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.

(Or: The Left Could Fuck-Up An Ambush)

shit, we had ’em

we were this close

with the Occupy Wall Street gig

then everything went stupid

Lefties arguing about how’s come

there’s no anti-war stuff

and why we didn’t mention Gaza

plus a whole lot of Lefties

said this wasn’t about labor

or unions or workers rights

or even people

but about campaign financing

and how the corporations

run the government

but how do the corporations

run the government?

let’s see  it’s in one of these

old alerts from ’11

yeah…the corporations

run the government cause

they put out better ads

than the Left does

something about how

we should try to reach the people

in a plain straight-forward way

without all the equivocating

and political correctness

and bickering on details

and being ‘polite’ to Nazis

and letting ‘lib-er-als’ co-opt

the movement for the sake of

‘power-chic’ ?

and that people know this shit

they just need to hear the right spin

like “Capitalism Wants To Kill Your Kid”

hey, I like that one

we shoulda pushed that one

well, all over now

can’t believe what happened in 2012

man, now the government says

I’ve got to pay something called

a ‘Consumer’s Tax’ that goes directly

to Wall Street and the Corporations

for them to take care of Global Warming

BULLSHIT!

we were this close

ah hell, now the corporations

are offering these jobs

called ‘Planning Activists’

and ‘Security Activists’

and ‘Action Activists’ (Knowledge of

explosives and flammables necessary.)

wonder what that last one means?

maybe I should apply for one

hell, I’m an activist

I wonder what they pay?

Peter Buknatski

Montpeleir, Vt.

Day 41–Trick or Treat!)

In the spirit of the new GMD Oddsmaker, it’s time to visit that “other hand.”

We always gave Governor Douglas a hard time when he bad-mouthed Vermont’s business climate to anyone who would listen in the world-at-large.

Reasonably enough, we think one of the governor’s jobs should be to put a positive face on the state to attract the tourism, trade and investment upon which Vermont’s future is heavily dependent.

So it was with some dismay that I read an e-mail that is apparently in wide circulation, from Chris Kimball of “Cook’s Illustrated” and “America’s Test Kitchen” fame.  

Just to set this one up for those who wouldn’t know a butter knife from a bundt form:  Mr. Kimball, a denizen of Boston and the CEO of a food publishing and TV empire, has a house in Rupert, Vermont.  He was recently filming episodes of “Cook’s Country” there while the surrounding communities were dealing with the after-effects of Irene.  Wrote Kimball:

The flood waters have long abated but many bridges are still out, roads partially washed away, and barns and basements full of fine silt. Our governor was standing in a riverbed watching neighbors repair the damage using backhoes and bulldozers. A local zoning administrator came up and complained that the workers did not have permits to work in a streambed, an area protected by environmental regulations. The governor turned to her and said, “Well, it would probably be best if you spent the next couple of weeks inside.” She asked why and the governor responded, “Well, we’ll be doing a lot of things you don’t like and there is nothing you can do about it!” That’s how Vermonters deal with disaster relief.

A quick Google-search of the above quote yielded evidence that, owing to Mr. Kimball’s e-mailed comments, Governor Shumlin is enjoying an unprecedented popularity among right-wing bloggers!  That’s right; at least temporarily, Peter Shumlin is a darling of the anti-regulation crowd.

I don’t think this is the kind of press Vermont needs to reinforce its green brand, and to assure potential visitors and investors that the environmental priorities for which we are respected remain intact.

I agree with Sec. Markowitz who said in an October 8 editorial:

Work in Vermont’s streams and rivers must be done with the knowledge that doing the work incorrectly is just money down the hole.

This is the message of custodial responsibility with which we want Vermont’s global image to be associated.

On the one hand, there’s the push to universal health care, the promotion of an LGBT hero to the Supreme Court, holding the line against Vermont Yankee, and the promotion of wind power…

On the other hand, there’s a steadfast refusal to shift the tax burden onto the wealthy, a media war with the State Employees union seen by many as “dirty tricks,” noises about teachers’ rights to strike, and the promotion of wind power…

Governor Shumlin has proven to be nothing if not ideologically dynamic, but frustrations do keep bubbling among traditional lefty constituencies – frustrations that, in Vermont, could (however unlikely) equal a Democratic Party primary challenge in 2012 or, more readily, a challenge from the Progressive Party – but with health care reform potentially on the line, would any individual or group be likely to give into frustration and initiate such a challenge?

You never know, but we’re going to keep our ear to the rumor mill and keep a running gauge of the political odds of a challenge (based entirely on our highly technical, in-house, science-based, logarithmic, proprietary prognostication thingamajigs). The GMD oddsmaker will run on the sidebar and include links to recent, relevant articles. When enough time passes, we’ll include a link to historical trending.