It is like those old movies made in Japan… news of an explosion and the leaking of radiation. Right now they are saying radioactive cesium is detected in the air near one nuclear power plant. On top of an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan has nuclear power plant problems.
“…Since the 1990s, the largest application of the element has been as caesium formate for drilling fluids. It has a range of applications in the production of electricity, in electronics, and in chemistry. The radioactive isotope caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30 years and is used in medical applications, industrial gauges, and hydrology. Although the element is only mildly toxic, it is a hazardous material as a metal and its radioisotopes present a high health risk in case of radiation leaks…”
It has a half life of 30 years! That means that what ever the radiation level of it is that in 30 years it will “only” be half as strong.
Notice the mention of used in drilling fluids! I think we are going to be hearing more about this subject. Right now there is debate here in the United States about all the drilling for gas and oil and the drilling fluid being pumped down into the ground. The drilling corporations say it is safe and refuse to tell us what they are pumping into the ground. Like here in Texas the drilling is all over the place … right down the street from where you live and right next to schools and playgrounds. Republicans say it is nothing and that the federal government has no right to control it or even get information. Rick Perry, the Republican Governor of Texas, is telling the federal government to go to hell that it is a Texas matter and he tells corporations that Texas loves you and there will be no regulation.
Also Republicans just started pushing for nuclear power building again.
Right now we are all jus worrying about the people of Japan but I think this is going to bring up issues here at home.
CNN on their website has a a polling question. “Do you have confidence in U.S. disaster preparedness?” Right now the vote is 78% “NO” and 22$ “YES” in the poll.
I wonder what the vote would have been if it had not been for President Bush, and the Republicans, and Hurricane Katrina?
Also you got to wonder how well are we going to be prepared when cities and states are cutting first responders? Because of the Republican financial crisis we are going to be cutting police officers, firefighters and EMS public employees. Not only that, right now, with the budget problems in Washington DC the Republicans are saying they are cutting money for FEMA and other federal spending.
You got a large group of Republicans that say that we should do away with all agencies because they are not mentioned in the Constitution of the United States. If they are not done away with then they want to take any power away from the agencies. They do not want them to have the power to regulate and make rules.
We need to fix the financial crisis caused by the Republicans. We need to create jobs and we need to regulate and control banks, Wall Street and big business. Then we need to work on the budget. As soon as we can get out of this Republican caused budget mess we need to look at our nation’s disaster preparedness.
The following video was made before we knew of a leak of radiation.
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