Actual epidemiological studies, however, found no increases in liver cancer in populations where DDT was in constant use – the  WHO investigated the 1969 mice study, and found that /i>both</i> cases and controls had developed a surprising number of tumors. It turned out that foods fed to both groups were mouldy and contained aflatoxin, a carcinogen.  (When the tests were repeated using non-contaminated foods, neither group developed tumours.)

As far as the ‘death of birds’ BS goes, declines in bird populations were documented as occurring either before DDT was present or years after DDT’s use.  The Audubon Society’s Christmas Bird Counts between 1941 (pre-DDT) and 1960 show that at least 26 different kinds of birds became <i>more</i> numerous during
the period of greatest DDT usage, including an overall increase in the numbers of birds seen per observer from 1941 to 1960, (Bald eagles, the talisman species – 197 bald eagles documented in 1941,
891 in 1960.

Similar studies in Canada and the UK provided similar results.  In Canadian peregrines “reproducing normally” in the 1960s even though their tissues contained 30 times more DDT than did
the tissues of the peregrines in the alarmist studies in the US Mid West.  In the UK, the results of a three-year study published in 1969, noted that the decline of peregrine falcons in Britain
had ended in 1966 even though DDT levels were as
abundant as ever.   The study concluded that “There is no close correlation between the decline in population of predatory birds, particularly the peregrine falcon and the sparrow hawk, and the use of DDT.”

The Ban.

In 1971, in the US, authority over pesticides was transferred from the DoA to th newly EPA. In April 1972, after seven months of testimony, Federal Judge Edmund Sweeney stated that in his judgement that  “DDT is not a carcinogenic hazard to man . . . The uses of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deleterious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wildbirds, or other wildlife . . . The evidence in this proceeding supports the conclusion that there is a present need for the essential uses of DDT.”  Two months later EPA head William Ruckelshaus—<i>who had never attended a single day’s session in theseven months of EPA hearings, and <b>who admitted hehad not even read the transcript of the hearings</b>—</i> declared that DDT was a “potential human carcinogen” and banned it for virtually all uses.The effects.

Amongst others:  In Sri Lanka DDT spraying had reduced malaria cases from 2.8 million in 1948 to <b>17</b> in 1963. After spraying was stopped in 1964, malaria cases began to rise again and reached
2.5 million in 1969.

In Zanzibar, the prevalence of malaria among the populace dropped from 70 percent in 1958, when DDT spraying became widespread,  to 5 percent in 1964, when DDT spraying stopped.  By 1984 it was back up to between 50 and 60 percent.

There’s lots more…

Jacqueline du Pre – Elgar and Haydn Cello Concertos

Royal Marines Band

Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Helen Shapiro

Cai Jing

Norah Jones

Huey Louis and the News

Stacey Kent

Eclectic or what?  

Captions anyone?

And finally, one for my Granddaughter, who wants to be a vet

…that the incident at Fukushima Daiichi remains far and away the most minor of the consequences of the quake and tsunami. The nuclear reactors in the stricken provinces came through mostly unscathed (even at the Daiichi site two are expected to return to service, and at other nuclear powerplants in the region no significant damage at all was seen – indeed, survivors of the earthquake and tsunami are being housed in buildings at nuclear facilities which survived the disaster better than most other buildings). One nuclear worker, in a crane cab at the time, was killed by the quake strike at the Daini plant: two were killed by the tsunami at Daiichi. A handful have been injured by the quake and following hydrogen explosions. No-one has been directly, or indirectly, so far, harmed by radiation other than three of the 50 Samurai who were TAKEN TO HOSPITAL WITH RADIATION BURNS, as the headlines screamed. Radiation burns which turned out to be nothing more serious than a mild case of sunburn, (Some UV is ionising radiation, you know, and so is some of the radiation from tanning booth lamps.) Tens of thousands of people were killed by the earthquake, and tsunami and their after-effects as almost all other infrastructure hit by the natural disaster failed catastrophically. Housing, transport and industry across the region collapsed with deadly consequences while oil plants, chemical factories, storage facilities and tanks of every type ruptured and burned, spilling megatonnes of pollution and carcinogens into the environment. But almost nothing is heard of all this, except as a footnote to the supposed radiological hazards resulting from the Fukushima Daiichi reactors.

Consider this. When we idiots were still testing nuclear weapons in our atmosphere, global fallout radiation peaked around 1963 at 0.15 millisieverts a year.

And this. At one point at Daiichi, a radiation plume of 400 millisieverts an hour was reported and confirmed.

Remember, that 0,15 millisieverts per year was global fallout radiation for the entire world, or about 500 million square kilometers. The radiation plume of 400 milliseiverts was from a small area of certainly no more than 100 square meters. If we assume that the Fukushima Daiichi reactors collectively manage a plume the size of say, a square kilometer, (because anything smaller won’t generate anything like a ‘reasonable’ number to work with,) then to get comparable numbers we need to multiply the 400/hour by (24 x 365) to get a year’s worth of radiation. Assume uniform distribution and divide by 500 million. That comes out to .007 milliseiverts / year. ( A chest X-ray is a dosage of about 0.1 mSv.) There is no reasonable scenario in which the Japanese reactors could sustain an emission rate of 400 milliseiverts per hour for a week, much less for a year. (Nor could they generate radioactive fallout uniformly over a square kilometer.) In the real world, gamma dose rates are measured daily in all of Japan’s 47 prefectures. The values have tended to decrease over time. For Fukushima, on 14 April a dose rate of 2.0 µSv/h was reported. In the Ibaraki prefecture, a gamma dose rate of 0.14 µSv/h was reported. The gamma dose rates in all other prefectures were below 0.1 µSv/h. Note that, apart from Ibaraki, the rates are all below the fallout radiation count of 1963.

And for those who are going to say, ‘But what about the contamination of veggies and such…’ Well, in a few prefectures, I-131 or Cs-137 is detectable in drinking water at very low levels. As of 12 April, one restriction for infants related to I-131 (100 Bq/l) is in place in a smallscale water supply in a village of the Fukushima prefecture. The latest results, in a total of 50 samples of various vegetables, (mushrooms, fruits (strawberries), various meats, seafood and unprocessed raw milk) in ten prefectures (Chiba, Fukushima, Gunma, Ibaraki, Kanagawa, Nagano, Niigata, Saitama, Tochigi and Yamagata) taken from 11th to 14 April show that I-131, Cs-134 and/or Cs-137 were either not detected or were below the regulation values set by the Japanese authorities.

So, there you have it. Good, sober and factual reporting on the situation can be found here and here .And there is a ‘Primer,’ about the new ‘7’ rating and Chernobyl here .

I have much more, but I might start to rant, so we’ll see how this goes

Recently, though, she has started squeaking and mewing when she is asleep. I have never seen this in a cat before, though we are, I’m sure, all familiar with dogs chasing rabbits, or maybe being chased by rabbits, depending on the whimpering, in their sleep. Anyone else seen this?

Although I could translate the sentence well enough, I had no idea what it actually meant, either. ‘You don’t even have a cat outside your door,’ wouldn’t mean much in, for example, England, but anyone who has spent any time in countries like Romania, or Cyprus, or even Greece knows that the abundance of feral moggies means that everyone has a cat outside their door looking for a handout, even if only at mealtimes, so if even the cats have given up on you, you must really be down and out. The second part of the sentence is interesting in a different way. It is coy shorthand for ‘Gypsies.’ I have seen such villages in my travels around Romania; dirty, run-down, houses without glass in the windows, but all with their little tower attached, which is the signature of Roma architecture. (Note the difference between Roma – Gypsy – and Romanian.)

There are a lot of Gypsies in Romania, as there are in Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia and Hungary, and a dirty, shiftless lot they are, in the main. I have learned that, in the main, Gypsies prefer to keep themselves to themselves and live their lives in the way they want to, which is fine and dandy. Don’t, however, expect me to pay for it.

I don’t like Gypsies, much, though I like their music a lot. I don’t like muslims, either, for reasons I have made entirely clear in these pages.

I titled this piece ‘Prejudice and Principles,’ because it made a good headline. I do not, however, believe that disliking either Gypsies or muslims can be counted as ‘prejudice,’ but should instead be counted as discrimination, (in the old-fashioned sense of the word, not the pejorative modern sense,) based on experience. I don’t like Gypsies because they expect hand-outs from society without possessing any concept of contribution, outside their own closed little worlds. I don’t like muslims for similar reasons, though in this case, it is not hand-outs they generally expect, but respect and tolerance without having any conception that these qualities are as much a two-way street as hand-outs and contributions. (Apart from being psychologically stunted by adherence to an out-of-date, oppressive and repressive system of superstition that causes nothing but trouble wherever it is found.)

So, where do the principles come in? We have discussed a lot of subjects in my Romanian classes, one of them being the EUSSR, (which has not brought the expected benefits to Romania and is about as popular here as it is in the UK,) and, in particular, my view that it was a mistake to admit Bulgaria and Romania – they were not ready, and still aren’t, an example of which being the decision not to admit the two countries to the Shengen zone in March as was planned – but that, since the decision was made and the two countries were admitted, there should be no difference between them and the other EUSSR countries, nor should there be any discrimination, (in the modern sense of the word,) against their nationals – we are all citizens of the EUSSR, Flying Spaghetti Monster help us. Now, after that slight detour, back to the point, my teacher was quite surprised to learn that I oppose the expulsion by France of a bunch of shiftless Roma a few weeks ago. One law, remember? This is what I meant about the clash of ‘prejudice’ and principle. Although I dislike Gypsies and muslims that doesn’t mean that I agree with discrimination, (in the modern sense,) against individuals. If I was seated on a bus and there was an unidentifiable object in a black sack standing, I would give up my seat, considering that the odds are in favour of it being female, as I would if it were a Gypsy woman in swirling skirt, headscarf and bangles (- yes, most of the Gypsy women and girls do dress like that here, though the headscarves are less in evidence in the towns.)

Similarly, I defend the right of Gypsies to live in their own preferred way, and of muslims to adhere to their ridiculous superstitions, but don’t expect me to pay for it, and don’t complain if you get trampled if you’re blocking the pavement with your Rse stuck in the air when I’m out for my constitutional. And don’t expect any special treatment we all get the same and if you don’t like it, bugger off somewhere else.

And I still have a cold.

I have written whistleblowing policies. I have also acted on a couple of occasions as one of the ‘designated officers’ who are charged with investigating any allegations made under the policies and with ensuring the well-being, and sometimes physical safety, of anyone who comes forward with some allegations. (Also, with sorting out the legitimate allegations from the cheap shots by a disgruntled employee.)

The exposure of the MP expenses scandal was whistleblowing. There was a specific case of alleged wrongdoing and the whistleblower brought it to light. Those who had done wrong were exposed and most of them suffered penalties in one way or another. The consideration of whether or not the penalties were appropriate is left as an exercise for the reader.

What Assange has done, on the other hand, is scatter to the four winds a warehouse full of proprietary information without regard to whether or not there is any indication of wrongdoing to justify the action and without regard to the consequences. I was listening to the BBC World Service on my way home from work and there was an interview with one of the people who have left Wikileaks to set up a rival ‘service.’ He made the same point and asserted that the new service, Openleaks (?) will carry out some sort of quality control on any material that is sent to them and then make it available through ‘appropriate’ channels. That is whistleblowing.

I note, passim, that there was no such media feeding frenzy over the case of Marta Andreasen a few years back when she blew the whistle on the EU fraud manual budget. Fired and harrassed by the authorities until she was given sanctuary by UKIP, I didn’t see people tearing their hair out and electronically covering themselves in sackcloth and ashes on her behalf*. I wonder why?

*Note that she has now left UKIP because they didn’t meet her standards either. Obviously a very straight-laced lady. Still and all…

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationpicturegalleries/8194297/The-clean-up-operation-in-Parliament-Square-and-Oxford-Street-after-student-protests.html

In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.

…

This could mean a limit on electricity so people are forced to turn the heating down, turn off the lights and replace old electrical goods like huge fridges with more efficient models. Food that has travelled from abroad may be limited and goods that require a lot of energy to manufacture.

So, now you know.