Irma is not just another hurricane – it is a history making storm that is going to cause up to a quarter of a trillion dollars in damage once it makes landfall in the United States. In fact, Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine used the term “nuclear hurricane” to describe this storm to the media. I would never use that term personally, but I am in agreement that it would be exceedingly difficult to overstate the danger that this storm represents. According to the National Hurricane Center, Irma has been a category 5 storm for more than 50 hours, and that is already one of the longest stretches on record.
So will the rest of the mainstream media attack MSNBC for saying the exact same thing that I did?
Of course not.
And will the mainstream media attack Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine for calling Irma “a nuclear hurricane”?…
“We have talked to people in your city who say, ‘We ain’t going,’” CBS4’s Hank Tester told Levine.
“I hate to hear that. I’ll do anything in my power to convince them this is a very serious storm. This is a nuclear hurricane. They should leave the beach, they must leave the beach,” he said.
Of course not.
I am certainly not criticizing Levine. Once again, it is not terminology that I would have used, but if it helps get more people to safety that is a good thing.
Just look at what has happened to Barbuda. According to Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne, 95 percent of the buildings on Barbuda have been damaged or destroyed…
“As it stands, Barbuda is practically uninhabitable,” Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne told Antigua/Barbuda Broadcasting Services. He added that the destruction on the island, which is home to about 1,800 people was “heart-wrenching” and most of it is now completely underwater.
“A significant number of the houses have been totally destroyed,” his chief of staff Lionel Hurst said. At least one of the eight deaths caused by Irma was confirmed on the island of Barbuda. Originally, Browne’s optimistic Facebook post claimed that Barbuda and Antigua had both stood up to Irma’s wrath. Antigua, which is home to around 80,000 people was not hit nearly as hard as Barbuda.
“It is clear that Antigua and Barbuda has stood up to a mighty test,” he wrote in the statement posted to Facebook. But he revised his opinion after taking a helicopter ride to survey the damage to Barbuda, which is just 30 miles north of Antigua. “I never contemplated any possibility that you could have such a contrast,” he said of the relative destruction. Browne also said that 95% of the buildings on Barbuda were damaged and 30% percent of the buildings on the island completely demolished when the core of the Category 5 hurricane crossed almost directly over the island early Wednesday. “Barbuda now is literally rubble,” Browne said.
And Browne put an exclamation point on things when he told Anderson Cooper the following…
“I have never seen any such destruction on a per capita basis compared to what I saw in Barbuda this afternoon,” Browne told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
Could we see similar devastation in our country?
We shall see. Right now, millions are holding their breath as they wait to see where Irma will go. According to the Washington Post there are a couple of key factors that meteorologists are watching…
The first is a ridge of high pressure over the Atlantic, dubbed the “Bermuda High.” This system, around which winds flow clockwise, acts as a guardrail to Irma, shunting it farther south and west like a pinball, and preventing it from heading out to sea. The stronger the ridge, the greater the probability that its westward movement will continue.
The second is what’s known as an upper-level shortwave trough. This is a zone of low pressure spinning away over the southern Tennessee Valley within a dip in the jet stream, that spins counterclockwise. This will eventually capture Irma into its overall circulation, but the strength and forward speed of that feature will determine Irma’s propensity to move inland.
But of course authorities can’t wait until the last minute, and coastal communities are already being evacuated. And we are not just talking about Florida. Earlier today, we learned that an evacuation order had been issued for Savannah, Georgia…
Georgia’s governor has ordered a mandatory evacuation starting on Saturday from the state’s Atlantic coast ahead of Hurricane Irma. That includes the city of Savannah, home to nearly 150,000 people.
Gov. Nathan Deal issued the evacuation Thursday for all areas east of Interstate 95, all of Chatham County and some areas west of the interstate. He also expanded a state of emergency to 30 counties.
Down in Florida, the clock is ticking for those that would still like to get out. There is extremely heavy traffic on the major highways, and many gas stations down in Florida have already completely run out of gasoline…
Several gas stations in Florida ran out of gas Thursday as Hurricane Irma approached the state.
Supplies fell as people heeded evacuation orders for some southern parts of the state. Last week, Hurricane Harvey crippled oil refineries in Texas, creating shortages even before Irma made landfall in the Caribbean.
As I have been saying all along, you don’t want to be there when this storm makes landfall.
There are going to be some people that figure that since they were able to “ride out” other hurricanes that they will be able to do the same thing with Irma.
Those that choose to do that will be making a tragic mistake, and it may cost some of them their lives.
After North Korea successfully tested a hydrogen bomb on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis warned that the United States is more than capable of “the total annihilation of a country”. Unfortunately, the North Koreans may have already gotten to the point where they are capable of the same thing. Just a handful of North Korean nukes could kill millions of people and render the largest cities in South Korea or Japan completely uninhabitable, and so a nuclear war with the North Koreans should be avoided at all costs. Sadly, global events seem to be relentlessly pulling us in that direction.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, a magnitude-6.3 earthquake was registered in North Korea at the same time that the North Koreans claim that they conducted a “perfect” test of a hydrogen bomb. This test was reportedly 10 times more powerful than North Korea’s last nuclear test, and the North Koreans are also claiming that this bomb was small enough to be fitted on an inter-continental ballistic missile.
North Korea should have never been allowed to get to this point. But the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations just kept kicking the can down the road year after year, and now we are facing a crisis with no good solution. Because it is absolutely unthinkable for us to allow North Korea to have an entire fleet of nuclear missiles capable of hitting targets in the United States, but it is also absolutely unthinkable to start a war in which potentially tens of millions of people could die.
North Korea is honeycombed with very deep underground tunnels. Even if we knew exactly how many nukes North Korea has, and even if we knew where they all were, there is still no possible way that we could get them all with a first strike.
But even if we could, North Korea is entirely capable of killing millions in South Korea and Japan with chemical, biological and conventional weapons. Before he left the White House, Steven Bannon had the following to say about the situation that we are facing on the Korean peninsula…
“Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us,” Bannon told the American Prospect.
In this case, Bannon is exactly correct, and any members of Congress that would suggest differently are simply lying to you.
At this moment, there is no military solution to the North Korean crisis, but our top military leaders continue to talk as if there is…
US Defense Secretary James Mattis vowed “a massive military response” to any threat from North Korea against the United States or its allies in a statement outside the White House after a meeting with President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and top national security advisers Sunday.
Mattis said Trump wanted to be briefed on each of the “many military options” for dealing with the North Korean nuclear threat.
In fact, Mattis went so far as to suggest that the “total annihilation” of North Korea is a potential option…
“We are not looking to the total annihilation of a country, namely North Korea, but as I said, we have many options to do so.”
As he was leaving church on Sunday, President Trump also suggested that a pre-emptive strike on North Korea is very much on the table…
As he left church, Trump was asked, “Will you attack North Korea?”
The United States is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea.
Of course China is North Korea’s biggest trade partner, and if we immediately tried to cut off all trade with China it would throw the global economy into a nightmare scenario.
But a trade war with China is not our only concern. Last month, The Global Times (a Chinese state newspaper) threatened the United States with a shooting war if it attempted to bring about regime change in North Korea…
‘If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.’
This is the tensest that things have been on the Korean peninsula since the Korean War ended in 1953.
One false move and literally tens of millions of people could die.
Most Americans have absolutely no idea what a military conflict with North Korea would mean. We are talking about death and destruction on a scale that would be absolutely unprecedented. The following is an excerpt from one of my previous articles…
Could you imagine what would happen if a North Korean nuke hit Tokyo or Seoul?
Even one nuke could kill millions in those densely populated cities, and financial markets all over the world would almost instantly implode.
And North Korea also has some of the largest chemical and biological weapons stockpiles on the entire planet. Within moments of an attack, thousands of North Korean artillery pieces and rockets would start raining fire on Seoul, and even just a few chemical or biological warheads would cause immense devastation in that city of about 10 million people.
In addition, North Korean forces are poised to invade South Korea at literally any moment, and the only way that South Korea could survive such an invasion would be direct intervention by U.S. forces.
On top of everything else, what if the North Koreans were able to successfully launch a nuke or two toward our major cities? Or what if they already have the technology to set off an EMP blast high in the atmosphere above the continental United States? Or what if their agents that are already embedded here start releasing biological agents in our major cities?
These are nightmare scenarios that most Americans never even consider, but they would be very real possibilities in the event that we go to war with North Korea.
Sometimes a military option is the best option, but this is not one of those cases.
There is no way that a military strike on North Korea would end well, and our top brass already knows this.
So let us hope that cooler heads prevail, because at this moment we are literally standing on the brink of World War 3.
Are we on the verge of a nuclear war with North Korea? It has now been confirmed that North Korea has successfully created a miniaturized nuclear warhead, and last month they tested a missile that can reach at least half of the continental United States. Since 1994 the U.S. has been trying to stop North Korea’s nuclear program, and every effort to do so has completely failed. Last September, the North Koreans detonated a nuclear device that was estimated to be in the 20 to 30 kiloton range, and back in January President Trump pledged to stop the North Koreans before they would ever have the capability to deliver such a weapon to U.S. cities. But now the North Koreans have already achieved that goal, and they plan to ultimately create an entire fleet of ICBMs capable of hitting every city in America.
Right now, North Korea and the Trump administration are locked in a game of nuclear chicken. Kim Jong Un’s regime is never, ever, ever going to give up their nuclear weapons program, and so that means that either Donald Trump is going to have to back down, find another way to deal with North Korea, or use military force to eliminate their nuclear threat.
And time is quickly running out for Trump to make a decision, because now that North Korea has the ability to produce miniaturized nuclear warheads, the game has completely changed. The following comes from the Washington Post…
North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment.
The new analysis completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country’s atomic arsenal. The U.S. calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts believe the number of bombs is much smaller.
The truth is that nobody actually knows how many nukes North Korea has at this point, and they are pumping out more all the time.
Yes, the Trump administration could order an absolutely devastating military strike on North Korea. But if the North Koreans even get off one nuke in response, it will be the greatest disaster for humanity since at least World War II.
But at this point Trump doesn’t sound like someone that intends to back down. In fact, on Tuesday he threatened North Korea with “fire and fury” if they keep threatening us…
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Trump said from the clubhouse at his golf course in Bedminster, N.J. “He has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said they will be met with the fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
In response to Trump’s comments, the North Koreans threatened to hit Guam with a pre-emptive strike…
If Trump thought that his bluff would be sufficient to finally shut up North Korea, and put an end to Kim’s provocative behavior, well… bluff called because North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency reported moments ago that not only did N.Korea escalate the tensions up another notch, but explicitly warned that it could carry out a “pre-emptive operation once the US shows signs of provocation”, and that it is “seriously considering a strategy to strike Guam with mid-to-long range missiles.”
Most Americans appear to be completely oblivious to the seriousness of this crisis. Once we hit North Korea, they will respond. A single nuke could potentially kill millions in Tokyo, Japan or Seoul, South Korea. And the North Koreans also have some of the largest chemical and biological weapons stockpiles on the entire planet. If things take a bad turn, we could see death and destruction on a scale that is absolutely unprecedented.
And if the North Koreans launch an invasion of South Korea, we will instantly be committed to a new Korean War and thousands upon thousands of our young men and women will be sent over there to fight and die.
There is no possible way that a military conflict with North Korea is going to end well. If things go badly, millions could die, and if things go really badly tens of millions of people could end up dead.
But members of the Trump administration continue to insist that “a military option” is on the table…
In an interview broadcast Saturday on MSNBC’s Hugh Hewitt Show, national security adviser H.R. McMaster said the prospect of a North Korea armed with nuclear-tipped ICBMs would be “intolerable, from the president’s perspective.”
“We have to provide all options . . . and that includes a military option,” he said.
Of course letting North Korea construct an entire fleet of ICBMs that could endanger the entire planet is not exactly a palatable option either. The Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations all kicked the can down the road year after year, and now we facing a nightmare problem that does not appear to have a good solution.
“Today is the day that we can definitely say North Korea is a nuclear power,” Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, told USA TODAY. “There is no more time to stick our heads in the sand and think we have months or years to confront this challenge.”
Let us pray that a way can be found to derail North Korea’s nuclear program that does not involve us going to war.
Because the moment that U.S. forces start striking North Korea, the North Koreans could literally unleash hell if they are inclined to do so.
It appears that we are now closer to nuclear war than we have been at any point since the Cuban missile crisis. A nuclear holocaust was avoided back then, and hopefully a way will be found to avoid one now.
Whenever the world starts going crazy, investors instinctively begin flocking to precious metals. So it wasn’t exactly a surprise when gold and silver prices started to move upward aggressively as global leaders continued to talk about the possibility of World War III and nuclear conflict. The price of gold spiked to a five month high on Tuesday, and as I write this article gold is currently sitting at $1277.10 an ounce. Right now silver is at $18.35 an ounce, and many analysts believe that it is poised for a dramatic jump in the weeks and months to come as global tensions continue to rise. Google searches for the phrase “going to war” are the highest that they have been at any point in recent years, and many people out there are starting to understand that the U.S. could soon be facing military conflicts in Syria and in North Korea simultaneously.
In response to persistent threats from the Trump administration, the North Koreans are promising that they will not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if they are attacked by the U.S. military.
Most analysts do not believe that North Korea has any missiles that can reach the U.S. mainland, so that is probably an empty threat, but they can definitely hit Seoul, Tokyo and all U.S. military bases in South Korea and Japan.
And even if the U.S. was able to locate and take out all North Korean nukes in an overwhelming first strike, the North Koreans would still have thousands of artillery guns and rockets aimed at Seoul. Military analysts in the western world have estimated that North Korea could fire off up to half a million rounds within one hour of being attacked, and the devastation that such a barrage would cause in Seoul would be beyond anything that we have ever seen in the modern world.
Personally, I have come to the conclusion that it is going to be nearly impossible to conduct a conventional military assault on North Korea that does not result in an absolutely catastrophic death toll.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump appears determined to do something anyway. A couple of days ago we learned that he “has ordered his military advisers to be ready with a list of options to smash North Korea’s nuclear threat”, and on Tuesday he told the world that the U.S would “solve the problem” whether China helps or not…
Trump, who has urged China to do more to rein in its impoverished ally and neighbor, said in a tweet that North Korea was “looking for trouble” and the United States would “solve the problem” with or without Beijing’s help.
Just like he did with Syria, Trump’s words have now committed us to taking military action in North Korea.
Let us hope that any military action is delayed for as long as possible, but it is definitely alarming that Trump boasted to the Fox Business Network about the “very powerful” naval armada that is sailing toward North Korea right now…
“We are sending an armada. Very powerful,” Trump told Fox Business Network. “We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier. That I can tell you.”
Meanwhile, it is being reported that the Chinese have deployed 150,000 troops to their border with North Korea as they continue to warn both sides against taking military action.
Over in the Middle East, things continue to get even more tense as well.
Russia and Iran have pledged to “respond with force” to any additional U.S. attacks, but the Trump administration is not showing any signs of backing down. In fact, White House press secretary Sean Spicer has substantially lowered the threshold for more military conflict by suggesting that the use of “barrel bombs” may be enough to justify another attack. Considering the fact that everyone in the Syrian civil war has been regularly using barrel bombs for many years and that approximately 13,000 were used in 2016 alone, it is very alarming for Spicer to say such a thing.
On Tuesday, Trump told the American people that “we’re not going into Syria”, but what happens if he orders another missile strike and the Russians and Iranians respond by shooting down some U.S. aircraft or by sinking an entire aircraft carrier?
I can guarantee you that members of Congress from both parties will be absolutely screaming for war if CNN starts endlessly playing footage of a U.S. aircraft carrier sinking after it has been struck by the Russians or by the Iranians.
We are so close to World War III erupting in the Middle East, and there was no need for the U.S. to get involved in the first place. According to former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, evidence continues to mount that Assad had absolutely nothing to do with the chemical attack that Trump got so upset about…
Philip Giraldi, former CIA officer and director of the Council for the National Interest, stated on the Scott Horton show that “military and intelligence personnel” in the Middle East, who are “intimately familiar” with the intelligence, call the allegation that Assad or Russia carried out the attack a “sham.”
Giraldi said the intelligence confirms the Russian account, “which is that they [attacking aircraft] hit a warehouse where al-Qaeda rebels were storing chemicals of their own and it basically caused an explosion that resulted in the casualties.” Moreover, Giraldi noted, “Assad had no motive for doing this.”
Investors that can see the writing on the wall are already getting out of stocks and into precious metals while there is still time to do so.
Because if we get into a direct military conflict with Russia and Iran in Syria, global financial markets will crash and gold and silver will soar into the stratosphere.
And of course a similar scenario would play out if we attack North Korea and the North Koreans respond by firing off nuclear or chemical warheads at targets in South Korea and Japan.
I did not expect that we would be on the verge of World War III less than three months into the Trump administration, but here we are.
These are perilous times, and those that are wise are moving their money and are making key preparations before things spiral completely out of control.
Six years ago, an absolutely devastating tsunami caused a triple meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power facility. It was the worst environmental disaster in all of human history, and even though six years have passed since that time, nobody knows where the three melted cores are. Just recently, authorities believe that they spotted some melted fuel underneath reactor 2, but even from a distance the level of nuclear radiation that was detected was being described as “unimaginable”. Essentially what we are talking about are three enormous “dirty bombs” that are continuously emitting tremendous amounts of nuclear radiation into the air, water and soil. Some of the radioactive elements that are being released have half-lives that are measured in tens of thousands of years, and so the poisonous effect of these “dirty bombs” could potentially be with us for generation after generation.
Personally, I don’t know why the big mainstream news outlets in the U.S. are almost entirely ignoring Fukushima these days. Fox News did a story on the “unimaginable” radiation at Fukushima just a few days ago, but that was about it.
Radiation levels inside a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant have hit a record high, and are the worst since the plant suffered a triple meltdown nearly six years ago. The latest readings now pose a serious challenge as officials prepare to dismantle the stricken facility.
Radiation levels inside the containment vessel of reactor No. 2 at Fukushima has reached 530 sieverts per hour—a figure described by experts as “unimaginable.”
Previously, the highest level of radiation measured at Fukushima was 73 sieverts per hour, and just a small fraction of that amount would be fatal to most humans…
Needless to say, this plant is not fit for human life. Just one dose of a single sievert is enough to cause radiation sickness and nausea. Exposure to four to five sieverts would kill about half of those exposed to it within a month, while a single dose of 10 sieverts is enough to kill a person within weeks.
At 530 sieverts per hour, the radiation is so intense that even robots can only last for a couple of hours in that environment. The Japanese hope to eventually remove the melted fuel from these reactors someday, but first they have to figure out if it is even possible.
And the truth is that the level of radiation in reactor 2 may actually be far higher than 530 sieverts per hour. That is because the recent reading was taken “some distance from the melted fuel”…
The 530 sievert reading was recorded some distance from the melted fuel, so in reality it could be 10 times higher than recorded, said Hideyuki Ban, co-director of Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center.
Experts are also warning that the levels of radiation may be much higher than 530 sieverts per hour in reactors 1 and 3. Nobody knows, because the melted fuel in those reactors has not even been located yet.
Even though so much time has gone by, there is still very much an urgency to this crisis. In a newly published article, Mike Adams of Natural News explained why this is the case…
In effect, Fukushima has become the world’s largest dirty bomb, and the remaining fuel rods could explode (achieve criticality) at any moment. Even right now, the radiation is so intense that robots built to explore the wreckage can only survive for a few hours before their circuits are destroyed. Thus, there’s almost no scenario in which Japan, Tepco or anybody in the world figures out how to clean up the wreckage, reclaim the melting fuel rods and reestablish control over the nuclear reactions that are still ongoing.
You can’t even successfully build a containment vessel on top of it all because the melting nuclear fuel has already burned a massive hole in the floor and is melting its way into the ground water.
What most people don’t understand is that the melted nuclear fuel under Fukushima is going to be with us for a very, very long time. Some of the fuel rods contained plutonium-239, and plutonium-239 has a half-life of approximately 24,000 years…
Do they think a one-meter hole magically appears in nuclear containment vessels due to random chance? No, it’s melting fuel rods, you morons. And some of that fuel is MOX fuel, which contains plutonium-239 that boasts a half life of 24,000 years. So sometime in the year 26000 A.D. the Fukushima nightmare will be HALF as toxic as it is right now. What a wonderful, progressive future to look forward to, eh?
Plutonium-239 is one of the most dangerous substances known to humanity. As nuclear expert Steven C. Jones once explained, it would not take much plutonium-239 to kill every man, woman and child on the entire planet…
To give one an example of how lethal radiation is, one pound of plutonium evenly distributed into everyone’s lungs would kill every man, woman and child on Earth. There are literally “tons” of radioactive plutonium (among other radioactive elements) that have been released into the air and ocean environments since March 11th. Another critical fact to remember is that radioactive plutonium, for example, remains lethal (killing life) for thousands years as it has a half-life of 24,000 years. Some other radioactive elements such as uranium have a half-life of 4.47 billion years.
And remember, more radioactive material is being released from Fukushima every single day. The following comes from an interview with Kevin Kamps, the radioactive waste monitor at Beyond Nuclear…
There are claims that “it’s all contained, don’t worry about it.” It is indisputable that there is a daily flow of radioactively contaminated groundwater into the ocean. The figures something like 80,000 gallons per day of relatively low-level radioactive waste water. Then you’ve got those storage tanks – we’re talking 800,000 tons of highly radioactive water stored in tanks. Every day they pour a hundred tons of water on each of these three melted down cores. Sometimes they lose those tanks. They leak, they overflow – it is an ongoing catastrophe.
Are you starting to understand how serious this is?
Once nuclear material escapes from Fukushima, it literally gets distributed all over the planet.
That means that it is getting into our air, our water and our food supply.
And I find it extremely interesting that the EPA was moving to dramatically raise the “safe limits” on radioactivity in our drinking water right at the end of the Obama administration. The following comes from a Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility press release dated December 22, 2016…
“Following Japan’s Fukushima meltdown in 2011, EPA’s claims that no radioactivity could reach the U.S. at levels of concern were contradicted by its own rainwater measurements showing contamination from Fukushima throughout the U.S. well above Safe Drinking Water Act limits. In reaction, EPA prepared new limits 1000s of times higher than even the Fukushima rainwater because ‘EPA experienced major difficulties conveying to the public that the detected levels…were not of immediate concern for public health.’”
The documents obtained by PEER revealed that the EPA plans to raise maximum allowable limits of iodine-131, cobalt-60 and calcium-45 to more than 10,000 times the levels allowed under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Others would be hundreds or thousands of times higher under the new guidelines.
The agency’s justification for withholding the new proposed limits from the public until after the proposal had been adopted was that it wanted to “avoid confusion.”
Radioactive material is also getting into our food supply. If you love to eat fish this next item may be a bummer, because it is being reported that radiation from Fukushima was recently found in salmon off the coast of Oregon…
Fish contaminated by radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan have been detected 6,000 miles away of the US west coast.
Salmon carrying traces of caesium 134 particles – the so-called fingerprint of the Fukushima – were found by researchers in the seas off Oregon.
One we eat something that has been contaminated, radioactive material will often migrate to key organs in our body, and once it is there it can poison us indefinitely. In a previous article I included a quote from author Helen Caldicott, the author of “Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe“. I am including the quote once again in this article because it is absolutely imperative that we all understand the danger that we are facing…
Internal radiation, on the other hand, emanates from radioactive elements which enter the body by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. Hazardous radionuclides such as iodine-131, caesium 137, and other isotopes currently being released in the sea and air around Fukushima bio-concentrate at each step of various food chains (for example into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow’s meat and milk, then humans). After they enter the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, where they continuously irradiate small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years, can induce uncontrolled cell replication – that is, cancer. Further, many of the nuclides remain radioactive in the environment for generations, and ultimately will cause increased incidences of cancer and genetic diseases over time.
The amount of cesium-137 that has been released at Fukushima is equivalent to hundreds of Hiroshima bombs.
But because we can’t see, touch, taste or hear the danger, to many people it may not seem real.
Nuclear radiation is a silent killer, and unless a miracle happens the consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster will be felt for generations to come.
Is the prepper movement in the United States dying? At one time it was estimated that there were 3 million preppers in the United States, but in late 2016 interest in prepping has hit a multi-year low. The big reason for this, of course, is that the election of Donald Trump has fueled a tremendous wave of optimism among those that consider themselves to be conservatives, patriots and evangelical Christians. Not since the election of Ronald Reagan has the mood on the right shifted in such a positive direction so suddenly. But now that everyone is feeling so good about things, very few people still seem interested in prepping for hard times ahead. In fact, it is like a nuclear bomb went off in the prepping community.
As the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, I am in contact with a lot of people that serve the prepping community. And I can tell you that sales of emergency food and supplies have been crashing since Donald Trump’s surprise election victory. Firms that help people relocate outside of the United States have seen business really dry up, and I know of one high profile individual that has actually decided to move back to the country after Trump’s victory. It is almost as if the apocalypse has been canceled and the future history of the U.S. has been rewritten with a much happier ending.
Personally, I am quite alarmed that so many people are suddenly letting their guard down, but it is difficult to convince people to be vigilant when things seem to be going so well. Just consider some of the things that have been happening in recent weeks…
-The Dow just keeps setting brand new record high after brand new record high. In fact, the Dow has now risen by more than 1,200 points since Donald Trump won the election.
-The Russell 2000 has shot up an astounding 13 percent just since Trump’s victory.
-Donald Trump has convinced heating, ventilation and air conditioning giant Carrier to keep about 1,000 jobs in the United States instead of shipping them to Mexico.
-Donald Trump has convinced SoftBank to invest 50 billion dollars and create 50,000 new jobs in the United States.
-The U.S. dollar index recently hit the highest level that we have witnessed since March 2003.
-We just learned that U.S. Steel wants to bring back somewhere around 10,000 jobs to communities that lost them.
At this point there is an overwhelming belief among those on the right that Donald Trump is going to be able to do what he has promised to do.
And the numbers back this up. In a previous article, I discussed the fact that a recent Gallup survey discovered that the percentage of Republicans that believe that the U.S. economy is “getting better” increased from just 16 percent immediately prior to the election to 49 percent immediately after the election.
I don’t recall ever seeing such a shift in public sentiment in just a few days. Tens of millions of Americans have put their faith in Donald Trump, and time will tell if he will be able to deliver. As billionaire Mark Cuban recently pointed out, Donald Trump is like a number one draft pick that has not proven himself yet…
“I’ll analogize it to the NBA draft: He’s the No. 1 pick,” Cuban said. “He’s who we put our hopes and dreams with, and we’re going to believe in him. Right now it’s a little bit easier because we haven’t played a game yet.”
“There’s no reason to rush to judgment or come to any conclusions now,” he continued. “Let’s see what happens starting January 21 and go from there. I hope he’s a superstar, and I hope everything turns out the way we all hope it will. But until January 21, there’s no real point at going into detail.”
Let us hope that President Trump will be everything that people are hoping that he will be.
I would love it if 2017 is a year filled with peace and prosperity. That way I could write less about our economic troubles and instead do more of the positive stories that I have been sharing lately. And my wife and I could take some time off and just spend some time enjoying our quiet life up here in the mountains.
I don’t think that is the way it is going to go, but I do hope that the optimists are right.
Tens of millions of Americans are completely convinced that we are heading into a new golden era for America just because Donald Trump won the election, and for the sake of the nation let us hope that they are correct.
But what if they are wrong?
What if the rioting, violence and civil unrest that the radical left is planning for the Inauguration on January 20th sparks a movement that plunges many of our major cities into chaos throughout Trump’s presidency?
What if all of the incredibly bad decisions that were made during the Obama years result in the biggest economic downturn we have ever seen early in the Trump years?
What if Trump’s inability to get along with China results in a major trade war between the two largest economies on the entire planet?
Saudi Arabia already has nukes, Iran probably does, and the Russians are one of the two great nuclear powers on the entire planet. So if Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their Sunni allies do decide to conduct a full-blown ground invasion of Syria, could someone ultimately decide to use nuclear weapons when their backs get pushed up against a wall? As you read this article, there are thousands of military vehicles and hundreds of thousands of troops massed along the southern border of Turkey and the northern border of Saudi Arabia. If the command is given and those forces start streaming toward Damascus, it is inevitable that the Syrians, the Iranians, Hezbollah and the Russians would fight back. It would literally be the start of World War 3, and the Saudis and the Turks are trying very hard to convince the United States to be involved. But the truth is that we don’t want any part of this conflict, because it could very easily become the very first nuclear war in the history of the Middle East.
Perhaps you didn’t know that the Saudis already have nukes. Of course the official position is that they don’t, but it is a fact that they were the ones that funded the development of Pakistan’s nuclear program. It is an open secret that the Saudis have the bomb, but nobody is really supposed to talk about it.
That is why it was so alarming what Saudi political analyst Dahham Al-‘Anzi told RT just recently…
Earlier this week a Saudi political analyst told RT’s Arab network the kingdom has a nuclear weapon.
Dahham Al-‘Anzi made the claim while saying Saudi Arabia is engaged in an effort to “minimize the Iranian threat in the Levant and Syria.”
Although Saudi Arabia has officially denied it has a nuclear weapons program and has publicly stated it opposes nuclear weapons in the Middle East, it has funded a military nuclear program and received scientific assistance from the United States and Pakistan.
If the fur started flying in Syria and Russia and Iran decided to start bombing Saudi airbases, would Saudi Arabia resort to using their nukes?
Let’s hope not.
In the event of a massive ground invasion by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies, it is actually more likely that Russia may decide to be the first one to use nukes. An invasion force of hundreds of thousands of troops would vastly outnumber the relatively small Russian force that is already inside Syria, and so the Russians may feel that the only way that they can keep the Sunni powers out of Damascus is to use tactical nukes.
If Turkey (with hundreds of thousands of troops massed near the Syrian border) and Saudi Arabia (with its sophisticated air force) follow through on threats and intervene militarily to save their rebel clients, who include Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, from a powerful Russian-backed Syrian government offensive, then Russia will have to decide what to do to protect its 20,000 or so military personnel inside Syria.
A source close to Russian President Vladimir Putin told me that the Russians have warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to save their troops in the face of a Turkish-Saudi onslaught. Since Turkey is a member of NATO, any such conflict could quickly escalate into a full-scale nuclear confrontation.
Given Erdogan’s megalomania or mental instability and the aggressiveness and inexperience of Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman (defense minister and son of King Salman), the only person who probably can stop a Turkish-Saudi invasion is President Obama. But I’m told that he has been unwilling to flatly prohibit such an intervention, though he has sought to calm Erdogan down and made clear that the U.S. military would not join the invasion.
Are you starting to understand how serious this is?
With all of the talk of a potential invasion in recent days, the Russians are on high alert and are rapidly preparing for a direct conflict with both Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The following comes from Infowars…
Still, the Russians are taking no chances and they have put all their forces into high alert. They have very publicly dispatched a Tu-214r – her most advanced ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance) aircraft. You can think of the Tu-214R as an “AWACS for the ground”, the kind of aircraft you use to monitor a major ground battle (the regular Russian A-50Ms are already monitoring the Syrian airspace). In southern Russia, the Aerospace forces have organized large-scale exercises involving a large number of aircraft which would be used in a war against Turkey: SU-34s. The Airborne Forces are ready. The naval task forces off the Syrian coast is being augmented. The delivery of weapons has accelerated. The bottom line is simple and obvious: the Russians are not making any threats – they are preparing for war. In fact, by now they are ready.
In addition, it is important to remember that it is quite likely that the Iranians have nuclear weapons as well.
Of course the U.S. government and the Iranian government both insist that Iran does not have nukes, but many of those in the know insist otherwise.
For instance, you may want to consider what retired U.S. Army Major General Paul Vallely and U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Dennis B. Haney are saying. The following comes from an article that was authored by Jerome Corsi of WND…
In a joint statement, Vallely and Haney say an accumulation of available evidence shows a coalition of Russia, China and North Korea have assisted Iran since 1979 in achieving a nuclear weapon, despite sanctions, under the guise of a domestic nuclear energy program.
Vallely explained to WND that he and Haney have taken a systematic approach to evaluating each component needed to deliver a nuclear weapon, from the development and testing of a ballistic missile system, to the design of a nuclear weapons warhead, to the development of the weapons-grade uranium needed to produce a bomb.
“To come to our conclusion that Iran is a nuclear weapons power right now, we supplemented publicly available research, plus information from intelligence sources, including Iranian resistance groups such as the National Council of Resistance of IRAN, NCRI,” Vallely explained.
I happen to agree with Vallely and Haney. I cannot prove it, but all of the intel that I have received indicates that Iran already has nukes.
Hopefully I will not be proven accurate any time soon.
It had been hoped that a cease-fire could be negotiated that would at least temporarily defuse tensions in Syria. Unfortunately, it does not look like the shooting is going to stop, and this is going to put immense pressure on both Saudi Arabia and Turkey to do something to rescue the radical Sunni militants that are on the verge of defeat. The Saudis, the Turks and their allies have poured enormous amounts of money and resources into this war over the past five years, and now they are faced with the choice of either accepting defeat or directly intervening in this conflict themselves.
But in order to conduct a full-fledged ground invasion, they are going to need justification for doing so. There are some that are suggesting that we could soon see a false flag attack that would provide that justification, so that is something to watch out for.
I can’t remember a time when our planet has been so close to World War 3 potentially beginning.
And if it does break out, I believe that it is quite likely that nuclear weapons will be used.
So what do you think?
Do you agree with me?
Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…
While the eyes of the world are on ISIS, Russia is creating weapons unlike anything the world has ever seen before. Plans for a giant self-propelled nuclear torpedo that can create a giant tsunami more than 1,000 feet tall were recently “leaked by mistake” by the Russian media. Apparently the warheads on these torpedos are designed to create so much radiation “that everything living will be killed” – including those that try to survive the attack by hiding in underground shelters. These “robotic mini-submarines” would have a range of up to 10,000 kilometers and would be able to evade all existing U.S. detection systems. To say that such a weapon would be a “game changer” would be a massive understatement.
I know that you are not just going to take my word for any of this. So like I do in all of my articles, I am going to carefully document what I am saying.
The reason why we know about the plans for this new nuclear torpedo is because they were displayed on Russian state television for a few moments during a recent broadcast. According to Russian officials, this was an “accident”. The following comes from a report in the Independent…
Secret plans for a new Russian nuclear torpedo system have been shown on state-controlled television in what the Kremlin said was an accident.
A close-up of a confidential document detailing “Ocean Multipurpose System: Status-6” was broadcast for several seconds by Channel One Russia and NTV during coverage of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and military officials.
Could it be possible that this “accident” happened on purpose?
Could it be possible that it was intended as a warning for the Obama administration?
You never know.
But without a doubt, this is the kind of weapon that would keep military planners up at night. According to RT, this new nuclear torpedo is designed to create “extensive zones of radioactive contamination” that would ensure that no “military, economic, business or other activity” would occur in that area for a very long time…
The presentation slide titled “Ocean Multipurpose System: Status-6” showed some drawings of a new nuclear submarine weapons system. It is apparently designed to bypass NATO radars and any existing missile defense systems, while also causing heavy damage to “important economic facilities” along the enemy’s coastal regions.
The footnote to the slide stated that Status-6 is intended to cause “assured unacceptable damage” to an adversary force. Its detonation “in the area of the enemy coast” would result in “extensive zones of radioactive contamination” that would ensure that the region would not be used for “military, economic, business or other activity” for a “long time.”
In addition, Konstantin Sivkov of the Russian Geopolitical Academy told the BBC that this kind of weapon could be used to create a tsunami more than 1,000 feet high…
“A warhead of up to 100 megatons could produce a tsunami up to 500m (1,650ft) high, wiping out all living things 1,500km (930 miles) deep inside US territory“
As I have written about previously, a whopping 39 percent of all Americans live in counties that directly border a shoreline. The detonation of just a handful of these weapons could wipe out the entire east coast and kill off a very substantial percentage of the U.S. population.
On top of all that, the BBC is reporting that a state-run Russian publication is suggesting that these new torpedos are being fitted with extremely radioactive cobalt warheads…
According to state-run Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the destructive power attributed to the new torpedo’s warhead would fit the description of a cobalt bomb.
That would be a type of thermonuclear warhead with a layer of cobalt-59, which on detonation would be transmuted into highly radioactive cobalt-60 with a half-life longer than five years.
Such a weapon would guarantee “that everything living will be killed”, the paper said – there would not even be any survivors in bunkers.
A cobalt bomb has never been tested because of the devastating radiation it would unleash.
Worst of all, we would have no advance warning that these torpedos were coming. They can be launched from anywhere, they reportedly have a range of up to 10,000 kilometers, and they are designed to “avoid all acoustic tracking devices and other traps”…
On the diagram the giant torpedo’s range is given as “up to 10,000km” (6,200 miles) and depth of trajectory is “up to 1,000m” (3,300ft).
It was developed by Rubin, a submarine design bureau in St Petersburg.
It would, apparently, be launched by nuclear-powered submarines of the 09852 “Belgorod” and 09851 “Khabarovsk” series.
Rossiiskaya Gazeta called the torpedo a “robotic mini-submarine”, travelling at 100 knots (185km/h; 115mph), which would “avoid all acoustic tracking devices and other traps”.
Sadly, the Obama administration seems almost totally oblivious to this threat. Our strategic nuclear forces are so outdated that floppy disks and rotary phones are still being used, and Barack Obama is fond of saying that “the Cold War’s been over for 20 years“.
Unfortunately for us, the Russians do not see things the same way. Anti-American sentiment inside Russia is at an all-time high, and every time the U.S. interferes in Syria or Ukraine the Russians get even angrier.
Just like we do, there are “talking heads” on Russian television that tell people what to think. And many of these “talking heads” on Russian television are openly talking about how war with the United States is inevitable. These days, the Russians consider themselves to be the great force for good in the world, and they consider America to be the great force for evil in the world. In fact, one of their most popular talking heads named Alexander Dugin has publicly called the U.S. the “kingdom of the Antichrist”.
And even though the Russian economy has dipped into recession, the Russians continue to feverishly prepare for war. This year alone, Russian military spending is up 33 percent.
Yes, ISIS is a far greater threat than most Americans would even dare to imagine as I discussed yesterday. In the times to come, I fully expect to see terror attacks inside this country unlike anything we have ever seen before.
But I am completely convinced that the greater long-term strategic threat is Russia.
The Russians are feverishly preparing for World War III while Barack Obama acts like it could never possibly happen.
Hopefully Obama is right, because if he is wrong the consequences for this nation will be absolutely unthinkable.
After the horrors of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, how insane do you have to be to fire missiles directly at a major nuclear facility? No matter what side you are on in the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, everyone should be able to agree that it is utter madness for Hamas to fire rockets at the Dimona nuclear installation in the Negev. The intent, of course, was to destroy the Dimona facility and create a horrific nuclear disaster in the heart of Israel. Fortunately, the area is heavily protected by the Iron Dome missile defense system and none of the rockets did any damage. And it is questionable how much damage to the facility that Hamas missiles could actually do. But that is not the point. What matters is that Hamas is trying to do it. With each passing year, Hamas rockets are becoming more advanced, more accurate and more powerful. And when Hamas fires some of their best rockets at a major nuclear facility, they are committing an act of all-out war. If Hamas continues to do this, it could spark a major regional war in which countless numbers of people could die. Is that what they want?
There has been a lot of criticism of Israel in the mainstream media in recent days, but much of it is quite hypocritical. Just imagine what would happen in the U.S. if another country fired just one missile at New York City or at one of our nuclear reactors. If that happened, “glass parking lot” would suddenly be on the lips of tens of millions of Americans all over the country, and the U.S. military would rapidly be preparing for an absolutely devastating response.
Well, it isn’t just one missile that has been fired at Israel.
In recent days, dozens of rockets were fired at Israel before there was any response from the Israeli military at all.
And more than 225 rockets have been fired at Israel since Operation Protective Edge started on Monday night.
At one point, an average of about one rocket was being fired into Israel every ten minutes.
And many of these rockets are being shot directly at Israeli population centers with the intention of killing civilians. It is a miracle that we have not seen many casualties so far.
But where Hamas has really stepped over the line is by firing at the Dimona nuclear facility. The fact that Hamas is attempting to create a nuclear holocaust is essentially an act of genocide. The following is how the Jerusalem Post described the attack…
Three rockets were launched at Dimona in southern Israel on Wednesday afternoon. The Iron Dome intercepted one rocket before it could land, while two other rockets landed in open areas.
Dimona is the location of Israel’s nuclear reactor. There was no indication that rockets damaged any part of the reactor.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the rockets, stating that it had been attempting to hit the nuclear reactor.
Militants from Hamas’s Qassam Brigades said they had launched long-range M-75 rockets towards Dimona.
And as Breitbart has pointed out, what Hamas has just done is actually an act of nuclear terrorism as defined by the United Nations…
Article 2 (1) of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism states:
1. Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person unlawfully and intentionally…(b)…uses or damages a nuclear facility in a manner which releases or risks the release of radioactive material: (i) With the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury; or (ii) With the intent to cause substantial damage to property or to the environment; or (iii) With the intent to compel a natural or legal person, an international organization or a State to do or refrain from doing an act.
Let us hope that future Hamas missile strikes will not do any damage to Dimona either.
In the end, it is questionable how much of a threat Hamas rockets actually are to an extremely well defended facility such as Dimona, but let us not completely underestimate their capabilities either.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, Hamas rockets are stronger and more accurate than ever and are now even capable of hitting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem…
Hamas has emerged from a 19-month cease-fire stronger, savvier, and more effective at hitting Israel where it will hurt the most.
Hamas’s arsenal, estimated at 10,000 rockets, is only marginally bigger than it was heading into its last conflict with Israel, in November 2012. But its mid-range rockets are much more accurate, and it has acquired long-range missiles that reach beyond Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, putting as many as 5 million of Israel’s 8 million citizens at risk.
If Hamas wants Israel to stop attacking, they need to stop lobbing missiles into Israel.
If Hamas keeps launching rockets, it could spark a major regional war. Just consider what Shimon Peres is saying about the conflict…
“We didn’t start the war today, they started it already several days ago,” he told CNN. “We asked them to stop it… We waited one day, two days, three days and they continued, and they spread their fire on more areas in Israel.”
He also said that a ground offensive on Gaza “may happen quite soon”. Referring to rockets being fired from Gaza, he added: “If they will stop for example tonight, there won’t be any ground entrance – but if they will continue, sooner or later this will be the response.”
After North Korea successfully tested a hydrogen bomb on Sunday, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis warned that the United States is more than capable of “the total annihilation of a country”. Unfortunately, the North Koreans may have already gotten to the point where they are capable of the same thing. Just a handful of North Korean nukes could kill millions of people and render the largest cities in South Korea or Japan completely uninhabitable, and so a nuclear war with the North Koreans should be avoided at all costs. Sadly, global events seem to be relentlessly pulling us in that direction.
Irma Is Being Described As A ‘Nuclear Hurricane’ That Has Left One Island ‘Practically Uninhabitable’
Of course if you were to extrapolate the Saffir-Simpson scale, Irma would have been considered a category 6 storm when it had sustained winds of 185 miles per hour. This is a point that I made in my article entitled “Hurricane Irma: If There Was Such A Thing As A Category 6 Hurricane, This Would Be It”.
And just a day later, MSNBC published an article with a suspiciously similar headline: “If there were a category 6 hurricane, Irma would be it”.
So will the rest of the mainstream media attack MSNBC for saying the exact same thing that I did?
Of course not.
And will the mainstream media attack Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine for calling Irma “a nuclear hurricane”?…
Of course not.
I am certainly not criticizing Levine. Once again, it is not terminology that I would have used, but if it helps get more people to safety that is a good thing.
Just look at what has happened to Barbuda. According to Antigua Prime Minister Gaston Browne, 95 percent of the buildings on Barbuda have been damaged or destroyed…
And Browne put an exclamation point on things when he told Anderson Cooper the following…
Could we see similar devastation in our country?
We shall see. Right now, millions are holding their breath as they wait to see where Irma will go. According to the Washington Post there are a couple of key factors that meteorologists are watching…
But of course authorities can’t wait until the last minute, and coastal communities are already being evacuated. And we are not just talking about Florida. Earlier today, we learned that an evacuation order had been issued for Savannah, Georgia…
Down in Florida, the clock is ticking for those that would still like to get out. There is extremely heavy traffic on the major highways, and many gas stations down in Florida have already completely run out of gasoline…
As I have been saying all along, you don’t want to be there when this storm makes landfall.
There are going to be some people that figure that since they were able to “ride out” other hurricanes that they will be able to do the same thing with Irma.
Those that choose to do that will be making a tragic mistake, and it may cost some of them their lives.
Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.