South Korea closed many of its schools today because parents expressed their fear to officials that a predicted rainstorm will carry harmful amounts of radiation.

Do they really need to be that worried? (more…)

Drumbeats of War - Showdown at Bahrain

The love affair between Iran and Saudi Arabia is over, having only briefly reached first base when the Saudis allowed the Iranian ships that transited the Suez Canal to dock at a Saudi port before the event.

The Saudi invasion of Bahrain… tiny island nation just 16 miles off mainland Saudi Arabia, Middle Eastern headquarters of the US 5th fleet… caused the breakup. After Saudi troops rolled across the Jisr al-Malik Fahd causeway on March 14, Iran never again mentioned the possibility of a New Western Order centered on Saudi Arabia to complement the New Eastern Order centered on Iran.

Initially estimated conservatively at about 1,000 (though as high as 3,500, including a tank battalion) soldiers from the Saudi-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council have been constantly reinforced. They now number in excess of 11,000, according to Israeli sources with deep connections. That means a foreign military now comprises about one percent of the population of Bahrain.

The troops are Sunni. Bahrain is predominately Shia. As is Iran.
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Today before sunrise, an Israeli missile struck a car traveling between Khan Younes and Deir el Balakh in the Gaza Strip. Three men were killed outright. A fourth was injured.

Israel has made countless strikes in Gaza in response to the missiles and mortars Hamas has been raining down upon Israel for months. There have been many deaths. Why is this time so very different?
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Potassium iodide: should you stock some?

That is a big question in the wake of the Japanese nuclear disaster. The true extent of the release of radioactive materials from Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station’s six reactors is hidden behind an inscrutable corporate wall, with the willing help of the Japanese government and all the governments of the world who want more and more and more nuclear power plants.

Radioactive iodine-131 from has been found, well, just about everywhere. (more…)