disaster memory hole

Let's compare notes with some other recent disasters.

After the earthquake in Haiti, Israel rushed in their medical teams and made a big point of bragging about being the only ones who miraculously avoided the bottlenecks that plagued every other nation on earth waiting to help the people of Haiti. Remember that?

That did not happen after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Why? This particular quote, from the Japan consul in Israel, has been trotted out repeatedly as an explanation:

"Israel officially offered its help an hour after the earthquake struck. It is very heart-warming, but at this point we do not know exactly what the extent of the damage is, so it is difficult for us to say what can be done.” Mitoshiko Shinomya, Japan consul in Israel

In other words, any delays have been due to Japan not specifying what it needs.

We wondered about Gal Lusky and Israel Flying Aid and ZAKA, organizations that became very visible during the Haiti disaster. We did a series of posts back in February 2010 because this was all around the time of the Haiti earthquake, Moshe Saba helicopter crash, Jorge Puello, Col. Russ Williams scandal, organ trafficking allegations, child trafficking allegations, etc. These Israeli groups had a very high profile during the Haiti earthquake. But we have not heard about them in Japan. What happened?

Israel News Agency, March 11, immediately reported all the things Israel would be doing to help. http://tinyurl.com/4waysej  We tried to verify some of these activities. But evidently, just days after the disaster, the Israeli government ordered all Israelis out of Japan because of high radiation levels. Regrettable. Also, hard to verify because that little detail was not quite reported.

A comment here: http://olehgirl.com/?p=7007 posted around March 15 says:

"Sir John I’d normally agree if it weren’t for the fact that our govt has recalled Israelis from Japan. The radiation levels in Tokyo, according to our experts, are high enough to potentially harm developing fetuses and young children. If the wind shifts then the situation is going to be much worse."

Meanwhile, back on March 14, JTA reported that several Israeli diplomats in Tokyo needed a break from all those aftershocks. Three days after the earthquake. That also had nothing to do with radiation. No word of their return to Tokyo.

"Meanwhile, several Israeli diplomats and their families stationed at the embassy in Tokyo returned home Monday for a temporary rest from the aftershocks, Israel's Foreign Ministry said. The diplomats' return is not connected to the possibility of more radiation leaks from nuclear power plants affected by the natural disasters, the ministry stressed."  http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/03/14/3086406/chabad-ships-tons-of-food-to-japanese-city

A 50 member medical team from Israel finally arrived in Tokyo last week and will open a field hospital in Miyagi prefecture to operate in Kurihara for a period of one month.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israeli-medical-delegation-lands-in-japan-to-aid-relief-efforts-1.352347

 Miyagi prefecture map from Wikipedia

See the dispersion models.

You can also listen here starting around minute 20 to Jonathon Azaziah, and he brings up Haiti as well, and the stark contrast between how things went between the two disasters when it comes to Israel.

So within days of the tsunami, Israelis were out of Japan, based on the information from the Israeli government and experts  -- not reported to everyone else -- that radiation levels were already extremely dangerous.

ZAKA, meanwhile, has been very busy since the Jerusalem bombing on March 23rd, which took place just outside their headquarters while they were (allegedly) meeting to discuss sending a rescue and recovery team to Japan. http://www.zaka.us/news.asp?AID=208

"ZAKA volunteers were among the first on the scene of the Jerusalem bomb attack, which took place just outside the ZAKA headquarters in central Jerusalem. The ZAKA volunteers, who were meeting to discuss arrangements on sending a rescue and recovery team team out to Japan, ran to the scene of the explosion, carrying their emergency first aid equipment."

What are the odds? Well, what were the odds of Chabad being first responders at the Moscow airport in January? That happened too. As you may know, only one person died in the Jerusalem explosion, a British tourist. Also, no Jews died in the Moscow bombing. Lucky.


^^^^^^^

We are also reminded of the BP disaster.


You may also recall the tremendous difficulty that BP had plugging the Macondo well. They tried golf balls, hunks of shredded tires, etc. All the technological advances of mankind were of no use. Remember that?



In very similar fashion, we read of the very serious efforts to plug a crack at Fukushima with "more than 120 pounds of sawdust, three garbage bags full of shredded newspaper and about 9 pounds of a polymeric powder that officials said absorbs 50 times its volume of water."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/world/asia/04japan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

"Efforts to Plug Japanese Reactor Leak Seem to Fail."

They estimate an estimated 7 tons of radioactive water escape from the pit each hour. So they threw three garbage bags FULL of shredded newspaper at the leak, plus some other stuff. Regrettably, their efforts "seem to fail." Imagine our shock.

Also see Penny's post today: Corporate Media Lies - GE & Fukushima obfuscation.

Let's just take a look at the surreal reporting on this situation from the New York Times:

The leak underscores the dangerous side effects of the strategy to cool the plant’s reactors and spent fuel storage pools by pumping them with hundreds of tons of water. While much of that water evaporates, a significant portion also turns into dangerous runoff that has been discovered accumulating in various parts of the plant, endangering workers at the plant and hindering repair efforts. Last week, three workers were injured when they stepped into a pool of radioactive water inside one of the plant’s turbine buildings.
Workers have in recent days tried to clear the contaminated pools, but have struggled to find enough places to store the water. Meanwhile, higher-than-normal levels of radiation have been detected in waters near the plant, raising fears of damage to sea life.

...The Tokyo Electric Power Company, the plant’s operator, has said it has little choice but to pump more water into the reactors at the moment, since the normal cooling systems at the plant are inoperable and more radioactive material would be released if the reactors were allowed to melt down fully or if the rods caught fire.
Still, some experts expressed bewilderment at what they called an 11th-hour, improvised bid to plug the leak.
“I’ve never heard of anything like it at a nuclear power plant,” said Itsuo Kimura, Emeritus Professor at Kyoto University and director of the Japan-based Institute of Nuclear Technology. What is really needed, he said, is for the cooling systems to come back online at the plant’s six reactors. Those cooling systems work by circulating water around the nuclear fuel, producing little runoff.

"Deadly battle: The Fukushima 50 expect to die within a matter of weeks as they work in dangerously high radiation trying to keep the temperatures of the destroyed reactors down at the nuclear plant, fresh images of which were released today." Daily Mail, April 2, 2011: The 100 year battle to make Fukushima safe: Grim prediction as brave workers expect to 'die within weeks'

"Destroyed inside: This image, taken from a video shot by TEPCO on March 24 which you can watch below, shows the damage to the fourth reactor at Fukushima nuclear power plant" Daily Mail, link above.

We're no experts like Itsuo Kimura, Emeritus Professor at Kyoto University and director of the Japan-based Institute of Nuclear Technology, but we'll go out on a limb here and say this plant is NOT COMING BACK ONLINE. And we don't think sawdust and garbage bags full of shredded newspaper will do jack shit, either. But don't worry. Arrangements are being made to move the Putzmeister Pump to Japan. It will only be another week or so. http://chronicle.augusta.com/latest-news/2011-03-31/srs-concrete-pump-heading-japan-nuclear-site

Disaster mismanagement, once again. Fucking around, wasting time. But will anyone be held accountable? Don't count on it.

BP wants to resume drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Transocean gave top executives bonuses for achieving the "best year in safety performance in our company's history."


^^^^^^^

In marked contrast, let's have a look at that X-37B spaceship. When it comes to secret spaceships, we have the technology. Well, not "we" actually. But the CIA and the NSA have it, which is almost as good, right? Since we're all friends, right? Amazing technology. Super secret technology. Technology like a solar array power system that allows the secret spaceship to remain in orbit for many months. But down here on earth we have nuclear and oil technology. And when it comes to plugging deadly leaks from the Human Errors and Acts of God that plague us with our shitty, mismanaged, dirty, deadly technology... we have garbage.

CIA spaceship does pass over Fukushima March 31, 2011

This story was posted March 5, 2011, six days before the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
Classified projects, $455M climate satellite crashes, X37B unmanned shuttle and DARPA



(Excerpt, more at link.)

In 2004 NASA turned over the X37 project to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20110303/sc_space/airforcesx37bspacep...
The U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane is poised to launch on its second mission Friday (March 4), though what exactly it will be doing once it leaves the ground remains a mystery.
The robotic X-37B mini-shuttle is slated to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Friday atop an Atlas 5 rocket, weather permitting. Its launch window opens at 3:39 p.m. EST (2039 GMT), according to the launch provider United Launch Alliance, which is overseeing the flight.
This will mark the second space mission for the Air Force's X-37B space plane program — but the first for this particular plane. It is the second X-37B spacecraft built for the Air Force by Boeing and carries the name Orbital Test Vehicle 2, or OTV-2.
The first X-37B spacecraft launched in April 2010 and returned to Earth in December after an apparently successful test flight, though the details of that mission – like this upcoming flight – are classified. The first X-37B mission lasted 225 days. 
...…Air Force officials have not said much about first X-37B mission, and they're been similarly tight-lipped about the upcoming second flight with the OTV-2 vehicle.
But the Air Force has said that the X-37B spacecraft should help the Air Force test and demonstrate new technologies — such as guidance, navigation and control systems — that could be used on future satellites.
The secrecy surrounding the X-37B has led to some speculation that the plane could be a space weapon of some sort. But Air Force officials have repeatedly denied that charge, and some experts have postulated that it is a platform for space reconnaissance. The X-37B was built by Boeing's Phantom Works Division in Seal Beach, Calif., and can fly long, extended missions because of its solar array power system, which allows it to stay in orbit for up to 270 days, Air Force officials have said.
Originally, NASA used the space plane as an experimental test bed until funding for the project ran out in 2004. The vehicle then passed to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and was ultimately turned over to the Air Force in 2006.
MIT Lincoln Lab sensitive airborne receiver system...on board
Standoff Aerosol Active Signature Test bed…also involved

On board: technology for measuring particles in the atmosphere. You want to be impressed? Go ahead and google those things and see how smart these scientists are. Good thing they thought of putting these systems up there on March 5th, under the circumstances, considering that there are now all sorts of horrible things they can measure in the atmosphere. Maybe they can demonstrate their new technologies for us.

Or maybe they already did.