Johanna Faust, a mixed race Jew, prefers to publish pseudonymously. She is committed: first, to preventing war, ecological disaster, and nuclear apocalypse; last to not only fighting for personal privacy & the freedom of information, but, by representing herself as a soldier in that fight, to exhorting others to do the same. She is a poet, always. All these efforts find representation here: "ah, Mephistophelis" is so named after the last line of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, whose heretical success flouted the censor for a time.

Almost Five Months After Accident,
Highest Rad Readings Detected, Now In Three Areas



The readings are literally "off the charts."  This is anomalous in its own right -- what could be producing that much energy but a recriticality? And what could be more fitting than the way the MSM is studiously ignoring the topic, feeding us catchphrases and psuedoscience:


from TEPCO: Highest Radiation Reading Ever At Fukushima: More Than 10 SIEVERTS PER HOUR!!!!! (The Highest Reading Geiger Counters Are Able To Record):



Originally Bloomberg. There is so much that is wrong with this article.  I do not buy it that the venting led to this amount of radiation -- thats way too high.  As discussed in this AboveTopSecret thread, at that rate, it would only take 1.4 seconds to receive the 4 millisieverts that the workers are reported to have recieved.  Stay around much longer and you are dead.  Did the workers have lead suits like the workers sent in after Chernobyl? From what I understand, no; they were not actually going to this spot, but using - get this -- a ten foot pole to take the measurements.  (Seriously.)  

UPDATE:



In a related development, TEPCO said on Aug. 2 that there were two more pipes nearby that apparently showed radiation in excess of 10 sieverts. The utility said it had not actually measured the radiation there and it had no plans to do so because there would be no one working there. [...]


Also via Energy News:




Record-high radiation detected at Fukushima, The World Today (ABC Australia), August 2, 2011:
Peter Burns, former chief executive officer of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency
  • “The levels reported of 10 sieverts per hour are very high levels and it’s going to be very difficult to manage workers going into those areas and doing operations.”
  • “10 sieverts is actually a lethal dose of radiation. So you can’t afford to be exposed for more than a few minutes at those levels.”
  • “It means you’re directly exposed to fuel rods in the reactors or the spent fuel ponds very closely and while it’s possible to get to those levels it means there is very little shielding going on there.”







Be seeing you.