“No One Died From Radiation Exposure at Fukushima, Top U.S. Regulator Says.” But of course, that doesn’t mean they won’t, sometime in the future. So we should still be concerned. But we shouldn’t panic. Because this might be a nuclear catastrophe of the highest order. Unless it isn’t. Which we can’t ever know — and even if we did, we should probably report it conditionally. With caveats and such.
update: I say we hold our fire. We shouldn’t be in such a rush to dismiss the possibility that it’s possible this catastrophe is in fact a catastrophe, unless it isn’t.
Is all I’m saying.
So I should probably issue a retraction and correction now, just in case — with the proviso that I reserve the right to retract such a retraction and correction, should conditions change.
See? It’s really not that difficult. Everyone makes mistakes, after all.
update 2: I stand by my earlier assertion that I’m no expert and that I really am just kinda finding shit on the internet and posting it here.
— Though I also stand by my assertion that the likelihood of giant lizards fighting giant moths as a result of the nuclear event is not very high. Unless it becomes so. At which point I’ll update and issue a retraction. As is my responsibility.
Damn, I was looking forward to seeing real moths and monsters battling it out and wrecking Tokyo in the process.
And without the bad dubbing, too!!!
Clearly, we’ve been cheated by Big Nuclear.
Finally, some clarity on the Protein Wisdom position.
“Together, I will ride you to victory!”
If there is no panic but people are hurt anyway I bet it’s ‘cuz of people like you that refuse to let us know whether we should panic or not.
The only reason the story got as big as it did is because the press consists largely of ignorant liberals. They think anything radioactive is automatically going to kill us all immediately. The fact that the radioactive steam immediately decayed to something non-radioactive or dispersed to a point that it was barely above normal background radiation that we are all exposed to daily did not register in their pea brains.
Also, while the burns from a nuclear explosion are certainly damaging, as is exposure to a high level of gamma radiation, the jury is still out on whether a small dose of radiation beyond normal background is actually harmful.
Are you suggesting Sir that Patterico was wrong?
Give it time Jeff. Give it time. Sixty or seventy years from now and I bet a lot of those nuclear workers will be dead. It will be either Fukushima or Global Warming Climate Change that kills them.
But if Patterico can just hang on, he will be there to remind us all that he was right!
I am merely suggesting that we might not ever know, despite what we know. No names need be dredged up to make that point.
Does Robo-Shep know there are no giant lizards nor giant moths? I don’t think he’d stand for this foolishness and would investigate immediately!
profiles in courage
Link
The most important thing to take away from this is that Fukushima was the result of a massive earthquake and tsunami. Even when that worst-case scenario unfolded, what was the result? Now compare that to the known ill effects of every other source of energy, and you’ll find that nuclear fission is far and away the cleanest and safest of them all.
When the French aren’t afraid to build lots of nuke plants, what does that tell you?
Wasn’t California supposed to be bathed in fiery nuclear rain? WTF, Japan?
If Mothra does show up, will she bring those two cute minature Japanese girls that sing to her?
I always liked them.
The media dusted off the reporting template they used for Three Mile Island.
The media breathlessly reported there would be a spike in cancers due to the nuclear accident at TMI. And that extensive cancer screening would be done on the population near TMI in the years after the accident to keep an eye out for the expected increase in cancer.
40 years after TMI cancer scare: crickets.
“The media dusted off the reporting template they used for Three Mile Island.”
The residents of the house closest to TMI had an increased radiation exposure less than if they’d gone to stay with Jeff in Denver for a year.
They think anything radioactive is automatically going to kill us all immediately.
Impossible. The Left is pro-science, Science, SCIENCE!
Their superstition regarding radioactivity would be funny if it hadn’t killed the nuclear power industry in this country. Not sure why it’s worse to die in Hiroshima from an atom bomb than in the previous fire-bombing in Tokyo, nor why it’s more immoral to drop one A-bomb than 1000 conventional bombs.
Radiation sickness is no joke, but neither is any of the “fallout” from conventional weapons: thermal burns, shrapnel wounds, maiming, disfigurement, etc.
“And without the bad dubbing, too!!!”
– Yeah, well lets see you annunciate “…lettuce, and tomato, and hold the mayo…” from “…Domo arogato Mr. Roboto….”
They consistently conflate “radioactive” with “poisonous” too. Plutonium being a prime example – not all that radioactive, but intensely poisonous. Depleted Uranium, anyone?
I’m still disappointed that with all the seismic activity that took place in Japan that there was no Godzilla stomping his way across Tokyo. That would have been epic.
Beat on Big Media, by all means, but be cautious of scoring political points on the backs of those still homeless in the Fukushima area. Many of us rightly condemn the vulture like aspect of Big Media and the professional left when it comes to Katrina, et al. This isn’t that different.
Beat on Big Media, by all means, but be cautious of scoring political points on the backs of those still homeless in the Fukushima area.
If anything, we criticized the media for their breathless attention to the nuclear crisis, at the expense of coverage of the greater humanitarian catastrophe around them. I don’t see how this changes things.
Depleted Uranium, anyone?
My reply to the Code Pinkos was always “You mean Heavy Lead?” But then, if these guys understood chemistry or math or physics, they wouldn’t have majored in primitive drumming.
I note with smug satisfaction your continued attempts to dodge the critical issue of what effects (if any) radioactive, poisonous moth-lizards may or may not have on global warming.
Typical.
oh why do you hate Teh Childrens?
Oh, yeah, Jeff?
And who shall speak for the rabbits?
http://tinyurl.com/5tw2cbk
…as God is my witness, I thought bunnies could hear.
“oh why do you hate Teh Childrens?
– Well, they smell funny a lot, but they’re really good to have around for carrying groceries.
The bigger ones can rake leaves, though I’ve yet to find one who can fill a lawn bag efficiently.
Late in the Fukushima story I tweeted that I would never understand the competitive urge to be the first to panic.
Some knothead replied to me that sometimes being calm and rational could be life-threatening.
A little more chlorine in the gene pool, please.
Fun idea: give them bananas. Then give them Geiger counters.
Want radioactive and supercritical? Try spawn of #OWS. Coming soon to a Congress not too near you.
Anyone see the prequel to John Carpenter’s The Thing?
Some knothead replied to me that sometimes being calm and rational could be life-threatening.
Please tell me you challenged him to name three scenarios.
That’s not the worst of it. Better keep soda out of the zombie hands!
http://www.thebostonchannel.com/health/29580155/detail.html
Just keep them away from OWS protests. http://theothermccain.com/2011/10/25/report-14-year-old-runaway-girl-gets-banged-at-occupy-protest-in-dallas/
I wish I’d thought of it. Instead I just consigned him to #StupidThingsToSay.
Well, you get the radiation sickness in addition to the conventional weapon effects, so I think you can safely say that nukes are worse than conventional explosives.
Assuming that you are using conventional explosives to break things and kill people, then you can argue that “nukes are worse than conventional bombs” is a feature rather than a bug. Tactical nukes didn’t worry me so much when I was a soldier; nerve agents scared the shit out of me. (And people got pissed off over the neutron bomb. Idiots.)
Have you any word on the wandering zombie samurai that may or may not be overruning the Japanese countryside?
over
running
even
wandering zombie samurai: “Zunou… zunou…”
sure wish
i’d said
wand’ring
whilst
quoting
jack g