#facestab last cranked 2010-05-03 17:57

Journalism against the law: sources and confidentiality
posted by thelink at 2010-05-03 11:02

thelink: note how the jailing of US journalists to force revelation of sources in plame affair mirrors the revelation of plame's ID .. coincidence?
thelink: neat turn of phrase: "Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms" .. great name for a band
thelink: to this beat
thelink: "standard operating procedure" .. another nice turn of phrase .. explains actions on both sides of the journalism/legal divide ... (up until invention of these new confidentiality 'waivers') ... does it also work for what went on in the CIA/government? ...
thelink: and now what we see on the 'battlefield' ... so-called ... civilian streets ... more 'SOP for the SOBs'?
thelink: so many ironic coincidences i hope i will be forgiven for raising the question ... was the whole affair a carefully constructed, premeditated diversion tactic? giant pit-trap (for the media), walk on in ...
thelink: does CIA loyalty extend this far?
thelink: <cia> and after that ... you could write a book! .. just imagine, operah, the talk show circuit ... holidays in the sun!
thelink: o for what i didn't find in africa!
thelink: tuna
thelink: ah so zen ... it's an old story
thelink: really
thelink: btw no-one (who's desperate enough) needs to buy uranium for a weapons program ... if they have a (several) desalination plant(s) but i guess they don't sell that point when they sell the energy-intensive plants which seem to be popping up everywhere ... and which ironically (cough) are often associated with uranium mining
thelink: iaea takes the idea seriously .. as a means for obtaining clean water and nuclear power of course ;-)
thelink: i don't see many items discussing the need ofr IAEA regulation of desal plants which aren't yet linked to nuclear facilities ... somewhat alarmingly ... though i have every confidence that this well-funded and important regulatory body has EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL NEVER YOU MIND ABOUT THAT OH MY WORDY YES
thelink: i wonder how eager these governments would be to purchase such energy-hungry, CO2 filthy water factories if they needed to ensure they comply with nucleiid-production regulatory inspection schedules ... and inform their unsuspecting public of this potential risk?
thelink: i wonder how eager the merchants of these water privatisation facilities would be for this kind of issue to surface in the media and political sphere?
thelink: there's so little mention of it, i wonder if i'm being a bit hasty in my alarm ...
thelink: most of all, i wonder if the governments now purchasing desal plants willy-nilly are scheming behind closed doors to couple them to nuclear 'power' plants in the future as a part of the purchase budgeting considerations ....
thelink: coming to a port near you ... "FLOATING NUCLEAR DESALINATION PLANTS" .. yes, mommy, i'm gonna run away and join the desal plant!
thelink: i'm reading the IAEA material and thinking it's not about the issue of extracting U from seawater ... so perhaps there is no regulation of this to date?
thelink: the idea of tying drinking water and nuclear facilities together in the way the IAEA project suggests is ... lemme just say .. WAAAY SCARY
thelink: lots of jarring happenings from just one of many new reactors opening around the world ... i'm reluctant to mention it's a third-world one, since i think the safety practices in 'first world' industry are generally lax and far
thelink: far from transparent wrt respect for public and environment ... mixing national-security preference for secrecy, with public health hazard is a very poor choice ... thanks those fucking monkeys for that one i guess
thelink: ...isn't it what "John West rejects that makes John West the best"? there's lots of radionucliides in seawater ... necessarily concentrated in the 'throw-away' brine because of human exposure health limits
thelink: ... not just Uranium .. i wonder if soup stock and other concentrating process work better or worse ... ? <images of some evil scientist fishing for tuna just outside UK 12 mile limit in the north sea...>
thelink:
thelink: not unexpectedly, israel is a world-leader in desalination ... hmmm
thelink: the start of that pdf linked above which provides assessment on extraction of uranium from seawater
thelink: and some other useful publications courtesy of the indian government
thelink: maybe some help to grab the pdfs if your reader doesn't grep urls ... bash$ for chapter in {1..20} ; do for part in {1..13} ; do wget -cx 'http://www.barc.ernet.in/publications/eb/golden/chemical/toc/chapter'${chapter}/${chapter}_${part}.pdf ; done ; done
thelink: i'll bet a lot of money that i don't have that the process uses substantially the same equipment and methods as the 'in-situ leaching' uranium mining attrocity that is currently being pushed out
thelink: PAO = Polyacrylonitrile amidoxime ...
thelink: nuclear desalination does indeed encompass extraction of uranium from seawater ... watch out for one coming soon in your neighbourhood! ;-)
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thelink: connect the dots?
thelink: o/' got any form? o/'
thelink: more map
thelink: general wmd proliferation map
thelink: where the U ends up at
thelink: don't get me wrong ... water is a serious issue and desalination no doubt is seen as a solution (groan) to many
thelink: more stories about the indian project to extract U from seawater ... France is also involved ... france is the other country (other than israel) named for supply of desal plant to Melbourne Australia against much opposition and demonstrated lack of need
thelink: closeby to where a nuclear power plant was similarly to be forced onto the locals against their wishes, before change of government ... who knows the future ...
thelink: not that far away is the giant uranium mine that is converting to in-situ leeching, and which will start to source its unfathomable quantities of water from a desal plant ...
thelink: Israel's IDE Technologies won contract in Oz, but not the melbourne one
thelink: a case of desal-plant envy, Israel recycles 75% water after use whereas australia does not ... but could, easily, and then wouldn't need to give loads of money away for something that needs its own power station in an area where filthy brown coal is the main source of power
thelink: regardless, the suits press ahead with their deal on building "a plant [that] would rival the world's biggest — Israel's Ashkelon plant — which produces about 320 megalitres a day"
thelink: the money was surely flowing at AU$3.7b and offers of more
thelink: with at least five other desal plants cropping up around the country, looks like the pollies have caught desal fever!
thelink: construction began a while ago on the melbourne plant
thelink: here's why desal is bad for Australia at this time ... money and motivation removed from water efficiency and recycling
thelink: greenlivingpedia article on the melbourne desal project
thelink: announced in 2007 against wide concern and with a similarly (un)thourough community consultation process as the currently-shelved nuclear power plant project that was being pushed simultaneously in/for the same locale (and one would guess, by much the same people)
thelink: similarly massive and unwise projects for this area, hand-in-hand ...
thelink: of course, there are those who would argue that point ...
thelink: and desal being as energy-hungry as it is, these make natural bedfellows ...
thelink: interesting it is that in this case, the energy consumer portion is being adopted, without the energy provider ... for now?
thelink: apologies for rambling ...

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