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Welcome to Iron Shirt Brahmans!!
Our focus is on quality Brahmans being Red, Black and Polled Black. We concentrate on developing structurally correct cattle that can survive in different climates, terrain, and high foliage. We believe that Brahman Cattle in order to meet today's demand in various parts of the world need to be able to walk long distances, have longer legs and a cleaner and higher underline. Therefore, our cattle will have longer legs, good feet, tighter and higher underlines and to go along with the other known quality Brahman Traits as described below.
Brahman cattle have a high tolerance to heat and survive equally as well to European cattle down to 8ºF. Brahman cattle lose 25% of their body efficiency when the temperature goes above 109ºF and European cattle lose 75% of their body efficiency when the temperature goes above 72ºF. We have concentrated on Red and Black Brahmans with black hides for a more efficient animal. Contrary to what you may believe, the black pigment will dissipate more heat and keeps out the intense rays of the sun. That is why you do not see native fair skinned humans in the tropics.
The shiny coats of the Brahman cattle also act as a reflector. The Brahmans' abundance of loose skin and sweat glands contribute materially to their heat tolerance. Brahmans produce less internal heat in warm weather than European breeds. Waste heat is produced from feed at the expense of growth and milk production. Brahmans also are good mothers and produce a very satisfactory milk flow under conditions that are adverse for best performance of European cattle. Brahmans are more disease resistance than European breeds. Besides being intelligent, inquisitive and shy, they are very domicile and quickly respond to the handling they receive. Brahmans when bred to European cattle produce a Hybrid Vigor and a more efficient animal than the European in addition to faster weight gains to and after weaning for the commercial breeder.
We believe our Red Brahmans are very high quality. Our Black Brahmans have a Grey Pedigree and will breed back Black with Black or Black with Grey/White. Our pewter coated Brahmans have a Grey Pedigree and will bred back Black with Black and do carry the Black marker. For those commercial breeders whose herds are primarily black, in addition to the Black Bulls breeding back Black, Red bulls will breed Black or mostly Black with a little red or purple stripe or purple and black tinge. For those commercial breeders who have Hereford or Hereford crosses, the Red Bulls will breed Red, Brown tiger stripe, and in a number of cases, black with a red or purple tinge.
One of our goals is to keep our customers happy with a product that they can benefit from. If you have any questions about our program, please contact us. We look forward to hearing from you.
Iron Shirt Brahmans, Charlie Bailey, ABBA # 67140
Iron Shirt Brahmans
215 Bent Horseshoe Lane,
Holly Lake Ranch, Texas
Phone: 214-883-0456


text:
Op-ed originally published on Kyodo News.
A busy playground beams with hope and echoes with giggles. It was in this safe place, three months after the disaster, that I heard infectious ripples of laughter from children going back and forth on swings and slipping down slides, bringing my daughter's smile to the forefront of my mind.
The little boys and girls here were like any others in one of the world's many playgrounds. But something was missing: they were not wearing masks, when the strange thing was, they should have been. I was in Fukushima.
At that time, a Greenpeace investigation into the radiation levels in Fukushima showed they were at dangerously high levels and that the decontamination work being done was not enough.
Many of these radiation hot spots were found near schools, however the government and local prefecture had not provided enough information about the contamination risks.
Information is power and for these children and their parents, it was crucial. But it was lacking then, it is now and it will continue like this as the Japanese government enacted a controversial state secrets law in December toughening penalties on those who leak information and at its worst, acts as a cover for governmental misdeeds.
This has caused uproar among journalists and unsurprisingly, according to Reporters without Borders, press freedom in Japan has worsened for a second year running.
This is very troubling as core elements for civil society -- Shimin Shakai -- are openness and transparency, as well as freedom of the press.
Nearly 19,000 comments from Japanese citizens were sent to the government regarding the country's draft energy policy, yet these opinions and views were not reflected in the politicians' papers, as Japan will continue to rely on nuclear power.
This leaves Japan's government, and therefore the country, open to energy risks; risks that are not worth taking again and are unfounded.
All of Japan's 48 reactors have been offline since September 2013. In spite of this, the country has produced the equivalent energy capacity of seven large reactors -- 6,800 megawatts -- since July 2013 through 400,000 small household solar PV installations.
Fukushima has been a very painful experience and like a passing, it needs to be addressed and discussed so that it can be overcome.
For Japan to succeed and leave Fukushima behind -- though never forgotten -- more democratic space is needed. Valuable lessons from the nuclear crisis need to be learned and this knowledge taken into the future so another Fukushima cannot and will not happen again.
This, along with a decentralized yet civil society, is needed not only for power, but for energy too.
However, the Japanese government is yet to show it has reflected on Fukushima as it is still trying to sell nuclear technologies to emerging countries like India and Turkey.
In society, the role of international non-governmental organizations like Greenpeace involves the monitoring of governments and businesses.
While the freedom of the press is being tightened, there is more pressure on NGOs to investigate, expose and hold governments and companies accountable for their mismanagement and mistakes. Greenpeace takes on that role without hesitation.
Japan should not be a playground where politicians toy with nuclear energy. Three years on from Fukushima, Japan needs an Energy Revolution and is best placed to have one, in the interest of all its children.
Kumi Naidoo is the Executive Director of Greenpeace International.
Born in 1965 and hailing from South Africa, Kumi Naidoo was Greenpeace's International Executive Director from November 2009 until December 2015.
(Unregistered) sukhpreet singh
japan is a country of technology. yes,japan is not a playground to play with nuclear bombs.it is not good for world that happen in the japan.
31 March, 2014 at 14:07
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(Unregistered) sbobfather Mike
Please sign this petition to help stop it!!!
Please sign this petition to help stop it!!!
11 April, 2014 at 18:10
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Alex Cannara
Interesting to see an organization I used to support succumb to proffering propaganda about Japan and nuclear power.
Interesting to see an organization I used to support succumb to proffering propaganda about Japan and nuclear power.
"Playground" indicates Greenpeace folks don't want average folks to understand that Fukushima's tragedy was not a "nuclear-power" tragedy, but a result of a long-known, even to Greenpeace, system of collusion and dysfunction in Japanese govt. & business traditions. Too bad for Greenpeace that there are more responsible organizations and people around who care about proper identification of causes of tragic events, so they can be prevented...
Too bad that Greenpeace also dis-serves its supporters via selective study, or Greenpeace would have explained why Onagawa is relevant,,,
Even the new UCS book by Lochbaum et al hides Onagawa and the root cause of the Fukushima tragedy -- a cause that's been obvious for decades, and one that Greenpeace & some others advertizing themselves as "environmentally concerned" failed to raise, despite Japanese scientists and even ancestors raising concerns for all Sendai over hundreds of years. Where was Greenpeace on this?...
Where was Greenpeace when a GE engineer resigned, complaining about TEPCO's Fukushima design?
Or where was Greenpeace when the on the ancient "tsunami memorial" stones, were decoded and found to say "Don't build here"?
Where was Greenpeace for TEPCO's deceitful decades?
So now we know Greenpeace is not about distributing facts. It rather likes tragedies it can manipulate to scare folks into making donations.
This lack of integrity is why I no longer support Greenpeace, after many years doing so. Other environmental groups, like EDF, have higher standards for fact and educating their supporters.
Dr. A. Cannara
650 400 3071 (call for more refs)
More Refs...
"Atomic Accidents" by Mahaffey (for honest analyses)
18 April, 2014 at 7:04
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Seems Greenpeace also can't handle critiques and closes off comments oddly early, as for their naive anti-Thorium article...
Seems Greenpeace also can't handle critiques and closes off comments oddly early, as for their naive anti-Thorium article...
So, we'll use this space to discuss Jan's misleading, even ignorant, statements about Thorium for nuclear power...
"Thorium and uranium represent the heaviest naturally occurring elements on Earth. "
Wrong , Jan, the Actinides have been. or are still, naturally occurring. For example, Plutonium has been made by Ma Nature in her own reactors on Earth -- Bingoogle "Oklo Reactors". Was your statement designed to scare folks for your own benefit?
Thorium, like Uranium is very common on Earth and any rocky body in this or other solar system. It's actually 4x as common as Uranium, and the reason for using it was described in 1942 by Nobel chemist Glen Seaborg and his associate.
They discovered it could be used in a reactor to make Uranium233 there, with no fissile material outside the hot, radioactive reactor itself, unlike U235, which is rare enough now in Nature that we must spend lots of energy & $ 'enriching' its percentage in the Uranium fuel we've used in commercial reactors for 57 years.
Thorium is also a waste product of rare-earth mining -- REs are what make many of our modern gadgets and complex systems work. So Thorium has little cost, compared to Uranium.
It's obvious when a writer is fibbing about some technical point, as when Jan presents a graph that suggests Thorium reactors will produce as much or more long-lived 'waste' as do present, Uranium235/238 reactors. Why not explain why mass 232 Thorium produces far less mass 239+ of Plutonium than does mass 238 Uranium? Would that defeat your dishonest purpose? Why not use the real graph, Jan?
There's one in this MIT piece...
And more refs here...
Why all the fibbery about Thorium & nuclear power? Is Greenpeace becoming more exposed for distributing misinformation? Is Greenpeace getting scared by the great expansion of nuclear power around the world, because responsible countries realize it's essential to our descendants' environmental future?
Greenpeace might think about the effect of its naive attempts to stifle nuclear power, especially given that it's the only energy source capable of combating the rapidly approaching oceanic problems that make sea rise and warming look like peanuts...
So, Jan & Greenpeace -- being part of the problem, or the solution? Your choice.
I already no longer contribute to your foolishness,
Dr. A. Cannara
650 400 3071 (c'mon Jan, let's discuss your ethics)
18 April, 2014 at 7:41
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(Unregistered) Timothy Maloney
to Jan Beranek, re: The mythologies of thorium and uranium
Blogpost by Jan Beránek - March 24, 2014 (with closed comments)
to Jan Beranek, re: The mythologies of thorium and uranium
Blogpost by Jan Beránek - March 24, 2014 (with closed comments)
The only way mankind will eliminate fossil fuels is to beat them on price and reliability. Wind and solar can't beat fossils on these metrics, even now when W&S electric grid penetration is only about 5% and their land-use requirements have not yet become a serious impediment to expansion.
To energize the entire USA electric grid using 90% W&S renewables accompanied by energy storage, per the Budischak & Willett study featured in Scientific American in Dec 2012, would require the entire land areas of Pennsylvania and Virginia to be given over to wind and solar farms, as I show here http://tinyurl.com/n95q8lw .
That amount of land is never going to be forthcoming.
The essential weakness of the W&S proposal is diffusion of the energy - it's spread all over the earth's surface at low density. So it requires a tremendous amount of land and infrastructure (and CO2 emission to manufacture the solar panels and windmills) to gather the energy for injection onto the electric grid. Regarding synthetic fuel production to replace petroleum, W&S are in the wrong category altogether, being low-temperature.
Nuclear fission absolutely solves this problem. Nuclear energy density is greater than fossil carbon's by a factor of several million. It's greater than diffused wind and solar by a factor of billions.
It's energy density allows it to beat W&S on price (molten-salt thorium generation will be very inexpensive). And also to beat W&S on reliability ( a few always-on reactors connected to the electric grid, rather than thousands of on-again, off-again wind and solar units to juggle).
The thing mankind needs to do is to make nuclear fission safe.
Right now Generation II is safer for human health than fossils or hydro, as every thoughtful study of energy production shows. Generation III+ , which will be coming on line in Sanjen China this autumn, will be safer still, with passive shutdown as part of its basic design.
Generation IV liquid-fuel thorium will be the ultimate in reactor safety. It operates at low (barely above atmospheric) pressure, negative temperature coefficient of reactivity (self-limiting), no possibility of meltdown because there's nothing solid to melt, and no water anywhere near the reactor or the turbine, so no possibility of steam explosion (Three-Mile Island), nor hydrogen explosion (Fukushima).
Proliferation? The United Stars of America couldn't get a weapon to work very well even back in the age of vacuum-tube electronics, which weren't sensitive to gamma radiation. How can anyone get a gamma-intense U-233 /U-232 weapon to work in the age of semiconductor electronic controls, where even hardened semiconductor junctions are subject to damage by gamma rays? No serious weapon-maker will attempt U-233 ever again.
Greenpeace and others raise the issue of chemically extracting the protactinium before it transmutes to U-233, then working with extracted protactinium alone to to breed pure U-233 uncontaminated by gamma-producing U-232. That complaint about thorium fuel ignores the fact that no-one has ever demonstrated extraction of protactinium from the thorium-breeding process, and there are reasons to believe that it can't be done in bulk. Why would any bomb-builder even attempt this when there are so much easier ways to build a bomb?
Greenpeace: Your opposition is impeding progress on the only feasible solution to humanity's fossil-fuel addiction.
18 April, 2014 at 9:22
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(Unregistered) Corey
Addressing both global warming and the economy will require energy production with a very high rate of return. The notion that we will be able to addr...
Addressing both global warming and the economy will require energy production with a very high rate of return. The notion that we will be able to address our problems with an inefficient 'distributed renewable energy' system is very much mistaken.
Renewable advocates like Amory Lovins and Mark Jacobson have dangerously overestimated the economic performance of renewables, while underestimating the scale of our energy need. Please consider that we must dramatically increase energy production by tens of terawatts if we are to significantly increase energy per capita.
The situation is so serious that we should consider resistance to nuclear energy to be a combination of radiophobia coupled with a renewable delusion.
In Japan, TEPCO is needlessly storing slightly tritiated water at a rate of hundreds of tons per day. This activity does not represent a health hazard, and the water should be dumped into the ocean.
Please consult this primer on natural radioactivity for context:
There are nuclear scientists available to consult and educate your organization so that you are no longer a victim of these dangerous social diseases. As a leading environmental organization, Greenpeace has a grave responsibility to not hinder rational efforts to address climate and the economy. Please do not dismiss this opportunity to seek help, education, and sanity!
18 April, 2014 at 18:33
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Jan Haverkamp - Greenpeace
@all the folks from the Thorium Fanclub who reacted here. We have discussed your issues ad nauseum in the former blog which was about thorium reactors...
@all the folks from the Thorium Fanclub who reacted here. We have discussed your issues ad nauseum in the former blog which was about thorium reactors. Your messages up here do not contain new information and seem solely targeted to outdrown our capacity. It would be a pitty if we have to close also this line of discussion because it is overtaken by trolling.
For the arguments in the thorium discussion, I refer to the blog and discussion you can find here:
For those of you who think renewables cannot deliver, we invite you to read the latest IPCC report as well as the Greenpeace / EREC energy [r]evolution scenarios that you can find on:
18 April, 2014 at 20:46
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Thank you for your considered reply. I will thoroughly examine your arguments and attempt to reopen discussion on this matter in the near future.
Thank you for your considered reply. I will thoroughly examine your arguments and attempt to reopen discussion on this matter in the near future.
I do not believe it has been the intention of our community (The Thorium Energy Alliance) to 'flood' your forums with propaganda and drown out your own voice. In fact, many of us have identified with some of your core values related to ethical living and environmental responsibility, and it is in that spirit that I think our members wish to form a bond of common scientific understanding.
I think we both can appreciate the enormity of the task before us in the decoupling of global economic activity from carbon emissions within decades. The timeliness being necessary due to ocean acidification and various non-linear climate feedbacks that have the potential to accelerate warming and its consequences. As you already know from estimating the future cost of emitted carbon, this risk comes with an economic cost, which we must be prepared to pay for in advance so that we are not caught unprepared. We pay for this power in energy production, and our ability to grow this power efficiently will have a significant bearing on the survivability of our advanced culture which we lovingly refer to as Civilization.
This is why it has become paramount to consider the role of energy density with regards to environmental protection and the economic production of energy. We must produce tens of terawatts of energy within decades, not only to displace present carbon sources, but to also rapidly expand the sustainable economy. Expanding the economy is critical to raising the quality of life while meeting unprecedented challenges regarding climate and environmental protection. More energy sooner will mean more resources for solving major environmental problems including: carbon dioxide removal from the oceans, oceanic synthetic polymer cleanup, Superfund cleanup, dam removal, asteroid diversion, and many others related to sustainability and pollution control.
Like you, we wish for a cleaner, safer, and more just world. We differ apparently in our scientific understanding, assessment of risks, and grasp of technological capability. I look forward to the continuation of this discussion...
19 April, 2014 at 7:56
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Jan Haverkamp, my man,
We're trying to save you from yourself.
You look like a youngish fellow. You'll probably be ...
Jan Haverkamp, my man,
We're trying to save you from yourself.
You look like a youngish fellow. You'll probably be alive 30 years from now.
It will take about 30 years, I think, to demonstrate conclusively that wind & solar won't cut it. Then everyone's going to be in a dither - where's Plan B?
If you insist on pursuing wind & solar as Plan A, well, go ahead and try.
But don't put yourself in the embarrassing position of having irresponsibly impeded development of Plan B.
19 April, 2014 at 23:17
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@Timothy - thank you for wishing me such a long life into such an old age :-) Concerning plan A/B - the energy [r]evolution scenario does not only rel...
@Timothy - thank you for wishing me such a long life into such an old age :-) Concerning plan A/B - the energy [r]evolution scenario does not only rely on wind and solar (which can cover a *lot*, though), but on a wide spectrum of proven fully renewable sources and efficiency technologies. Whatever nuclear technology you choose, the total of them you can implement in a reasonable time is marginal in comparison with the potential of these renewable sources. http://www.energyblueprint.info
Especially Japan has a lot of potential here that is currently undermined by Abe's focus on saving the asses of those who caused the problems in the first case: the large Japanese utilities, Hitachi, Toshiba and Mitsubishi. We should give our full support to those that try to turn that tide towards a clean energy future for Japan - not those that cling to nuclear or turn to fossil.
22 April, 2014 at 11:20
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@Jan Haverkamp
How much energy do you believe 10 billion people in 2050 will need? The estimates that I've seen from renewable advoca...
@Jan Haverkamp
How much energy do you believe 10 billion people in 2050 will need? The estimates that I've seen from renewable advocates and their energy plans appears to be dangerously low.
The rest of the scientific community have been considering 30-100+ TW of energy, though only the lower bound may be achievable by 2050 given the right technology mix and policy. I think the Green Movement is taking incredible risks by recommending that the public not be concerned about their dismissal of energy dense sources like nuclear in favor of a variety of renewable options that do not scale or do not scale well and have poor economic returns when the entire system is considered.
This is no small matter, and dismissing it as the Green Movement's leaders have repeatedly done stinks of Lysenkoism, and is not becoming of an institution that strives to be driven by curiosity and scientific understanding.
25 April, 2014 at 2:44
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Oops. Just to avoid any confusion, I said 30-100+ TW of 'energy', and what I really mean is 'energy production'.
25 April, 2014 at 3:08
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For the estimates, I refer to the latest energy [r]evolution reports on http://www.energyblueprint.info, where you can find them for the global level ...
For the estimates, I refer to the latest energy [r]evolution reports on http://www.energyblueprint.info, where you can find them for the global level as well as the OECD defined regional levels and many national levels.
Greenpeace is not "the Green Movement". I think lumping movements and people on one heap is very unhelpful. The environmental movement is as varied and differentiated as society itself. Greenpeace is an independent organisation that basis its views, concerns and proposals on sound science. Greenpeace's style of action fits in open democratic societies and Greenpeace promotes public debate.
That is no small matter.
25 April, 2014 at 12:27
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(Unregistered) Earthcomms
This relentless scare-mongering is a dangerous, ill-informed message. See BBC report on Fukushima: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26483945
This relentless scare-mongering is a dangerous, ill-informed message. See BBC report on Fukushima: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26483945
Unless the Green movement is open minded enough to learn the facts on radiation, it is a major block to the only zero-carbon energy source option we have left. There are many respected environmentalists turning to accept the nuclear option, because they understand it is too late to choose otherwise.
As a long supporter of Greenpeace; you're wanton ignorance depresses me. You make us all an impotent opponent to the fossil fuel industry.
19 April, 2014 at 12:29
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@Earthcomms - I agree with you concerning scaremongering and we have published an earlier blog on that issue:
@Earthcomms - I agree with you concerning scaremongering and we have published an earlier blog on that issue:
Concerning exposure of Japanese citizens. The larger consensus is that the evacuations were justified and partly too late. If you read, as example, the recent UNSCEAR report on Fukushima (NOT the press release, which was a shameful bit of spin again) you will see that the evacuations have prevented a lot of potential high exposure. That report also makes clear the difference between personal perception and statistic numbers: whereas it may be difficult to find out how much health impacts the Fukushima radiation has from statistics, the fact that some individual people may get health effects makes people in the region understandably nervous. Next to that, people still have to be careful that they don't increase their exposure unnecessarily, for instance by being (financially) forced to return to only partially decontaminated areas or by working in the area in decontamination work without proper protection.
Also be aware that virtually nobody has been properly compensated for their losses.
I am afraid that bearing witness to what is happening to the lives of the victims of Fukushima and Chernobyl is something that is a necessary task for many years to come. We should not forget them. And we should draw fundamental lessons from these catastrophes. Playing down the consequences by TEPCO and the nuclear industry and politicians supporting them seems to be currently a larger problem than often ridiculous scaremongering.
22 April, 2014 at 11:12
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@Jan Haverkamp
Regarding that slightly tritiated water being stored at Fukushima Daiichi...how do you justify not dumping that water int...
@Jan Haverkamp
Regarding that slightly tritiated water being stored at Fukushima Daiichi...how do you justify not dumping that water into the ocean?
As you are probably already aware, it is not inexpensive to remove that tritium from thousands of tons of water, and considering that the concentration of activity is so low (less than 1 kBq per cubic meter?), why not dump it into the ocean? Certainly Greenpeace isn't concerned that this radioisotope is going to cause even minor health problems for the Japanese that will be consuming it in only the tiniest amounts. We've already got perhaps about 20 Bq of tritium activity in our bodies already, why should we be alarmed about a few more?
Which brings me to my next question for Greenpeace: What is your model for oncogenesis?
Certainly your organization must be aware of all the other major contributors to the incidence of cancer that absolutely overwhelms the role of radioisotopes. Aside from ionizing radiation, viruses like herpes and hepatitis, polonium from smoking/radon, and general inflammation from a poor diet can greatly affect cancer rates.
If you are concerned about cancer, might I suggest this paper on Cancer as a Metabolic Disease:
In other words, cancer is, strangely enough, normal. Cellular stress can drive the mitochrondrion to dysfunction, causing the cell to fall back onto a more primitive energy cycle that no longer preserves genomic integrity which gives way to the tumor forming process.
Here's a few choice quotes:
"Confusion surrounds the origin of cancer. Contradictions and paradoxes have plagued the field.[3–6]Without a clear idea on cancer origins, it becomes difficult to formulate a clear strategy for effective management. Although very specific processes underlie malignant transformation, a large number of unspecific influences can initiate the disease including radiation, chemicals, viruses, inflammation, etc. Indeed, it appears that prolonged exposure to almost any provocative agent in the environment can potentially cause cancer.[7,8] That a very specific process could be initiated in very unspecific ways was considered "the oncogenic paradox" by Szent-Gyorgyi.[8] This paradox has remained largely unresolved."
"In a landmark review, Hanahan and Weinberg suggested that six essential alterations in cell physiology could underlie malignant cell growth.[6] These six alterations were described as the hallmarks of nearly all cancers and included, 1) self-sufficiency in growth signals, 2) insensitivity to growth inhibitory (antigrowth) signals, 3) evasion of programmed cell death (apoptosis), 4) limitless replicative potential, 5) sustained vascularity (angiogenesis), and 6) tissue invasion and metastasis. Genome instability, leading to increased mutability, was considered the essential enabling characteristic for manifesting the six hallmarks.[6] However, the mutation rate for most genes is low making it unlikely that the numerous pathogenic mutations found in cancer cells would occur sporadically within a normal human lifespan.[7]This then created another paradox. If mutations are such rare events, then how is it possible that cancer cells express so many different types and kinds of mutations?"
"The loss of genomic "caretakers" or "guardians", involved in sensing and repairing DNA damage, was proposed to explain the increased mutability of tumor cells.[7,9] The loss of these caretaker systems would allow genomic instability thus enabling pre-malignant cells to reach the six essential hallmarks of cancer.[6] It has been difficult, however, to define with certainty the origin of pre-malignancy and the mechanisms by which the caretaker/guardian systems themselves are lost during the emergent malignant state."
"Viruses have long been recognized as the cause of some cancers.[152] It is interesting that several cancer-associated viruses localize to, or accumulate in, the mitochondria. Viral alteration of mitochondrial function could potentially disrupt energy metabolism thus altering expression of tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes over time. Viruses that can affect mitochondrial function include the Rous sarcoma virus, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpes virus (KSHV), human papilloma virus (HPV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1).[64,153–155] Although viral disruption of mitochondrial function will kill most cells through apoptosis following an acute infection, those infected cells that can up-regulate substrate level phosphorylation will survive and potentially produce a neoplasm following chronic infection."
"A transition from carbohydrate to ketones for energy is a simple way to target energy metabolism in glycolysis-dependent tumor cells while enhancing the metabolic efficiency of normal cells.[276,277] The shift from the metabolism of glucose to the metabolism of ketone bodies for energy is due largely to the shift in circulating levels of insulin and glucagon, key hormones that mediate energy metabolism. Insulin, which stimulates glycolysis, is reduced under dietary restriction, while glucagon, which inhibits glycolysis and mobilizes fats, is increased. Glucose reduction not only reduces insulin, but also reduces circulating levels of IGF-1, which is necessary for driving tumor cell metabolism and growth."
25 April, 2014 at 10:17
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I should add that a good way to dispose of unwanted tritium is to release it as a gas. Being 14 times less dense than air, it has tremendous buoyancy,...
I should add that a good way to dispose of unwanted tritium is to release it as a gas. Being 14 times less dense than air, it has tremendous buoyancy, and will leave the Earth's atmosphere.
I would imagine that some future nuclear reactor designs will produce tritium gas in the range of a few kilograms per GW/year. If the material is not required by industry, then atmospheric release is an environmentally preferred method of disposal.
It would be stupid of TEPCO to bother try to electrolyze 1000s of tons of slightly tritiated water in an effort to dispose of the tritium via way of gas. It might cost more than $1500/ton (not to mention the CAPEX of the HTE facility) and create more pollution by the burning of natural gas (high temperature electrolysis being the most economical approach).
The tritium is not a health concern, so trying to deal with it by other than releasing it into the ocean is unwarranted.
25 April, 2014 at 9:48
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@Corey - The discussion about release of radioactive water from the Fukushima plant is a bit more complex than you are sketching up there. We do not o...
@Corey - The discussion about release of radioactive water from the Fukushima plant is a bit more complex than you are sketching up there. We do not only talk tritium contamination, and in the case of tritium, we talk rather high total amounts. I think it is more fair to acknowledge that this is one of the problems related to nuclear accidents that we have not been aware of before and that needs fundamental scrutiny before any hasty decisions are being made.
Also the discussion about health and low levels of radiation is more complex than "just" the (linear) link between exposure and cancer. Just for illustration: some studies suggest that the largest amount of premature deaths under investigated groups of liquidators of Chernobyl was because of circulatory illnesses, only then cancers.
Concerning the effects of tritium, I refer you to the Whitebook published by the French nuclear regulatory agency ASN in 2010: http://www.french-nuclear-safety.fr/Information/News-releases/the-Tritium-White-Paper
Simplifying the impacts of severe nuclear accidents never works. Deducing the final conclusions to be drawn for that does, however: the costs of nuclear power are not outweighed by the benefits because less harmful and more economic alternatives today exist.
25 April, 2014 at 12:46
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Please look over this primer on natural radioactivity:
You m...
Please look over this primer on natural radioactivity:
You may notice that the human body contains thousands of becquerels of carbon-14 that emits a 156 keV beta upon transmutation of one of its neutrons into a proton, and the atom into stable nitrogen-14.
In tritium's case, it is 1000 times more active, but the beta is about 10 x less energetic at 19 keV, and it decays to stable helium-3.
Now, I must ask why you are so focused on total amounts? That provides some idea of scale, but without a model for concentration and migration through the food chain there is no meaningful context.
If you have a reference to an impeccable paper on low level radiation and health effects, feel free to reference it, but I think the evidence very strongly supports that health problems due to radiation exposure come from high doses. That isn't to say a liquidator could not be exposed to higher levels- the cleanup process would essentially increase concentrations in some areas. One example might be the washing down of roofs and streets where the water flow might take the contaminants to a waste pool where the water evaporates, leaving a high concentration.
I think your tritium health concern is baseless as is your assertion that the benefits of nuclear energy are outweighed by its cost. It is an empirical fact that nuclear power is the safest form of energy yet discovered when considered by energy produced over casualties. Furthermore, your insistence that renewables are a viable economic alternative to fossil fuels is completely without merit, especially within the context of addressing global warming.
It seems quite clear that your conclusions about energy, economics, and health are driven far more by ignorance, overconfidence, and radiophobia than by a rational scientific evaluation.
Here's a paper discussing the exposure of the residents of Fukushima City to Cs137:
And here's a takedown of Greenpeace's clumsy attempt to try and equate nuclear power plants with cancer:
Greenpeace needs to ask itself why it is so susceptible to junk science. I think it is a tendency to place ideological concerns above curiosity and scientific understanding. The proper label for this behavior is Lysenkoism.
I await your efforts to make a convincing scientific case for significant health effects due to low level radiation or the economic effectiveness of intermittent low density power sources. Please understand that your lack of curiosity in these matters so far has put you in an incredibly weak position where you are compromising values pertaining to environmental protection and social justice.
The sensible path forward for Greenpeace as a science-driven organization is to renounce opposition to nuclear power, apologize for decades of needless fear mongering, and refocus attention on how a sustainable nuclear economy may take shape. By abandoning opposition to nuclear energy, you will open your doors for better relationships with nuclear scientists, engineers and health physicists who can better respond to common misconceptions. Please help your organization become more informed AND more effective by joining an international effort to lower the cost of carbon-free energy.
There is an opportunity for your organization to influence the path that nuclear energy development takes, but it lies not with PROHIBITION, but rather with competent participation in the safety culture.
Has your organization yet figured out why many nuclear advocates favor the thorium fuel cycle? Or has that remained a mystery?
25 April, 2014 at 19:38
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@Corey - "And here's a takedown of Greenpeace's clumsy attempt to try and equate nuclear power plants with cancer". Beg your pardon?...
@Corey - "And here's a takedown of Greenpeace's clumsy attempt to try and equate nuclear power plants with cancer". Beg your pardon? A Greenpeace commissioned study (which is something different than a study by Greenpeace!) in the US in 1995 indicated a potential relation between breast cancer and distance to a nuclear power plant? That is all you can bring forward for your absurd claim that Greenpeace unscientifically connects radiation with cancer? Pathetic.
If you want to look a the seriousness with which Greenpeace deals with the relationship between health and low-level exposure, you can have a look at the way we have brought together peer-reviewed literature on the Chernobyl catastrophe:
The reason to look with tritium to total amounts is because the mechanisms of spreading of tritium in the food chain are very badly understood as well as the relation between exposure and effect in the human body. I again refer to the ASN whitebook I mentioned before.
Claiming that background radiation is not dangerous is hogwash. So far the majority of literature suggests that the linear no-threashold model used by UNSCEAR and the ICRP is the most likely relation between exposure and health effects. Yes, there are some (some!) suggestions that there might be less effects at lower doses, there are also suggestions that there might be more effects. Unfortunately there are not sufficient data to shed more clarity on each of these hypotheses. Exaggerating these fringe discussions as the nuclear industry is doing is akin to the exaggeration we see happening in the camp of climate sceptics of any study that asks critical questions about some detail issue in the vast body of climate science.
We are currently assessing the data of UNSCEAR in their latest report on the health effects of Fukushima in detail, but I already can say that the overly optimistic tone of the UNSCEAR press release following its publication is not reflecting the content of the report. It looks more like it that a lot of necessary data for solid conclusions still are not available.
Why is the nuclear industry (are you, by the way, related to that?) so fanatic in low-radiation health-effect denial when science does not support it? In the case of Fukushima, this discussion is a diversion from the real problems that tens of thousands of real victims of the nuclear catastrophe are facing every day. Or do you want to claim that people should not have been evacuated? Or would you like to advice people to return to areas with around 20 mSv/yr of exposure? Or would you like to claim that that is in some areas on earth already the background radiation, conveniently forgetting that the doses stated in the ICRP limits are *on top of* the background radiation? Why have people not been properly compensated by the industry three years after the event? Why do nuclear suppliers like GE, Hitachi, Toshiba duck away from their responsibilities in this? Why has TEPCO not sold part of its assets in order to meet the compensation needs? These are serious questions that should have priority in the discussion over academic debates about fringe opinions.
26 April, 2014 at 16:16
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You will want to re-examine your above claim about UNSCEAR. After being repeatedly advised for more than a decade to re-evaluate the...
You will want to re-examine your above claim about UNSCEAR. After being repeatedly advised for more than a decade to re-evaluate their assumptions about low exposures, they finally conceded in 1994. Here's something that gives you some idea about how far they have come...
Biological Mechanisms of Radiation Actions at Low Doses:
And here's a paper by the guy who used to chair UNSCEAR...
Observations on the Chernobyl Disaster and LNT:
And those hundreds of billions of dollars that were lost due to the Chernobyl accident? Would you believe that those losses were primarily driven by radiophobia?
28 April, 2014 at 10:37
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2005: Volume 15 - Number 4
October 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005
Table of Contents
File Type
Vital Event Statistics
Table 1A
Vital Event Statistics by Local Health Area
Selected Birth Statistics
Table 2A
Selected Birth Statistics by Local Health Area
External Causes of Death
Table 3A
External Causes of Death by Local Health Area
Neoplasm Deaths
Table 4A
Neoplasm Deaths by Local Health Area
Heart Disease Deaths
Table 5A
Heart Disease Deaths by Local Health Area
Respiratory Disease Deaths
Table 6A
Respiratory Disease Deaths by Local Health Area
Other Selected Death Statistics
Table 7A
Other Selected Death Statistics by Local Health Area
The information presented in this volume comprises vital event data for the fourth quarter (October 1 to December 31) and interim year-end totals for 2005. These are the first 2005 full-year statistics to be published by the Vital Statistics Agency.
As usual, it is important to bear in mind that the figures shown here report data produced from files that are updated on a continual basis. These data should therefore be considered "provisional" and subject to revision due to late arriving documents, particularly with regard to "External Causes of Death" (Tables 3A, 3B, 3C). These events require coroners' investigations, often resulting in delayed submission of "cause of death" data.
For the same reason, the year-end totals presented here will not necessarily be the same as those that will be published in the forth-coming 2005 Vital Statistics Annual Report. The research files used to create the Annual Report will include 2005 events that were submitted and processed after the end of February 2006.
Again, please note that the category labels in Tables 3 A, B and C have been revised. It was felt that the term "accidental" should be replaced with "unintentional" to provide terminology consistent with that used by other injury surveillance organizations. The code inclusions in the re-named categories are unchanged and data continuity will not be affected by this change in labeling.
We welcome any comments or questions about the data presented here, as well as requests for information not supplied in our regular publications. We also welcome suggestions from readers for future changes or additions to this report. Contact information is provided at the back of this report (Readers' Note), via the electronic feedback form.
Don Rintoul
Director, Informatics
Health Information Technology, Ministry of Health
British Columbia
Local Health Areas
Local Health Areas within
Health Service Delivery Area & Health Authority
HA 01 Interior
HA 02 Fraser
HA 03 Vancouver Coastal
HA 04 Vancouver Island
HA 05 Northern
Age Standardized Mortality Rate (ASMR):
A summary of age adjusted death rates by gender which have been standardized to a specific population for the purpose of rate comparisons of different time periods or different geographical locations. ASMRs in this report are per 10,000 standard population (1991 Canada Census).
This category includes all deaths considered as being directly or indirectly related to alcohol as indicated by inclusion by the certifier of selected alcohol identifying conditions anywhere on the death record (including "lifestyle" field). It should be noted that where alcohol is an indirect cause of death (i.e. not UCOD) and the direct underlying cause of death falls within one of our selected causes (e.g. motor vehicle accidents), then this death may be counted in both columns. That is, not all of "alcohol-related" are exclusive. This category includes the ICD-10 codes: F100-F109, K700-K709, O993, P043, O354, Q860, G312, G621, G721, I426, K292, K860, X45, X65, T510-T512, T519. Note: now excludes acute pancreatitis, and cirrhosis not specifically identified as alcohol induced.
Assignment of Health Service Delivery Area (HSDA) and Health Authority (HA):
Cases are assigned to Health Service Delivery Areas and Health Authorities by the aggregation of appropriate LHAs.
Assignment of Local Health Area (LHA):
Allocation of LHA, in the case of births and deaths is based upon the usual residence (by postal code) of the mother and deceased respectively. Marriages are assigned to LHAs according to the place of the event. Community name is used in the absence of postal code.
Elderly Gravida:
Any mother who was 35 years of age or older at the time of delivery of a live born infant.
External Causes of Death:
Deaths due to environmental events, circumstances and conditions as the cause of injury, poisoning, and other adverse effects. Broad categories include unitentional injuries, suicide, medical or abnormal reactions (considered unitentional injuries), homicide, legal intervention, misadventures (counted as unitentional injuries) and injury from war operations. Standard "Quarterly" tables under this heading include deaths due to unitentional injuries, suicide, homicide, and other. Unitentional injuries are subdivided by the following categories; motor vehicle accidents (MVA) (V020-V049, V090-V099, V120-V149, V190-V196, V200-V799, V803-V805, V820-V821, V823-V839, V840-V878, V880-V888, V8900-V8909, V8920-V8929, V8990-V8999, Y850), poisoning (X40-X49), falls (W00-W19), burns/fire (X00-X19), drowning (V900-V909, V920-V929, W65-W74), other unitentional injuries (V010-V019, V050-V069, V091, V099, V100-V119, V150-V189, V198-V199, V250-V259, V350-V359, V450-V459, V550-V559, V650-V659, V750-V759, V800-V802, V806-V819, V822, V879, V889, V910-V919, V930-V949, V950-V978, V98-V99, W20-W64, W75-W99, X20-X39, X50-X59, Y40-Y849, Y859, Y86, Y880-Y883). Suicide ICD-10 codes are X60-X84, Y870; homicide (X85-Y09, Y871); "other [external]" consists of events of undetermined intent, legal interventions, and operations of war (Y10-Y369, Y890-Y899).
Note: the late effects of unitentional poisoning, falls, and burns/fire are no longer identified separately for inclusion in these categories and are now part of "other accidents"). Trains are now considered motor vehicles in ICD-10 but for consistency, have been excluded from MVA counts to still be considered as "other transport".
Heart Disease:
Tables under this heading include deaths due to:
- rheumatic/valvular: (I050-I099, I340-I38)
- hypertension/hypertensive: (I10-I159)
- ischemic: (I200-I259) (Note: now includes cardiomyopathy specified as ischemic)
- conductive & dysrythmic: (I440-I499)
- heart failure: (I500-I509)
- congenital: (Q200-Q249)
- other: pulmonary (I260-I289), inflammatory (I300-I339, I400-I409, I514), cardiomyopathy (I420-I429)(Note: now excludes ischemic), other ill-defined or unspecified heart disease (I312-I318, I510-I513, I515-I519)(includes myocardial degeneration)
The ninth revision of International Classification of Diseases, World Health Organization, Geneva, 1977. An internationally used system of approximately 12,000 four (and some three) digit numbers representing a system of categories to which morbid entities are assigned according to an established criteria. ICD provides a common basis of disease and injury classification that facilitates storage, retrieval, and tabulation of statistical data.
The tenth revision of International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, World Health Organization, 1992. In use beginning with year 2000, update of ICD-9 revised with alpha-numeric system and increased code detail (approximately 18,000). The BC Vital Statistics Agency and all their provincial counterparts utilize an ICD-10 that has been modified by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) for use in the classification and analysis of medical mortality data in the United States (October, 1998).
Infant Deaths:
Deaths of children under one year of age.
Live birth:
The complete expulsion or extraction from its mother, irrespective of the duration of the pregnancy, of a product of conception in which, after the expulsion or extraction, there is:
- breathing;
- beating of the heart;
- pulsation of the umbilical cord; or
- unmistakable movement of voluntary muscle, whether or not the umbilical cord has been cut or the placenta attached.
Low Birth Weight:
Any live born infant weighing less than 2500 grams.
Neoplasms (ICD-10 C000-D489):
Although the vast majority of deaths in this category are due to malignant cancer, also included are benign, in-situ, and unspecified "tumours". Detailed ICD-10 breakdown used in "Neoplasm Deaths" tables are:
- lung: includes trachea, bronchus, lung and pleura (C33, C340-C349, C384, C450). Note: now excludes mesothelioma of lung and trachea.
- female breast: (C500-C509)
- colorectal: (C180-C218)
- other G.I.: includes esophagus, stomach, small intestine and duodenum, liver and intrahepatic bile ducts, gallbladder and extrahepatic ducts, pancreas, peritoneum, other and ill-defined within digestive organs (C150-C179, C220-C269)
- female reproductive: includes uterus, cervix, placenta, ovary and adnexa, vagina & external genitalia (C510-C58)
- prostate: C61
- blood lymph: includes lymphatic and haematopoietic tissue (C810-C969, C463).
- other malignancy: includes malignant neoplasms of other (e.g. lip, oral cavity, pharynx, nose, ear, larynx, heart, bone and connective tissue, urinary tract, eye, brain, endocrine glands)and ill-defined or unspecified sites (C000-C148, C300-C449, C451-C462, C467-C499, C600-C609, C620-C768, C5091*, C80*). Note: * codes used exclusively by BC Vital Statistics Agency for male breast cancer and for unknown primary site cancer.
- non-malignant & unspecified: includes benign, in-situ, and neoplasms of uncertain or unknown behaviour (D000-D489).
- Note: This neoplasm group now includes myeloproliferative disease, thrombocythemia, monoclonal gammopathy, and lymphoproliferative disease which were not previously considered neoplastic in ICD-9 and were counted in other ICD chapters.
Other Selected Death Statistics:
Tables under this heading include deaths due to:
- diabetes (E100-E149).
- alcohol related - see above.
- other infectious and parasitic disease: (A000-B199, B250-B999, U049) Note: Now includes obstetrical and neonatal tetanus.
- cerebro and other vascular disease: (I600-I698, I700-I879, I950-I959, I880-I899, I970-I979, I99). Includes cerebrovascular disease, disease of arteries and veins, hypotension, and other circulatory system disease. Note: "Other circulatory system disease" now includes post procedural disorders of the circulatory system (I970-I979) which are never selected as the UCOD. However they are confirmed by editing and either recoded to the more specific disease (embolism, stroke, M.I.) or double coded if the complication is confirmed.
- liver disease: (K700-K7699). Note: Now includes toxic liver disease with cholestasis.
- ALS/MS: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and multiple sclerosis: (G122, G1221, G35). Note: In order to maintain continuity with ICD-9, unspecified motor neuron disease (G122) is included in this category as it was previously not distinguishable from ALS.
Any live born infant less than 37 weeks gestation at delivery.
Respiratory Disease Death Statistics:
Tables under this heading include deaths due to the following:
- emphysema: (J430-J439) Note: Now excludes when described as or resulting in obstructive disease -see note at COPD.
- COPD: (J440-J449). Note: Now includes specific code within the group for COPD when accompanied with acute lower respiratory infection, or with acute exacerbation. This inclusion has no statistical impact on UCOD. Also, this category now includes asthma and emphysema described as obstructive not previously included in ICD-9.
- pneumonia: (J120-J181, J188-J189) Note: ICD-10 has a new code for chlamydial pneumonia (J160). It is uncertain if this condition would have previously been coded to "pneumonia due to other specified bacteria" (ICD-9 4828) or to "other diseases due to viruses and chlamydia" (0788), or to both. This disease is very rare on death records so if not coded to 4828, the impact to comparison of historical data would still be minimal. Daily VS edits have been implemented to ensure consistent selection of pneumonia.
- influenza: (J09-J118)
- asthma: (J450-J459, J46) Note: Now excludes when described as obstructive - see note at COPD.
- lung disease due to external agents: (J60-J709)
- pulmonary fibrosis: (J841)
- other respiratory diseases: (J00-J069, J182, J200-J42, J47, J80-J840, J848-J9899) Note: Now includes post procedural respiratory disorders (J950-J959) which formerly used to be injury codes. These codes are never selected as the UCOD so their impact would only effect multiple code analyses. The Vital Statistics Agency includes these in daily data edits to confirm them as post procedural and to double code for the specific respiratory condition (e.g. pneumonia). As a result, respiratory disease statistics in BC are more consistent with historical data.
Standardized Mortality Ratio (SMR):
The ratio of the number of deaths occurring to residents of a geographical area (e.g. LHA) to the expected number of deaths in that area based on provincial age specific mortality rates.
The complete expulsion or extraction from its mother after at least twenty weeks of pregnancy or after attaining a weight of at least 500 grams, of a product of conception in which, after expulsion or extraction, there is no breathing, beating of the heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or unmistakable movement of voluntary muscle.
Teenage Mother:
Any mother who was age 19 or less at the time of delivery.
Underlying cause of death - based upon application of standard international coding rules for determining sequential relationships of conditions and diseases from immediate cause backwards to underlying cause.
Contributors' Note:
The editorial staff would like to invite any researchers of health-related topics who wish to contribute an article or paper summary for publication in this Quarterly Digest to contact: Informatics, Health Information Technology, Knowledge Management and Technology, Ministry of Health. Articles should focus on health status issues in British Columbia. It is preferable that submissions be in "electronic media" format (e.g. Word, Word Perfect, Excel, Power Point, Corel, Pagemaker, etc.). Article presentation will be subject to space allowances and publishing deadlines.
Readers' Note:
Re: "Letters to the Editor",
Comments, suggestions, questions, or criticisms regarding this publication?
Use the Feedback Form


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Music Business Radio podcast just released an episode in which they had Beth Nielsen Chapman do some serious critiquing on songs submitted by various musicians. I think there are some great songwriting tips in it.
Check it out here: http://blog.musicbusinessradio.com/2010 ... man-1.html
Music Business Radio - Song Critique
Check out the Home Made Hit Show with Tony and Dave at http://homemadehitshow.com
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Just wanted to direct your attention over to the "subscribe" button over there on at the top of the sidebar. I finally got Feedburner setup properly so you can all click on this friendly icon or the "subscribe" button to subscribe to the Feed with Google Reader, or My Yahoo! or whatever reader you kids are using these days.
A thousand pardons to those of you who already subscribed to the feed in the two days since launch and have been wondering why your reader hasn't been updating properly! You don't need to change anything, it was a mistake on my end!


text:
There is still more agony to come for Spanish banks.
The Madrid government has duly released the much anticipated results of "stress tests" by two consultancies, showing that Spanish lenders will need somewhere between 16 billion euros ($20 billion) and 62 billion euros of new capital.
Publication of these broad assessments has cleared the way for Luis de Guindos, economy minister, to make a formal request on Monday to his euro zone partners for a credit line of as much as 100 billion euros.
This money—a partial bailout for the crisis-stricken Spanish state—will be used to recapitalize needy banks, including Bankia, the merged group of seven savings banks that has called for 19 billion euros of emergency capital support and is being nationalized.
From Madrid to London, however, skeptical analysts say much more needs to be done, and done more quickly, to restore confidence in Spanish banks so they can revive lending to businesses and help to end a crippling economic recession.
The next stage in Spain's bank restructuring is for four accounting firms—Deloitte, PwC, Ernst & Young and KPMG—to complete a comprehensive analysis of loan portfolios by the end of July. That will provide the basis for another, more detailed stress test by end-September to work out how much capital each bank needs. Then banks must prepare recapitalization plans by mid-October, and will have a maximum of nine months to carry them out.
For many critics of Spain's belated and piecemeal approach to bank reform since the economic and financial crisis began in 2008, even the latest recapitalization drive is too small and too slow.
"It's something that is always hanging there, with the government behind the curve and reacting to events," says Emilio Ontiveros, chairman of Analistas Financieros Internacionales, a research group.
To break this vicious circle, he says, regulators and officials should "take advantage of the summer and at the end of it spell out once and for all what is needed in new capital for each bank".
Spanish officials and regulators say the latest stress tests, each conducted independently by Oliver Wyman and Roland Berger using Bank of Spain data, showed that the three biggest banks—Santander , BBVA and Caixabank—did not need outside help in the form of new capital, even in the difficult economic conditions of the "stressed" scenario.
Most of the capital, they said, was needed for banks already on government life support: Bankia, NovaCaixaGalicia, CatalunyaCaixa and Banco de Valencia. However, a third group of middle sized banks with varying business models and loan qualities—one that includes quoted companies Banco Sabadell and Banco Popular—has been left in an uncomfortable state of doubt.
The two stress tests did not provide a bank by bank breakdown of capital needs. But analysts at Barclays extrapolated the modelling to conclude that among Spain's original commercial banks, under the so-called "adverse scenario", Popular would have the?biggest?capital?hole—of 6 billion euros.
The Barclays analysts said that if the exercise mimicked the requirements of an earlier stress test for Ireland conducted?by?BlackRock —including a 10 percent post-stress core tier one capital ratio rather than Oliver Wyman's 6 percent for Spain—then even Santander and BBVA would have had to raise 8 billion euros-9 billion euros apiece.
There have also been questions about the assumptions made on the quality of Spanish portfolios—not only on the loans to real estate developers, but in other areas such as home mortgages and consumer loans.
While BlackRock's Irish stress test modelled for losses on 12 percent of retail mortgages, Oliver Wyman's Spanish scenario is for a 3-4 percent loss rate. On other consumer lending the Irish model forecast that more than a quarter of credit would go unrecovered, compared with only 16-18 percent in Spain under the Oliver Wyman test.
Defenders of the Spanish banks say there are good reasons for the discrepancies. Mortgages in the country, for example, still account for only 62 percent of the value of the homes they are secured on, compared with an equivalent figure of 100 percent in Ireland.
Sceptics retort that Spanish banks have often failed to mark property values to market prices, and point to the common practice of restructuring loans, extending them over longer periods with lower interest rates without recognising that forbearance in accounts. That has made mortgage books look better than they really are, and kept alive "zombie" property developers to spare banks the financial hit of a default.
"Everyone is underestimating the next wave in Spain," said one bank chief executive who knows the Spanish market well. "And that will come from the fallout from the economic problems and rising unemployment on consumer loans."
The Oliver Wyman report refers to the problem of loan forbearance—and to the incorrect classification of underperforming real estate loans as "regulator corporate loans"—but its analysis is more optimistic than international banks that reckon Spanish recapitalisation needs exceed 100 billion euros.
Spain's authorities, says Edward Hugh, a Barcelona-based economist and bank expert, are "still in denial". He suggests a US-style solution of forcing banks to take extra capital now while the audits are being prepared, in order to jump-start the economy. He also supports the idea of a "bad bank" structure.
"They need to do something to remove the short-term doubts," Mr. Hugh says.


text:
SANFORD — A total of 15 special awards were handed out at the Sanford High School girls' basketball banquet last week.
Samantha Adams was named the team's Defensive Player of the Year, while Morgan Fogg and Heather LeBlanc shared the Offensive Player of the Year award. Taylor Littlefield received the Teammate Award and the Coaches Award, and Shelby Paiement was presented the Most Improved Player Award. Janelle Cannon was the recipient of the Spartans Award.
Coach Kristy Parent announced that Morgan Fogg was named to the SMAA All-Rookie team and Heather LeBlanc was named an SMAA 2nd Team All Star.
Parent also announced that Paiement, Fogg and Grace Riley were elected captains of next year's varsity basketball team.
Named to the SMAA All-Academic team were Adams, Littlefield, Fogg, Hannah Howes, Kayla Burgess and Allison L'Heureux.
Adams and LeBlanc led the team in two categories each, while Littlefield finished second in two categories and third in another.As a team, the Spartans finished the season with a 12-6 record and had a solid outing in postseason play, defeating Bonny Eagle in the Class A preliminaries before losing to Cheverus in the Class A West semifinals.Lost through graduation will be seniors Adams, LeBlanc, Cannon and Littlefield. Returnees include Fogg, Riley, Liz Bougie, Kaela Godwin, Howes, Paiement, Laura Kirkpatrick and Jen Jones, along with several girls up from this year's freshman and junior varsity teams.Marissa Duncan and Michelle Ouch served as managers of this year's team.
In addition to varsity coach Kristy Parent, former Sanford High and Assumption College standout Kayla Parker was the junior varsity coach, and Melissa Small coached the freshman team. Andy Adams and Jennifer Livingston served as volunteer coaches and Jessica Hobgood was the athletic trainer.


text:
Magazine publishers were some of the first big believers in the potential of Apple's iPad, with Conde Nast saying they expected as much as 40% of their revenues would come from tablet devices in the future.
But the romance has quickly soured, as publishers push back against Apple's increasingly domineering stance to subscriptions and advertising.
Pete Kafka over at All Things D has a nice breakdown of the growing gap between publishers and Apple over subscription sales on the iPad. Kafka says that Apple has been offering the following for months.
* The ability to sell app subscriptions through iTunes.
* 70 percent of the revenue from each sale.
* The ability to offer an opt-in form for subscribers that would ask them for a limited amount of information: Name, mailing address, email address.
Hence the recent move by publishers to cozy up to Google and its Android operating system, which will be running on a slew of new tablets in 2011.
The issue, as Kafka points out, is that publishers don't want to be cut out of customer information and subscription sales that could be equally as valuable when applied to print. iPad-only projects like News Corp's The Daily won't have such hang ups.
bpopper [at] observer.com | @benpopper