Bloomberg’s daily status report from Fukushima…

No. 2: Contaminated water in the turbine structure contains 10 million times more radiation than normal cooling water, NHK said.

So how bad is that?

The water in the Fukushima Dai-Ichi No. 2 reactor’s turbine building was measured at more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour, Japan’s nuclear safety agency said today.

The normal radiation level that we receive over a year is about four millisieverts,” said Stephen Lincoln, a nuclear power and uranium specialist at the University of Adelaide.

In other words, the dose you get at Fukushima in one hour is the same as what you would normally absorb in 250 years!

Japanese officials have expressed alarm over a
possible fracture of a reactor core at one unit of the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Okay! That’s the (extremely) bad news! Now for the good news!

“Our data suggest the reactor retains certain containment functions,” says Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the nuclear safety agency.

“Certain containment functions!” You could say the same thing about a sieve!

But the worst news was buried way way down in the article from PressTV, and never even mentioned by the NY Times.

“Reports indicate that a number of Japanese people who lived between 200 and 350 kilometers away from the plant have been hospitalized for exposure to radioactive materials.”

HOSPITALIZED for radiation! 200 MILES AWAY FROM FUKUSHIMA!

And Tokyo, that enormous city, is only 130 miles away from Fukushima.

Der Spiegel recently published some “graphic” photos of American soldiers in action in Afghanistan.

The details don’t matter.

An American drone attack in Datta Khel, Pakistan killed 44 people, including 13 children, on March 17, 2011.

One of the elders, Malik Faridullah Wazir Khan told the BBC that “the area was completely covered in blood. There were no bodies, only body parts – hands, legs and eyes scattered around. People carried away the body parts in shopping bags and clothing or with bits of wood, whatever they could find.”

“We are a people who wait 100 years to exact revenge. We never forgive our enemy.”

“We announce a jihad against the US and her allies sitting in our country,” said Malik Jalal Sarhadi Qat Khel, another tribal leader. “We will avenge our tribesmen at any cost, even if it takes a hundred years.”

Yesterday President Barack Obama identified a man with a bag over his head who is often observed around the Oval Office as Jacob Freeze, the President’s sock-puppet from the liberal blogosphere. “Jakie was supposed to play my conscience in Obama: The Sequel, but when Axelrod axed that role, we had to recast him as my shame.”

‘You can hear Bradley Manning coming because of the chains.’

“I was stripped of all clothing with the exception of my underwear. My prescription eyeglasses were taken away from me and I was forced to sit in essential blindness.”

The Kalasha inhabit a few small villages in three very remote valleys in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, and likewise across the Durand Line in the Chitral District of Pakistan. Their language and culture are radically different from the surrounding ethnicities, and many of them claim descent from the Greek soldiers whom Alexander of Macedon left behind in Afghanistan. During one of their many, many festivals, in July and August, dancing and singing continue every night for a month.

Photocredit: Guy Smallman

Except for the graves, this photo from the village of Granai looks like most of the rest of Farah Province, where the only river dried up four years ago, and extreme drought prevails everywhere.

About 140 civilians were killed here by a US airstrike on May 4, 2009. The United States lied about it at the time, and never stopped lying.

Speaking at an MIT seminar in Boston, Assistant Secretary Of State For Public Affairs P.J. Crowley said Manning is being “mistreated” in the military brig at Quantico, Virginia. “What is being done to Bradley Manning is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid on the part of the department of defense,” he said.

And how did the Torturer-in-Chief respond to those charges?

Obama declined to “go into details” about the detention of Private Bradley Manning but said that he “actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards.”

“They assured me that they are,” Obama said.

Asked about Crowley’s comments at his press conference, Obama didn’t mention the spokesman. “I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well,” Obama said.

Obama “actually asked” about the brutal mistreatment of Bradley Manning!

HARHARHARHAR!!!

Barack Obama! What a fucking bum!

The United States has been killing civilians and “insurgents” in Afghanistan every day for the last 3429 days, and it’s an absolutely sure bet that the United States will kill somebody somewhere tomorrow in Afghanistan, and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, and for as far into the future as anyone can foresee.