Saturday, August 03, 2013

Smart Meter Health Hazard Dr Paul Dart Unpaid Expert Part 1


Smart Meter Health Hazard Dr Paul Dart Unpaid Expert Part 1

New bill aims to make 'smart' meters mandatory for entire nation

energy

New bill aims to make 'smart' meters mandatory for entire nation

Thursday, August 01, 2013 by: Jonathan Benson, staff writer
Tags: smart metersnational mandatesurveillance


(NaturalNews) There is a sinister agenda underway to forcibly convert every standard electric meter in the U.S. to the "smart" variety under the guise of promoting renewable energy interests. And one of the latest pieces of Trojan horse legislation pushing for this ominous transformation is the Smart Grid Advancement Act of 2013, introduced by Representative Jerry McNerney (D-Cal.) and co-authored by Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Penn.), which would force utilities all across the country to convert their customers to smart meters.

The new bill, as stated in a recent press release posted on Rep. McNerney's website, would require virtually all energy utility companies nationwide to implement so-called "smart grid technologies," which in turn would require the installation of smart meters on customers' homes and businesses. Smart meters, as you may already be aware, contain wireless communication components that are not only a serious threat to human health, but also a monumental detriment to personal privacy.

But crafty politicians like Rep. McNerney and Rep. Cartwright are couching the technology as a viable way to help save people money by lowering their electricity bills. This explanation, of course, is meant to divert attention away from the not-so-enticing fact that the technology is really nothing more than a massive, interconnected government spying and control apparatus.

"[The bill] would apparently require all electricity providers, including rural cooperatives and municipal utilities, to join the 'smart' grid and install 'smart' meters," explains the energy freedom advocacy group StopSmartMeters.org.

What else does this inauspicious bill aim to accomplish? According to a summary of the bill, posted as H.R. 2685 at GovTrack.us -- you need to read between the lines to really understand what is being stated in this summary -- certified Energy Star appliances and other energy-saving products will be required to contain wireless technologies capable of communicating with both energy providers and potentially even the government.

"[T]he bill would require appliances with the Energy Star label to include wireless transmitters that cannot be turned off, in order to communicate (and presumably cough up your private data and respond to orders from Big Brother Smart Grid to switch you off at a moment's notice, as happened to dozens of people in Northern California recently when their not-so-smart-AC program cut off their air conditioning at the height of the recent heat wave," adds StopSmartMeters.org.

"The bill would also establish a 'smart grid information center' that would presumably create pro-smart-grid propaganda at the taxpayer's expense."

Smart meters exposed as part of NSA 'PRISM' spying scam

Even worse is the fact that Landis Gyr, a major smart meter manufacturer that describes itself as a "world leader" in smart grid technology, let the cat out of the bag that the National Security Agency (NSA), which we now know actively spies on innocent Americans' phone calls and text messages, also uses smart meters to spy on Americans.

Thanks to a NaturalNews reader tip, we learned that Landis Gyr recently had a company voicemail message that admitted smart meter technology is part of the NSA's "PRISM" spying and surveillance program. Since gaining national attention about this admission, Landis Gyr has apparently altered its company voicemail message to omit this indicting information.

Your help needed to oppose HR 2685, the Smart Meter Trojan Horse Act

H.R. 2685 has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee for consideration, which means this is the first point of contact in effectively killing this bill. StopSmartMeters.org has set up a helpful action page that you can use to contact not only the committee but also the bill's sponsors and the rest of your Congressmen:
http://stopsmartmeters.org

Sources for this article include:

http://mcnerney.house.gov

http://www.govtrack.us

http://stopsmartmeters.org

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/041446_smart_meters_national_mandate_surveillance.html#ixzz2ayo4pBnN

Controversy dogs wireless health panel


Controversy dogs wireless health panel

By:  Howard Solomon  On: 01 Aug 2013 For: Computing Canada Creator

The chair of a panel looking at Health Canada’s RF safety code has resigned amid allegations of conflict of interest. A critic and former Canadian IT executive says a new panel should be named

The Royal Society of Canada still hasn’t appointed a new chairman of a panel of international scientists reviewing Health Canada’s wireless radiation standards after the head of the group resigned four weeks ago.
It’s a sign of how sensitive the panel has become to the decades-old controversy over wireless waves.
But a consumer group which says half of the committee is riddled with members with conflicts of interest favouring the wireless industry not only welcomed the resignation, it wants to start all over.
The panel set up by the Royal Society of Canada in March at Health Canada’s request to look into its Safety Code 6 standard “is a joke,” should be disbanded and a new one created, says Frank Clegg, chairman of Citizens For Safe Technology (C4ST) and former head of Microsoft Canada.
His group is demanding the code, which sets a guideline on human exposure to electromagnetic energy be changed because it doesn’t take into account the increased use of smart phones and Wi-Fi in homes, schools and businesses today.
Last month, after complaints by C4ST and an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, panel chair Daniel Krewski resigned. The Journal said Krewski, a professor in the faculty of medicine at the University of Ottawa, didn’t disclose to the society he’d had a contract in 2008-2009 advising Industry Canada on explaining to the public the risks with cellphone radiation. In an interview with the publication Krewski did say he tell the society he had done consulting for the government.
The Royal Society of Canada didn’t respond to several requests this week for a spokesperson to discuss the resignation and criticisms of the panel. Panel members come from several countries. 
RELATED CONTENT
Meanwhile because there is so much interest in the possible health risks of radiofrequencies, the society had to abandon a scheduled public consultation last month in Ottawa. A new date hasn’t been set yet.
There’s been international controversy for years over the possible impact of radiation from wireless sources including cellphones, cellphone towers and Wi-Fi access points. In the face of that, in October, 2011 Health Canada – which regulates the telecommunications industry, encouraged parents to reduce their children’s exposure to cellphones. While a small number of studies have shown brain cancer rates might be elevated in long-term, heavy users of cellphones, the advisory said, other studies haven’t shown a relationship.


Read more: http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/controversy-dogs-wireless-health-panel/147470#ixzz2aynjxTvL
or visit http://www.itworldcanada.com for more Canadian IT News 


Google to make Starbucks Wi-Fi 10 times faster


Google to make Starbucks Wi-Fi 10 times faster

  @KatieLobosco July 31, 2013: 12:22 PM ET

starbucks wifi google
Starbucks Wi-Fi will get 10 times faster, thanks to Google.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Google is teaming up with Starbucks to make Wi-Fi at its coffee shops 10 times faster.

Over the next 18 months, Google (GOOGFortune 500) will be upgrading all 7,000 company-operated Starbucks locations in the United States. Starbucks (SBUXFortune 500) already offers free Wi-Fi access at its coffee shops, but the company said faster Internet speeds will give it a competitive advantage over its rivals.
"Our goal is to continue to provide our customers with the best in-store experience possible, and we are excited to offer these kinds of unparalleled experiences at a broad scale," said Adam Brotman, Starbucks' chief digital officer, in a prepared statement.
Since 2008, AT&T (TFortune 500)has provided in-store Wi-Fi for Starbucks, but when that contract expired, Google beat out the telecom giant for the chance to build out the network of the future.
AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel noted that in AT&T's proposal to Starbucks, the telecom giant also offered up to 10 times faster network and Wi-Fi speeds.
"The decision must have been based on criteria other than speeds," he said.
Google has taken an interest in increasing speeds for Internet users across the country, as more robust connections translate into more searches and bigger advertising dollars.
The search giant has offered free Wi-Fi for the city of Mountain View, Calif., for several years, and it has installed super-fast fiber networks in Kansas City. More than a dozen other cities, including Austin, Texas, are on tap to receive "Google Fiber" soon.
For Starbucks located within Google Fiber cities, Internet speeds are expected to become 100 times faster than their current levels. To top of page
http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/31/technology/innovation/google-starbucks-wifi/index.html?iid=HP_Highlight

The eZombie at your table: Column

The eZombie at your table: Column
Devra Davis
9:03 a.m. EDT July 30, 2013
Our fascination with zombies, vampires and sci-fi creatures may be a quite cry to find ways to avoid becoming heartless sci-fi monsters ourselves.
(Photo: Mary Altaffer, AP)


STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  •          Addiction to smart phones is becoming a worldwide problem.
  •          Technology addiction treatment centers are sprouting up around the world.
  •          Perhaps contemporary fascination is a cry to avoid becoming heartless technological monsters. 

More suited to a sci-fi flick than reality, a startling epidemic of young people with smartphone-addled brains is on the rise, and the long-term consequences might be far worse than you or I could imagine. Reporting thatone in five students are addictedto their smartphones, South Korea, the world's most tech-savvy nation, is aggressively tackling the problem,establishing more than 100 Internet addiction camps. As the number of young smartphone users escalates around the globe, educating children and parents about the effects of this increasingly prevalent drug of the future is imperative.
South Korean medical researchers released a recent report that illuminates the experiment in which we are all unwitting participants. Neuroscientists there reported a rise in digital dementia -- the tendency of the young to be so obsessed with smartphones that they can't remember phone numbers, produce legible handwriting, or look people in the eye, all signs of a type of brain damage. In a nation where 20 percent of 10 to 19-year-olds spends seven hours a day on smartphones and tablets, exposures are the highest in the world, and reports of lop-sided brain development are increasing. According to the Korean Ministry of Science, the country has more digital devices than people, with many children beginning to use devices as toddlers. Psychiatrist Dr. Byun Gi-Won, of the Balance Brain Center in Seoul, South Korea, explained, "Young people who are heavy technology users are likely to have a properly developed left hemisphere of the brain while the right hemisphere will be unused and underdeveloped."
The Atlantic Monthly reported that in Korea, a cottage industry of internet addiction treatment centers has surfaced. Meanwhile in the U.S. parents are giving young children cell phones as toys. The Los Angeles School District, along with many others, is making multi-million dollar commitments to the use of wireless digital devices and Google has "gifted" the city of San Francisco with WiFi for major public parks. The growth wireless is taking place with little thought about the long term impact this can have on developing brains, bodies and babies who are growing up in a sea of radiofrequency radiation that is without precedence in human history.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and the group I head, Environmental Health Trust, have long advocated that children need more lap time than screen time. If digital devices must be used to distract a toddler on a long car trip, put them on airplane mode and make sure they remain disconnected from Internet or Wi-Fi. Other handy tips can be found on our website—all of which come down to one simple notion — distance is your friend; and time is your enemy. Keep calls and connection times as short as possible.
Look around you these days. Young parents are glued to their phones while strolling with their toddlers – some of whom are also zoned into their own electronic devices. Watch youngsters turn crestfallen when a caregiver shifts from playing with them to answer a text or call. See families seated at dinner tables, each immersed in their own screen.
When we strip away from our lives all the electronified trappings and stuff with which we are so preoccupied; when we throw away all those things we now crave and believe we need, what is left is what essentially makes us human. The rush to digitize toddlers and young children flies in the face of what developmental psychologists have long understood. Children learn best by direct human touch and eye contact — from real people not machines.
Perhaps our contemporary fascination with zombies, vampires and sci-fi creatures, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein to The Vampire Diaries and World War Z, may be a quiet cry that we find ways to avoid becoming heartless sci-fi monsters ourselves.
Devra Davis is president of Environmental Health Trust.
In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes diverse opinions from outside writers, including our Board of Contributors.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/07/30/smartphones-technology-addiction-column/2596321/

Selfish traits not favoured by evolution, study shows

Selfish traits not favoured by evolution, study shows
By Melissa Hogenboom
Science reporter, BBC News

2 August 2013 Last updated at 10:29 GMT
Two competing white pelicansHumans and animals could not evolve in a co-operative environment by being selfish, scientists say


Evolution does not favour selfish people, according to new research.
This challenges a previous theory which suggested it was preferable to put yourself first.
Instead, it pays to be co-operative, shown in a model of "the prisoner's dilemma", a scenario of game theory - the study of strategic decision-making.
Published in Nature Communications, the team says their work shows that exhibiting only selfish traits would have made us become extinct.
Game theory involves devising "games" to simulate situations of conflict or co-operation. It allows researchers to unravel complex decision-making strategies and to establish why certain types of behaviour among individuals emerge.
Start Quote
It's almost like what we had in the cold war, an arms race - but these arms races occur all the time in evolutionary biology”
Dr Christoph Adami
Michigan State University
Freedom or prison
A team from Michigan State University, US, used a model of the prisoner's dilemma game, where two suspects who are interrogated in separate prison cells must decide whether or not to inform on each other.
In the model, each person is offered a deal for freedom if they inform on the other, putting their opponent in jail for six months. However, this scenario will only be played out if the opponent chooses not to inform.
If both "prisoners" choose to inform (defection) they will both get three months in prison, but if they both stay silent (co-operation) they will both only get a jail term of one month.
The eminent mathematician John Nash showed that the optimum strategy was not to co-operate in the prisoner's dilemma game.

Two men huggingCo-operating is key for evolution


Co-operating is key for evolution
"For many years, people have asked that if he [Nash] is right, then why do we see co-operation in the animal kingdom, in the microbial world and in humans," said lead author Christoph Adami of Michigan State University.
Mean extinction
The answer, he explained, was that communication was not previously taken into account.

"The two prisoners that are interrogated are not allowed to talk to each other. If they did they would make a pact and be free within a month. But if they were not talking to each other, the temptation would be to rat the other out.
"Being mean can give you an advantage on a short timescale but certainly not in the long run - you would go extinct."
These latest findings contradict a 2012 studywhere it was found that selfish people could get ahead of more co-operative partners, which would create a world full of selfish beings.
This was dubbed a "mean and selfish" strategy and depended on a participant knowing their opponent's previous decision and adapting their strategy accordingly.
Crucially, in an evolutionary environment, knowing your opponent's decision would not be advantageous for long because your opponent would evolve the same recognition mechanism to also know you, Dr Adami explained.
This is exactly what his team found, that any advantage from defecting was short-lived. They used a powerful computer model to run hundreds of thousands of games, simulating a simple exchange of actions that took previous communication into account.

Man in a jailA previous study found that selfish strategies were favourable

"What we modelled in the computer were very general things, namely decisions between two different behaviours. We call them co-operation and defection. But in the animal world there are all kinds of behaviours that are binary, for example to flee or to fight," Dr Adami told BBC News.
"It's almost like what we had in the cold war, an arms race - but these arms races occur all the time in evolutionary biology."
Social insects
Prof Andrew Coleman of Leicester University, UK, said this new work "put a break on over-zealous interpretations" of the previous strategy, which proposed that manipulative, selfish strategies would evolve.
"Darwin himself was puzzled about the co-operation you observe in nature. He was particularly struck by social insects," he explained.
"You might think that natural selection should favour individuals that are exploitative and selfish, but in fact we now know after decades of research that this is an oversimplified view of things, particularly if you take into account the selfish gene feature of evolution.
"It's not individuals that have to survive, its genes, and genes just use individual organisms - animals or humans - as vehicles to propagate themselves."
"Selfish genes" therefore benefit from having co-operative organisms.
The selfish gene?

DNA molecule, artwork


In 1974, Richard Dawkins published a gene-centred view of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection.
He argued that it was not groups or organisms that adapt and evolve, but individual genes and each living organism's body was a survival machine for its genes.
Prof Andrew Coleman from Leicester University explains that this new work suggests that co-operation helps a group evolve, but does not argue against the selfish gene theory of evolution.
Rather, he adds, it helps selfish genes survive as they reap the awards of inhabiting co-operative groups.
              Is DNA the smartest molecule in existence?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23529849

You Won’t BELIEVE What’s Going On at Fukushima Right Now


You Won’t BELIEVE What’s Going On at Fukushima Right Now


Tepco Has No Idea How to Stabilize the Reactors

fukushima
(Photo by Daniel Berehulak /Getty Images)
Washingtons Blog
August 1, 2013
You’ve heard bad news about Fukushima recently.
But it’s worse than you know.
The Wall Street Journal notes that radiation levels outside the plant arelikely higher than inside the reactor:
NRA [Nuclear Regulation Authority] officials said highly contaminated water may be leaking into the soil from a number of trenches, allowing the water to seep into the site’s groundwater and eventually into the ocean.
***
Both radioactive substances are considered harmful to health. An NRA official said Monday that the very high levels were likely to be even higher than those within the reactor units themselves.
***
It was by far the highest concentration of radioactivity detected since soon after Japan’s March 2011 earthquake and tsunami ….
How could it be more radioactive outside the nuclear reactors? The reactors have lost containment, and experts have no idea where the nuclear cores are.
And the problems which have been detected at ground-level are only the tip of the iceberg.  Japan Times points out:
Cesium levels in water under Fukushima No. 1 plant soar the deeper it gets, Tepco reveals
***
Tepco found 950 million becquerels of cesium and 520 million becquerels of beta ray-emitting radioactive substances, including strontium, in the water from 13 meters [~43 feet] underground.
Water from 1 meter down contained 340 million becquerels, and a sample from 7 meters down contained 350 million becquerels.
***
Cesium, a metallic element, is subject to gravity.
Yomiuri reports that highly-radioactive groundwater could start coming to the surface at the Fukushima plant:
TEPCO spokesman Noriyuki Imaizumi revealed the water level of the tainted groundwater in a test well located on the sea side of the No. 2 reactor has risen rapidly.
If the water level continues to rise, it could reach the ground surface,” Imaizumi, an acting general manager of the company’s nuclear power-related division, said at a press conference Monday.
According to the company, the water level has risen about 70 centimeters over the past 20 days.
***
To prevent contaminated groundwater from leaking into the sea, TEPCO is working to reinforce the ground foundation of seawalls. The rising water level in the test well means the measures to prevent leakage have been working.
However, the company apparently failed to give much thought to the fact that the groundwater would have nowhere else to go ….
Even Tepco admits that the groundwater problems are due to a lack of planning.  NHK points out:
[Tepco] learnt on Wednesday that its efforts to prevent radiation-tainted groundwater from seeping into the sea are failing.
***
TEPCO has been trying to solidify the embankment of the crippled power plant.
***
TEPCO says water levels in one of the contaminated wells have risen by about 1 meter since the work began in early July.
It says this is likely the result of its work to solidify the ground  [to a depth of 16 meters], using chemicals.
The company says soil up to 2 meters below the ground cannot be hardened, and water may be seeping out.
In addition, a top expert says that radioactive water could be flowing beneaththe seafloor … and could well up outside of the port “containment” zone:
Atsunao Marui, head of the Groundwater Research Group at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, said, “Groundwater also flows beneath the seafloor, so it’s possible that contaminated groundwater could spring up outside the port.”
Marui added that water outside the port also needs to be carefully checked.
Reuters notes that the bolts in Fukushima’s tanks will corrode in just a few years, and a plant workers reveal — “Tepco says it doesn’t know how long tanks will hold”:
Experts say Tepco is attempting the most ambitious nuclear clean-up in history, even greater than the Chernobyl disaster ….
***
Radioactive water that cools the reactors …]mixes with some 400 tonnes of fresh groundwater pouring into the plant daily.
Workers have built more than 1,000 tanks ….
With more than 85 percent of the 380,000 tonnes of storage capacity filled, Tepco has said it could run out of space.
The tanks are built from parts of disassembled old containers brought from defunct factories and put together with new parts, workers from the plant told Reuters. They say steel bolts in the tanks will corrode in a few years.
Tepco says it does not know how long the tanks will hold.
Asahi writes:
[Tepco's] appallingly shoddy handling of radioactive water that is leaking from the crippled plant into the sea.
***
At the No. 3 reactor, highly radioactive “mystery steam” has been spotted.
The fact that radioactive substances are still being released into the ground, the sea and the air is irrefutable proof that the nuclear disaster of March 2011 is not over. The responsible parties must take this situation gravely ….
The utility’s glaring ineptitude with crisis management was noted right from the start of the Fukushima disaster.
***
We have zero faith in the utility’s reliability as an operator of any nuclear power plant. In fact, allowing the company to handle nuclear energy is simply out of the question.
The entire company now needs to be focused on preventing radioactive substances from escaping into the environment.
Yomiuri argues that the government agency overseeing Fukushima has no idea what’s going on:
The Nuclear Regulation Authority, which oversees safety management at the nuclear plant, decided to set up a working team to analyze conditions concerning contamination.
But the NRA’s actions have also been badly delayed. At a meeting Monday, an expert said the NRA “still can’t grasp the risks posed by the current situation.”
As Enformable points out, top Japanese officials are finally calling for Tepco to be fired:
In case one hasn’t paid attention the constant stream of international experts who have called for TEPCO to be removed as the organization in charge of decommissioning the crippled Fukushima Daiichi reactors, Shunichi Tanaka,chairman of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has also called for Tokyo Electric to be removed. “It is simply too big for one company to handle,” said Tanaka, at a press conference Wednesday. “Placing all the burden (of controlling the site) on them won’t solve the problem.” 
Remember, an official Japanese government investigation concluded that the Fukushima accident was a “man-made” disaster, caused by caused by “collusion” between government and Tepco and bad reactor design.  And yet the Japanese government has allowed the culprit – Tepco – to oversee the “cleanup”, in the same way that the U.S. government allowed BP to oversee the “cleanup” of the Gulf oil spill even though BP’s criminal negligence caused the spill in the first place.
ABC Australia reports:
It’s taken about two-and-a-half years, but it seems the Japanese government is finally losing patience with the operator of the Fukushima nuclear plant. The reason: its haphazard approach to stabilising the complex. Last week it was unexplained steam rising from the shattered remains of the building housing the melted reactor number three. This week it’s TEPCO’s admission that radioactive water from the plant has probably been leaking into the Pacific for the last three months.
Indeed, Asahi notes:
The operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant sat on its hands for more than two years despite having pledged to seal a leaking hole in a turbine building ….
NHK writes:
[Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide] Suga told reporters after the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the government views this as a grave matter.
Tepco’s own advisors are also blasting the operator of the stricken nuclear plant.  AFP points out:
Foreign nuclear experts on Friday blasted the operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, with one saying its lack of transparency over toxic water leaks showed “you don’t know what you’re doing”… “appears that you are not keeping the people of Japan informed. These actions indicate that you don’t know what you are doing … you do not have a plan and that you are not doing all you can to protect the environment and the people.” [said Dale Klein, Former NRC Chairman and Tepco advisory committee member]
How could this happen?   Doesn’t the ocean dilute radiation to the point it is rendered harmless?  No, actually:
Japan Times notes:
Fukushima … seems to lurch from one problem to the next ….
***
When the situation is so bad that Shunichi Tanaka, the NRAchairman, is stating in a press conference, with regard to water leaks, that “if you have any better ideas, we’d like to know,” it should be clear that Fukushima No. 1 still requires the upmost attention.
The chairman of the NRA also says (via the New York Times):
Considering the state of the plant, it’s difficult to find a solution today or tomorrow… That’s probably not satisfactory to many of you. But that’s the reality we face after an accident like this… We don’t truly know whether that will work….
Indeed, technology doesn’t currently even exist to stabilize and clean up Fukushima, and Tepco – with no financial incentive to actually fix things – has only beenpretending to clean it up. And see this.

http://intellihub.com/2013/08/01/you-wont-believe-whats-going-on-at-fukushima-right-now/