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They still won't tell the purpose or result of green run

Here's a short article I wrote about the early radiological weapon program in the US: serv.peace.hiroshima-cu.ac.jp

I'm working on a much longer piece on the topic now. I gathered a s#@tload of documents at the National Archives but haven't had a chance to look through them yet.

I wish they could do a google books style project to get govt documents archived electronically.

Good night lilly. By the way, the DOE does have a lot of documents online. Of course these are only declassified docs: www.osti.gov

The scholarly journal Cultural Anthropology has an online issue dealing with aspects of the Fukushima crisis: www.culanth.org

@RBeaner yes, there is some devastating stuff in there. Horrible treatment of kids and the poor.

OPINION: Lessons of Fukushima and Hiroshima

By Joseph Cirincione
TOKYO, Aug. 9, Kyodo

Sixty-six years and 800 kilometers separate the disasters at Fukushima and Hiroshima. But the lesson is the same: nuclear technology is inherently dangerous whether in a nuclear power plant or a nuclear bomb.

Fukushima showed us that nuclear power is neither cheap nor clean. The multiple nuclear meltdowns are one of the most expensive man-made disasters in history. It will take decades and billions of dollars to control, cool and seal the reactors.

Radioactive contamination has shown up in milk, meat and urine many kilometers from the disaster site. In the end, officials will likely be forced to bury the reactors in tombs of sand and concrete that will dot the Japanese shoreline for centuries in mute testimony to industrial and government folly.

Hiroshima demonstrated that science had mastered the basic energy force of the universe, but not our basic instincts. Rather than heed the popular pleas to ban atomic bombs -- including from many of the American scientists that built the first bombs -- the United States, Russia and other nations made thousands more.

Forty years later, in 1986, there were almost 70,000 hydrogen and atomic bombs in the world -- enough to destroy life on Earth hundreds of times over.

The good news is that we are moving towards more sane policies on nuclear power and nuclear weapons. The Japanese people are demanding that their government reconsider the entire national energy program. Governments in Germany, Switzerland and other countries have canceled new reactors. And the rising cost of nuclear power has effectively killed the ''nuclear renaissance,'' encouraging new investments in safer, cleaner energy sources.

There is also great progress on nuclear weapons. Since 1986, we have cut global nuclear arsenals by more than 70 percent, down to about 20,000 weapons.

More cuts are coming as security officials increasingly recognize that nuclear weapons are a liability not a security asset. Many world leaders, including in America and Japan, now seek ''the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,'' as President Barack Obama has said.

There is great resistance to these changes, however. Those that benefit financially or politically from the existing system will fight to keep their jobs and profits. Our great new ally, ironically, is the global financial crisis. Tighter budgets encourage security leaders to abandon obsolete and expensive nuclear programs in order to preserve the conventional military weapons they actually need. We already see this occurring in the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom.

The next two decades are likely to see nations continue to move away from the false paths charted at Hiroshima and Fukushima and towards more rational security and energy strategies.

(Joseph Cirincione is president of Ploughshares Fund, a nuclear policy foundation, and author of ''Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.'')

==Kyodo
english.kyodonews.jp

this poses no threat to human health.

@M.I.A. It's unclear how much radiation people might have been exposed to by staying in areas in the path of the radioactive plume, let alone whether any might suffer health problems from the exposure. It could be difficult to ever prove a connection: Health officials say they have no plans to prioritize radiation tests of those who were at the school I dont think they are prioritising any form of health monitoring full stop

@lillymunster morning @lilly

Let me know if you see more info on that.

Taro Kono may run for prime minister in Japan mdn.mainichi.jp

Kan's resignation looming after accord on bond-issuance bill

TOKYO, Aug. 9, Kyodo

A bill to enable the Japanese government to issue debt-covering bonds in fiscal 2011 will be enacted by the end of August, increasing the likelihood that Prime Minister Naoto Kan will step down in the foreseeable future, lawmakers said Tuesday.

After months of deadlock, the government will finally be able to secure parliamentary passage of the bill after the Democratic Party of Japan, headed by Kan, agreed to review its key policies with the two largest opposition parties.

Passage of the bill is one of the three conditions set by Kan for his resignation.
english.kyodonews.jp