Gestalt #199

H5N1 in water

H5N1 has been found in wastewater, at very high levels, in multiple cities. In at least some cases, this is probably not from farms. It could be coming from food processing centers that receive milk as input and produce various dairy products. That in itself is concerning, although we hope that pasteurization will make the dairy products produced with contaminated milk safe to consume. However, there are other concerns. We don’t know for sure where H5N1 in city wastewater is coming from. At this time, we cannot exclude the possibility that it is coming from infected humans.

Large positive spikes in human wastewater need to be followed through to the source to verify a major spillover event has not gone undetected in the human population as was seen multiple times with COVID-19 where wastewater results were often sentinels for viral circulation in advance of clinical outbreaks.
Moderators JH/TG ProMED. May 18, 2024

There has been at least one proposal to test wastewater from hospitals, but the CDC has prevented this from going forward. Why? Is a major announcement coming, but one under the control of the CDC with assurances that H5N1 infection is “mild”?

If H5N1 is in wastewater, it is also possible that it is in ground water. Cows and other animals poop and pee on the ground. Various milk products may be dumped on the ground. Fluids on the ground will flow down and join rainwater that percolates into ground water. City water is chlorinated, which should kill H5N1. However, the methods used to clean well water vary. People with wells should be warned that their well water should treated sufficiently to kill viruses.

The Phony Civilization

What we call our modern civilization is based on false premises. Almost everything we are told about its basis is false. Most “jobs” have no intrinsic importance. If people stopped doing them, nothing bad would happen. Indeed, fewer resources would be wasted on useless activity. Many of the jobs that are the most important are poorly or inadequately paid: security – law enforcement officers and military personnel; food production – real farmers (not Big Ag), farm workers and meat packers; health care – most health care workers receive far less than they deserve (even doctors are not as well-paid as people think due to the many years of education they undergo before they start receiving a significant income); transportation – truck drivers, railroad workers, flight attendants and even pilots; education – teachers get little, administrators get a lot; and others.

The jobs that are included under the term “essential workers” are the people who are the basis for our civilization. Most everyone else, all the people who work in giant office buildings, are doing nothing of importance. They spend their days doing useless box checking, not knowing that their “jobs” are make-work activities jointly planned by the government and company CEOs. They aren’t really paying taxes because their jobs only exist because the small number of people doing real work are being taxed to pay the entire salaries of the workers with fake jobs.

How can such a system continue to function such that a small number of real (essential) workers support a vast number of fake jobs? I don’t think it can. That is why we have an ever expanding national debt. Many companies would immediately go bankrupt without government subsidies, including, by the way, Big Ag. How then does this end? What is the endgame for all the “nonessential workers”. Are these deemed “nonessential people”?

The road to safety and freedom ends in self-sufficient farms

At the end of the day, you will only be safe if you have your own land, grow your own food, purify your own water and can protect what you have. Good health in these circumstances is essential. Children are your best back up plan for safety should you fall ill. You will have to know a tremendous amount to live self-sufficiently. Education in this world means both book learning and practical skills. This is not only the path to safety, it is the path to freedom. Otherwise you are dependent on individuals and groups who regard you as “nonessential”. Don’t assume these people will put a priority on keeping you alive. Here is a simple question to determine whether or not you are free. Can you afford to say No!, no matter who orders you do something that endangers your life?

Gestalt #106 – Water

Personal needs

We need between 2 – 4 liters of water each day to survive. Dehydration is one of the quickest killers. Further, we need clean water, something we may not always be able to assume is available. Fun fact. The Bronte sisters, authors of such classics as “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” died early, likely because they drank water contaminated by runoff from very public outhouses and the exudates of a nearby graveyard.

There are different ways to secure water. One is to be hooked up to a municipal system which assures you that the water is clean. These assurances are not always accurate. What happens if the power goes out in your area? No water. What happens if there is a problem at the local water sanitation center? Boil orders are becoming increasingly common. What about if your water system is hacked and poisons are added to it? This has actually already happened.

Alternatives to depending on city water include having your own well or cistern. Many people in rural areas depend on wells. If you go this route make sure you get your well water tested regularly. Also probably helpful to have a reverse osmosis system to purify your water. You can get specific filters that will be designed to remove specific contaminates identified in your water. In dry areas, cisterns are an option. I know of one fellow who bought an old milk truck, cleaned the inside thoroughly, dug a trench, buried the container, ran a pipe from his roof water catchment center to the now underground container, had a pump to bring the water to his house and cleaned the water with a reverse osmosis system. He claimed he could collect enough water in one day to last him and his wife one year. He would make sure that he collected the water before the crop dusters were active so that the water be as clean as possible. If you are handy, and have a strong back, look into Earthships. These are homes that can be made with dirt and old tires. They have been designed to use water sparingly. You can find them in New Mexico, not far from Taos.

In an emergency, you may need to depend on surface water. Know where the closest, available to you, surface water is located. Have a plan to clean it. Boiling is a tried and true approach to killing biological contaminants. If you Google “water filters”, a number of options will appear. Do some research and decide which one will work best for you.

National and International needs

Wars in the future may occur due to water shortages. This is completely unnecessary. We live on a water planet. There is plenty of water. We just need to be smart about obtaining and cleaning it.

Parts of Africa experience famines because there is not enough available water for agriculture. There are huge aquifers of water in Africa which could be tapped and would provide plenty of water for agriculture. Failure to develop these resources is a disgrace.

The United States is largely desert. Most of our population is in the non-desert areas.
Los Angeles would be a desert if water wasn’t pumped in from the outside. Watch “Chinatown” for a lesson in what happens to people who ask too many questions about where that water comes from. The Colorado River is being drained dry to provide water to American cities it passes near. Watch the Mexican movie “Sleep Dealer” to see the effects of the various American Colorado River projects on Mexican agriculture.

Fortunately, the North American desert is right next to a huge source of water, the Pacific Ocean. We know how to desalinate ocean water and make it fit for drinking and agriculture. Unfortunately, there are complete idiots stopping this from happening (Poseidon desalination project is rejected, Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2022). Los Angeles is going to dry up and blow away if they don’t get their act together. I know I shouldn’t ask why. “Forget it, Monotreme. It’s Chinatown”, right?

Australia is sensibly building desalination plants. They have to, or they are toast (with or without vegemite).

You know, it would be possible to build really big desalination plants and create really big water pipelines to make many of the world’s desserts bloom. We have the technology. We need the energy. Solar can help and is appropriate. However, to do the really, really big projects I’m thinking of, we need nuclear power, best of all would be fusion power. I’ll write about Energy in a future blog.

Interplanetary water needs

Just for fun.

The Black Swan Lands in Japan – Part 3 – Assessing the risk of environmental contamination

Radioactive fallout from Fukushima is being reported throughout the US. However, the stories in the MSM about this fallout inevitably work in some variant of the word “miniscule” to describe the amounts of radiation being observed. This, despite the fact that levels sometimes exceed the EPA’s “maximum contaminant level”.

Here are some excerpts from a typical story (The Star Adviser, April 12, 2011)

[snip]

Radiation from Japan’s nuclear crisis has reached Hawaii’s food stream in milk from a Big Island dairy, but the trace amounts are nowhere near levels of concern, a state health official said.

“There’s no question the milk is safe,” said Lynn Naka­sone, administrator of the Health Department’s Environmental Health Services Division.

Recent testing showed that milk collected on April 4 in Hilo had 43 picocuries per liter for cesium-134 and 137 combined, and 18 picocuries for iodine-131.

Nakasone said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “derived intervention level” — the point at which steps would be taken to safeguard the public — is 33,000 picocuries for the combined cesium isotopes and 4,700 picocuries for iodine-131.

At that level the sale of affected milk could be stopped, she said.

The Health Department might request another dairy milk sample within the next month or so, as well as sample surface water catchments. Officials also are looking into the possibility of testing leafy green vegetables.

But Nakasone also said the minute levels of radiation detected in Hawaii should decrease as long as there are no additional significant releases from the Fuku­shima reactor complex.

[snip]

McMahon states, and EPA officials confirmed, that the EPA’s “maximum contaminant level” for iodine-131 is 3 picocuries per liter. McMahon noted that a Little Rock, Ark., milk sample was three time higher at 8.9 picocuries and that the Hilo sample was higher yet at 18 picocuries.

What McMahon reported is “technically correct,” Naka­sone said.

“The limits for water as derived by the EPA are totally different from how it’s derived through the FDA,” Naka­sone said. “The EPA is saying (their limit) is over a 70-year period, whereas FDA is more of a short-term duration.”

Using McMahon’s premise, “it’s like drinking two liters of water for 70 years to get their (the EPA’s) limit. So if you extrapolated to milk, you’d have to drink two liters of milk for 70 years to get that limit.”

Siobhan DeLancey, an FDA spokes­woman, confirmed there are differences in the EPA and FDA radiation measurements in any given food.

In toxicology, there is an old saying: The dose makes the poison. So, is the radioactive dose that people are being exposed to in the US dangerous? Before we can address that question, we must first consider what the dose is.

Surprisingly, very little data has been released to the public regarding the amounts of radiation they are being exposed to. Here are a few data points I have been able to collect for the radioactive isotope I-131:

From the EPA:

390 picocuries per liter of rainwater in Boise, Idaho on March 27, 2011.
18 picocuries per liter of milk in Hilo, Hawaii on April 4, 2011.
2.2 picocuries per liter of drinking water in Philadelphia on April 4, 2011.

From: The University of Berkeley Nuclear Engineering Department:

76 picocuries (2.8 ± 0.8 Bq) per kilogram of spinach in Berkeley California on April 8, 2011.
227 picocuries (8.4 ± 0.5 Bq) per kilogram of wild mushrooms in Berkeley California on April 2, 2011

I freely admit to cherry-picking the highest reported levels for each contaminated source. However, I think that can be justified since we are trying to determine whether or not there is any risk as a result of radioactive fallout.

The Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) set by the EPA for milk or water is 3.0 picocuries per liter for I-131. Thus, people in Hawaii who drink milk are being exposed to six times this value from the milk alone. This is a critical point. Milk is likely not the only source of exposure to radioactive fallout in Hawaii. People are also likely drinking it in their water and eating it in their food. What is their total intake of I-131?

No-one knows.

And I-131 is not the only radioactive isotope being ingested. A witches brew of isotopes have been identified in fallout, including Cs-137. The latter is noteworthy because it has a half-life of 30 years. Thus, Americans will likely be exposed to this source of radioactivity for the rest of their lives.

How much Cs-137 is in the milk in Hawaii? 6 times the EPA “maximum contaminant level”. Is that safe?

You be the judge.