Notes from Downwind Dear Friend and Reader: Most people think of the nuclear incident at the Fukushima Daiichi power-generating station as something that happened in the past. You don't see it mentioned on network or cable news, and it's not on most news websites or in major newspapers.
What you probably have not heard is that in each unit, more than 200 tons of radioactive material got so hot that it turned to lava and melted through the containment structure and into the ground under the plants. It's currently unaccounted for and is threatening the water supply for 40 million people in the greater Tokyo area. The most recent mention of anything related to the Fukushima situation in The New York Times was an editorial one month ago focusing on the politics of nuclear power in Japan, with the former prime minister saying he was now in favor of a total ban. The editorial mentioned that a large majority (76%) of Japanese citizens are now opposed to the continued use of nuclear power plants. On Nov. 11, The Washington Post carried a short item about wind-generating stations off the coast of Fukushima, and the next day referenced the same issue that the Times covered in its editorial -- how the former prime minister is urging a nuclear power ban. If you're not actively researching the topic, or reading news outlets with a specific focus on the issue, you would think it's over and done with -- and have no way to know that the worst may be ahead.
It's more likely you were watching CNN a week ago Thursday night, and saw a program called Pandora's Promise that assured the world that nuclear power is absolutely safe, and that it is the only thing that can save the planet from global warming. Instead of real news reporting about a serious, immediate issue, we got an extended infomercial for nuclear power that was packed with more lies and omissions than I could count. Nuclear power is an obsolete technology. One of the most interesting things I learned this week is that the last nuclear power plant to be commissioned and put online was ordered in 1973. That's correct: the most recent nuclear reactor to be put online was ordered 40 years ago. That's because nuclear power is simply not financially tenable. The industry had its meltdown long before Three Mile Island had its meltdown in 1979. The Unit 4 Spent Fuel Problem The most significant Fukushima-related issue that the news is barely mentioning involves the spent fuel pool that's dangling in the air above the Unit 4 reactor -- fuel that engineers hope to remove beginning this month. If successful, removal of the fuel will be the first real mile marker in what may be a 40-year process of fully decommissioning the Fukushima plant. But engineers have a long way to go before they get there.
In all, Unit 4's spent fuel pool has 1,331 old fuel assemblies and the 204 working ones that had been removed for the inspection process. Spent fuel is not radioactive enough to boil water efficiently, but it's still fissionable; that is, even though it's 'used up', it can reach critical mass and a reaction can start. The spent fuel pool is outside the reactor's containment structure and there are no control rods to slow down any reaction that may start. Worse yet, the used fuel contains many radioactive isotopes that make it more toxic than new fuel -- for example, it's contaminated with types of radiation that attack specific organs, such as the bones or the thyroid gland. Unit 4 sustained serious damage as a result of events that started with the earthquake. Units 3 and 4 shared a common ventilation system. The meltdown in Unit 3 released hydrogen gas, which caused that reactor to explode. Some of the hydrogen got into Unit 4, which experienced an explosion that badly damaged the structure. This has left hundreds of tons of nuclear fuel suspended above the Earth in a building that is listing over, and is vulnerable to another earthquake. In addition, the fuel removal equipment was damaged beyond repair, and the spent fuel pool was filled with debris that fell from the partially collapsed building.
Engineers have known for a while that they have to get that fuel out of there, though between delays and the extensive preparations necessary, it's taken till now to be ready to begin. Since the March 11, 2011 quake, there have been 12 aftershocks or quakes in the region of the plant, which the damaged structure has thankfully survived. There is, in effect, a race against the clock to get the 1,534 fuel assemblies out of the spent fuel pond and onto safer ground before a large earthquake knocks the building down, taking more than 400 tons of highly radioactive material with it. But this is an extremely dangerous process. The fuel assemblies must be under water at all times, or they will overheat. The water also prevents the fuel assemblies from ramping up their radioactive reaction and keeps them from reaching critical mass. Fuel rods within the assemblies are coated in an explosive, flammable metal (zirconium alloy), which cannot be exposed to the air, overheat or make contact with anything else. If one small thing goes wrong, we could experience a disaster "of hemispheric proportions," in the words of Paul Gunter, who heads the organization Beyond Nuclear. By that, he means that a radioactive plume created by hundreds of tons of fuel burning would be far worse than the original incident at Fukushima and deliver a deadly stream of contamination to North America in a matter of days. Such an event would also render the entire Fukushima site off-limits to people, yet every individual issue at the site requires constant human intervention. If the site is so radioactive that no humans can manage it, the situation will inevitably get far worse.
"The key is getting that first domino not to fall," Gunter said in a Planet Waves interview this week [listen to the full interview here]. But he said he's concerned that TEPCO -- the Tokyo Electric Power Co. -- is still in charge of the situation. "We run an unparalleled risk to put this in the hands of the utility that brought us this problem and that has a record for obfuscating and falsifying safety records in order to cut financial corners," he said. "Really, this should be in the hands of an independent group of scientists and engineers with total transparency. But we are not going to be afforded that level of care." TEPCO exercised astoundingly bad judgment in developing the plants. During construction, it removed 80 feet of natural grade that would have protected the site from the tsunami, by the ocean in a tsunami zone. This was done for the convenience of moving construction machinery in and out, and so that it would be cheaper to pump water into the plant. The utility moved the reactor site closer to the ocean, and then planned only for a maximum 10-foot tsunami when the one that struck the plant was 40 to 50 feet high. We All Live Downwind from the GE Mark 1 It's easy to think that because this is happening in Japan, it cannot really hurt people in other parts of the world. But when the radioactive plume was first released in March of 2011, it reached North America in a matter of days.
Philadelphia, in the part of the U.S. furthest from Japan, also reported a 48% increase in the mortality rate for babies immediately following the incident. Joseph Mangano, executive director of the Radiation and Public Health Project, said, "Philadelphia infant deaths reported to the CDC [Centers for Disease Control, a U.S. government agency] averaged 5.0 per week for the five weeks ending March 19. The average jumped to 7.4, a 48.0% increase, in the following 10 weeks." Other American cities experienced infant mortality rate increases, but Philadelphia had the highest level of increase. Gunter, the director of Beyond Nuclear, said he's concerned that the public will not have access to accurate information if something goes wrong. "Once they lose control of the nuclear reaction, typically with all these accidents -- Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, Fukushima -- they seek to control the information," Gunter said. "And that is where we remain behind the information curve. The lack of transparency, the fact that Tokyo Electric Power Company who ultimately were responsible for the cost cutting that led to the vulnerability that now has us in this potentially hemispheric catastrophe -- they are in charge of this potentially hemispheric catastrophe. They are in charge of this very precarious game of pick-up sticks with these radioactive fuel rods." The problem potentially can come home in other ways as well. The type of nuclear plant that failed at Fukushima Daiichi, called the General Electric Mark 1, is widely used in the United States. There are 23 Mark 1 reactors at 16 locations in the U.S. The Mark 1 is high on the long list of things that should be a scandal but are not.
Among other strange design features, the reactors have their spent fuel ponds high above the ground, where they can fall to Earth, especially in an earthquake zone. The backup generators for this type of plant are in the basement. This was done even when the plants were installed in a tsunami zone, right on the water. When the wave came, they flooded instantly -- that's why they were destroyed at Fukushima, resulting in failure of the backup power, then the cooling systems, and thus leading directly to a meltdowns of the reactors. And their control rods are inserted upwards from underneath, which requires electric and hydraulic power, rather than having them drop down from above with the help of gravity. Except for an atomic bomb, the Mark 1 seems to be the stupidest thing ever invented, with each unit loaded with 200 tons of uranium or uranium/plutonium mix. According to a March 2011 New York Times article in response to the Fukushima incident, in 1972, Joseph Hendrie, who would later become chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), said it would be a good idea to ban the design. But he said that the technology had been so widely accepted by the industry and regulatory officials that "reversal of this hallowed policy, particularly at this time, could well be the end of nuclear power." This is atomic logic at its purest: save the plant design, to save nuclear power itself -- and threaten the planet. The Nuclear Axis: It's About Saturn The astrology of the nuclear issue is one of the most interesting and revealing astrological case studies I've ever encountered. The base chart for astrological nuclear studies is set for the time of the first self-sustaining nuclear reaction, which took place at 3:25 pm on Dec. 2, 1942 in Chicago. Scientists know this as Chicago Pile 1, an experiment that took place beneath Stagg Field at the University of Chicago under the supervision of none other than Enrico Fermi. This chart is sometimes called the Nuclear Axis because its backbone goes across Gemini-Sagittarius; that is the axis.
However, documentation has recently surfaced which states that the time of 3:25 pm should be in Central Standard Time. [Those curious may refer to footnote 995 in The Book of World Horoscopes by Nicholas Campion, 2004 edition, which explains the issue.] Both charts have Taurus rising, so by the classical whole-sign house method, the houses remain the same. Over the past few weeks I have looked closely at both of the Nuclear Axis charts (original and revised) and checked them against several major nuclear incidents, including the first atomic bomb test in 1945 (the Trinity Test), the bombs dropped on live targets in Japan, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and several others. The revised (CST) chart has some validity, but it does not leap out as being inherently correct or better than the original chart (in CWT). Based on my research so far, I can find no compelling astrological reason to change the time zone. Note that a one-hour shift of the time zone does not change the positions of the planets by more than a fraction of a degree; rather the change moves the ascendant forward by about 22 degrees. Besides the original chart standing up to years of use, and the gut check, there's at least one compelling reason to keep it: the positions of two of the original three centaur planets. The original (CWT) chart has Nessus on the ascendant and Pholus on the midheaven.
Nessus, which tells the story of the manifestation of karma in a cyclical way, is an important planet in the nuclear charts. Nessus is about what is inflicted on someone (in the myth, a poison) that comes back to kill the original poisoner. The bottom line with Nessus is, who ultimately takes responsibility? That's the name of the game with nuclear issues: everyone is trying to pass the buck. When the time comes for someone to take responsibility, it's a little too late. Pholus, which is about the release of something that cannot be re-contained, and multigenerational issues, is on the midheaven in Capricorn, right at the beginning of the 10th house of government. The nuclear endeavor is very much a government enterprise. It is not profitable. Industry cannot afford to pay for the results of nuclear disasters. Government is involved in every step of the process. But it has no magical power to stop a meltdown or to contain radiation. This whole issue of the Nuclear Axis chart and what it says (along with the time controversy) deserves an extensive article or even a monograph. For now, I'll note that I am aware of the one-hour time discrepancy, I am tracking both charts and for now, I'm sticking to the original CWT chart. The 'axis' in the nuclear axis runs across Gemini and Sagittarius, occupying the first 15 degrees of those signs. When planets come along and make transits to the axis, nuclear incidents seem more likely to occur.
Neptune is in early Pisces now, making a wide square to Saturn (it will be exact in March 2015). Later that year, Saturn arrives at 8+ Sagittarius, opposing Nuclear Axis Saturn. So we will be dealing with this for a while -- and 2015 promises to be an extremely important turning-point year for the nuclear issue. From the look of the chart, it could be the time of another major incident, since that Saturn is so sensitive. One of the most compelling current transits to the Nuclear Axis chart is that Neptune, currently in Pisces , is exactly square Nuclear Axis Uranus in Gemini. That is the picture of a disinformation campaign. We cannot trust anything we're hearing now, which is very little -- with nuclear issues, no news is bad news. Or as was the case with Pandora's Promise, the purported documentary turns out to be a propaganda film, designed to obfuscate the issue entirely, deny the dangers and push an antiquated technology on the public. Neptune making a square to Uranus is also the picture of uranium (Uranus) breaching containment (Neptune penetrates boundaries; neptunium is also a radioactive element). And perhaps the most troubling picture this aspect presents is denial of the dangers of radiation, and denial of the fact (Neptune) that these accidents happen spontaneously (Uranus). Everything can go great for 30 years, then one day the plant blows up. With nuclear power, precedent has very little value. The Fukushima Chart Let's check in with one other chart and see if we can find a message. That's the chart for the earthquake on March 11, 2011. What is remarkable about this chart is that Uranus is at 29 degrees of Pisces and 57 minutes, at the very, very, itty, bitty, last little tip of the zodiac.
Here is our first blog post from that morning, by Karl Grossman, which explains the problem with vivid clarity, describing the chain of events likely to unfold. In the earthquake chart, the nuclear axis is loaded -- Neptune, Chiron, Mars, Pholus and the Moon are all there. Saturn in the Fukushima chart is making a square to Pholus in the Nuclear Axis chart. There are many other aspects, and both the Nuclear Axis and the Fukushima charts are taking many transits now. Perhaps the most unusual bit of astrology surrounding Fukushima happened the week before. Exactly one week before the incident, I published my first article on the planet Borasisi, a Kuiper object just a bit past Pluto. I called the article With Love from Borasisi. The article addressed the lies of science and why people are so often inclined to believe them. Borasisi comes from the Kurt Vonnegut novel Cat's Cradle. He was inspired to write this while working as a PR man at General Electric. The book is essentially a GE-inspired protest against the bomb. The nuclear power industry was essentially a jobs program for scientists who had developed the atomic bomb once the war had ended. In the article, I commented on my personal knowledge of GE's ethics. If I were to call up the GE pubic relations department right now and say, "Hello, I'm a reporter. Are PCBs toxic?" they would fax back a press release that says they're no more toxic than table salt. That is GE, and this attitude -- along with all the lies connected to the atomic bomb -- is what propelled Vonnegut to write Cat's Cradle. He says so in this interview.I continued: Vonnegut challenges his readers with the idea that [the lies of religion] are actually fairly harmless contrasted to the 'truths' of science. He's not exactly offering any commendations to either, just showing us the contrast. The lies lead to people being temporarily happier. Truths lead to mushroom clouds and Superfund sites so large nobody knows how large.One week later, the GE-designed nuclear power plants in Fukushima blew up -- and now we have a problem so large we don't know how large. We know that ocean contamination has reached northern Alaska and may have immediately caused a spike in infant deaths in Philadelphia. Radiation knows no boundaries. This is in reality a problem without a solution.
The nuclear issue is the result of science: that is to say, science without conscience, oblivious to common sense right down to the existence of gravity, which has devised the most expensive conceivable way to boil water, with hundreds of them strewn around, often placed on fault lines, any one of which could one day easily contaminate the entire Northern Hemisphere. As Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear pointed out, electricity is the "fleeing byproduct" of a nuclear plant. The real product is radiation, which future generations will inherit having seen no benefit of the electricity that was generated. The fuel removal from Unit 4 is set to begin sometime in the next week or so; nobody knows exactly when. Enormous preparations have been made to secure the process. This webpage explains the process, and don't miss the video that gives a nice illustration of how it will be done -- and makes it seem really simple, and assures us that nothing could possibly go wrong. Not even an earthquake. Lovingly,  This article was the result of months of research conducted by Planet Waves Alpha Class interns Elizabeth Michaud and Chad Woodward. You can find some of that research here, including a good selection of nuclear incident charts. Special thanks to Dr. Karl Grossman. PS -- I didn't cover half of what I wanted to cover in this article. I will be back next week with a discussion of food contamination and why you don't want to eat any fish out of the Pacific Ocean or anything at all from Japan. 
Full Moon and Venus-Pluto CoverageI didn't have time to write a new SKY article this week; the nuclear thing took a while. However, I have covered the passage of Venus through the Uranus-Pluto square, and Sunday's Taurus Full Moon, in Thursday's edition of the Planet Waves blog. Also, the horoscope below is focused on the Full Moon square Nessus in Aquarius. -- efc 
Bumpy Ride Continues for Health Care LawSince the rollout of the healthcare.gov website on Oct. 1, nearly a million people have created accounts and determined their eligibility, and nearly 400,000 have been determined eligible for Medicaid. The number who've actually signed up is considerably smaller -- 106,185 as of Wednesday, with only a quarter of those having done so through the federal website rather than state-established exchanges.
Meanwhile, millions of people have gotten cancellation letters from their insurance companies with offers of more expensive policies that will comply with the minimum standards of the Affordable Care Act. Obama's oft-repeated statement that "if you like your health care, you can keep it," has been widely denounced as a lie, thanks to his failure to add, "unless your current policy is really awful." The healthcare.gov website has been subjected to 16 cyber-attacks during its snarled rollout, and a woman who allowed her image to be used on the front page (it's since been removed) experienced a massive wave of cyber-bullying as a result. It's impossible to guess how many of the 900,000 or so who window-shopped but didn't buy might be waiting to see what will happen when the dust settles, but if so they're likely to have a long wait. Each new scrap of news surrounding the ACA is met with howls of right-wing outrage and savage glee; Obama's apology for misspeaking has not sufficed, nor, apparently, his offer to allow the policies currently being cancelled for not meeting ACA minimum standards to continue for another year. Bills introduced by both Democrats and Republicans would do the same. What's ironic is that the ACA, in its current form, was developed with a great deal of input from the insurance lobby, resulting in the complex, 2,000-plus-page bill that required a massive new system instead of single-payer or Medicare for all. The controversial individual mandate section originated in a right-wing think tank in the late 1980s. Also largely forgotten: the rocky launch of George W. Bush's Medicare Part D, which also experienced initial glitches and low numbers back in 2005, and is now wildly popular. Bet Canadians Wish They Had Recall Elections Unsavory revelations about Toronto mayor Rob Ford have come thick and fast over the past week. First a long-rumored video of him smoking crack surfaced. Then came the video of his drunken rant in which he threatened violence against some unidentified adversary. On Wednesday, documents were released that detailed law enforcement concerns about Ford's drugging and drunk driving.
He responded by suggesting that drug use is a commonplace open secret among Toronto's leadership. The council has no legal power to remove a sitting mayor. Ford, who had already built a track record of loathing for things like bike lanes, gay rights and poor folks, was elected in a conservative pushback from suburbanites who felt that "their" Toronto was in danger of becoming too liberal. One wonders how those good suburbanites are feeling now. U.S. citizens in comment threads have repeatedly offered to trade Texas Republican Ted Cruz for Ford, an offer most Canadians don't seem inclined to accept. Toronto's next municipal elections will be held in 2014. 
Poisonous Fruits of War: Soldiers' Crimes at Home We all know war is toxic in the places it's waged. In They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America's Wars, journalist and humanitarian aid worker Ann Jones rips aside the veil of denial about how toxic it is for the invaders, something the mainstream media avoids like the plague, favoring "Support Our Troops" memes instead.
Piecing together crime stories from local news outlets around the country, it became clear to her that returning soldiers are often unable to shed the combat-ready mindset they've been saddled with, leaving them prone to committing further violence. "A lot of them kill their wives or their girlfriends or their children. A lot of them, quite surprisingly to me, kill other soldiers. Many of them kill perfect strangers. And of course a great number of them kill themselves. And then there's the drinking and drugging and all of that that goes on. And I think that the press has been remiss in [not] putting that all together," Jones told Salon magazine's Josh Eidelson. Jones places the blame for all this right where it belongs: on our government's addiction to pointless warfare and the insufficient support systems back home, including mass drugging of veterans with Big Pharma's offerings. The problem is nothing new -- there are 223,000 veterans currently in prison, and 50,000 veterans of World War II were still in psychiatric institutions 20 years later. But with two very long wars winding down, she argues, it's not going to be getting better. 
Veil Thins for the Families of Those Buried in Mass GraveUnbeknownst to the vast majority of New Yorkers, the nondescript Hart Island in Long Island Sound is the largest mass grave in the United States. Gizmodo's feature story on Hart Island, one of New York City's strangest open secrets, published just as Mercury in Scorpio was beginning to trine Neptune and preparing to station direct, with the Sun also in Scorpio -- perfect astrology for news of the dead.
Infants stillborn to grief-stricken (and often poverty-stricken) parents who check off the box for a "city burial" end up here, buried by Department of Corrections inmates who, according to the article, "earn 50 cents an hour digging gravesites and stacking simple wooden boxes in groups of 150 adults and 1,000 infants." But if those parents ever try to find their child's grave, the search can feel futile; there is no official map of gravesites, and many burial records were destroyed in a fire in 1977. Remaining records are in the Municipal Archives in Manhattan or held by the prison system. In response, artist Melinda Hunt initiated The Hart Island Project, a non-profit organization seeking to assist families in their searches, and to shift control of Hart Island from the DOC to the Parks Department. Hunt would like to make it a true public cemetery and park, and in the process of publishing a book about Hart Island in 1998 and helming her non-profit, she has become its most knowledgeable historian and the only real political and legal advocate for the families of those interred there. In 2008, the Hart Island Project was granted 50,000 burial records through a Freedom of Information Act request. The publicity is good news for anyone wondering about the final resting place of a lost loved one in New York -- but publicity is a double-edged sword. As one friend of Planet Waves who lived near Hart Island wrote in, "[I] hope they don't get too much publicity -- developers have always drooled over it. ... but Hart Island, desolate still, an inadvertent bird sanctuary -- maybe not a bad place to be buried, amid the metropolitan hurly burly." 
Swiss Study Points to Arafat PoisoningSwiss scientists have found at least 18 times the normal levels of the radioactive element polonium-210 in Yasser Arafat's bones. They are 83% confident that the late Palestinian leader was poisoned with it -- yet there's no clue who did it.
Samples of his remains were shared by the Swiss team, a French team of judges and forensic experts, and a Russian group invited at the request of the Palestinian National Authority. The University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne announced the findings in a report obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera. The Russians are expected to disclose their results soon; the French are not expected to release their results before the murder investigation concludes. Chief suspects in the poisoning are Arafat's Palestinian rivals. Most point to the Israeli government, which denies it had anything to do with Arafat's sickness or death. No evidence has surfaced implicating Israel, though it had control over all provisions coming in and out of the Palestinian territory. One source told Planet Waves: "At the top has to be the Russians or one of their proteges -- and that is a big circle in which are a lot of Arab/Muslim power players who wanted him out of the way for a multitude of reasons which run the full spectrum." "We can't point a finger at anyone," Suha Arafat, Yasser's widow, said in an interview with Al Jazeera. "The French are conducting a serious investigation. It takes time." 
'Contested Science': Distorting the Truth
When a government or company disagrees about the validity of the results of a scientific study, one way to handle that is to come up with other research that contradicts it, and declare the original study 'contested science'.
'Contested' has been deliberately misused to imply 'invalid'. All a company has to do is say the evidence of its product's harm is 'contested', and the public can -- and does -- assume it is safe. Sometimes this is based on actual research; sometimes it's fabricated. As long as there is a controversy, the purpose of creating doubt is served. This strategy appears to be behind European Union's choice to back GMO crops in Europe. This is significant because the European public has not supposed GMO crops, and has indeed been consistently opposing their use. Anne Glover, the chief science advisor to EU president Manuel Barroso, in September backed a review by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC), saying studies linking GMO crops with serious life-threatening effects on the environment and animal and human health are contested science -- making the leap to the notion that as a result, these crops are actually safe. She suggested EU countries should rethink their bans on GMOs. At the heart of the controversy is a study conducted at the University of Caen in France, published in September 2012, which found that rats fed on a diet containing NK603 -- a maize seed variety doused with Monsanto's Roundup herbicide -- or given water with Roundup at levels permitted in the United States, died earlier than those on a standard diet. The EU food agency's review said the analysis contained in the study, led by biologist Gilles-Éric Séralini, was insufficient and asked for additional evidence to prove that here is really a danger. The one danger that the EU was concerned about is economic -- the "grave scientific, economic and social consequences of current European Union policy towards GM crops," that policy being a ban. Glover then leaped to the conclusion that there is no evidence that GM technologies are any riskier than conventional breeding technologies and this has been confirmed by thousands of research projects," speaking to EurActiv, the official EU public relations agency. Note that the logic here is that the EU government is demanding that the food be proven dangerous rather than having the manufacturer prove that it is safe. Opponents to GMO technology noted that Caen study also received backing from the national science academies of all EU member states, plus Norway and Switzerland. The Caen was called 'contested science' despite the research providing some of the strongest evidence to date of how deadly GMOs are. Caen scientists exposed rats over their entire lifetimes -- not just for 90 days as is typical. The rats were found to be at higher risk of suffering tumors, multiple organ damage and premature death.
In the late 1970s Monsanto scientists produced a series of studies on dioxin, seemingly as independent researchers. Many of Monsanto's chemical processes created dioxin as a byproduct. One was called the Zack-Gaffey study, which concluded that dioxin is not a serious carcinogen. This was dropped into the midst of a debate spurred by vets returning home from Vietnam sick with Agent Orange poisoning, the Love Canal incident and an incident which resulted in the closure of an entire town, Times Beach, Missouri. Though entirely fraudulent, relying on made-up data, the Zack-Gaffey study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, contributing to the idea that dioxin is not so bad. In the early 1990s, the paper industry, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and a New York Times writer and editor conspired to plant a series of stories on the front page which concluded that, despite considerable evidence of dioxin's dangers, the chemical was no more dangerous than sunbathing. This created the illusion of 'contested science' -- though no scientific study was ever conducted that came to that conclusion. It was just the author, Keith Schneider, and his editor at the Times who came up with the idea. How can you spot "contested science?" The easiest way is by following the money -- see if you can figure out who funded the study. Look for the associations of the scientists. Who do they work for, or what entities are on their resume? If the study was done at a university, investigate its history, and especially its directors. Often industry officials and board members of companies sit on the boards of universities and blatantly control the science produced. Examine vested interests -- they usually lead to useful information. 
Typhoon Haiyan Raises Climate Conference's Stakes Nature is sending a message: for the second year in a row the UN Climate Change Conference has coincided with a devastating storm in the South Pacific. Last December, Typhoon Bopha ravaged the Philippines while the UN held its summit in Doha, Qatar. Four days before the start of the 2013 UN climate conference in Warsaw, Poland, another category 5 typhoon hit the Philippines and neighboring countries. Called Yolanda in the Philippines, Typhoon Haiyan was so strong it exceeded the scales used to measure satellite weather intensities.
Typhoon Haiyan made landfall with 195 mile-per-hour winds, pushing a storm surge of water similar to a tsunami onto land. Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at the Weather Underground, told Amy Goodman this week that rising sea levels caused by global warming increased the size of the storm's surge. Warming oceans are also a factor in creating more extreme storms, because the storm systems draw all of their energy from the heat in the ocean. Jamela Alindogan, a reporter for Al Jazeera in the Philippines, described experiencing Haiyan on Democracy Now! Tuesday: "And all of a sudden the entire roof is gone, and we were exposed to this beast, this incredible power that is really unimaginable. The sound is absolutely terrifying. It is horrific. I mean, it's beyond what anybody else could imagine. I have covered armed conflict, but there is nothing like this, nothing as incredible and as scary as covering a natural disaster like Typhoon Haiyan." With poverty in the Philippines as high as 36 percent, the need for food, water and medicine is dire, highlighting the inequities between developed and developing nations that impact their willingness to push for meaningful action on global warming. Naderev "Yeb" Sano of the Philippines Climate Change Commission implored attendees of last year's talks in Doha to take real action. This week, his hometown in ruins after Haiyan, Sano wept openly during his Warsaw address. "The climate crisis is madness. We can stop this madness. Right here in Warsaw." Sano ended his speech with an unscripted pledge: "In solidarity with my countrymen who are struggling to find food back home ... I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate ... I will refrain from eating food during this [conference] until a meaningful outcome is in sight."   Kyle Thompson's website offers more of his other-worldly photos; let them fuel your own imagination.
Pull the Veil Aside and Step Through Have you ever wanted to step into a surreal world and let its hinted-at stories of curious joy and dark-edged mystery take you to strange places within yourself? Try the fantastical self-portraits of Kyle Thompson. Without any formal photography training, the introspective 21-year-old began visiting abandoned houses in the woods two years ago. From those early adventures have grown unreal scenes in quietly real places. It’s no wonder that Thompson’s art went viral as soon as it was posted to the Internet. His early-Aries Moon and an incredible stellium of planets in Capricorn have been enjoying direct contact with the Uranus-Pluto square these two years, and will be for several more. Thompson has a Mars-Ceres-Mercury conjunction in early Cap (his ideas and actions feed each other in structured, technically proficient ways). Also in Capricorn are the North Node, Uranus, Neptune and his Sun. His Self-consciousness (Sun) expresses itself through in these surprising (Uranus), dreamlike (Neptune), technically proficient and composed (Capricorn) photos that are what he was meant to share with the world (North Node). His artistic evolution is one to watch.  Our Scorpio Sky and our Scorpio Son -- Neil Young Link to program. In this week's double edition Planet Waves FM, I cover the current astrology, including Venus passing through the Uranus-Pluto square, the Taurus Full Moon and a look back at Mercury stationing direct. Note, this edition includes the full interview with Paul Gunter of Beyond Nuclear. It is the second audio player on the page. Our musical guest is Neil Young, whose 68th birthday was Tuesday. I read Neil’s natal chart and share some of my responses to his compositions. Neil has Chiron conjunct Jupiter -- this aspect being a gem, focusing the wisdom of Jupiter into a practical, tangible effect. For lots of additional information and resources, including Neil’s chart, please see the full post.  We are happy to offer once again one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All-Access Pass for 2014. The All-Access Pass is for members who want access to everything we offer in a calendar year. In recent years our product line has grown considerably, and the response from our All-Access subscribers has been overwhelmingly positive. You can read about everything that's included with an All-Access pass here. For those who can't get enough Planet Waves astrology, it's an unbeatable value. Plus, if you order now, we'll include the rest of the readings that come out in 2013, and you'll save $100.  Your Monthly Horoscopes -- and our Publishing Schedule Notes The extended monthly horoscope for November was published Friday, Oct. 25. Inner Space for November was published Friday, Nov. 1. Moonshine for the Scorpio New Moon was published Tuesday, Oct. 29. We published Moonshine for the Taurus Full Moon Tuesday, Nov. 12. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space usually publishes the following Tuesday.  Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
 Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
 Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
 Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
 Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
 Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
 Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
  Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
 Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
 Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
 Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
 Looking for an in-depth reading for the coming year? Pre-order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $69 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings (plus bonus articles) that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones).
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