I hope the NRC is serious about that. The willingness here to refer to earlier enforcement efforts I find encouraging.
Since, nuclear power seems to be beyond any effect of public opinion, in fact, immune to all expressions of human intelligence and judgment, the NRC is our major line of defense.
Nuclear plants are built in America because the industry pays out a lot of money in political contributions and has superb lobbyists. No public concerns can carry such weight. All other issues are not worth consideration.
James Pilant
via U.S. NRC Blog
Battle. That’s a very strange word to use in the context of media in conflict but I don’t doubt its importance or relevance.
I believe the battle for the print, broadcast and cable media has been lost. The kind of news that was in the paper and on the television 35 years ago is gone. We now live in an age of “distraction” news, content free news and outright deception. It is a great pity.
A free people cannot defend itself without information, facts and leadership, we have none of that. We have celebrity scandals, fake facts that our sniveling media decline to describe as a lies and a jello spined leadership so beholden to financial interests they contest among themselves for who is the most slavish in their devotion. They throw their offering on the altars of these demigods like the food offerings thrown before the wooden carvings of Odin in Pre Medieval Scandinavia.
Read on and discover nations and cultures where the media is still up for grabs.
James Pilant
via Only Ed
Let us raise a glass to ambition and glory!
James Pilant
It should come as no surprise that I am with the “we should be concerned” group.
However, I went to the web site, “Keating’s Desk,” read the post and almost went on. But I paused and looked at the article before and then I looked at the next one and the one after that. You just don’t want to stop. This is great stuff. A good writer who can think and has important issues in mind when he does.
I’ve added the web site to the favorites and intend to keep up with the writing there.
James Pilant
via Keating's Desk
This is the state of affairs we can expect in every part of the world. The upkeep and safety precautions necessary for the use of nuclear power are expensive, time-consuming and require technical expertise and competence. In a world where corporate profit is the number one concern and where government secrecy is a primary defense against catching wrong doing ahead of time, we can expect these expensive, high maintenance, time bombs to be under protected, under maintained and overly dangerous.
It is likely that nuclear plants can be made safe and that nuclear power can be part of a nation’s energy plan. But can we trust the industry and the government after so many lies, so many deceptions and so many disasters that were not supposed to be possible? Nuclear energy is surrounded not by science but by a shield of lies.
James Pilant
From Radio Netherlands Worldwide –
Russia’s nuclear power plants are dangerously under-prepared for earthquakes and other disasters, said a state review conducted after Japan’s Fukushima accident and obtained Thursday by AFP.
The unusually candid survey was presented to a council chaired by President Dmitry Medvedev on June 9 and initially reported on its website by the Oslo-based Bellona environmental organisation.
Russia has until now steadfastly defended its 10 nuclear power plants and 32 reactors against criticism.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on April 30 pronounced the country’s nuclear safety system “the best in the world”.
But the State Council review revealed more than 30 weaknesses including reduced disaster safety standards and a lack of a clear strategy for securing spent nuclear fuel and other radioactive waste at many plants.
Apparently when you are in trouble on the high seas you can count on the Pakistan Navy to come in and help.
James Pilant
From Dawn.com –
The crew of the ill-fated MV Suez has been shifted to PNS Babur on the orders of Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Noman Bashir.
A press release issued by the Public Relations Directorate of Pakistan Navy here on Sunday said the evacuation of MV Suez crew had been completed and all 22 members, 11 Egyptians, six Indians, four Pakistanis and one Sri Lankan, were safely onboard PNS Babur.
The Egyptian owner of the ship abandoned the crew and the ship and Admiral Bashir ordered the transfer of the crew to the naval ship on humanitarian grounds.
We live in a new age.
Often when someone says those words, they are ranting or exaggerating. I am doing neither. For the first time, a citizen with a common appliance, a desktop computer, can read material from every part of the earth. We can watch their videos, read about their politics and communicate with the citizens through writing and commentary. Directly. No governments between us. No media filter.
There will be enormous changes coming from this, but it is going to take a while. It took a long time for television to change the political landscape to what it is today, this will be faster.
Here we have an obviously skilled and intelligent writer from Pakistan discussing the intellectual bankruptcy of the media. His complaints while illustrated by news examples from Pakistan are not different in kind from those in this country.
What we will find talking and listening to people from all over this planet is that we are brothers and sisters. We share many of the same concerns.
And we all have accomplishments to be proud of and problems to be solved.
Read the article. I assure you will find the author’s examples to be fascinating even though they take place on the far side of the globe.
James Pilant
via Static
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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