Update: Oh damn. For those in peril….
————————————————–
So, as reported in today’s New York Times, here’s Mitch McConnell talking trash about how Real Americans™ deal with their neutrons:
“My thought about it is, we ought not to make American and domestic policy based upon an event that happened in Japan,” Mr. McConnell said.
Which, as I read it, suggests that right thinking folk take their disasters straight upside the head before attempting to learn anything from the experience.
__
What makes that way of thinking even more risible (if it weren’t so thoroughly tragic, of course) is that elements of the nuclear crisis developing in Japan right now were at least partly made in America. As the Times also reported in a different article, the Fukushima reactors were designed by General Electric, and we currently possess a sizable number of plants using the same approach to power generation. Not a problem for McConnell, it seems, but Congressman Ed Markey sees it differently:
He said regulators should consider a moratorium on locating nuclear plants in seismically active areas, require stronger containment vessels in earthquake-prone regions and thoroughly review the 31 plants in the United States that use similar technology to the crippled Japanese reactors. “The unfolding disaster in Japan must produce a seismic shift in how we address nuclear safety here in America,” Mr. Markey said.
I don’t think much of Markey’s choice of words in that last line (tone deaf is the best that can be said for it). But I got no problem with the idea of thinking twice before siting more nukes along faults and taking a look at potentially problematic reactors. Still, even that, apparently, is too much of a genuflection to the train of events in Japan and that known liberal proclivity for prophylaxis for Senator McConnell to swallow.
__
And that’s O.K. — because we know that earthquakes know better than to f*ck with the US of A; that publicly traded companies facing increasingly expensive maintenance demands on aging nuclear power plants will never cut a corner; and that bad stuff only happens to bad places, which, by definition lets out this exceptional nation most of us call home. Right?
Ratchet down the snark, and the sheer awfulness of McConnell’s statement actually deepens. This is the “We make our own reality” mentality in action. We need learn nothing from experience; we need pay no attention to what some folks talking strange languages might know; when we play roulette it’s OK — if you are a Republican it always comes up red.
That isn’t governance; that isn’t leadership.
It’s what little kids do when the world becomes too much. But the minority leader of the US Senate is supposed to have gotten past tucking up tight in his quilt, eyes closed, pillow firmly over his head to bar entry to any discomforting hint of a reality that fails to conform to his aggrieved sense of what ought to be.
And in this case, I just can’t see how to read McConnell’s position as anything other than saying we gotta sit and wait for our own nuclear disaster — and then pay in our own blood and treasure — before we can even begin to see if we have a problem.
Which begs the questions: Why does Mitch McConnell hate his fellow citizens so?
Consider this one more episode in the Factio Grandaeva Delenda Est chronicles.
Image: Philip Absolon, See No Evil 2008
JGabriel
NY Times, John Broder:
Senator McConnell added, “It’s just wrong to learn from other people’s mistakes. We’re a good box here, and we shouldn’t be thinkin’ outside of it.”
.
Uloborus
Look at the comments on this blog. Even here, which is one of the most rational places for political discussion (May His Noodliness help us) I’ve found. Nuclear Power is a topic that short-circuits people’s brains and does not get discussed in anything approaching a rational way. And it’s way too damned complicated and dangerous if you screw up to discuss any other way. Legislators that aren’t crazy are beholden to constituencies that are, or lobbies that are just plain corrupt. It’s a political gordian knot.
MikeJ
Who was it? George Carlin? Used to say, “whenever I get on a plane, I take a bomb with me. What are the odds of there being two on board?”
Once you’ve had one 8.9 underneath a nuke plant, what are the odds of another?
Mnemosyne
This is my eternal question about Republicans and conservatives: why do they hate prevention? They hate preventing pregnancy, they hate preventing cervical cancer, they hate prevention of anything, period.
They really seem to think that actions you take before a disaster have absolutely no relationship whatsoever to the scale of that disaster no matter how many times it’s demonstrated right in front of their faces.
Yutsano
Wifey will love the painting.
And a Republican will always expose themselves as hypocrites. It’s inevitable.
Pontiac
The whole ‘America Number One!’ sloganeering is exactly what is going to screw us over.
Linda Featheringill
Ah, Tom.
I was reading your post without looking to see who wrote it until I ran into the word “risible” and just knew that it had to be written by you. :-)
This was, of course, after I had laughed out loud at McConnell’s quote. So you [naturally] chose the right word.
Martin
Well, I think the Japanese are now truly fucked. Radiation levels around the plant are now high enough (>10 mSv) that people can’t work near there for long periods. Things just got about a thousand times harder, and I hope that control room is really well shielded or else those guys working in the plant won’t see the end of the year.
Josh
Mnemosyne, they don’t think bad things happen to good people. It’s an aspect of their dimestore Calvinism: there are good people and there are bad people and we must identify the latter and make sure they’re punished and that’s the only thing social policy is for. So if you got an unwanted pregnancy, that’s an important sign that you’re one of the reprobate: preventing such things would deny us a way to identify you as such.
j low
@Tom- You are basing your argument on the faulty assumption that what happened in Japan was a natural disaster, when obviously it was Gawd punishing Japan for Pearl Harbor.
MikeJ
@Josh:
Which just proves they’ve never read the bible. They just worship it rather than god.
Chaz
Sorry but this post continues the same mistakes that the media generally is making. The fact is that the japanese nuclear reactors behaved exactly as they were designed to during an earthquake. The real problems are from the tsunami. The main backups were swamped by water. There are reports that the defense of depth strategy was thought to be robust enough and the back up generators were not placed at high enough ground to guard against a tsunami such as was experienced in Northern Honshu.
In the US places that are seismically active have more strict regulatory codes for nuclear power plants. So, while the Senator from the great State of jackass may have been less than genteel I think it is important not to react without the facts or purely from an emotional space.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I saw a clip of him saying this at the start of O’Donnell’s show tonight. A line the right likes to accuse the left of is ‘they don’t let a good disaster go to waste’. The right knows this because they never let a good disaster go to waste. If the Republicans can gain from a disaster, they hype it. If they can lose from a disaster, they downplay it.
Either way, they never let a good disaster go to waste!
The Dangerman
Hold it just one damned second; I though we were making American and domestic budgetary policy based upon an event that happened in Greece? Which the fuck is it?
Linda Featheringill
@Josh:
I agree. Brother and sister-in-law, even older than I am, have run into health problems in the last 5-6 years and are questioning the existence of God because He wouldn’t let bad things happen to good people like them.
I decided that the kindest thing I could do was to just extend my sympathy and let them have their crisis of faith without me.
But yes, lots and lots of people honestly believe that bad things don’t happen to good people.
Suffern ACE
@JGabriel: “To be fair,” he added, “we also refuse to learn from anyone else’s successes. The idea that some place else might have had a good idea that wasn’t stolen from us is just treason.”
eemom
@Martin:
There was a third explosion also, as “breakingly” reported a while ago on the post-KO “Last Word With Lawrence SO Not Ready For Prime Time O’Donnell” program.
j low
@efgoldman: There’s a ton of it on Facebook along with a youtube vid I couldn’t watch with some born again girl claiming she did it with only one day of prayer, and imagine what a whole week will do.
AhabTRuler
@j low:
Aw, hells no. That’s what Curtis LeMay and the USAAF were for.
me
On the brighter side, 3 of the 4 reactors at the other plant they were worried about have fully shut down.
j low
Don’t click if you are eating.
j low
Damn. I mean this
Roger Moore
@Suffern ACE:
That just isn’t true. Republicans are happy to learn from other countries when those countries are doing something the Republicans want to do here. If the Greeks and Irish are implementing austerity measures that crush the poor, the Republicans are quick to point to them as an example. If they’re implementing cost effective universal medical care, it’s a weird foreign idea that will never work in the USA. Republicans use facts the way a drunk uses a lamp post: for support, not illumination.
Cermet
Well, it is confirmed – well, sorta – the number three nuclear reactor is a type of breeder reactor (ie contains Plutonium fuel mixed with enriched uranium; as per the NYT – which provided no goggle link to prove this statement but amazingly, most people here will accept it as established fact because it was posted un-referenced in the NYT.) The core may or may not have partly melted – they thick it has partly. This reactor contains plutonium (Pu) and that is highly toxic and very radioactive – if much of that is released, we are talking bad case.
So, BJ’ers, looks like I was right in my last series of posts which so many clever people tried to mock me or insult me because I dared to tell truths that they lacked knowledge of (somehow my fault, I guess) or were too afraid and wanted it to just go-away. Guess I was not the “fear monger” so many here tried to falsely paint me – I had fully qualified my views and pointed out that these posts were not confirmed and that I was not yet willing to believe the reactor had Pu fuel (now I see why I got conflicting papers on the subject – hey, I goggle too) and was posting what could happen if the reactor had Pu.
Looks like the situation is far more serious and I hope the reactor was only some type of test bed and has little Pu; otherwise a small nuclear explosion has become a very real possibility.
The hydrogen explosion at the #3 reactor occurred the other day and the reactor is in deep trouble (terrible damage, all pumps dead), filled with salt water (ultra-corrosive at those temps), and they are not sure if it is being cooled so partial or complete melt down is possible. Depending on the amount of Pu, this could cause a run away chain reaction that would result in a (very) small scale nuclear explosion and partly vaporize the core (please read post carefully, I am not saying this will or could happen but if enough fuel and if complete melt down and if these get to close, then what I say would happen.)
If you do not understand these terms – learn on your own – last I checked, no one paid me to research and spoon feed you people so stop being lazy and research yourself – some things are hard – most writing on breeders and their dangers were done in the 60’s, 70’s and a little in the early 80’s. Those topics are hard to find online – I grew up rthen and read these articles/technical papers.
cyd
Off topic – there’s been an explosion at Daiichi’s Reactor #2. Unlike the previous explosions at #1 and #3, this one appears to be more serious. People are speculating that the containment has been breached, as the pressure inside the reactor has dropped to 1ATM.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Linda Featheringill:
I attribute it to the same thing that makes young guys think that they are invincible, which leads some to do things that end up getting them killed or maimed for life.
They haven’t experienced the reality of real pain; be it economic, health, social or whatever pain, they have escaped it. Their lives have always been excellent with everything working just fine for them, and if this is the case then why should they question the natural order of the universe? Why are people compaining that things are so bad when everything is just peachy-keen with them?!
In their world. Once that world is shattered, only then can the reality of life sink in. Only when they are suffering do they begin to question their beliefs. They are insulated from reality unless they feel the actual pain of it themselves. Only then can they begin to commiserate with those similarly less fortunate.
Until then, they will never ‘see’ it. What’s worse is that while some will come to their senses and realize that what they believed was false, others will refuse to see the falsehoods and instead find scapegoats for their anger that ‘reality’ isn’t working right for them.
Mike in NC
Who knows, but I’ve heard a rumor that he’ll hate you a lot less if you simply whip out your checkbook.
SpotWeld
Wow.. I got a lot of mixed thoughts on this. A lot of it has to do with some wrong frames on this situation.
1) “Nuclear disaster”:… we have a release of some really sort lived isotopes. The containment of the really dangerous stuff has held and by all accounts will hold. Worst case the site still contained.
2) Lessons Learned: The US nuclear industry should and must learn what, why and how of what happened in Japan. Improvements should be made. But there are some lessons of things going right here. Those should be shared as well.
3) Putting aside the understandable precaution of temporary residential displacement, the worst victim of this will probably be the company that runs the reactor. I really, really don’t what this to turn into a case of “industry must protected from these horrible scare tactics”
4)Safety concerns should be explained not dismissed. I’m, seeing this from both sides of the issue. Yes, daylight, high altitude plane flight, bananas all increase exposure to radiation. But it’s not enough to just say that. Get educated, and then get spread that around. http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/13/fukushima-simple-explanation/
Mnemosyne
@Josh:
I think you’re probably right, because it’s an attitude that underlies so many Republican and conservative ways of thought that it can’t just be “they hate women” or “they love rich people.” It’s all-pervasive to a frightening degree.
Trying to prevent something from happening is subverting the will of God, say the people who immediately call an ambulance if they have a heart attack rather than accepting it as God’s will.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Calvinism for thee but not for me. Sounds about right.
Desch
Cermet, I appreciate your info and insight. I was a bit surprised reading around here this weekend how many nuclear experts we have at BJ, saying that nuclear power is a hunky-dory alternative. Left unsaid, but I imagine was a given, was that the nuclear advocates/experts here at Balloon Juice would be fine with living near a nuclear plant.
“Coal is worse!”. Well, not worse than this, my dears.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
It’s been almost 35 years now since Jimmy Carter practically begged us to take energy policy seriously. Because, you see, you have to think about these things 35 years (or more) in advance. Now, thanks to Ronald Reagan and W Bush we’re stuck with nuclear power and deepwater drilling, and our current Prez is unable or unwilling to put up much of a fight. Sorry, younger folks, this country is doomed.
hilts
Larry Kudlow’s Amazingly Lame-Ass Apology
h/t http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/03/cnbc-kudlow-japan-earthquake-human-toll-worse-than-economic-toll-apologize.html?cid=6a00d8341c630a53ef014e5fdaca46970c
Linda Featheringill
@Cermet:
On Google, there are several newspapers that refer to plutonium being part of the fuel of reactor #3. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_I_nuclear_accident says that reactor #3 was placed on a plutonium mix in September of last year.
I don’t know how reliable any of these sources are.
Robert
Earlier today, I flashed on the idea the Nuk’leer lobby would turn to naked racism in response to the Japanese meltdown. I then amended the thought to expect racism as their last resort, considering the tragedy.
Should have gone with my gut.
(But damn, my gut is getting good at this.)
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: You are so right. I’ve loved this painting since I first saw it.
@efgoldman round and fat: Hah. Wifey is me. We are fake-married already. So, the wedding will just make it legal!
Tom, I am not commenting on the whole situation re: nuclear reaction because I simply don’t know enough. I will say about McConnell, however, that his quote is very much in line with the Republican way of thinking–let’s not pay any attention to anything that happens outside the US if it does not coincide with what we already believe.
P.S. GREAT painting.
Cermet
So now they are saying one of the cores may be exposed and will vent full blown reactor gasses uncontrolled into the atmosphere –radioactive iodine and Cesium – don’t drink any milk if this cloud comes your way!
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Salvatore mea.
I saw that and knew instantly you’d go for it. And my dad (the nuclear engineer) has been trying to calm me down about all the news reports.
Tim F.
Yeah about the nucular stuff. More importantly, I wish that I had one tenth of your art knowledge. If I tried that I’d mostly switch back and forth between cat pics and softcore porn.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Yeah. It’s an amazing painting. How is your dad doing in calming you down?
J Smith
Ok, I spent a solid 35-40 seconds googling Factio Grandaeva Delenda Est, and I can’t get the exact translation. Can someone briefly enlighten the sluggish me? I’m blaming it on the head cold that has broken my calculator. Also too.
Cermet
@Yutsano: I could use some of that right now – have him post why the core isn’t breached because I really, really want that to be the case. Have him explain why none have melted, especially the one with Pu because I really, really want that to be the case. And finally, explain how three reactor buildings can be blown to hell, the cores flooded with sea water, and exposed to a no water situation and all can be calm because I really, really would rather that be the case – thanks
thomas Levenson
@efgoldman round and fat: Glad you liked the pic., and thanks for the props.
@Linda Featheringill: Heh. so my word choice gives away the game. Could be worse…
@Chaz: Off the point, I think. (a) I’m not sure you want to take the regulations as representative of reality; you need to check that our seismically committed nukes are up to code (and that we really are ahead of Japan in earthquake awareness; (b) saying that the earthquake was fine but the tsunami was somehow unfair doesn’t exactly bolster the case and (c) the point of the post is that we need to learn from what did and did not work in Japan — with all due respect, hardly an error.
hilts
Glenn Beck Explains Japan Nuclear ‘Meltdown’ With M&M’s And George Soros
h/t http://www.mediaite.com/tv/glenn-beck-explains-japan-nuclear-meltdown-with-mms-and-george-soros
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Okay considering this is an evolving situation and he is getting more information than I am through his contacts at work. I also can tell when he’s trying to bullshit me, and I got a ping of both talking to him yesterday. So I’m kinda right back where I was, fearful but hoping for the best.
thomas Levenson
@J Smith: Don’t worry. It’s hideous faux Latin for Grand Old Party Must Be Destroyed.
I had a thread a while back that begged for the closest possible translation and that’s what we came up with.
asiangrrlMN
@Tim F.: Or more pics of Max!
Arundel
@SpotWeld:
You’ve got to be kidding. Already there is radiation sickness in the technicians, 19 people in helicopters had to be decontaminated, and the US Navy is moving 60 miles out to sea because the radiation is alarming and escalating. Have you been reading about what will happen if the core melts down? It’s not just some inconvenient “temporary displacement”, and by the way, the people near the plant are dealing with catastrophic death and disaster quite aside from the nuclear emergency. Sorry, saying the company wiill be the “worst victim” is unbelievably callous, and uh.. seriously misinformed as to the real peril.
J Smith
@thomas levenson – many thanks. Don’t tell Cole, but you’re my favorite writer here, keep up the great work.
thomas Levenson
@Tim F.:
In fact, I rather think we should encourage a move in this direction, don’t you think.
eemom
dunno, there’s something about someone feverishly clamoring to say “I told you so!” in the midst of a catastrophe that makes the lame-ass “but I really, really hope I’m wrong” follow up ring a tad hollow.
Cermet
@Yutsano: Please let us know if he is there on site – if so, I am honestly sure it is in absolute fact safe and the media is full of it. Otherwise, his assurances aren’t worth much of anything because the media has pictures showing us the three damn fucking reactor outer buildings have blown the hell to pieces and that, is something that lies (the nuke industry), stupidity (most nuke engineers) and someone not there making assurances doesn’t mean much to anyone else.
Calouste
@Linda Featheringill:
If God never let bad things happen to good people, the Catholic Church would never have gotten around to inventing saints.
Elia
McConnell makes Paul Ryan and Rand Paul and other Teahadists seem eminently reasonable, principled, and decent.
I really struggle to think of a national political figure who is more thoroughly bankrupt in every way. Newt Gingrich, I guess.
Calouste
@Arundel:
Spotweld is Larry Kudlow’s alias.
gnomedad
@Josh:
And if they do, it’s because of taxes and regulations.
Cermet
@eemom: Can’t use inteligence so use insults – yes, I am here and defined what I say but someone here says hear-say and that is good? Truthfully, I want to be fucking wrong and this to be nonething but a false fear. We got here because engineers – paid by that industry said it is safe and what just happened? I have a right to be pissed.
Cermet
@Desch: Thanks – I may be wrong but facts are facts and I’d never want to live near such a plant and I know of no operator who does. There are some really smart nuke people on BJ and I’d hope to hear from them soon. Me, I am just doom and gloom.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Cermet: “Me, I am just non-stop doom and gloom.”
Fix’t.
No shit Sherlock.
SpotWeld
@Arundel: I stand corrected, the information I had was old and incomplete. I regret my flippancy
Cerberus
@eemom:
Welcome to liberalism.
We get to be “right” when our darkest fears manifest. The things we’ve railed against appear, unable to be reversed. Often not even appreciated then.
It’s a delicate balance and most of us choose to let it go and just boggle and weep at the bodies. Some can’t resist the bitter laugh at all the “hoocoodanode” especially when the calls to learn nothing from history are so very strong.
Yeah, it sucks.
On that note, the pain and suffering in Japan is going to be bad and I wish them the best luck. Especially with their population density, this is going to be ugly for a very long time.
And if I was one of the many anti-nuclear power plant activists in Japan I’d be drinking heavily and crying.
SpotWeld
@Arundel: I should probably explain myself further. If the engineering is done right, the worst victim *should* be the company and no employees or civilians should be hurt.
Because a company isn’t a person and isn’t being *hurt* in any sort of real sense.
On reflection I realize my initial comment was off base and honestly insulting to the people risking their lives to get the situation under control. Again I apologize.
Cermet
@SpotWeld: Don’t worry, the people here are so forgiving … wait, wrong [email protected]Odie Hugh Manatee: PhD in snark – you should work for fox – the Officals are now saying a major nuclear leak (core exposed?) and you need to attack me to feel like you have something useful to say? yes, stick to fox.
Carl Nyberg
If you carried the water for the power elites and lied to the people your whole career… and the people kept re-electing you, would you respect the people?
El Cid
People like McConnell do not give a shit whether or not there could be lessons learned for the US from what Japan is suffering right now.
Maybe if at some point McConnell was faced with there being a meltdown in the US, which doubtless would be harming some of the people with his class and power interests, he’d suddenly seem to give a shit.
At that stage he might fly into action, making sure that any federal aid went exclusively to Republican donors and large companies, and doing anything he could to have the event mostly kill likely Democratic voters, and finally to shoulder the burden of blaming it all on Obama and Nancy Pelosi.
Brad Hanon
I do live near a nuclear reactor, and a bunch of people I know have worked there. It’s small, it’s safe, and I’ve visited it.
My concern about nuclear power in the United States isn’t about the intrinsic safety of the new reactors when properly run, it’s about a regulatory environment that will discourage them being properly run. We need a government that will take a stronger stand than “We trust you guys not to just slap some duct tape on it if you’re in a hurry.” Nuclear power is safer and less polluting than coal, we know that, but it helps a lot to have people with clipboards keeping track of checklists, y’know?
Cermet
@Cerberus: Sorry – I have been attacking/fighting breeder based fission reactors since the eighties and I’ve spent a good part of my life working for safe, clean energy – hell, I do support safe fission power (Candu reactor) but a few here are really ignorant closed minded and fearful of what they can’t understand – I feel sorry for them and angered, too because as liberals, I expect more from them – like thinking.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cermet: Everyone responds to tragedy, disaster, and fear differently. Anguished earnestness is one response; bad jokes and black humor is another.
eemom
I know very little about nuclear energy, but I know enough to have formed what I consider to be a reasonably informed opinion that “See? See? This PROVES that nuclear power plants are always a bad thing no matter WHAT” is not a rational response to what is happening now in Japan.
Cermet
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks and good point – I need to remember that when I am attacked – for some, I now realize it is their only outlet to strike out at another talking head “know-it-all and these have so often on TV/cable/newspapers shoveled piles of shit, lies and half-truths to them for years. That said, I have been guilty of doing the same but when I realize this, I always try to apologize in the blog.
Cerberus
@Cermet:
What @Omnes Omnibus: said.
Not dissing the response. As I said the urge to black humor is hard to ignore.
One of my professors in Bachelor’s was an expert in diseases, especially with regards to biological disasters.
After Katrina happened, he couldn’t resist making a dark comparison noting that all of New Orleans was going to be a dark swamp and breeding ground for any number of diseases and anyone within a large radius was going to have greatly truncated lifespans and undergo massive suffering but hey, everyone would go about their day and try and pretend it all away.
He used some dark humor to get through the pain of seeing it and knowing how easily it could have been prevented. And I’ve drunk with environmental scientists, specifically climatologists. Most of them have developed a completely pitch black sense of humor because of the likelihood of all of their “warnings” needing to be blueprints of what to do afterwards.
Basically, sometimes the urge to say “welp, I said it, and now life sucks, hope you enjoy your cut corners and your fucking utopia, good day sir” is a powerful one and being the one whose given in in the past (I definitely did some ‘I told you so’s’ over Iraq), I fully understand the urge.
Just explaining to eemon why it’s not so much callousness that created your outburst, but the bitter liberal tradition of having few joyous moments to say “I told you so”.
Hmm. Well, maybe, but it seems like in the few times there are joyous “I told you so’s”, everyone just wants to pretend the struggle or fight never happened or happened a long long time ago (women’s lib, civil rights, growing gay marriage, and so on).
Man, I can see why so many people like denial better… It does seem much happier.
Cermet
@eemom: I have not read a single post here that even comes close to saying that = please show this – I have pointed out that over the years we have all been lied to and this accident proves that in spades. No one has said this proves fission power can not be made safe – I have said many times it can be and even give a current example of one. If you can’t even get a fact as simple as this correct, should anyone believe any of your posts related to nukes?
RalfW
The combination of social Cavinism, exorcism of any evidence-based decision making, and what Tom very correctly calls “what little kids do when the world becomes too much” is adding together to be an unfolding disaster in the US.
Nothing, in the short term, like the imminent disaster unfolding in Japan. Maybe a cloud of deadly iodine 131 + cesium 137 floating over Hawaii might, might, sharpen the mind of McConnel.
But as tragic was the Obama admin also expressing full confidence in the US nuclear industry. Good god, we don’t yet know who awful this whole Japanese situation (with GE reactors) will be, but golly-gee, any Presidential admin has to express full confidence in American ingenuity.
The lack of humility, the lack of ability to put oneself in the shoes of anyone else is breathtaking. Yes, Barack: US nuclear plant operators could have this much of a disaster.
That we haven’t thought up the confluence of unexpected events that will cause a similar chain of cascading damage and loss of control doesn’t mean it’s not out there. It is arrogance that plays with 100,000s of thousands of lives not to admit that.
Chaz
@thomas Levenson: Not sure why you think I was saying the tsunami was somehow “unfair.” My point was that you quoted and were talking about nuclear reactors in seismically active areas. However, when we look the problems in Japan I fear we’re learning the wrong lessons by focusing on earthquakes. The depth of defense ideal used in building nuclear power plants needs to be addressed across the board in a rational fashion.
For the record I didn’t mean imply that everything was great with the Nuclear regulatory agency in the US just that this story is being covered poorly.
Arundel
@SpotWeld- It’s all right, I see better what you are saying, and I apologize too. As all the alarming info rolls in, I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusion as to your meaning- for all I know by “company” you could have meant the technicians working there valiantly and sleeplessly since Friday. Now evacuated it seems, a bad sign. In any case, appreciate your insight. Peace, and fingers crossed about the situation.
Cermet
@Cerberus: Good example and yes, I am pissed; I have often fought battles with the Pentagon on vehicle armor and lost – thousands of boys died and far more were maimed because they won’t listen to me – the armor I made stopped all known weapons at 1/5 the weight/ 1/3 the cost of the army’s best armor; the army and navy tested and proved it in live fire tests against my armor. Later they said I was right well after all was lost- yeah, I gave up, they won, the kids are dead and I have that to enjoy – fuck. Yeah, I’m bitter. Try living with that failure.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Cermet:
Stating the obvious is attacking you? Wow.
Why don’t you scream victim a bit louder, I’m sure some fool will give a shit.
eemom
@Cermet:
well, since that was pretty much my first foray into a “post related to nukes,” I don’t have a lot of cred to lose.
Southern Beale
Damn. I totally called it.
Cermet
@Odie Hugh Manatee: I have posted in other threads and been attacked and insulted. Sorry if my post was a direct attack on you but your post 64 was a bit hard on me because I am only explaining what could occur and I included careful wording to indicate that is not likely going to occur – your snark was a little hard on me considering I was not that bad; that said, I am sorry if you took offense, and I was too bitter after the trashing I have taken for speaking the truth on asubject I have spent years warning people about.
Cermet
@eemom: I can tell after you claimed to know enough to make a good judgement on nuke safety. Until you read up on the subject, try to avoid attacking someone who has read up on the subject and you have no proof what-so-ever that the plants are safe – Japan, TMI, Fermi and many other examples prove otherwise.
eemom
@Cermet:
oh fer fucks sake. When the fuck are the idiots on this blog gonna learn to fucking READ?
I never made any claim to know enough to make a judgment on nuke safety. ALL that I claimed to know enough to make a judgment about was that an attitude that YOU YOURSELF claimed had never been stated on this blog — i.e., that no nuclear power plant was ever safe no matter what — was not a rational response to the situation in Japan.
Take a fucking Xanax already.
eemom
fucking pharmaceuticals landed me in moderation again. Feh.
eemom
@Cermet:
and while my other comment is in moderation, allow me to opine that if you were really as much of an expert on this as you say you are, you’d have better things to do at a time like this than to talk to uninformed ignoramuses such as I on a blog such as this.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: They’ve land others in jail or worse, so just count yer goddam blessings.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Cermet:
Expressing your opinion that you are right is fine, but doing it in what I view as an obnoxious manner grates on a person after awhile.
It’s all in the delivery. If you feel you are right then there is no reason to get angry at people who you should view as foolish for arguing with you.
If someone gets obnoxious or angry when they are pushed about an issue they care about, they don’t come across well to those they might want to persuade to their side of an issue.
Just sayin…
Arundel
I don’t want to seem flippant, I am quite serious while invoking this comic character. Homer Simpson as an idotic and inept manager/engineer of a nuclear plant actually comes from a very dark place. In the 70’s and 80’s there were many, many reports of human error and barely averted catastrophes at nuclear plants. It’s sort of been forgotten, but it’s the origin of Homer’s character, the tales of unbelievable stupidity and human folly that were barely averted.
(My science teacher told me of one case where engineers in the 70’s missed some crucial readings because the equipment was so new, they still had tags hanging in front of meters showing vital data- no one had been assigned to remove them. No one saw the overheating, the pressure. At a plant filled with newly-minted workers at a nuclear plant. This may be apocryphal, but there was a huge desire not to panic people. There were a lot of close calls in the 70’s and if you think the media’s bad now..)
The Simpsons has actually always been good at pointing at the perils of nuclear power- I believe it was one of Groening’s concerns as a young man. But I wonder if twenty years of presenting it as comedy, candy-coated, most people don’t see the real meaning in Homer being the clueless captain of a dangerous ship he doesn’t understand. What started as a dark satire of the nuclear industry has been smoothed over into comedy, made to seem harmless. I do wonder if that has had some tiny effect on popular perception, (as well as the national pastime of hippie-kicking about their sissy nuclear/enviro concerns.)
It seems to me that the people today advocating nuclear energy all seem to be reading from the same glossy brochure. That nuclear energy is “clean!”, except for all that deadly nuclear waste that they never mention. (Oh, the UK dumps it in the North Sea by the way, and Ireland had to sue the UK in the 80’s not to dump it in the Irish Sea for them to deal with. So great that the UK pays lower electric bills though, allegedly. Too bad about that TV tax!)
Also, advocates of nuclear power in the US as a new initiative never note that a 30-year old plant is always descibed as “aging”. These billion-dollar plants age pretty rapidly.
I also don’t share their confidence, as government is apparently being abolished in the US, that corporations will take the proper safety measures for such dangerous technology. Call me crazy!
And while we are defunding schools, making enemies of teachers, eliminating scholarships and grants, hell, on the radio today they tell me kids in WI are out of school lunches- sorry, freeloaders!- good luck for the educated army of engineers and technicians to run these hypothetical future nuclear stations, which you again would have no problem being in your backyard, right nuclear advocates? As we are decimating education in this country, the future nuclear workforce will make Homer Simpson look like a goddamned Einstein.
gocart mozart
It won’t happen here in the U.S. of A. Those nuclear plants were built by G.E. while all our stuff is foreign built like in Japan or something. Move along libtards.
Cermet
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Ok – it is just getting old – for once I wish I didn’t know the truth and someone else would carry the argument – where are they? Ths blog has smart peope but I don’t see the people posting the facts and countering the lies of industries that make billons, expect taxpayer welfare as the middleclass dies. That may be why I come off with the attitude I do – sorry, but 6000 kids died in the Ukraine thanks to lies (and radioactive Iodine fallout)- how many will die again if we stay silent?
Just saying
Dr. Wu
McConnell’s only allegiance is to the top 1%, who have the means to avoid the inconvenience of a nuclear accident–they can always jet off to a private island somewhere.
Cermet
@eemom:First, your very foul language is not what a mature person uses and you want me to take a drug?
You said you knew enough on the subject to know to say “See? This PROVES that nuclear power plants are always a bad thing no matter WHAT” is not a rational response to what is happening now in Japan.”
As I said – I never said any such thing so please, find where I did or else, you are the one you can’t read so why attack me?
Yet, what is happening in Japan does, in fact , prove a lot about the safety of nuclear power and if you fail to see that, you really don’t have much knowledge in the field of nuclear power and I stand by my words – prove me wrong and I will admit you are correct.
OF COURSE YOU MAY BE AN EXPERT IN Other fields and I await your posting on topics that relate to your knowldge and see how you do.
Second – for why I speak to anyone here, again, I wrote very clearly that I really believe the liberals here would be interested in the truth. Maybe not but I did say this so, can you read?
Cermet
Nice that eemom ran away to another thread – really mature and proves a lot about someone rather than answer a post.
sukabi
@efgoldman: oh, they’re out there… just haven’t shown up here…if you really want to take a gander there’s this righty roundup
Joey Maloney
@efgoldman: Religious lunacy – it’s not just for Americans anymore!
Tokyo mayor: Tsunami was “divine punishment”
Gregory
Right. The Republicans can use the Shock Doctrine to push their own policies on a nervous and distracted public, but when objective reality once again reveals that their policies are for crap, oh, no, now isn’t the time to consider the issue. Right.
Xenocrates
Nailed. To. The. Fucking. Wall. This is as great a takedown of Ole Jowly as I have ever read. Thank you, Mr. Levenson, and please continue to promulgate the Truth. It is a rare commodity and therefore even more valuable than before.
Marc McKenzie
Tom, there could be two things behind McConnell’s attitude.
A) He’s never read The Prometheus Crisis and thinks that TMI and Chernobyl were about as harmful as a belch.
B) He’s got his head jammed up his nether regions.
C) Both A) and B)
I think I’ll put my money on C).
Dr. Psycho
The atom’s international, in spite of hysteria
Flourishes in Utah, also Siberia
The atom don’t care about politics
Or who got what into whichever fix