Nightmares from Japan

Keeping track of the events. Even by those who have left Japan.

Radioactive water could be soon reaching the sea.

Tsunami debris is beginning to reach the US west coast, but it's highly unlikely it is radioactive.  In fact, it is not a large island of debris but very spread out.  Fukushima's disaster began well after the tsunami.

Check fish with Geiger counters?

You can get your scientists to try and solve the problem.

Or you can indulge in fearmongering.

Update 11/8: Credo petitions for world scientists to get involved.

Thank you, Snopes.

The picture that is making the rounds about Fukushima's radiation is actually about the projected tsunami waves.

Radiation? What radiation?

The government wouldn't lie to their own people in such a dangerous situation, would they? ... Apparently they would, they did, and they will. Fukushima No. 2 Reactor Has '10 Times The Fatal Dose' of Radiation. Meanwhile, Original Contamination Data Was Deleted The whole world was watching, taking aerial samples, checking the seawater, and we knew that it was horribly horribly bad. It's still horribly horribly bad and will remain so forever. Japan just lost a massive chunk of their island because of their nuclear program. How many accidents and disasters do we have to go through before we realize we can't handle nuclear power plant mistakes? How much more of the earth do we have to make uninhabitable?

Is it my imagination....

Or is the world becoming more and more crazy by the minute?

 

Musical architecture

One year anniversary of the Japanese quake.

Island nation of Kiribati plans mass relocation due to climate change

Top Rabbi believes Catholic Church is imposing Sharia Law on Americans over contraception

How to read gang tags and disses on LA streets

via Bryan, Iran will have the bomb... yesterday, today, any minute now....

Five hundred new fairytales discovered in Germany

I think I have found the way to stop wars.  Flood the area with kittens.

Study: Hate of Obama fuels 755% growth in extremist groups

Unlike traditional hate groups, “Patriot” groups subscribe to a set of conspiracy theories and see the government as their primary enemy. 

“Basically what ‘Patriot’ groups think is that the federal government is an evil cabal in the hands of bad people,” Potok explained. “The government is about to impose martial law on the country, very probably with the help of foreign troops, perhaps U.N. troops. They intend to confiscate all guns from Americans. Those liberty-loving Americans who resisted will be thrown into concentration camps that have secretly constructed by FEMA. And ultimately the government will force us all into a socialistic kind of one-world government, the so-called New World Order.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same.... Kansas Republicans look to profit off abortion taxes

Gee... I wonder why? Aren't Republicans the party of family values? No love for the GOP among America's women...  Could it be because people feel free to call this 16 year old a slut?

Japanese debris field in the Pacific

Washes back and forth and impacts Hawaii from both sides.

Birds and bees

Mandatory bird.

Phila of Bouphonia's Friday Hope.

I guess the Koch brothers didn't buy the right scientist...

Koch-Funded Berkeley Temperature Study Does “Confirm the Reality of Global Warming”

Honeybees and bumblebees. And lighting their hives on fire.

How Japan cleans up after a disaster.

Now they've pissed off the nurses...

Outraged by the arrest of two nurses and a union organizer volunteering at the Occupy Chicago protest over the weekend, National Nurses United is planning a protest at Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office today.

The group, the nation's largest union of registered nurses, is calling on its membership in Chicago to picket City Hall this morning to demand that misdemeanor trespassing charges against the nurses and all of the protesters be dropped.

Do you think they've learned anything? The Iraq war is finally over. And it marks a complete neocon defeat

About time:

Regulator throws lifeline to underwater borrowers

and

'We can't wait': Obama to use executive authority to boost economy as Republicans dither on jobs

And magic! There is no more poverty!

What we don't know

Will most certainly kill us. The 'non'-reporting about the total meltdown at Fukishima:

Gundersen points out that far more radiation has been released than has been reported.

"They recalculated the amount of radiation released, but the news is really not talking about this," he said. "The new calculations show that within the first week of the accident, they released 2.3 times as much radiation as they thought they released in the first 80 days."

According to Gundersen, the exposed reactors and fuel cores are continuing to release microns of caesium, strontium, and plutonium isotopes. These are referred to as "hot particles".

"We are discovering hot particles everywhere in Japan, even in Tokyo," he said. "Scientists are finding these everywhere. Over the last 90 days these hot particles have continued to fall and are being deposited in high concentrations. A lot of people are picking these up in car engine air filters."

Radioactive air filters from cars in Fukushima prefecture and Tokyo are now common, and Gundersen says his sources are finding radioactive air filters in the greater Seattle area of the US as well.

The hot particles on them can eventually lead to cancer.

"These get stuck in your lungs or GI tract, and they are a constant irritant," he explained, "One cigarette doesn't get you, but over time they do. These [hot particles] can cause cancer, but you can't measure them with a Geiger counter. Clearly people in Fukushima prefecture have breathed in a large amount of these particles. Clearly the upper West Coast of the US has people being affected. That area got hit pretty heavy in April."

Update: Now they tell us! Chemicals Newly Disclosed As Risky Are In What We Eat...But What?

And the oceans are dying: Ocean life on the brink of mass extinctions

How fast can you run?

The video was removed by the author. Just showed the tsunami rushing in between the houses as the person filming the water ran up the hill. The speed of the water is amazing, even though it looks like the town was not as inundated as the others. Perhaps the town was far enough away to just get the final wash before the ocean retreated.

*edited for really bad grammar...

Often in tragedy

Animals help us express our deep emotions.

(and yes, they were saved.)

Relentless

6 intense minutes of the tsunami in Japan. (via facebook)

And the earthquakes continue.

Volcanoes erupt in connection with the earthquake.

And the meltdowns threaten, ground radiation is a reality.

Liquefacation

So... do we still change our clocks for daylight savings?

The earthquake-cum-tsunami packed such fury that it has moved Japan's main island, Honshu, by about 8 feet. It's also caused the Earth's axis to wobble by about 4 inches – something that experts say will lead to the shortening of the day by 1.6 microseconds, or just over a millionth of a second.

These very tiny changes happen because of changes in the speed of rotation of the Earth as surface mass gets shifted around in earthquakes, says Patrick Dasgupta, professor of astrophysics in Delhi University.

Daylight savings time.

And though I grew up saying 'daylight savings', it is actually daylight saving.

Screaming and running in circles works too...

What to do Before and During a Tsunami

The following are guidelines for what you should do if a tsunami is likely in your area:

Turn on your radio to learn if there is a tsunami warning if an earthquake occurs and you are in a coastal area.

Move inland to higher ground immediately and stay there.

Stay away from the beach. Never go down to the beach to watch a tsunami come in. If you can see the wave you are too close to escape it.

CAUTION - If there is noticeable recession in water away from the shoreline this is nature's tsunami warning and it should be heeded. You should move away immediately.

We're all gonna diiiiiieeeeeee!

The End of America as we know it.

The End of the World:

Or these neat options:

Update: well, darn. Removed from YouTube. I'll post them again if they reappear.

Update: They were YouTubes of Gareth Edwards' END:DAY movie about several different ways the world could experience a world wide disaster: tsunami, virus, supervolcano, Hadron Collider, meteors.... it had it all.

Chose your own ending of the world

BBC movie about all the dangers we face on earth. We can thank Whig for scaring us even more. Choose one.

Remembering the great Tsunami of 2004

Via PowerPop, a comprehensive look at the geological mechanics of the quake and tsunami.

NY Mary also discusses the Heart of Darkness Syndrome, the need for any plot line in a foreign country to have a white face to translate it for us in the US:
"So I'm watching this HBO docudrama, Tsunami: The Aftermath. Now I know a bit about this subject. It's part of my broader interest in Southeast Asia, I've worked with relief organizations, and it really is just an interesting topic. I've watched a number of films about the disaster of 26 December 2004, and am currently trying to write a presentation to explain the tsunami to kids without scaring the shit out of them. That ought to be a challenge.

So I guess I'm coming at this from a bit of a different direction than your average viewer. But still...

I guess we all have our pet peeves: mine is what I call The Heart of Darkness Syndrome. There are two kinds of colonial texts: one focuses on the tragedies of colonialism on the native population via the experiences of the indigenous peoples themselves, the other focuses on a Westerner, changed by the colonial experience, just sort of watching the tragedy unfold in front of him.* In this latter form, indigenous peoples are set dressing, like the groaning forms in Conrad: they're there, but this is the story of two white guys, and don't you forget it."