We know the approximate dosage that workers at Fukushima have been exposed to is not extremely high.  All but 28 workers have been exposed to less than 100 mSv, while only two workers have been exposed to levels as high as 170 mSv.  Thus far, nobody has been exposed to more than 250 mSv.

This is really not much radiation at all.  It’s more than the average person is exposed to and is more than nuclear plant workers are normally exposed to under normal operating conditions.   Still, 100 mSv is only about 10% of the minimum dose required to cause even minor, temporary radiation sickness.

Despite hazardous conditions, there have been no life-threatening injuries at the Fukushima plant since the quake and tsunami hit on March 11.  The worst case that workers might face is a slightly elevated risk of cancer in the years to come, although even that is not a certainty, and as it stands, even those exposed to the highest doses would have only a tiny increase in total risk.

So why on earth would anyone make a fuss about a worker being exposed to 17.55 mSv?   That level may be bellow the (extremely conservative) standards for exposure under normal operations, but it’s not high at all.  It’s not high enough to cause any detectable health problems.   It’s about the same exposure someone might get from a few CT scan examinations.

The reason everyone is all bothered is that the person in question had two X chromosomes.

Via Fox Business:

TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501.TO) said Wednesday that one of its female employees at the crisis-hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was exposed to radiation exceeding three times the legal limit of 5 millisieverts in a three-month period, Kyodo News reported.

The woman, who is in her 50s, has no health problems, but the government’s nuclear safety agency said that two more female workers may also have been exposed to radiation in excess of the limit. The agency called on the utility to investigate the reason and take measures to prevent a recurrence.

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told a press conference the situation was “extremely deplorable,” but added that all female employees had left the radiation-leaking plant on March 23.

According to the plant operator and the agency, a total of 19 female Tokyo Electric employees were working at the six-reactor complex following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami hit the plant, and one of them was exposed to a total of 17.55 millisieverts of radiation.

The woman was found to have suffered more internal than external radiation exposure, with the internal exposure reaching 13.6 millisieverts.

Another agency official said that TEPCO needs to explain why the worker suffered so much internal exposure.

TEPCO and the agency said that the woman had been refueling fire trucks and working inside a building on site. She had been wearing a mask, but may have inhaled radioactive material when putting it on or taking it off.

An TEPCO official acknowledged during a press conference that its radiation-dose management should have been more stringent.

Under Japanese law, radiation workers are not permitted to be exposed to more than 100 millisieverts over five years, or more than 50 millisieverts in one year.

For female workers, the limit is 5 millisieverts in a three-month period, considering they may become pregnant. For the general public, the limit is 1 millisievert per year, excluding exposure from medical procedures.

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What country is going to win the award for being the stupidest in their response to the events at the Fukushima nuclear power plant?   Could it be Australia, where ignoramuses who were more than 75 miles from the plant are whining about possible radiation poisoning?   Could it be the United States, where idiots are frantically calling government officials to ask if its safe to go outdoors?   How about China, where morons are buying salt thinking it will protect them from radioactive iodine?

Excuse my name calling, but the sheer stupidity of this is starting to really get to me.   It seems that South Korea is now vying for the title of being the most radiophobic nation of complete and utter idiots by closing schools out of fear of radiation.

Via CTV:

SEOUL, South Korea — More than 100 South Korean schools have cancelled or shortened classes over fears that rain falling across the country may include radiation from Japan’s stricken nuclear plant.

The Education Office of Gyeonggi province said it allowed schools to decide whether to open Thursday.

The prime minister’s office said radiation levels in the rain were low and posed no health threat.

Still, officials said that 126 schools in Gyeonggi province, near the capital, Seoul, shut down and 43 others shortened class hours as a precaution.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said only a few schools outside Gyeonggi cancelled classes Thursday.

Radiation levels fall quickly as you move away from the source, and officials have cleared the 12-mile (20-kilometre) radius around Japan’s crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex.

Recent progress at the plant — which was damaged by a March 11 tsunami — appears to have slowed the release of radiation into the ocean. This week, technicians there plugged a crack that had been gushing contaminated water into the Pacific. Contamination in waters off the coast has fallen dramatically since then.

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This is where the Linear Non-Threshold hypothysis has gotten us:

Via Al Jazeer (English):

‘No safe levels’ of radiation in Japan
Experts warn that any detectable level of radiation is “too much”.

Well that’s it. You can read the rest of the article if you like, but really you only need to read that far to get the point.

It’s pretty amazing who qualifies as an “expert” these days.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I just turned on a Geiger counter and it’s been making a few intermittent clicks due to detectable radiation. Apparently there are a lot of gamma ray photons whizzing by. I had better to panic.

This has got to be the stupidest thing I have read in a long long long time.   I don’t mean to be the type who is constantly defending atheism or going after nutball Christians.   However, I find this so ridiculously stupid I couldn’t leave it.

It’s from “Living Waters:”

It’s a frustrating time for atheists—they can’t blame God for tragedies, because they think there’s no evidence for God. Blaming Him would make as much sense as blaming Snow White for a snow storm.

I’m sorry I don’t see how that is frustrating. Earthquakes and snow storms just happen. I don’t feel the need to blame someone. Would it somehow be more satisfying to believe an all powerful God who we are supposed to love somehow got so pissed off at us that he decided to start causing pain for humanity?

But atheism would suggest that there is a good reason for Japan’s massive killer quake and the horrific tsunami that followed: it was nature making improvements. Everything is gradually getting better. People being crushed to death or drowned in a tsunami is just part of the work of nature.

No. Nature does not make things “better.” Nature just changes. It simply is. It has no intent or plan.

On the other hand, human civilization does often get better. It is because of this that less people died in this tragic event than would have had structures been built the way they were 50 years ago. Of course we can continue to get better, with better construction, better emergency medicine and better infrastructure. Hopefully the next time a major quake hits an industrial nation even fewer people will die.

Also, cancer, suffering, pain, and death are part of nature improving things through evolutionary change. It was evolution that improved nature when it gave the leap to the frog and the bark to the dog. It gave oxygen-enriched air to the lungs, wings to the bird, and brains to the nerd. It also gifted us with the four seasons, myriad colorful flowers, snow-capped mountains, cool running streams, music, love, and laughter. It all started with nothing, and over millions of years, here we are in this wonder called “life.” That’s evolution for you…making things better.

No. Evolution only acts on organisms, idiot.

Also, cancer and other diseases are just proof that evolution is not perfect. Evolution simply values a biological entity that usually lives long enough to pass on its genes. It does not require all aspects of that organism to function perfectly all the time. That’s why we have cancer.

Or did god just screw up while he was laying out cell biology?

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With all the hot air that groups like Greenpeace seem to blow about safety and human health, especially when it comes to industry, one would expect that they might run a decent operation in house.   And by “decent” I mean not breaking some very fundamental rules of safety like having gasoline out in the open, in an indoor area right near where you are working with tools that produce sparks.

Well apparently not.

Via NZ Herald:

Man Fuel explosion at Greenpeace in Auckland burns man

A man working at a Greenpeace workshop in Auckland has been taken to hospital with severe burns after sparks from an angle grinder caused fuel to explode on a boat he was working on today.

The man, understood to be a contractor, was working on the rigid-hull inflatable boat at a workshop in the Greenpeace offices in Mt Eden, central Auckland, when residual fuel at the bottom of the vessel ignited and exploded on him, Gary Lane, senior station officer at Auckland Central Fire Station, told NZPA.

The man suffered burns to his hands, legs and face and was put under a cold shower by his co-workers to relieve the considerable pain before an ambulance arrived, Mr Lane said.

The explosion had also started a fire on the boat, but this was extinguished by the time fire officers arrived about 3.30pm.

“Petrol’s very volatile and the slightest spark can cause what can be like an explosion,” Mr Lane said.

“Whenever you work around fuel you’ve got to be so careful that you keep sparks away from any kind of fuel, especially petrol because it’s so volatile.”

- NZPA

I honestly do not mean to come off as if I am taking some kind of delight in the suffering of the unnamed man who was reportedly burned.

Still, it would seem that this is a rather telling situation.  Greenpeace is unabashedly anti-petroleum and will go so far as to blockade fuel stations at rushhour to try to drive home their message that nobody should ever be using a petroleum product.  Still, they seem to have no problem using it themselves.

And if that is not bad enough, they same group that will tell us how horrible everyone else is for lax safety standards will then have so little safety oversight in their own operations as to allow something like this to happen, contractor or not.   Is it so much to ask that a group that claims to be so socially responsible actually make sure that the contractors they hire act responsibly?

For that matter, why was there “residual fuel at the bottom of the vessel?”  It is fairly common for boats to have some amount of fuel spill or become mixed with the bilge water.   Yet groups like Greenpeace will tell us that this is a horrible thing to allow to happen and that it is vital that we go to great lengths to make sure the fuel system is as tight and isolated as possible and that every drop of residual fuel is accounted for and never left to fester and pollute the enviornment.
Not surprisingly this news item was not exactly prominently featured in any media outlets and the organization has not said a word about it.

There’s no doubt that the situation at the Fukushima Nuclear plant is serious, although efforts to stabilize the situation are continuing to progress. As time goes on, the level of decay heat produced by the reactor cores diminishes and active cooling becomes less critical. At the same time, short-lived radioisotopes continue to decay away, reducing the severity of potential core discharges. Local radiation continues to spike due to venting of the cores and problems with keeping water in the spent fuel pools.

Still, the worst case scenario for the plant would be limited to a relatively localized event. Even if all of the reactors at the plant experienced a complete failure of all levels of containment and all spent fuels experienced fires, there would still be zero danger of acute radiation sickness to anyone who was not in the immediate area of the plant.

For those who live miles away, the worst danger would be the possibility of exposure to iodine-131. Although levels would not be enough to cause any acute symptoms, it can increase the probability of developing thyroid cancer. This danger too is reduced with time. With a half-life of about eight days, iodine 131 does not persist in the enviornment. As of this posting we are already coming up on one half-life since the reactor shutdown. In about two weeks the levels of iodine-131 in the reactor cores will be less than 15% what they were when the reactors shut down. Most of the iodine-131 has already decayed away from the spent fuel in storage.

Even in the worst case, where all material is discharged, there is zero danger of any dangerous radiation levels to areas beyond Northern Japan. The United States, Europe, Australia and elsewhere simply cannot be effected to any substantial level by any breach at any Japanese reactor, or even if every singe Japanese reactor simultaneously experienced a complete meltdown and core breach. It’s impossible.

Despite these undeniable facts, there remains a persistent myth, largely encouraged by the media and politicians, that a nuclear accident can constitute a truly global crisis. Nuclear accidents are portrayed as being some kind of doomsday event which can undermine human civilization and leave whole regions of the earth uninhabitable, causing the deaths of millions or billions and endangering every man, woman and child in every location on earth.

This ridiculous belief has lead to panic and madness gripping the world, with individuals from China to the United States responding to reports of radiation with a kind of fear normally reserved for the demons and curses of religion.

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You may remember Sylvia Browne as the self-proclaimed psychic who managed to stay in the spotlight despite repeatedly being ridiculously wrong in damn near all of her predictions and providing entirely wrong information on missing persons to desperate loved ones.  One of her most infamous incidents was claiming that Shawn Hornbeck was dead and that she even knew some details of the location of his body – Hornbeck later turned up alive.   After this was revealed by our friend Robert Lancaster, Browne faced a harsh backlash in the media.

She had been a regular on the Montel Williams Show, but since the show went off the air, she has not been as prominent in the media.  She has, however, tried to maintain as much of a presence as she can and has continued to promote her books and speaking engagements.

It seems she has a new (and unexpectedly pathetic) pitch.  Inexplicably some media outlets continue to take her seriously enough to actually devote some precious air time to the fraudulent bitch.

She does not exactly look or sound good. Not that she ever really did…

In some ways, this route represents a safer scheme for Browne. Her claims are still sensational and touch on something that plenty of stupid people are very interested in: celebrity gossip. However, it’s also not falsifiable and can’t result in the kind of direct damage that claiming to know the location of a missing person can. The persons in question are not alive and can’t refute what Browne claims, and although the remote possibility of their estate suing may exist, that seems to be unlikely since there’s really no way to prove anything one way or another.

I do feel rather bad for the poor woman reporter who had to maintain a straight face and pretend to take this all seriously. I can’t imagine what she was thinking, but it may well have been “a masters in journalism and years of trying to work my way up and this is what I’m left doing.”

It still amazes me that the media will devote precious airtime to this pathetic joke. The public may not exactly be very skeptical when it comes to choosing what they watch, but I have to believe that most people can see through this BS.

Despite the growth of scientific and technical education and achievement in India, the country still has a food solidly in the dark ages, in part thanks to a government that seems to do more to encourage than discourage superstition.   Ripe with healthfraud like homeopathy, Indians have suffered enormously due to the persistence of superstition-based scams in their country.

Yet even considering how bad things can get in India, I am left at a loss having read this news report.

Via the Times of India:

Astrology is a science: Bombay HC

MUMBAI: Astrology has been debunked by most world scientists including India’s renowned physicist Prof. Yash Pal. However, it is “science” in India.

The Bombay High Court reaffirmed this on Thursday when it dismissed a PIL that had challenged astrology as science.

The PIL was filed by an NGO, Janhit Manch that had sought action against ‘fake’ astrologers, tantriks, practitioners of Vastu shastra etc.

“So far as prayer related to astrology is concerned, the Supreme Court has already considered the issue and ruled that astrology is science. The court had in 2004 also directed the universities to consider if astrology science can be added to the syllabus. The decision of the apex court is binding on this court,” observed the judges.

Yeah, you read right. And I thought that law makers trying to get “intelligent design” into the curriculum were bad. Hell, at least they have been shot down by the courts. But apparently in India, the courts have ordered that astrology should be considered for inclusion in scientific instruction.

I can’t imagine how this must play with the various professors and scientists in India who actually are seeing a court order their institutions to consider astrology a science. Despite how boneheaded this court is, there are many very learned Indians and institutions of higher learning have been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years. The frustration of having some idiot superstitious judge step in and try to undo it all must be maddening.

The judges also took on record an affidavit submitted by the Union government. The Centre had in its affidavit stated that astrology is 4000 years old ‘trusted science’ and the same does not fall under the preview of The Drugs and Megical Remedies Act (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954.

“The said Act does not cover astrology and related sciences. Astrology is a trusted science and is being practiced for over 4000 years,” said an affidavit filed by Dr R Ramakrishna, deputy drug controller (India), west zone.

“The said Act is aimed at prohibiting misleading advertisements relating to drugs and magic remedies. The Act does not cover and / or relate to astrology and / or allied sciences like Palmistry, Vaastu Shastra etc. In view thereof, a purported ban on practices promoting astrology and related sciences sought by the petitioner, which is a time tested science more than 4000 years old is totally misconceived and unjustifiable,” says the affidavit.

The (PIL) filed by Janhit Manch and its convener Bhagwanji Raiyani, along with his associate Dattaram Kumkar, had questioned the validity of predictions by many well-known astrologers.

The PIL, which ran into more than 100 pages pointed to several cases, including that of Indira Gandhi and Charan Singh becoming prime ministers, despite opposite predictions.

Representing the Union government, advocate Advait Sethna told the court that even the SC had accepted that astrology was a science and many universities had included it as a subject.

Advocate for Maharashtra government, Bharat Mehta too supported the stand taken by the Union government. Mehta submitted an affidavit filed by the food and drugs administration (FDA) department which said that necessary action is being taken against the guilty under the Drugs and Megical Remedies Act.

The PIL had urged the authorities to ban articles, advertisements, episodes and practices promoting astrology and its related subjects like vastu, reiki, feng shui, tarot, palmistry, zodiac signs and rashifal.

“Trusted science…for over 4000 years” Is that all it takes? The fact that something has been around for a long time and was trusted in ancient times makes it immune from ever becoming non-trusted?

I’ve got some news for Ramakrishna: There are lots of things that were believed thousands of years ago and are now considered hogwash. One thing about science is that it does not stand still and ideas that are found to be flawed are rejected regardless of their age. Not that this is a new thing, though, most serious scientists have rejected astrology for hundreds of years.

Maybe we should bring back bloodletting, witch burning, virgin sacrifices, geocentrism and all the other ideas that were trusted for thousands of years before we knew any better.

Finally, to the judges involved: you may want to reconsider your decision in light of your charts for the past day. Here’s your horoscope: The stress of the daily grind has been getting to you. Be careful about making big decisions. It would be better to wait until you’ve had time to relax and think them through. Now might be a good time to break from the routine by contacting some old friends and enjoying some activities you haven’t done in a while. Tonight: stay home and go f*** yourself.

Every once in a while a comment is flagged as spam despite not being spam. I try to check out the spam folder and correct comments that are flagged as spam when they should not be, but it can be hard, because the spam folder often contains dozens of comments.

It’s something I had not anticipated about blogging. Many of the spammed comments are simple bot-created advertisements for services and attempts to drive web traffic to various sites. Occasionally some will slip through, but by and large filters can catch these by collecting reports from around the web of the addresses and text used.

There’s another kind of spam that is much harder to deal with and causes the most headaches when it comes to misidentifying legitimate comments. A few people (well one especially) take it upon themselves to repeatedly send me email and comment on this website about their own warped beliefs in Nostradamus or their religion and their belief that I represent some kind of evil in the world. This can be a bit difficult to stop when the individual is constantly creating new email addresses, refreshing their IP address and skipping between ISP’s, proxy servers and locations to login to comment. The best way to deal with it is to block key phrases as well as IP ranges and common links, but it’s far from perfect and all too often it catches legitimate comments.

That said, it has proven important to block these comments because when these do eventually get through they seem to encourage the wacko who sends them to send even more.

Here’s just part of what my spam folder looks like:

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When I first read the headline of this news article I assumed it must be something important, or at least noteworthy – a spill of uranium processing chemicals or the non-reduced solution from uranium leaching.    However it turned out to be something far far less newsworthy.

That, however, has not stopped the press and even government emergency services from making a big deal about it….

Via Straight.com

Mining company working on plan to deal with uranium spill on ship docked in Vancouver

Cameco officials hope this week to finalize a plan to deal with spilled uranium concentrate in the hold of a cargo ship docked in Vancouver, says a company spokesperson.

Alice Wong said the Saskatchewan-based mining company is working closely with Transport Canada, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority following the incident.

“Right now we’re still working on that particular plan and we hope to submit it [to the regulatory authorities] this week sometime,” the company’s vice president of safety, health, and environment told the Straight today (January 24) by phone.

Wong said the public is safe and the environment is protected because the toxic material is contained in the ship’s hold.

Uranium concentrate, also known as “yellowcake”, can be refined into fuel for nuclear reactors. Cameco describes radiation from the material as “quite low”.

An estimated 349,000 kilograms of the substance was being transported in around 840 drums aboard the shipping vessel Altona, owned by Hartmann-Reederei, when it left Vancouver for Zhanjiang, China, on December 23.

On January 3, Cameco was notified that at least two opened drums had been found outside the sea container they were being transported in after the ship encountered rough conditions.

The ship was travelling between Hawaii and the Midway Islands at the time.

After returning to B.C. waters, the Altona initially docked off the coast of Vancouver Island near the small waterfront community of Ladysmith before returning to Vancouver in recent days to refuel and replenish supplies.

Um…. May I suggest a broom and perhaps a dustpan?

Seriously, if this ship really did turn around and head back to port because some heavy waves caused a barrel of uranium concentrate to tip over and spill, then I can only shake my head in disbelief and sorrow for what our culture has become. This ranks right up there with evacuating schools because someone broke a mercury-containing thermometer.

The material in question is basically a mixture of uranium oxides with some minor impurities. It’s produced when uranium ore is concentrated and undergoes some basic purification. This concentrate is further refined and (usually) enriched to produce nuclear fuel. Some of the major components, uranium dioxide and triuranium octoxide on most orange ceramics manufactured before the 1970’s.

Handling the material really does not require any special measures beyond standard industrial hygiene. It’s only mildly radioactive and the toxicity is less than that of an equal quantity of lead oxides and any number of other materials. The largest single hazard present in the handling of uranium concentrate is the potential for inhalation of dust, which may be irritating to airways. Basic dust protection measures such as dust masks are all that’s necessary to mitigate this minor hazard.

Now, the obligatory uninformed loony “environmentalist” statement:

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