Yum, Yum, Tritium, Oil and Pops! Funko, Fukushima, and Space Force Dumping!

Japan, like you, Vietnam has thought it best to forget the past. But, they beat the Americans! You lost, and lost badly. Now, will your people forgive & forget high price of nuclear dumping?

Kinda makes the reported dumping of ‘pops’ by Funko less severe compared to Fukushima. According to Waste 360, “To combat financial woes and save on storage costs, Funko is about to dump $30 million worth of Pops! in a landfill.”

How bad is it? “The collectable toy company, Funko, just released its 2022 financial report and the numbers aren’t looking so good.” Not new. Reportedly its 2017 IPO didn’t do so hot – shares fell almost 50%. Dumping of pops? Little to no outrage. Right, it’s an American company.

Yep, looks like you’re the West’s perfect scapegoat. Especially to take the focus off of US oil spills. Air Force Times reports: “The Space Force said a power surge during a lightning storm likely caused a mechanical issue…”

Hmm, Japan, perhaps you should have waited on the dumping till ‘a lightning storm’ struck Fukushima plant. Instead, you got a visit from US Ambassador Rahm Emanuel. Says “Clinton’s chief of staff, Erskine Bowles, “He gets things done.” Question is what things?

Rahm, Bloomberg points to your “highlighting the high youth-unemployment rate” in China. Concerned for youth? Emanuel, as former Mayor of Chicago, what of America’s high youth crime rate? Not just the windy city but the ‘sunshine’ State of California where city scum is now given carte blanche by their ‘legal’ system. 

Not your concern? May explain “The Sudden But Well Deserved Fall of Rahm Emanuel.” Mr. Ambassador, you speak of transparency? This ‘truth and trust,’ how that work for you at the City? Case in point: “McDonald’s family had been paid five million dollars from city coffers without ever having filed a lawsuit.”

So did you chalk up the youth’s death as one of many “noncriminal deaths?” Recall, “Chicago magazine that blew the mayor’s claims about Chicago’s supposedly declining homicide rates out of the water, too. (One method: categorizing homicide victims as “noncriminal deaths.”)

As a politician, it’s not surprising you speak of ‘transparency.’ But as Ambassador to Japan, it’s expected you know of their long history of commitment to “Honor.” Difficult or nearly impossible “In a world where truth and trust are” are rare.

Americans have long learned of not taking politicians at their word. “Don’t listen to what they say, Watch what they do.” Especially in times of crisis.

A Chinese proverb reads, “A crisis is an opportunity riding a dangerous wind.”

Speaking of waste and crisis, Rahm Emanuel is said to have stated, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste…it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” So tell us Rahm, visiting Japan, what did you do?

Mr. Ambassador, The Hill says you ate Japanese “sushi.” Like to see you feed that ‘fresh fish’ you got from Fukushima to your family. Yum, Yum, Tritium! 😉

Tritium, the Nuclear “Tasmanian Devil”?

So why are these ‘dumpings’ important now? You see, when nature or manmade disasters strike, people’s attention gets redirected, and understandably so.

And what ends up happening is that important public projects and policies in the works get conveniently put on the back burner or permanently dumped. Executing what I see as the ‘Disaster-Distraction Principle’ (DDP). Right, the Chinese and the Ambassador appear to have alluded to that.

Market fluctuations follow geopolitical events, especially those which hit hard and fast which in turn change the dynamics of the economy. Governments and private sectors, especially up and rising start-ups, best to keep the view fluid on a SWOT analysis.

Ironically, it’s also an ideal time to put into practice short and long term schemas. M&As which in ‘normal’ times federal agencies would call into question (DOJ, FCC, FTC, etc.) are overlooked or given the ‘green light.’ Recall BigPharma at the start of the pandemic?

Sure, Antitrust and BigTech is a favorite of the Feds. But what of those companies whose practices actually endanger the lives of the public?

In my January paper earlier this year, U.S. Mining for “Clean” Green Energy or Tritium Nuclear “Tasmanian Devil”?, I note that as the focus has been on the booms of Ukraine-Russia, countries and corporations are building or rebuilding nuclear reactor plants.

In the interim, reports of toxic chemicals and nuclear waste dumped from US, Canada and European countries in India, Asia, Africa, and South America are ongoing. Recall the dead fish surfacing in south France and Spain?

Was it caused by “pollution from intensive agriculture in the area” or the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor? ITER is reported to be an experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor situated at Cadarache Center, southeast of France.

My green friends, critique of dumping by oil companies as other industries is to be expected. But, your condemnation of the fossil fuel industry conveniently overlooks the continuing trend via extraction of minerals from mines or Technology-Critical Elements (TCEs).

But I warn you. You can’t have your smartphone and EV and turn a blind eye on what gives them power. Kinda like that power that not only brings your gadgets to life but that warms or cools you and in crisis keeps you alive. 🙂      

And yet, with all the oil drilling and elements excavation, talk of the dangers of ubiquitous nuke plants gets lost. Recall the 2011 public news release of “Radioactive tritium leaks found at 48 US nuke sites,”?

Yep, more bad pipes. Seems an engineer in the industry blew the whistle, “You got pipes that have been buried underground for 30 or 40 years, and they’ve never been inspected, and the NRC is looking the other way,” says engineer Paul Blanch.”

CEOs seem to be ok with rusty and toxic pipes. For “Exelon …piping problems are just a fact of life.” Well, what’s also a fact of life are M&A’s and “spin-off” scum companies that pass their shit to others. Seems Exelon merged in 2012 with Constellation Energy Corporation only to spin off in 2022. And so it appears that the so called energy corporation is no more. Hmm, I guess it just went down the pipe 🙂  

My green friends, how do white collar criminals “get away with murder” of blue collar working people? No surprise, the answer is as old as their corrosive pipes.

“Like rust under a car, corrosion has propagated for decades along the hard-to-reach, wet underbellies of the reactors — generally built in a burst of construction during the 1960s and 1970s…the AP uncovered evidence that despite government and industry programs to bring the causes of such leaks under control, breaches have become more frequent and widespread.”

Irony, if not a farce, is that companies like Energy Fuels, Exelon, and Constellation Energy Corporation AND Government so called Regulators claim to be “helping to produce in the U.S. the materials for many clean energy and advanced ..”

Farce of green energy or green dollars? Actually, it’s the “strategic alternative.” Toxic Nuclear Dumpers parading with clean energy slogans. It’s that simple.

Japan, US, and Mr. Ambassador, you’re busted. Don’t cry. Help yourself to ‘yummy’ pops!  🙂