My lead today comes from the New York Times. The Japanese nuclear reactors are back in the news. Is this because someone just woke up to the presence of these purveyors of impending doom? Or is it more hype? The stories are here and here.
First, though, I would like to update the story about the Afghani protest of the burning of the Koran by Gainesville, FL pastor Terry Jones.
Short story, they are still rioting in Afghanistan – here, "Afghanis burn Obama in effigy"; here, "Eight killed in another Afghan protest"; and in the Christian Science Monitor, here. Amongst all this turmoil, Terry Jones remains completely unrepentant – and I completely agree that he should. The Christian Science Monitor, (which I don't read enough to be aware of any editorial bias), tries to explain why soldiers killing Afghanis for "sport," (and taking pictures with the bodies), hasn't sparked as much discord as the Koran burning has. They fail miserably, beginning with the fact they don't have any evidence to support their assertion that any soldiers killed any Afghanis for 'sport'.
But the real story remains Terry Jones. Jones is suffering world wide scorn for his burning of a Koran. For burning a book. I could see if it was the only copy of the Koran. I could see it if it was a highly valuable book. But it wasn't. It was just another book that you can buy at Amazon for $7.95. So what is the big deal with burning this book?
Obviously, they have a great deal of reverence for this book and scorn for those who burn it. Maybe that's it. Or is this the simple reaction of simple children railing against something their pathological parents tell them to? Or, perhaps, they are superstitious enough to believe burning this book has some, actual spiritual or physical sequelae? Or, are they just looking for a reason to start burning things and killing people?
The last sounds absurd, but I am no longer discounting it.
I may not understand, completely, the nuances involved here. However, I am beginning to think the Imams who start these protests do so to promote their own agendas. And their followers have, at best, very poor impulse control and are easily provoked to start killing people. Then, somehow the Imams manage to turn their violence around and make it America's fault. Because, after all, this big, mean, evil gray haired pastor insulted them. And that, in Islam, is a capital crime.
If this is so, why do they only kill themselves and people who come to help them?
Jones position – his earlier plans to burn Korans was roundly rejected by a variety of church groups, (including 'worldwide' Baptists) – is, at best, annoying. At worst, it is bigoted. At this point, though, I think it is time for everybody to pull back and realize, as I said before, that the real threats here are the Imams encouraging the protests, violence and murders in response to the burning of a copy of a book, (aka, a collection of paper bound into a book with some cardboard and a little glue). Not Terry Jones.
And certainly not because Terry Jones exercised his freedom of speech. Jones has hurt no one. The protests have, in various accounts, killed up to 20 people. Mr. Jones has not advocated violence. Nor have his followers become violent. Nor, most likely, will they ever become violent.
Afghan president Karzai feels empowered by the political upheaval surrounding this protest to demand that Jones be punished for actions defiling this book – a statement that directly challenges the sovereignty of the United States of America.
So, I've got to ask myself, who's the bad guy here? I mean, who isn't acting rationally? Who's killing people?
Terry Jones may be a lot of things, but he most definitely is not the 'bad guy' in this case. He is an American exercising his constitutional right to free speech in a peaceful manner. It is, to be sure, a controversial matter he is discussing, but his speech is, none-the-less, protected by the Constitution of the U.S. And it is time for all Americans – no matter how much they disagree with what he says or how much they agree with the protestors – to stand up for their freedom of speech. Because, if we let this one go by and don't speak up, there may not be another time that we can.
Coincidentally, this sounds like good reason for NATO, particularly the US, to pull out and leave the Afghanis to their own devices. Not owing them anything, we have done what we could at the cost of the lives of scores of our children and at the cost of our treasure. The time to leave is long past.
Now, back to Japan... Meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi?
The New York Times' first piece posits that they only way we know what is happening inside the reactors is from computer simulations developed after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. It points out that it was three years before a camera could be lowered into the partially melted core of the reactor at Three Mile Island and they could actually see the damage. And determine whether their computer models were accurate. Three years. Until then, we are left with computer models to tell us what might be happening in the affected reactors in Fukushima Daiichi.
I don't know about you, but this doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The Times follows up with another piece stating that a total of 7 workers have been killed at the reactor site in Fukushmi. The most recently discovered bodies were of two TEMPCO employees found in the basement of the plant. The press describes these men has having died of exsanguinating trauma during the earthquake/tsunami and not from radiation. No particular evidence is provided to support this conclusion and, given that it comes from a spokeperson for TEPCO, I think we have to take it with a grain of salt. These men, allegedly, died while trying to save the plant. [Or trying to figure out who the dipshit was that put auxillary generators in the basement of a nuclear reactor built on a coastal flood plain in an area prone to earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis.] The remaining deaths were of contractors, not employees of TEPCO. The article leads one to believe the Japanese press thinks less of the TEPCO contractors than they do of the TEPCO employees.
In the same piece, Hidehiko Nishiyama, [He doesn't currently have an entry on Wikipedia, but wait a couple of days.], who is the director general of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, admitted that the reactor was discharging highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean and they had not been able to staunch the flow. This is a carry over of earlier reports of the same situation, yesterday. Nishiyama revealed very little in this piece in the Times about how much radioactivity has been released into the ocean.
Nishiyama did admit that the increased levels of radiation in seawater was possibly the result of a leak at the damaged plant. Fishing has been banned in a 19 mile radius of the malfunctioning plant. Higher than normal levels of radiation have been detected up to 25 miles south of the damaged reactor.
Goshi Hosono, (his Wikipedia entry fails to disclose much about him, other than to say he is a Japanese politician), TEPCO's link with Japaness government said they "hoped" to reduce the amount of radiation coming from the affected reactors in several months.
Uncharacteristic protests have arisen against TEPCO and the government's handling of the accident. The possibility of government takeover of TEPCO has been discussed.
Several articles are linked to in the SideBar of the first NYTimes piece.
The New York Daily News has a compendium of articles about the reactor accidents here.
I have to admit that I am speechless about a lot of what is going on. I took a class in college about nuclear reactors. Looking back, I realize the class was a puff piece put out by the Pacific, Gas and Electricity company, (hilariously referred to as "Pigs, Goats & Elephants" or "Pacific Graft & Extortion" at the time), to promote their plans to build another reactor on the California coast.
The class made nuclear energy sound cheap and plentiful. Clean wasn't a very big issue in the '70's. They didn't really say what they were going to do with the spent fuel rods or the thermal pollution of the ocean where the reactor vented hot water. Maybe I wasn't paying attention. Actually, I must not have been paying attention; because I was in support of it then. Ah, to be 18 again.
The things is, nuclear power plants – at their most base level, excluding spent fuel rods – are actually safe. At least, on paper. The fact these reactors functioned without a problem for nearly 40 years is evidence of that. The plants are not as cheap as one was led to believe in the '70's when they first started building them, but, compared to the cost of comparable fossil fuel plants and amortization over what was perceived as the long lives of these plants, made them seem practical.
The problem is, when they work, they work well. The issue of spent fuel rods was dealt with onsite and it worked well, too. Until something went wrong. And then,it didn't work at all and disaster ensued. The small problems - like putting the generators in the basement of a building on a coastal flood plain – come back to bite the Japanese in the ass. And this is not a tabby cat biting you, this is a grizzly bear mauling you.
Once the bear starts mauling you, there is nothing you can do to stop it. Your best opportunity to survive is luck. You just have to do your best to protect yourself and ride it out. You might live or you might not.
These reactors are like grizzly bears. Most of the time they wander aimlessly through the night producing kilowatts of cheap power. When they do bite you, they never let go. Never in a billion years. A mauling victim, if they survive, will recover. These reactors will not. Potentially for billions of years.
Think about that the next time your congress person or senator thinks it is a good idea to give permits and subsidies to energy companies to build these monstrosities. It is not a matter if they will come back and and bite us on the ass; it is only a matter of when they will bite us on the ass. Even if we get away alive, in terms of human history, we will never recover...
First, though, I would like to update the story about the Afghani protest of the burning of the Koran by Gainesville, FL pastor Terry Jones.
Short story, they are still rioting in Afghanistan – here, "Afghanis burn Obama in effigy"; here, "Eight killed in another Afghan protest"; and in the Christian Science Monitor, here. Amongst all this turmoil, Terry Jones remains completely unrepentant – and I completely agree that he should. The Christian Science Monitor, (which I don't read enough to be aware of any editorial bias), tries to explain why soldiers killing Afghanis for "sport," (and taking pictures with the bodies), hasn't sparked as much discord as the Koran burning has. They fail miserably, beginning with the fact they don't have any evidence to support their assertion that any soldiers killed any Afghanis for 'sport'.
But the real story remains Terry Jones. Jones is suffering world wide scorn for his burning of a Koran. For burning a book. I could see if it was the only copy of the Koran. I could see it if it was a highly valuable book. But it wasn't. It was just another book that you can buy at Amazon for $7.95. So what is the big deal with burning this book?
Obviously, they have a great deal of reverence for this book and scorn for those who burn it. Maybe that's it. Or is this the simple reaction of simple children railing against something their pathological parents tell them to? Or, perhaps, they are superstitious enough to believe burning this book has some, actual spiritual or physical sequelae? Or, are they just looking for a reason to start burning things and killing people?
The last sounds absurd, but I am no longer discounting it.
I may not understand, completely, the nuances involved here. However, I am beginning to think the Imams who start these protests do so to promote their own agendas. And their followers have, at best, very poor impulse control and are easily provoked to start killing people. Then, somehow the Imams manage to turn their violence around and make it America's fault. Because, after all, this big, mean, evil gray haired pastor insulted them. And that, in Islam, is a capital crime.
If this is so, why do they only kill themselves and people who come to help them?
Jones position – his earlier plans to burn Korans was roundly rejected by a variety of church groups, (including 'worldwide' Baptists) – is, at best, annoying. At worst, it is bigoted. At this point, though, I think it is time for everybody to pull back and realize, as I said before, that the real threats here are the Imams encouraging the protests, violence and murders in response to the burning of a copy of a book, (aka, a collection of paper bound into a book with some cardboard and a little glue). Not Terry Jones.
And certainly not because Terry Jones exercised his freedom of speech. Jones has hurt no one. The protests have, in various accounts, killed up to 20 people. Mr. Jones has not advocated violence. Nor have his followers become violent. Nor, most likely, will they ever become violent.
Afghan president Karzai feels empowered by the political upheaval surrounding this protest to demand that Jones be punished for actions defiling this book – a statement that directly challenges the sovereignty of the United States of America.
So, I've got to ask myself, who's the bad guy here? I mean, who isn't acting rationally? Who's killing people?
Terry Jones may be a lot of things, but he most definitely is not the 'bad guy' in this case. He is an American exercising his constitutional right to free speech in a peaceful manner. It is, to be sure, a controversial matter he is discussing, but his speech is, none-the-less, protected by the Constitution of the U.S. And it is time for all Americans – no matter how much they disagree with what he says or how much they agree with the protestors – to stand up for their freedom of speech. Because, if we let this one go by and don't speak up, there may not be another time that we can.
Coincidentally, this sounds like good reason for NATO, particularly the US, to pull out and leave the Afghanis to their own devices. Not owing them anything, we have done what we could at the cost of the lives of scores of our children and at the cost of our treasure. The time to leave is long past.
Now, back to Japan... Meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi?
The New York Times' first piece posits that they only way we know what is happening inside the reactors is from computer simulations developed after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. It points out that it was three years before a camera could be lowered into the partially melted core of the reactor at Three Mile Island and they could actually see the damage. And determine whether their computer models were accurate. Three years. Until then, we are left with computer models to tell us what might be happening in the affected reactors in Fukushima Daiichi.
I don't know about you, but this doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The Times follows up with another piece stating that a total of 7 workers have been killed at the reactor site in Fukushmi. The most recently discovered bodies were of two TEMPCO employees found in the basement of the plant. The press describes these men has having died of exsanguinating trauma during the earthquake/tsunami and not from radiation. No particular evidence is provided to support this conclusion and, given that it comes from a spokeperson for TEPCO, I think we have to take it with a grain of salt. These men, allegedly, died while trying to save the plant. [Or trying to figure out who the dipshit was that put auxillary generators in the basement of a nuclear reactor built on a coastal flood plain in an area prone to earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis.] The remaining deaths were of contractors, not employees of TEPCO. The article leads one to believe the Japanese press thinks less of the TEPCO contractors than they do of the TEPCO employees.
In the same piece, Hidehiko Nishiyama, [He doesn't currently have an entry on Wikipedia, but wait a couple of days.], who is the director general of Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, admitted that the reactor was discharging highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean and they had not been able to staunch the flow. This is a carry over of earlier reports of the same situation, yesterday. Nishiyama revealed very little in this piece in the Times about how much radioactivity has been released into the ocean.
Nishiyama did admit that the increased levels of radiation in seawater was possibly the result of a leak at the damaged plant. Fishing has been banned in a 19 mile radius of the malfunctioning plant. Higher than normal levels of radiation have been detected up to 25 miles south of the damaged reactor.
Goshi Hosono, (his Wikipedia entry fails to disclose much about him, other than to say he is a Japanese politician), TEPCO's link with Japaness government said they "hoped" to reduce the amount of radiation coming from the affected reactors in several months.
Uncharacteristic protests have arisen against TEPCO and the government's handling of the accident. The possibility of government takeover of TEPCO has been discussed.
Several articles are linked to in the SideBar of the first NYTimes piece.
The New York Daily News has a compendium of articles about the reactor accidents here.
I have to admit that I am speechless about a lot of what is going on. I took a class in college about nuclear reactors. Looking back, I realize the class was a puff piece put out by the Pacific, Gas and Electricity company, (hilariously referred to as "Pigs, Goats & Elephants" or "Pacific Graft & Extortion" at the time), to promote their plans to build another reactor on the California coast.
The class made nuclear energy sound cheap and plentiful. Clean wasn't a very big issue in the '70's. They didn't really say what they were going to do with the spent fuel rods or the thermal pollution of the ocean where the reactor vented hot water. Maybe I wasn't paying attention. Actually, I must not have been paying attention; because I was in support of it then. Ah, to be 18 again.
The things is, nuclear power plants – at their most base level, excluding spent fuel rods – are actually safe. At least, on paper. The fact these reactors functioned without a problem for nearly 40 years is evidence of that. The plants are not as cheap as one was led to believe in the '70's when they first started building them, but, compared to the cost of comparable fossil fuel plants and amortization over what was perceived as the long lives of these plants, made them seem practical.
The problem is, when they work, they work well. The issue of spent fuel rods was dealt with onsite and it worked well, too. Until something went wrong. And then,it didn't work at all and disaster ensued. The small problems - like putting the generators in the basement of a building on a coastal flood plain – come back to bite the Japanese in the ass. And this is not a tabby cat biting you, this is a grizzly bear mauling you.
Once the bear starts mauling you, there is nothing you can do to stop it. Your best opportunity to survive is luck. You just have to do your best to protect yourself and ride it out. You might live or you might not.
These reactors are like grizzly bears. Most of the time they wander aimlessly through the night producing kilowatts of cheap power. When they do bite you, they never let go. Never in a billion years. A mauling victim, if they survive, will recover. These reactors will not. Potentially for billions of years.
Think about that the next time your congress person or senator thinks it is a good idea to give permits and subsidies to energy companies to build these monstrosities. It is not a matter if they will come back and and bite us on the ass; it is only a matter of when they will bite us on the ass. Even if we get away alive, in terms of human history, we will never recover...
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