown in  points A to B in the map below, and as such we avoid food products from anywhere west of that region.



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27x Background Radiation From Saint Louis Storms

The radioactive fallout which we believe originated in Fukushima on or about 10/14/12 finally entered the Saint Louis area.  As seen in the first seconds of the video above, our live outdoor airborne radiation monitor averaged around 2.5 times background radiation. A paper towel swipe from the surface of our truck returned a reading of 27 times greater than background radiation. We have placed the sample in our lead cave lab to see if any long half life fallout will remain after the short half life fallout has burned out.

Those wishing to compare our live airborne readings with those on the Black Cat Systems Radiation Map will have no issues as our readings and theirs are normalized to the same standard. Unfortunately the same can not be said of the data which appears on the Radiation Network.

The Radiation Network does not normalize their data to a standard, hence direct comparisons from one measuring station to another may not be valid. Our airborne detector uses a standard Geiger tube; to make comparisons with someone using a pancake tube Geiger on the Radiation network, you will have to multiply our readings by 3.2.  For example, the reading of 40cpm on our Geiger would equate to 128 cpm on the Geiger counter which sparked today's alerts on the Radiation network. This means our airborne Geiger readings would not have  triggered their alert system even though we measured greater radioactivity than their alerting site.

Maximum Alert: Airborne Radioactive Fallout On Jet Stream Boundary

We expect this system to move towards Saint Louis later today, and readily detectable levels of airborne radiation may be present!  Real time Saint Louis area radiation monitoring is available on our  Live Saint Louis Outdoor Radiation Monitor: 

As discussed in detail in our previous video "More On The Way..",  more  Fukushima fallout was imminent. Based on on going readings from the Radiation Network (as reported by Radiation News), airborne Fukushima fallout appears to be occurring on the boundary edge of the Jet Stream in association with precipitation.

More On The Way: Fallout Detected on Radiation Network and RadNet

On or about October 14th a significant radioactive release occurred at Fukushima. That release traveled with the Jet Stream and impacted the USA. The impact was detected on the Radiation Network in Eugene Oregon and Grand Rapids Minnesota. A detection was also indicated on EPA's RadNet in Anchorage Alaska.   A recent detection in Hawaii indicate that more is on the way for CONUS.  We would also expect European levels to spike near the Jet Stream as a result of both of these detections.

Here are the links to websites mentioned in the video.

Radiation Conversation on ENVIROREPORTER.COM
Alexander Higgins RadNet Compilation
The Radiation Network
Jet Stream Maps

UPDATE: 10/24/12
According to information from The Fukushima Diary, this chart from Hokkaido Japan shows a spike in airborne radiation in Hokkaido starting on 10/14/12. The trigger for that spike is likely what was detected in Oregon and Minnesota on 10/19-22/12

[EBO] Effects-Based Operations: The Math of Influence and YOU

EBO = "Effects-based operations are coordinated sets of actions directed at shaping the behavior of friends, foes, and neutrals in peace, crisis, and war", based on analytical modeling and simulation.

Likely you have never heard of EBO;  and even if you have, very few have the combination of skills to implement it well. But, it is another matter to recognize when such analytical / decision tools, or poor attempts at them, are in use.

We suggest reading one of the seminal books on the subject, fortunately it just happens to be available as a free PDF download from "The Command and Control Research Program (CCRP)" of the Department of Defense. see link below

Effects Based Operations
Edward A. Smith 2003
http://www.dodccrp.org/files/Smith_EBO.PDF

UPDATE: Since we've linked to this book the CCRP has decided to make this particular download strangly unavailable, but most people can still order a 100% FREE paperback version (free shipping too) at this link

http://www.dodccrp.org/html4/books_order.html

Fuel Rod Fire Shut Down All EPA RADNET Graphs In APRIL / MAY

Today's unsubstantiated rumor of a MAJOR ACTIVE fuel rod fire, currently, does not correlate with any EPA actions to  restrict RADNET data visibility.

This was not the case in May 2012, when the gamma spectrometry results from a beef test we had done at a professional lab indicated some contamination with short half life soot products which one would expect from a fuel rod fire.

We reported that finding in the video below, at the time of that finding it was also unprecedented that the  EPA stopped updating ALL of their RADNET graphs across the country. Eventual, data from Japanese waste sewage was released supporting the indication of a recriticality. And, not long after Tepco started testing fuel rod removal capabilities at Fukushima.

Magnitude M8.2 Aftershock Still Awaits Japan, Just Ask Sumatra

God watches out for fools and drunks, or so we have heard. But, who watches out for those who aren't prepared for a Magnitude 8.2 aftershock / earthquake off the coast of Cape Inubosaki, Japan?  Maybe thats what Uncle Sam was doing when they ordered  1,050,000 Doses of iOSAT thyroid blocker for the US Military in Japan.

Links referenced in the video:

Japanese Earthquake data
History of Japanese Quakes / Aftershocks
ANSS Earthquake data
Our June 2011 Earthquake Aftershock Analysis

Radioactive Tornadic Saint Louis Storms

The storms which passed through this evening were radioactive @ 18 times greater than background radiation. The Fukushima Jet Stream was overhead during these storms, indicating the likely presence of long half life radioactive fallout. Testing over the next few days will determine the presence of long half life radiation and will give some indication of last week's conditions at Fukushima. If long half life radioactivity is detectable it will add to the long term build of environmental radiation.

[SWAG] M8.0+ Aftershock Due East of Cape Inubosaki, Japan @ 35.8 , 141.1

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In our previous blog post we detailed that a magnitude 8.0+ aftershock is still due as a result of the great "Fukushima" Tohoku 9.0+ earthquake. Looking at the available data at a 50,000 foot level, from a shear flow perspective, our Scientific Wild Assed Guess  [SWAG]   is that the largest Tohoku aftershock will occur off of the coast of Cape Inubosaki, Japan @ 35.8 , 141.1 .

More info will follow in a video detailing the information.

A Magnitude 8.0 Earthquake Aftershock Still Awaits Fukushima

An M8 aftershock,  based on historical major Japanese quake data, has an 80% weight of occurring today with that weighting reaching 100% by September 2016.

Based on ANSS data:
An M6 aftershock is expected to occur around Jan 2013 +/- a few months.
An M7 aftershock is overdue based on Japanese aftershock data
An M7 aftershock is not due until July 2015 based on USA earthquake data
(the M7 discrepancy centers around whether or not the 3/14/12 M7 quake was an aftershock)

We plan a video discussing the math in detail.
In the mean time, below are the charts supporting the above information.  Those who remember our  June 2011 video successfully predicting a series of M6 quakes will already will recognize that charts below as updated versions.  The last chart indicates that recently there has been an excess release of quake energy. If that excess energy release was not uniformly distributed, it may indicate that a stronger quake is near.

Breaking- Jet Stream Primary Conduit For Long Half Life Radioactive Particulate

Breaking risk mitigation news!  Based on our analysis of radioactive paper towel swipes, a pattern is emerging indicating the presence of the  Northern Jet Stream is strongly correlated with the presence  of detectable long half life radioactive particulate fallout in rain storm samples.

We will have more on this in the weeks to come.

9am Thunderstorms 31X Greater than Background Radiation

We took a sample swipe from a vehicle at approximately 9am; it had been storming heavy since 6:30am. The sample returned a reading of 31 times greater than background radiation. Our full time live outdoor air radiation monitor increased by 50% from 14cpm to 21cpm.

Given the nearly over head location of the Jetstream and the high reading value, this sample likely contains long half life Fukushima fallout. Given past data, the long half life component is estimated to measure at 2 cpm over background.

9:30pm Drizzle Radioactive At FIVE Times Greater Than Background Radiation

A few passing sprinkles this evening around 9:30pm, a swipe from the hood of the truck returned a reading of 5X greater than background radiation.

ALERT! Radioactive I-125 CORPSE Vapors Possibly Contaminate McDonald's Food Distribution Hub

Based on NRC event report #48331, the nearly 2 week delay in its release, and the sparsity of information contained in it, we decided to dig deeper. 

We looked at the PRESUMED location where the Iodine-125 contaminated corpse was cremated, the weather conditions present on the day of cremation, and likely fallout areas. Assuming the location to be correct, it appears to the POTRBLOG team that the primary fallout location impacted by the radioactive Iodine-125 vapors from the cremated corpse was a major MidWest food distribution hub for McDonald's.

We cannot say for sure where,what,or how much contamination occurred because the NRC event reports do NOT give enough information for the public to "trust and VERIFY".


UPDATE: 10/2/12 
The chimney stack on the funeral home appears to be a match to the crematory chimney stack shown in this crematory manufacturer's video http://youtu.be/oQD-iohnoLw?t=5m19s . Based on the visual evidence, the NRC event report, and a third party phone call to the funeral home,  it seems clear that the crematory is on site.




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[Alert] Iodine-125 Radioactive Corpse Dust Released From Wisconsin Funeral Home

The NRC waited 2 weeks to inform us that radioactive Iodine-125 was released at a funeral home in  Whitewater Wisconsin.  The release resulted from the cremation of an individual who a had Iodine-125 mesh implanted in his/her lungs.  A check by the health department found the remains to be radioactive at  "3.8 mR/hr on contact with a plastic bag".   "Radiation readings inside the crematorium were 0.75 mR/hr".

UNsurprisingly, there does not seem to be any indication that any testing was performed down wind of the crematory. Given that iodine is very volatile and spontaneously sublimates to a gas at room temperature that lack of further environmental testing, and the long delay public NRC event report is troubling. The iodine in question has a half life of approximately 60 days.

See NRC event report # 48331