Even though news of the Fukushima nuclear disaster languishes in the minor columns of major newspapers these days, the drama continues to unfold toward an ever darkening and uncertain conclusion.

It came as no surprise yesterday, when Tokyo Electric Power Co. finally conceded that fission most likely continues to occur at at least one of the damaged Fukushima reactors. As our readers will recall, Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates predicted as much, months ago.  

If active monitoring suggests it is occurring in Reactor 2, there is increasing probability that it may also be occurring at one or more of the other damaged reactors at the site, where detailed measurements have yet to be undertaken.

The picture now painted by TEPCO is of a far graver situation than has been officially conceded up to now.

Junichi Matsumoto, a Tokyo Electric spokesman, acknowledged episodes of fission, telling a news conference: “There is a possibility that certain conditions came together temporarily that were conducive to re-criticality,” and that the measurements indicated a burst that occurred at a slightly higher rate than prior cases. “It’s not that we’ve had zero fission until now,” Mr. Matsumoto said. “But at this point, we do not think there is a large-scale and self-sustained re-criticality.”

The suspicion is that fissionable material has melted through the bottom of both the reactor and the containment, and is now essentially free in the environment, recombining in such a way as to intermittently initiate critical reactions without the possibility of human or mechanical intervention to stop them.

Under these circumstances, more and more radioactive byproducts will continue to be released freely into the soil and even the groundwater.   Though Arnie hypothesized that this might be happening, it was officially never even entertained as a possibility until now.

While this development  is frightening enough, what has to be even more disturbing is the fact that every semblance of official certainty has been dropped and it is now generally being acknowledged that there is no way of knowing exactly what is happening, how serious the situation will become; and when and how it will all end.

Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University’s Research Reactor Institute, was quoted by the New York Times as saying:

If episodes of fission at Fukushima were confirmed… “our entire understanding of nuclear safety would be turned on its head.”

Meanwhile…back to the human side of the story, there is new evidence that “hot particles” from the Fukushima accident(s) have been far more widely dispersed than originally admitted.  

A new Fairewinds video discusses data from  a study by Scientist Marco Kaltofan that looked at the distribution of those particles  in various regions of  Japan; and even as far away as Seattle and Boston.  In Japan, that distribution of hot particles followed unanticipated patterns, spreading contamination far and wide.  

The clean-up protocols in use throughout Japan are spotty, and less than effective.  Furthermore,  Mr. Kaltofan’s paper demonstrates conclusively how inadequate the current evacuation zones are that currently govern emergency response, both here and in Japan.

Scientist Marco Kaltofen Presents Data Confirming Hot Particles from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

At the conclusion of a months-long process the Taser study committee established by the Montpelier City Council has issued its final report and has recommended that the City Council not authorize the capital city police to acquire Tasers for its officers.

The report finds that there is a lack of evidence that Tasers are needed, disputes the claim that Tasers save lives and reduce costs, and finds that crisis intervention training would be more effective to deal with the volatile situations for which Tasers are often suggested as a panacea. The committee report refers to the evidence for Taser use “hypothetical scenarios”.

There is a minority report by Nick Marro, who argues that Tasers can be a useful tool to avoid injuries to police officers. 

The report is thorough and well-researched, and should give the Council a major impetus to reject the Taser proposal. Meanwhile, there is still time for your voice to be heard. The Council will receive the report at its regular meeting on Wednesday, November 9. If they haven't already heard from you, that would be a good time to appear and express your opposition to this dangerous instrumentality.

John Bauer, a longtime Democrat from Jeffersonville, has started a petition to get serious news outlets to stop with the Kardashian divorce business.

In case you've missed it, Kim Kardashian is a true celebrity: a person who is famous for being famous. Apparently a little while ago she got married and collected big bucks for it (endorsements, I guess).

Now she's getting divorced. As you might guess, this has been big news, with CNN covering it every day. How big? Well, if you google kim kardashian divorce you get 160,000,000 hits.

If you happen to think that CNN has more important things to do than cover divorces of the rich and famous, hop over and sign the petition.

The concept of a “People’s Flat Tax” is intriguing.  This flat tax would keep the feature of one rate for income, one rate for sales, and one rate for corporate tax that is included in other flat tax proposals to replace our current federal income tax system.

The difference for the People’s Flat Tax is in the base it will be applied to and what it will cover.

To set the stage, according to the Citizens for Tax Justice, the wealthy and the middle class pay nearly the same percentage of their income in total taxes. (top 1%  of income pay 30.8% in total tax; $66,000 in income pay 28.5% in total tax).  

What’s missing from this picture is the impact of the cost of health care.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, health care cost is about $8,000 a person or $24,000 for a family of three.  This cost is either paid out of pocket, through insurance, or by an employer with money that could have been in the employees paycheck.  This health care “tax”  adds an additional 33% tax burden on a family of three earning $72,000 per year and a 2.4% tax on a million dollar income.

So, together we have a combined tax and health care cost of about 61.5% for the $72,000 wage earner as compared to a combined tax and health care cost of about 33% for the people making a million dollars a year.

Our current tax system, when health care is considered, is very regressive.  

To correct this inequity and fix other problems in our tax structure the People’s Flat Tax would pay for the following items (in addition to providing general revenue):

• Basic Social Security for all retirees.  One dollar amount in retirement for everyone.  This is an amount that would allow for a basic safe, healthy lifestyle for the elderly.

• Basic health coverage, including long-term care for everyone.  

• A payment to the states of $10,000 for each K-12 student to be used for education.

In order to pay for all of this without it being too large a percentage, it is important to spread the costs over the broadest base possible.  All income, starting at a value that exempts an amount that allows for necessities, would be included in the flat rate with no deductions.  Taxed income would include earned income, unearned income, income from estates, income from insurance, etc. All sales would be taxed including services, energy, and goods.  Corporations would also be taxed at the same rate.

The People’s Flat Tax would be simple and much more fair than our current system.  Importantly, it will remove the albatross of payroll taxes and medical insurance costs on businesses, unleashing the amazing ability of our entrepreneurs to innovate, and allowing us to be more competitive in the international marketplace.  

There would also be a significant cut in property taxes when most of the cost of education is paid for through the flat tax.  The education payments will substantially reduce the competition for the bottom among states when it comes to education funding. Our children will finally be able to get the education they need.  

Our tax code is riddled with foolish and counter-productive deductions and credits as well as some that have merit.  When deductions and tax credits are eliminated, money would be appropriated for those things that are needed.

Of course there are many details to work out and a new system like this would have to be phased in over several years.  The amount of progressiveness would be transparent and would depend primarily on the dollar amount of the personal exemption.  There is also the possibility of having a second tier level on the income tax over a certain income.  

For the last three years, there’s been a different “Green Mountain Deadly” banner on GMD for Halloween (last year’s by Julie). This year I totally forgot.

Damn. Too much going on. Sorry. Next year. Here’s a pic of my kid instead.