Posted on 03/15/2011 5:20:23 PM PDT by Do Not Make Fun Of His Ears
The March 11 earthquake off the coast of Japan has been an unprecedented disaster. Now estimated to have been a magnitude 9 earthquake — one of the top five earthquakes measured since reporting started in 1900 — it was the result of a “megathrust [1]” in which an area of sea floor bigger than the state of Connecticut [2] broke free and moved under the force of colliding tectonic plates. It was so strong that it literally moved the entire island of Honshu eight feet to the east. The earthquake was then followed by a tsunami comparable to the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 — but since the epicenter of the quake was only a few miles off the coast of Japan, the tsunami struck the heavily populated coast of Honshu with almost no warning, basically washing many coastal villages off the face of the earth.
The earthquake and tsunami seriously damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi (“number one”) and Daini (“number two”) in Okuma, in Fukushima Prefecture, and also damaged the Onagawa plant in Miyagi Prefecture. In total, of the 55 nuclear power generation plants in Japan, 11 have been forced to shut down, cutting power generation capacity in Japan dramatically and forcing the country to adopt a series of rolling blackouts. It would seem impossible to overstate the severity of the crisis.
(Excerpt) Read more at pajamasmedia.com ...
Rush pointed out today (via soundclip) ABC's Diane Sawyer reporting from Japan about Japanese citizens who were recycling, despite the earthquake and tsunami.
The never-ending global warming hoax propaganda is reason enough (besides the liberals who try to pound it down our throats) to avoid ABC, NBC, et al.
I posed a question on another thread last night. Everyone was tripping all over themselves to come up with nightmare scenario after nightmare scenario, panicking over each new announced development.
Here was my question:
“Okay, show of hands...how many of us here know what the helll we’re talking about, as in, we’re actual nuclear scientists, vs. those who are reacting to the chicken-little media?”
Many admitted that they, like I, were clueless laymen.
Not one nuclear scientist in the bunch.
Good DOSE data ping!
There are people who try to demoralize and frighten the public with bombs; we call them "terrorists."There are also people who try to demoralize and frighten the public with propaganda; we call them "journalists."
You don't need to be a nuclear scientist to become somewhat educated on the situation, and the consequences of it. My hubby, SirKit, has been following this, and has been doing a lot of reading on the subject. He'd been hearing a lot about the LEVELS of radiation to which folks may have been exposed, but nothing about the DOSES represented by those levels. This story gives that information, so that's why I pinged him to this thread.
We were talking about the levels of exposure this evening, and how there are places in the world where the 'background radiation' is fairly high, and folks in those places still don't have people dying of cancer or other radiation related diseases in any larger amounts than anywhere else. It's even possible that small amounts of radiation might be GOOD for people, to encourage activity in their immune systems, but as he said, the anti-nuke people would NEVER believe that, so they keep up the drumbeat and hysteria about how radiation exposure is BAAAAD.
What about right here in the US? Everyone knows, or may be themselves, a person who has endured radiation therapy and an accompanying series of x-rays for the treatment of cancer.
Is that a lot different from low level nuclear accident exposure?
True. One has to keep in mind that this is a moneymaking enterprise, not a service to the public. The more sensational it is, the more hits their outlet gets. And I don’t think that is cynicism speaking. These folks are in a cut-throat business, and they are all losing to the internet.
They are fighting to get some small percentage of a Nielsen rating bump. So, yeah. They are going to sensationalize it.
It is pretty amazing and disconcerting, though. How on earth can they get more sensational than the reality of a 9.0 earthquake, 33 foot high tsunamis (into heavily populated areas of a modern industrialized country) and several prospective nuclear meltdowns.
This is most certainly one of the most historically unbelievable things I have seen in my life. But they are going to try to outdo each other in their coverage. Their guidelines are likely: First to break it. First to update it. Sensationalize it with images and rhetoric. (The false tsunami alert after the smaller quake was an example)
I can see the indignant faces of the media: “How DARE you accuse of of sensationalizing this tragedy? WE are performing a Service.”
There are a few people on FR who are well versed on nuclear power, radiation and such, not like some of the people at places like “Beyond Nuclear” who see the whole issue from one single perspective: It is bad. That’s it.
That is profound CIC. One for the ages.
Great article!
It might be me, having heard the "grave" measured voices of the BBC, London, for my first 23 years, pick up on the delivery of Canadian and American news people. Of course, that old fashioned BBC, grave and carefully intoned voices are all gone now.
What I hear is the controlled, yet vibrant with excitement, of what Rush Limbaugh calls the "info babes". Just me in my very latter years maybe, but I am bolstered by the saying "If it bleeds, it leads".
Back to the post itself. Just not something to be lightly scanned and when I have my morning coffee, I will try to understand the diagrams and get some idea of what those brave people in Japan face.
Let us hope for all of the human race, things will subside and the movers and doers can get to work. The work of reconstruction.
While discussing the run on iodide pills with a liberal today, I asked him how many people died because of Three Mile Island. He answered that he didn't know. Appalling that liberals tend to believe whatever "sky is falling" warnings drilled into their heads by alarmist compliant media.
BTTT
You have to look at some of the posts on this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2689114/posts?q=1&;page=701
They have people in all seriousness talking about nuking the facilities or bombing them.
In all seriousness. Unbelievable.
That is what I am hoping for, too.
Strange.
There seems to be another force at work in people...almost as if there is some kind of macabre fascination with seeing just how bad it can get. Almost as if they are rooting for it to get worse. Additionally, I see there are people who want to see the worst, so it will justify their panic.
This is a strange weathervane for human behavior in a crisis.
Much of it depends on how long one is IN the area of the higher radiation levels, and how much of a dose is received.
Yes, yes and yes.
But all those numbers can all be determined. I don’t happen to know what they are.
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