DNA Mutants at Nuke Plant Confirmed!

Senior Adviser: Mystery bacteria growing on nuclear fuel rods have unknown DNA sequence — “Right now we are trying to figure out what they’re using for food”

LINK

A mysterious, cobweblike growth with a fondness for Savannah River Site’s spent nuclear fuel has been identified – but not formally named.
[...]
The “white, stringlike” substance was first observed in October among old fuel assemblies
[...]
“We were able to identify a large portion of the bacteria making up the cobwebs, but there were certainly some where the DNA sequencing came back as unknown,” [Christopher Berry, the senior technical adviser of the Savannah River National Labortory (sic)] said.
Although rare, bacterial colonies have been observed in a few nuclear environments, including a Canadian reactor and at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, where a growth developed in the site’s spent fuel basin after its 1979 accident.
[...]
“Right now we are trying to figure out what these bacteria are using for food,” Berry said.
[...]
Water in which spent fuel is stored is carefully filtered, treated and deionized
[...]

Tweet

NYPD Shoots, Kills Robbery Victim

Killed by NYPD

Seems as though the NYPD is making a real habit of shooting innocent people lately. In this case, on Franklin Avenue in the Bronx, police rushed to the scene of a robbery attempt. The 20-year old bodega work fled from the masked gunman inside, only to be shot dead by police on the sidewalk outside.

Witnesses say that police said nothing before firing a fatal shot, and that they saw his body drop to the pavement. Police say the shooting was accidental, and that the victim slammed into the cop without seeing him, causing an accidental discharge of the weapon. Other witnesses believe that the police officer thought the victim was one of the robbers, because he came running out without his hands up, in the same fashion as the store owner, who with his hands up, declared "They're robbing me! They're robbing me!"

Personally, I tend to believe the multiple witnesses in this case. It would not surprise me at all to learn that a cop was too quick to shoot, once again. He may have thought he was taking a shot at one of the "bad guys" but even if that were the case, you can't go shooting unarmed suspects just to make sure they don't flee. Not legally anyway, But cops are real cowboys, and this is not an unheard of practice at all, especially on the tough streets of the Bronx and in NYC.

Even if this were a genuine accidental discharge, it would appear that the officer was inept at not only securing his own weapon, but also in protecting himself. What if that innocent man had actually been the robber? The officer should have never let a suspect get that close to him to start with, within range to potentially struggle of the officer's weapon. Of course, it's all too east to Monday-morning quarterback the play by play, and these street scenes really are but split-seconds of chaos. But at the end of the day, the fact remains, that the police have killed yet another innocent hard-working American citizen.

You can read the article from the NY Daily News for more details.


Tweet

Another Useless 'Amber-Alert' Jolts Public

As with so many of these "novelty" public warning systems put into action by "feel-good" legislation, the Amber-Alert system seems to be an utter failure.

On the surface, it seems like it might be a good idea. But on a practical level, one sees that this system has done more harm than good. A system of  "crying wolf" meant to make people feel safe, but at the same time, putting the public on edge frequently, without true cause. We don't usually hear if the missing child has ever been found all, or how the alert was finally resolved. Instead, we get a bunch of quick headlines on the news ticker, a flash on the highway traffic sign, and our Facebook walls are inundated for a day. But we never hear how things wound up.

Which is probably because, in most cases, these alerts are activated of a custody dispute, not a genuine abdusction.

But I thought this one was different. So I jumped on the public-concern bandwagon and posted about how a little girl was abducted right off the street, kicking and screaming, by two men in a truck. It sounded to me like this might be the genuine article, or the sort of case this alert system was really meant for.

As it turns out, the police can't tell when a few kids on a playground are lying and would rather create public panic rather than reach a proper investigative conclusion before crying wolf and getting the public all riled up for nothing.

According to Mid-Hudson News:

NEWBURGH – City Police in Newburgh have examined the South Junior High surveillance videos along with street camera video and footage from privately owned surveillance systems in the area of Monument Street where a five-year-old girl was reported abducted Wednesday by two men and have determined there is no indication that the abduction or any incident that could be perceived as an abduction had occurred.

There was no pickup truck, other vehicle or small child during the time of the reported incident, police said Thursday. The children who reported the supposed incident were observed on the video playing around the school without incident.

Police have not received any missing person reports and have determined the incident did not occur and have closed the investigation.

After the neighborhood children reported the incident, police issued an Amber Alert looking for two men in a pickup truck with green writing on it. The girl purportedly abducted was said to be wearing a pink shirt at the time.

One really begins to wonder why we even have programs like this in place at all. "Boutique" laws and systems named after some poor child who died in a horrific manner, and is brought back from the dead to make a cameo appearance every time the government wants to jolt the public into submission and soak us for even more dollars for inflated police budgets.

Tweet