Quake Rocks Japan

[SD]

Godzilla is on his way next

[Diomedes]

Anyone heard about the looting going on down there?

Oh right, there is none.

Unless you count stealing hearts around the world.  F'n well organized well behaved civilized people over there when push comes to shove.

[Eagaholic]

You know, you can get a ticket for that

[Diomedes]

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/03/12/quake.response/#

In the U.S., we send nuclear powered war boats to help tsunami victims.  I don't know how fighter jets can help these poor people, but yay America? 

The same people who crow about this awe inspiring response, which could obviously be accomplished for a lot less money than sending a goddamn nuclear war airport, are waging war on teachers, nurses, and any other worker bold enough to ask for fair treatment.

Cut the goddamn military.

[PhillyGirl]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12725646

[MDS]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12725646

sweet jesus

any time people think we own this planet they need to see that video.

[QB Eagles]

Notice that when things do go wrong, like in Three Mile Island or in this Japanese situation.... no one actually dies

You are basing this assumption on what, exactly?

TMI has been well-studied. Based on a conservative assumption about the (still not well understood) health effects of very low-dose radiation, there could be one excess cancer death worldwide as a result of what happened there. The Japanese situation could still change, but given what I know about how the plants operate, what I know about what has happened to the plants, and the expertise of the Japanese nuclear community, I'd be very surprised if this turned into something that affected the public (other than the lost electricity). I have a masters degree in nuclear engineering and have been working exclusively on reactor protection for over five years now, so I have some understanding of what is happening in those plants. I am not interested in being a shill for any industry though... my motivation is to help other people understand what is going on, and I'd do the same if what was going on was a lot worse. This is a condition that is literally getting better by the hour as the most radioactive parts of the core decay into safer isotopes. Remember that these cores have been shut down since the earthquake.

There were some people who died at the plants, not because of any accident or nuclear event, but because they got hit by a farging tsunami. It's actually pretty damn impressive the condition the plant is in, while they are stacking bodies like cord wood right down the street. In fact, if they had to, they might have been able to keep the plant running were it not for the loss of external grid power (due to washed away power lines), which powers the plant's pumps. There are probably some very heroic individuals who have been working at the power station these last few days.

But this ignores the potential damage of a failed coal plant vs the catastrophic consequences of a nuclear meltdown, which is like comparing a space shuttle to a spitball. Btw, the pollution caused by even a dirty coal plant at any given time will be cleared from the atmosphere within months. The half life of uranium-235 is 700 million years (meaning that if a kilo of U-235 is washed out into the environment, dispersed into the atmosphere etc., in 700 million years there will still be a half a kilogram left of radioactive U-235. A least it's not like U-238, which has a half life of 4.5 billion years. That would be a bummer of an accident.

You have it exactly backwards. Long half-lives mean that the substance is much less radioactive (as in, it takes much longer to decay because it releases fewer radioactive particles). Uranium is quite safe for anything other than ingestion. You can safely hold it and you probably have a lot more of it around you than you think. It becomes much more dangerous when it decays into radon, which has a half-life on the order of a few days, and which is an imperceptible gas that you can breathe in.

The most problematic isotopes in nuclear accidents (or bombs) are cesium-137 and strontium-90. They both have half lives around 30 years. That's long enough to hang around, but short enough to still be intensely radioactive. And biologically, both elements get taken up into the body and kept there. But even with this nasty stuff, low doses are okay.

You may have heard about some venting of radioactive gas. That stuff is from the coolant and isn't so bad, especially when dispersed in the atmosphere. The meltdown potential is more serious because that's how things like cesium and strontium break out of the fuel rods. But right now, these reactor cores still have shielding and containment around them. They aren't throwing that shtein all over the area like Chernobyl did.

[Don Ho]

Anyone heard about the looting going on down there?

Oh right, there is none.

Unless you count stealing hearts around the world.  F'n well organized well behaved civilized people over there when push comes to shove.

That is exactly what the Mrs. and I were saying.  They showed people standing in a line for water that looked endless.  Complete calm and order. 

I did get pissed watching a clip from Good Morning America.  The woman doing the news said "Fighting in the streets is breaking out in Hawaii" as the tsunami warning was in effect.  Hardly.  Very impressed with how everyone reacted.  I was at the local Longs Drugs loading up on the essentials that night and people were helping elderly and women with young kids load their carts with cases of bottled water. There was not one reported incident of any kind of violent reactions.

[MDS]

is this conversation a thinly veiled racist shot at black people from new orleans?

[hbionic]

at 2:09 on the right side of the screen....

something big and fast is all....CEEEYAAA!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cwPf5tbcB8&feature=related

Russian or U.S. UFO that had to get out with the quickness. I think U.S. uses both black and gray UFO technology. Russia is only beginning to use black.

[phillymic2000]

Its a helicopter shadow.

[hbionic]

Its a helicopter shadow.

...that appears out of nowhere.

[phillymic2000]

Its a helicopter shadow.

...that appears out of nowhere.

here is the zoomed out view and you can clearly see its a helicopter.

[hbionic]

link?

[Don Ho]

OK George Noory.