Depending on the competence or planning of the Japanese government or industry has not been a good bet in the past, and I see no reason to believe the odds have improved.
But we can hope that the government forces the industry to solve the problem, the industry decides that competence rather than PR is the best way to go, maybe we will just get lucky.
I think some good luck is out best hope.
James Pilant
via Laaska News http://laaska.wordpress.com (laaskanews.com)
This is a Commonweal Editorial. It says a lot of things about nuclear power and its future.
Public opinion is in flux right now. With the decision in Germany to give up nuclear power, we can expect more movement among peoples all over the earth to question the viability of nuclear energy. It can be hoped that other nations will reduce their dependence on these kinds of plants and turn to other forms of energy.
I have frankly stated that the United States government is almost a subsidiary of the nuclear energy industry and have predicted that nuclear power plant building will proceed as planned. I have no reason to believe that anything has changed or could change. There is no disaster big enough to deter the government from its plans.
Currently, the American obsession is with profit over all other values. Because of this we can no longer make rational decisions or apply a modicum of thinking to problem solving.
We live in a parched wasteland of the mind. In the public form thinking has ceased to be an important quality. I tell you truly that an intellectual wasteland often results in catastrophe or the creation of real wastelands like those around the Fukushima or Chernobyl nuclear plants.
James Pilant
via maitreyahc
Germany’s decision to abandon nuclear power is bound to send shock waves around the globe. The German public was shocked by the Chernobyl disaster and nuclear power has been viewed with great suspicion.
I am not so curious about what Western governments will do as I am about the governments of India and China. They are presented with competing concepts of how to provide electricity to a large society. When presented with this new evidence, what will they choose?
James Pilant
Events in Japan are having an effect on national policies. I am surprised by the totality of the response.
Do not for one tiny moment believe that the United States will change course on building new reactors. Public opinion means a lot in Europe. It means little here. The beltway is largely immune to the fears and concerns of Middle America. This is a limited democracy. Most public concern and beliefs are filtered before becoming newsworthy or politically important.
We will have the nuclear plants and there is no stopping them.
James Pilant
via VITALFREEDOM.net
Here we follow one man returning to his home to pick up a few things. We all go home sometimes to get things but not for the last time. This is probably his last trip home. Home is now a nuclear dead zone. Cattle roam the highway. Dogs are still tied up. Earthquake damage is unrepaired and never will be.
And there is anger. He says, “They said that the nuclear power plants were safe.”
Guess not.
James Pilant
For about seven months now, I have argued over and over again that lying to the courts with false affidavits and actions amounting to fraud were prosecutable. I have used the word, crimes, and I meant it.
Why is it that if one of my students breaks the law by stealing a few dollars that he will go to jail and these banks can commit these acts and reap huge profits without fear of prosecution?
I want these law-breakers, these greedy well placed fraudsters, to go to jail, to do the perp walk, to pay enormous fines, and to serve as a warning to every Armani clad crook haunting the board rooms of our great investments banks.
James Pilant
My thanks to “Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge.”
via Foreclosure Fraud – Fighting Foreclosure Fraud by Sharing the Knowledge
Isn’t this nice!? Enclose legal appearing documents indicating that a case has been filed to encourage you to pay up.
This is disgusting.
What makes it worse is that the state bar association decided it was an “honest” mistake. I often defend lawyers while teaching my classes. I point out that without attorneys, enforceable contracts would not be possible, that the weak and helpless would have no recourse. And here to make my job easier is a bar association with the all the moral fervor of card cheat giving the strong implication that the bar is an organized band of thieves.
Just great.
James Pilant
via byebyebanksters
It would appear more land will be lost to nuclear catastrophe. The radiation like some infection is spreading across Fukushima claiming more and more geography. And while this is happening, the government and the utility companies do their public relations and hope that somehow, someway, that events will mirror their rosy prognostications.
James Pilant
Corruption in India is fairly endemic. It is present in everything from traffic tickets to giant government contracts. Hazare is struggling with a mountain of inertia, a community acceptance of corruption and an appreciation of its benefits. He is trying to work with and develop a contrarian philosophy. I suspect this may be based on the Indian development of greater economic and political power in international relations.
The Indians are a proud people to put it very mildly. But a reasonable person can easily conclude that corruption on the current scale will make it very difficult for India to become as signiificant as its large population and geography would make it. Corruption on the current scale threatens national growth and impairs the nation’s standing in the world just as investment banking speculation and greed endanger growth in the United States.
I have a lot to learn about this situation but I’m going to try.
Indians may speak English but the implications and history behind the words are different than in American English. This is not to imply superiority to ether form of the language merely to acknowledge the need for caution.
James Pilant
via Slate
Who is Anna Hazare and what is his importance to the United States?
About 2 years ago, the United States cut a deal with the Indian government to share nuclear technology. The legislature ratified the treaty. It was a very controversial deal. The Indian government had been a rogue power in regard to nuclear energy having used what was supposed to be peaceful nuclear technology to build a series of atom bombs.
The deal allowed India to access fuel and nuclear technology from the rest of the world making India the only nuclear power a non-signatory to the non-proliferation treaty.
Wikileaks revealed that the American State Department had directly observed enormous sums of cash to be used to bribe enough of the representatives to get the deal through.
Anger in India over this corruption is intense.
Hazare has been fasting to force the government to put in place anti-corruption legislation.
The struggles continues but Hazare appears to have won this round.
James Pilant
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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