Any Bets on What the Quake Costs US Taxpayers?

It sure is terrible. Those poor workers . There is a slim chance that some fallout could make it to the US if it stays dry and enough is produced in the first place . It would not start to show up until about next Saturday . Rain is predicted over the North Pacific so none may ever turn up but never say never . Cesium will not make it it's too heavy
 
I like Al's referenced article. One person sick from radiation, and one dead from a crane. I guess everybody forgets that 65 years ago, they sent untold millions to their deaths, killing untold millions more. I used to have a father who was in the pacific during that period, and I can tell ya that to his dying breath, he had no sympathy for that society. Course, he wasn't peticalarly fond of Germans either, truth be told.

A good article about early warning systems, and what's being done in the US for this stuff. Purtty kewl sticking accelerometers in notebooks as a huge group seismic activity system.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation...thquake-How-Tokyo-got-an-80-second-head-start
 
Sensationalistic journalism drives 80% of the "decisions" made by the American voting populace. I've got a sister with 7yrs college who'll argue that "facts" are perceptual!!

and believe it.

Of course she and her husband are, umm, not conservatives. They are morose, sour, negative and filled with pain and suffering.

and it's not their fault

poor workers



al
 
Our government would never lie to any of us just ask an indian.

With the exception of a few ships on the bottom, of the ocean everything on earth is now polluted from radioactive fallout.Before we send a satellite into orbit they send divers down to retrieve non-affected metal to use in its guidance system.

Had the japanese had a very large holding tank uphill from the nuclear facilities a simple twist on a valve would have prevented everything that has gone wrong to date.Gravity still works when your power is out or your diesel fuel gets fouled shutting down your water supply.It all boils down to saving money cutting corners and making a huge profit.If a few of us little people die in the process thats okay as we will soon be forgotten and replaced.
Lynn
 
"You don't get your water for morning coffee downstream from the Latrines"

And, it would seem that common sense would dictate that you do not build a Nuclear Power Plant on the most active fault line on the Planet.

But, is there a spot in Japan that does not have major earthquakes?? A modern 1st World Society needs energy, and since Japan imports every drop of oil it uses, I suspect the Nuclear option is the best option.

What about France? I think that they generate about 75 percent of their power with Nuclear. Have they ever had an accident of note. Do you think they have plans to start dismantling their units. I doubt it.

Of course, we in the USA will panic, throw the baby out with the bath water, and keep saying that the answer is Wind and Power. Stupid ass media types and equally stupid polititians will see to that.

They never stop and do the math to see just how many windmills and solar panels it will take to even satisfy 1/10 of our energy needs.

Let's face it. What happenned in Japan will affect the entire World for the foreseeable future. We might as well get ready for it..........jackie
 
I used to have a father who was in the pacific during that period, and I can tell ya that to his dying breath, he had no sympathy for that society.
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Interesting. I used to have a father, too, and he spent WWII in the occupied Philippines, having to evac before MacArthur started to make good on his promise to return. He saw and participated in bad, bad things and was forever scarred, physically and emotionally, by that war. You have to know that a six foot tall man who comes out of the jungle weighing just a tick over 100 pounds has been through hell.

Yet, for all the savagery he had witnessed, he had a completely different view of the Japanese. In his view, they fought with everything they had while they were at war, just as good soldiers should. Then, when the Emperor told them to lay down arms, they did. There was no post-surrender spite directed towards the occupying forces. He spent a great deal of time stationed in Tokyo and considered that the many Japanese he dealt with displayed an honorable deference to their conquerors. He likened their behavior to the best sort of southern U.S. good manners.

They were defeated. They knew it. And they acted like it. He respected them for that and was highly intolerant of his many peers who held a grudge. (Though, to be fair, he was willing to admit that if he had been Chinese or if he had been captured, he would probably be unable to be so generous in his outlook.)

It's interesting to me how history, both in textbooks and in the family, echoes down through the years. Clearly, different men take different views of wars past, both then and now.

And just to offer something on-topic - I'm finding that the Japan disaster coverage on BoingBoing.net is exemplary. They link out to lots of good sources. Here's a particularly good section on finding responsible, accurate coverage of the nuclear plant problems (as opposed to the dubiously accurate, typically ax-grinding crap that usually passes for news in the mainstream media): http://www.boingboing.net/2011/03/14/japanese-nuclear-pla.html#comments
 
Well out here in the peoples republic of Caaaallllleeeefffoorrnnnniaa iodine tablets whicgh cost $1 each are now selling for $12 each and you can't get any anywhere.The news stations are reporting it is crazy to take them becauuse they do absolutely nothing and the Japanese are asking that we send them to Japan? Something doesn't sound right to me.If they work in Japan you would think they would work here as well?

Jackie you don't drink downstream from the latrine but when you have 4 reactors now melting down and the lone US Carrier has been moved farther away due to the radiation fallout a twist valve on a holding tank/pond/dam and gravity feed isn't a bad idea.
Lynn
 
One would be foolish to arbitrarily take potassium iodide tablets without a verified risk as the iodine in your system can interfere with medical tests, especially related to thyroid. If by chance you developed thyroid cancer the iodine in the tablet, which goes to the thyroid, would block treatment with radioactive iodine which is used to treat and actually cure many thyroid cancers. Ready, shoot, aim is usually not the best policy.
 
I am just reporting what is factually happening right now.The fact that the tablets are available over the counter without a prescription just like rubbing alcohol tells me volumes.
Lynn
 
Lynn,

Not accusing you of hoarding tablets:D. Makes me remember a "toilet paper" shortage scare several years ago. Was in a Target or Wall Mart in checkout behind several families buying a case or two at a time. Now I'm not a Sheryl Crow "use one square per setting(or is it sitting?)" but I'm sure I have enough near new catalogs around to tide me over.
 
Well you machinists may want to stock up on Prussion Blue, it too can be used to treat some Radiation sicknesses.
 
Japenese Disaster Recovery Cost

The Japenese are very smart and industrious culure. They learned a valuable lesson during WWI and since have been one of Americas strongest alies. You can't pay for the lives lost but the Japenese repaid their WWI war debt and are one of the only countries who has. Natural disasters are going to happen and as the strongest country in the world we need to set and example and do what we can for the Japenese. This will be money and resourses well spent. Not like what we have spent on many other 3rd world hell holes.
Nat Lambeth
 
Butch Lambert said:
I've not heard of any stealing or looting.
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I subscribe, for reasons entirely outside the scope of this discussion or this site, to mailing lists that originate in Japan.

As far as I've been able to determine, there has been no stealing and no looting. In fact, I read one eyewitness account of a shopping center where most of the patrons ran outside during the quake with their carts, including whatever merchandise was in them. Then, when the shaking stopped, they all filed back in to pay for those items.

Japan is surely different from the U.S.
 
Benenglish, any time something out of the ordinary happens in The United States, whether it be a natural disaster or a team winning a championship, certain groups riot, loot, burn buildings, and act like animals.

There seems to be none of this is Japan.

I wonder what is so different about our populations that compells this type of behavior...........jackie
 
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Lack of looting in Japan

They have an Emperor. Their law includes the use of the sword. No repeat offenders.

The have never hear of the English Comon law, Pealian Reform or a constitution.

nat
 
jackie schmidt said:
Benenglish, any time something out of the ordinary happens in The United States, whether it be a natural disaster or a team winning a championship, certain groups riot, loot, burn buildings, and act like animals.

There seems to be none of this is Japan.

I wonder what is so different about our populations that compells this type of behavior...........jackie
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I listen to Lynn Samuels on Sirius Radio #146 from 1 to 3:00 M-F, whenever I can. She is a very Gusty old Gal and is neither Left or Right. She made a statement the other day that summed up why there is no looting in Japan. She Screamed out, at the top of her vocal range,"It's because they are all Japanese!" There are very few ethnically diverse folks in the Japanese society. They, pretty much, are all the same. Yes, they have criminals but those folks seem to be involved in activities to make money, not steal Chump Change stuff.

I lived near Tokyo off an on from 1964 through Oct of 1966. I became interested in their society and learned to speak their language to some degree. In a social setting, they are the most respectful and gracious people on earth I believe but on the street, trying to get into an eleavator or train, LOOK OUT! All the civility is gone in that situation. If one looks at that aspect, there are so dern many of them in that little place they have to operate that way or they would never get anywhere!

They do respect others rights and property though and from what I heard there, one of their prisons was not a place anyone wanted to be. They don't seem to have a problem with an ACLU or those sort of issues.
 
Rustystud said:
They have an Emperor. Their law includes the use of the sword. No repeat offenders.

The have never hear of the English Comon law, Pealian Reform or a constitution.

nat
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They do have a constitution, which was written after the WAR. How I happen to know that is we were told " In their constitution, nuclear weapons are forbidden in their country" We practiced with Dummies and had the real stuff in South Korea.

There Emperor is in the same sort of position the Royal Family in GB is, from what I saw there. They are governed by a body more like Parlament than what we have.

I don't know intimate details of that stuff but remember things being like I just discribed.
 
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