Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Two links today at naked capitalism.  First, The dairy farmers who returned to Fukushima's fallout path, at the Guardian:

Namie has become a ghost town. The fields, normally a hive of activity in this season, are deserted. Roads are almost empty, apart from emergency vehicles and a police van that blocks the route into the 16 mile-radius exclusion zone.
Almost all of the 2,000 residents followed government advice to evacuate after the explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant on 15 March, but Sanpei and her husband were among a few dozen farmers who returned, more concerned for their cattle than their personal safety.
"I could hear the cows in my ears mooing. I couldn't sleep. I was so worried," says Sanpei as one of the herd licks her arm. "We came back after a week. Even though the radiation was frightening, when we saw the cows again we had peace of mind."
Back then they were unsure of the risks. At the peak, in the worst affected areas of Namie, residents say radiation levels surged past 150 microsieverts per hour when it rained. But the government did not release data about radioactivity in the area until April.
"The government draws a boundary with a compass from the site of the reactor. But the reality is completely different. The most irradiated areas are in a line heading north-west from the plant. That includes here. But we only realised that in April," says Sanpei.
She now has her own dosimeter. It shows radiation outside her home is 13 microsieverts per hour – 200 times the level in Tokyo and equivalent to having a chest x-ray every four or five hours.

I know dairymen really worry about their cows, but that sounds like a lot of radiation.  I would have considered having the cows put down I think.  Milking them everyday seems nuts.  I still can't imagine having the land poisoned with radiation, that would be soul-crushing.

Second, America's 10 Biggest Constitutional Myths, by Garrett Epps:

The constitutional bosh propounded by charlatans like James J. Kilpatrick during the Civil Rights era was aimed at convincing the nation that racial equality was unconstitutional--instead of being, as the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments make clear, commanded by the amended Constitution. Those arguments live on under the surface of the bilge peddled by figures from Glenn Beck to Tom Coburn.

But the current far-right campaign is aimed at an even broader target: it seeks to convince us that the Constitution somehow forbids the United States from becoming a modern nation-state, with an integrated economy, a rational health-care system, a unified national citizenship, an open electoral process, and a system of bedrock civil and political rights.

This summer, I will be posting a series of short essays on what I consider to be the most dangerous unfounded claims about the Constitution currently floating around the airwaves and legislative halls. Each of us, I suppose, could make his or her own list of constitutional myths. The ones I list below are my top ten. I invite nominations from readers of their own.

Here's his list:

1. Conservatives believe only in "original intent" and others believe in a "living Constitution," meaning whatever they want.
2. The Founders wrote the Constitution to restrain Congress and limit its powers.
3. The "Unitary Executive" means all unclaimed federal power flows away from Congress and to the President.
4. The Constitution does not provide for separation of church and state.
5. Corporations have precisely the same First Amendment rights as natural persons.
6. The Second Amendment was "intended" to make government "fear the people."
7. The Tenth Amendment and state "sovereignty" allow states to "nullify" federal law.
8. The Fourteenth Amendment was written solely to address the situation of freed slaves, and has no relevance today.
9. Election of Senators is unfair and harmful to the states.
10. International law is a threat to the Constitution and must be kept out of American courts.

I find the Constructionist argument to be puzzling.  Did a group of people in the late 18th century not expect changes to be made to the system of governance when the country went from half a continent of wilderness with less than 4 million people, to a continent-wide nation of giant, sprawling cities with 310 million people?  Would folks who hated the East India Company welcome accepting giant corporations as people with the right to "free speech"?  I would expect that those men would be troubled by today's conservatives.  I'll be interested to read more on these 10 "myths."