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A leading Japanese journalist recently made two incredible claims about the Fukushima power plant that suffered a nuclear meltdown in March 2011, sending shockwaves around the world. First, the former editor of a national newspaper in Japan says the U.S. and Israel knew Fukushima had weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that were exposed to the atmosphere after a massive tsunami wave hit the reactor.

Second, he contends that Israeli intelligence sabotaged the reactor in retaliation for Japan's support of an independent Palestinian state. According to Yoishi Shimatsu, a former editor of Japan Times Weekly, these nuclear materials were shipped to the plant in 2007 on the orders of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, with the connivance of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

The shipment was in the form of warhead cores secretly removed from the U.S. nuclear warheads facility BWXT Plantex near Amarillo, Texas. While acting as the middleman, Israel transported warheads from the port of Houston, and in the process kept the best ones while giving the Japanese older warhead cores that had to be further enriched at Fukushima. Shimatsu credits retired CIA agent and mercenary Roland Vincent Carnaby with learning the warheads were being transported from Houston. In a strange twist, Carnaby was mysteriously shot dead less than a year later by Houston police at a traffic stop.

Yes, sadly, our politicians are downright hypocrites, especially those on a certain side of the aisle. What they say versus what they vote for (and ask for) are completely opposite in many instances. After joining in the loan guarantee flogging after Solyndra, for example,  House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has gone and supported a $2 billion loan guarantee for an Ohio nuclear power plant (yes, that would be his home state of Ohio). He’s even gone so far as to say not backing the loan guarantee would “betray” Ohio workers.Last I heard, loan guarantees for nuclear power plants have a financial failure rate of over 50%. Umm…Going back to Boehner’s September opinion on loan guarantees: “for the federal government to be out there picking one company over another, one type of energy source over another, I think is wrong.”

“Boehner is far from the only Republican using Solyndra to score political points while asking for loan guarantees at the same time,” Think Progress reports. “In fact, Republican House members host $11.8 billion in loan guarantees in their districts.”

Radioactive Wolves, the first episode of the 30th season of PBS’s Nature, documents current conditions in the area that was forcibly evacuated following the uncontrolled radioactive material releases caused when the operators at the Chernobyl nuclear power station conducted a poorly planned experiment and blew up their power plant.In the absence of human beings, the remaining creatures seem to be doing just fine. I believe that is because it is hard to teach animals to be afraid of radiation; they do not watch many scary movies or news programs featuring breathless commentators interviewing publicity seeking “experts” whose main claim to fame is a lack of actual nuclear plant operating experience. Even long-lived creatures like catfish and eagles show few signs that they are constantly eating contaminated food from an area that has been officially declared to be unfit for habitation.

It should be difficult for a thinking person to watch this show without asking some of the following questions: If radiation is so dangerous, why doesn’t it seem to affect other mammals? If radiation is so dangerous, why do the plants and animals look so normal and healthy? Is there any logical reason to be more fearful of radiation than other risks? If radiation is not as dangerous as some people claim, why were so many people forced to leave their homes and livelihoods? Who benefits by working so hard to make people afraid of radiation and nuclear energy? A long time ago, I read a lengthy technical article that provided the details of the events leading up to the explosion. It was difficult to imagine how any trained operator could keep moving down the path that was taken without calling a halt to the evolution to ask hard questions and demand adequate responses.

By the end of the article, I was more than a little suspicious that the politically appointed person driving the actions actually wanted to damage the plant. At the time I could not understand why anyone would do such a thing. That was before I realize how financially rewarding it can be for the establishment hydrocarbon industry to put nuclear energy into a negative light and before I understood just how important selling oil and gas to Europe was to the Soviet Union and how important that activity remains for Russia.I have read a few articles recently about efforts in Belarus to resettle parts of the evacuated areas, but information about the progress of those efforts is difficult to find. In the post Fukushima world, it is important to learn as much as we can about the measured long-term effect of radioactive materials released into the environment. Reactor accidents are events worth avoiding, but it is becoming more evident that the actual results are within the limits of the risk that is routinely accepted in many other industries.If that is true, more people should become comfortable with the prospects of using nuclear energy to benefit mankind and to make life more comfortable and prosperous for us all. The reality seems to be that nuclear accidents are not only rare events, but the consequences that result from a rare, but possible, failure are acceptable.

AIKEN - Aiken County officials have filed suit against the federal government over its plans to pull the plug on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site in Nevada.

The county is seeking a temporary restraining order to block plans to terminate the disposal site. At one point, more than 4,000 metric tons of waste from the Savannah River Site was to be shipped to Yucca Mountain.

"I am not sure of the reasoning. There's been a lot of talk about what Obama wants to do, but Obama has not said what his plans are. We just have to make our lawsuit or we'll become the depository."