Yesterday, some beagle slander was committed on this blog, and today I want to correct a possible misperception that may have arisen about this excellent breed..
My next door neighbor has a beagle, and I’ve watched him be pulled around by that fine animal for years. My neighbor is in his 80s and frail, so it his beagle added hours of entertainment for my family as we looked out the window and wondered if today would be the day he gets dragged across the yard. And let’s not forget the mellifluous baying that is typical of the breed, at all hours of the day or night, which adds a special tone to the neighborhood.
My neighbor is having a few health problems so I’ve been walking his dog at lunchtime. Even though his dog is now getting older, it’s still driven by its nose and loves to go on walks. Yet I’m not having any problems walking him, and the reason is simple: my neighbor overfeeds that dog to the point of morbid obesity. If you’ve never seen a dog with a pannus, you obviously haven’t been to my neck of the woods, because this dog’s gut hangs almost to the ground. Because he’s so fat, his sniffing sounds like a pig on a truffle hunt, and the rolls of fat that encase him keep his walking pace down to a trot rather than his usual flat-out run.
So, if you’re thinking of getting a beagle, just lay in a double supply of dog food and feed that thing until it looks like a beer keg supported by 4 popsicle sticks. Then perhaps you’ll have a dog that’s a barely tolerable pet.
Gina
I’m up with insomnia, so I’ve been researching grass options for the dog run. Zone 5, must tolerate stomping and shenanigans from large dogs. So far, I’ve ruled out artificial turf. Leaning toward Kentucky Midnight Bluegrass.
I’m sure my Lily and Mo will sue me when I have to gate off the seeded section til the grass takes.
harlana
Aww, my ex and I had a beagle (was his before we got married) and the beer keg on popsicle sticks is about right. He was a real sweetie and an accomplished bay-er. (The beagle, not the ex)
Benjamin Cisco
Came in to work early, and I just wanted to say after reading through the overnight threads, I love this place.
Just Some Fuckhead
I think this was the worst part of owning a beagle. What a cursed beast.
stuckinred
All dogs are driven by their noses and love to go for walks. My old man used to say sniffing was reading the morning paper for a pup.
WereBear
Beagles were born to run in packs while baying their heads off. This works better when you have a castle and a stable.
I’m sure Disney was behind it at some point. The Dalmatian is genetically designed to have incredible exercise needs and makes a poor pet for most families.
cleek
old frail guy with a beagle ?
too much Family Guy, i guess, cause all i can think of is Herbert.
chaucer
too funny!
SiubhanDuinne
O/T but hahahahahahaha! Remember a few months ago when we had a brief thread about the planned remake of Red Dawn, making the Chinese the bad guys in the new version? Well, hahahahaha, just heard on NPR that the movie’s in post production and someone got worried about offending China so they are digitally replacing every Chinese flag with North Korean flags. Hahahahahaha . . . .
(Exit, pursued by a wolverine.)
Dave
I grew up with beagles. They take a…dedicated owner. But for all the hijinks they get into (like getting out a door and ending up two towns over) they are worth it. To paraphrase Blake from Glengarry Glen Ross: Beagles are for closers.
Gravenstone
Glenn Beck’s origins, revealed
Odie Hugh Manatee
Sounds like that dog you’re walking (waddling?) could be representative of our country in general…lol!
When I was a kid we had a beagle named Bugle. Great dog but it bayed like its name implies. Loved to play football. Ok, he loved to try to bite the football whenever we were trying to play. It usually ended up with him taking the ball and fighting with it while we found something else to do.
MikeJ
@SiubhanDuinne: Hehehe. One thing I always loved about the original movie was that it was about a band of plucky teens in Colorado who were fighting the Cuban paratroopers who had taken over their town.
Now we get NoKo invading and occupying the US. This movie is gonna be *great*!
Dennis SGMM
@SiubhanDuinne:
This could bring about the the renaissance of the double bill. “Red Dawn” and “Atlas Shrugged.”
Free popcorn!
Okay, free sodas!
Okay, free candy…
MikeJ
@Dennis SGMM: Anything your guerrilla band can liberate from the concession stand is free.
JGabriel
mistermix @ top:
Since it was written here, shouldn’t that be beagle libel?
.
liberal
On topic: my dad has always maintained beagles aren’t too smart.
Off topic: some good news: Ezra Klein mentions that polls indicate that the trend is toward the public blaming the Rethuglicans if the government shuts down.
Dennis SGMM
@MikeJ:
Gorilla Band
(Ernie Kovack’s Nairobi Trio)
Omnes Omnibus
@JGabriel: Go drink your latte, you libtard elitist.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dennis SGMM: Great idea for double feature, but TANSTAFP!
Just Some Fuckhead
@liberal:
I think we sometimes confuse smart and trainable when it comes to animals. Beagles are very smart – at training people.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Just Some Fuckhead:
LOL.
Dennis SGMM
@SiubhanDuinne:
LOL! I recall hearing or reading somewhere that popcorn is the moneymaker for movie theaters. The profit margin is somewhere around 1500%.
rdldot
@Gina: I’ve done some research and I’m going to have a dog run installed using crushed granite. I don’t think any grass will survive the constant pounding of dog feet and I’ll just end up with the same mud pit I have now.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
why are people so ashamed of the proper name, that they have to call it a pannus.
everyone knows that right there is a dunlap
or donelap
as in, done lapped over the belt..
medical terminology isn’t that hard once you know the etymology.
Bootlegger
Forget the Beagles, there are five Bulldogs in the NCAA tourney. Last chance, here is a fresh BJ pool:
http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1/group/63362/invitation?key=9c40a7d323de37d6
Hanspeter
Beagle with pannus? Sounds like you got a basset instead.
rdldot
@Just Some Fuckhead: That’s funny because I have a new dog that I say is not very smart, but she is trainable. My previous dog was very smart and I finally figured out why people said that about her. She could figure things out for herself, but she wasn’t easily trained. This one couldn’t find her way out of a paper bag without repeated instruction.
Cat Lady
@SiubhanDuinne:
“Worverines!”
/kim jong il
suzanne
I grew up with Siberian Huskies. Still love those dogs like none other. Anyway, we had one, as did a neighbor a couple of blocks away. Our neighbor fed that dog until she looked like a giant, furry barrel. It’s rare, despite the name, to see a fat Husky. It looked like our neighbor’s dog had eaten ours. Hilarious to watch the two of them playing.
cleek
site related, two things:
1. the “switch to our mobile site” link is broken. you forgot to include the site name in the URL.
2. links on the mobile version are rendered in a color that’s just slightly different than the background – so very slightly different that you would not know a link was there unless you were looking for it, and held your phone at just the right angle. it’s basically white on off-white. looking at the mobile version on a desktop browser doesn’t show the problem. but, viewing the page on an Android browser does.
Suffern ACE
@SiubhanDuinne:
Egad! The movie’s premise is almost proved.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Bootlegger: Thanks. I tried to get in the last one but it was full.
Hiram Taine
@rdldot: We have driveways of both varied size crushed granite “crush and run” and “pea gravel” which is relatively uniform pea size grains.
The pea gravel stands up much better and is more comfortable to walk on.
handsmile
Thanks very much for this!
There’s been precious little I’ve read over the past week or so that has brought tears of laughter.
Ash Can
The WGN TV news operation is saying that Hillary Clinton has had enough of being Secretary of State, and of being in politics in general. I’m getting out of here before the smoke from the firebaggers’ burning hair gets too thick.
Dan
pictures please
Just Some Fuckhead
@Ash Can: Sounds like you are conflating PUMAs and Firebaggers.
cintibud
@SiubhanDuinne: LOL! Oh my, how this country has fallen. North Korea can’t even feed their own people. Did they invade the US to steal twinkies from the 7-11?
cintibud
@liberal:
Wait, wasn’t Snoopy a beagle? That dog was a genius!
Ash Can
@Just Some Fuckhead: PUMAs, firebaggers, they all look alike to me.
Suffern ACE
@cintibud: Well at least we’re surrendering to a country that has nuclear weapons. An alternative version has us surrendering to those crafty Andorrans.
Woodrowfan
the rest of the dog is only there to move the nose around.
jeffreyw
Yawn [blink blink] mmm…breakfast
David
Off topic: excellent simple overview of the nuclear situation in Japan at http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/nuclear-panel-japan-0136.html. Good for sending to concerned relatives.
The coverage of this event has really made me disappointed in the WaPo. I mean, the headlines have been at 60pt font for a week now, and they keep phrasing things in a way designed to terrify you! When did they turn into the CNN homepage? (and I know they’ve sucked for a while now, but there used to be some levelheadedness)
DBrown
I have been confused by all the latest news reports in Japan and was, at first, lost on why they are risking crews to save the #3 reactor when the US Gov says the fuel storage pool is the far greater risk. Then the truth hit me.
Tragically the Japanese have realized that breeder reactors are more dangerous than any other reactor or even a massive pile of hyper-radioactive fuel rods burning freely in the air – a nuclear breeder; for if the fuel elements melts, these wonderful reactors can undergo a small (read very low yield) thermo-nuclear explosion.
While I better understand the US Government’s concerns about the fuel rods in /on reactor 4’s pool, the breeder reactor #3 contains both enriched Uranium AND Plutonium fuel and that is why the pilots/crews are risking their lives delivering water to that reactor, along with other brave crews, at all cost – even the loss of human life is worth the effort – yet, why? Aren’t the fuel rods in/on reactors #4 storage pools causing most the radiation that is fuming around the plant making work ultra-dangerous?
Well yes but the Japanese know of a far greater danger that no one is talking about for if the #3 reactor melts down, it could undergo a small nuclear explosion causing many tons of ultra radioactive fuel and Plutonium to be vaporized and sent high into the atmosphere – a disaster far, far worse than the fuel elements in #4 burning.
Of course, this could be nonsense because both the Japanese experts on site are so stupid they believe a falsehood and are doing the wrong thing because they enjoy putting crews in harms way. Ok, where is pig so he can fly and say all is really well. Facts are facts and the Japanese are focusing 90% of their attention of reactor #3 – known to contain Plutonium – for a reason and it isn’t because Pu is any more toxic or hazardous than the massively radioactive fuels in the other reactors/pools – it because the plant could undergo a nuclear explosion!
I can not say more about these brave aircrews that are risking all to fly directly in the plumes of ultra-radioactive vapor to save not just the locals, but even US people because if the core in reactor #3 is vaporized, a massive cloud of radioactive, ultra toxic nuclear fuel/waste will most likely blow towards us and it will not be good. Thank those brave aircrews and ground crews – they are true hero’s!
Rathskeller
@SiubhanDuinne: but but but but… what? and they’re re-doing dialogue in Korean?
Who is this going to fool? I’m not especially gifted with divining race, but I’m certain I can tell a crowd of Chinese from a crowd of Koreans. I’m also pretty sure a random Chinese person can do the same.
Related to the beagle theme, my wife’s family had four beagles at one time, and 30 years later, my wife still doesn’t want a dog. Every time a twig snapped, they all started barking. One of them would literally fight her for the right to sleep in her bed, then he’d pee in it. One of her dogs ate all he possibly could of a Thanksgiving turkey (also stepping in every side dish). They found him in the next room, on his side, barely able to move.
liberal
@DBrown:
Where did you get the info that #3 is a breeder that could undergo a nuclear explosion?
gnomedad
@Suffern ACE:
Perhaps when it goes to DVD you’ll be able to choose the nationality of the bad guys.
Rosalita
I had a beagle growing up, named Snoopy. Yeah, I know, real original. In addition to the tearing off into the sunset given the chance, this one would bay at his reflection in the fireplace doors for hours. Did you even notice that they bay with such intensity that they actually back themselves up a few inches each time?
Omnes Omnibus
@gnomedad: I pick Belgian.
Comrade Mary
I think Donald Trump needs a beagle so he can do something constructive with his life.
Comrade Mary
A Metafilter member has arrived in Japan as part of an American radiological response team. He’s tweeting here, but has also posted this brief comment at Metafilter:
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
Beagles are hardheaded to the point of stupidity. In fact, the only dog I’ve ever seen my big ol’ Shepherd mix sweetie hate was a beagle that I could swear was retarded. After a couple of minutes of that dog nipping around and nagging on mine (I had him out for a walk, on a leash), mine just politely pushed him down and proceeded to lay all 120 pounds on the beagle. That little shit was wailing and squirming, unable to get up, and my dog was just looking around, happy as you please.
DBrown
liberal – why do you care one way or the other? Such information is always made up so people can agree to support breeders … see? I am really pro-breeder supporter so I figured I’d make this shit up to get people to feel sorry for CEO’s and raise their poor ten million dollar salaries … .
Do your own research and figure it out – there are books on the subject of breeders and possible nuclear explosion by the fuel (ONLY if it melts down) and it is a known fact; that said, I did not nor did I believe that the reactor had enough Pu to do that … until I saw what the Japanese were doing, at all costs, to prevent melting of reactor 3#. Read my post and note the issue of reactor #4 and that should scare any sane person but the Japanese don’t appear to care at all … gee, I wonder why? Try learning – no post, article or reference can prove shit until you learn how to read facts on your own.
piratedan
beagles, making cocker spaniels seem like a good breed choice since 1979
Chyron HR
@DBrown:
Mildy amusing, but Charlie Sheen impersonations are kind of played out at this point.
Omnes Omnibus
@DBrown: I don’t know, sport, it is rather common for people on the internet to ask someone for a link when that person offers a piece of information that they did not previously know or one that contradicts previously accepted judgments. YMMV.
Poopyman
Well, as long as we’re just marking time until another frontpager tosses the red meat, Atrios has upgraded his page. Looks better, IMO. Dunno how well the comments work though.
Sentient Puddle
@Bootlegger: …and I got my bracket in at the last minute! Didn’t think I’d find the time to flip a coin 63 times before the first tip-off. Whew.
Alex S.
@Poopyman:
The update also made him a year younger.
Poopyman
@Alex S.: Wow!
No wait…. Hasn’t it always said he was 38? Like for about 3 years now?
Gin & Tonic
@jeffreyw: Pedantic, but those eggs aren’t over easy.
Carnacki
@SiubhanDuinne: The rightwingers will be all over this as a sign of Hollywood being communists, but it’s really about being the capitalists. Hysterically funny.
Real Wolverines! would fight off an invasion and win a war with Tax Cuts to the wealthy.
SiubhanDuinne
I can’t do links at the moment (my problem, not FYWP’s) but if you go to Google News and enter a search for REMAKE RED DAWN CHINESE you’ll see lots of articles about how Hollywood has decided it’s better to piss off the North Koreans than the Chinese.
Emily
We got a beagle from a pet store in ~1955. She was very smart and didn’t pull on the leash at all. After she died, we got another beagle in ~1967 and he was much more stereotypically beagle–pulled like crazy on the leash and never figured out that he could dig himself right out of the back yard in about 15 seconds if he wanted to. But one day, when my parents were moving and the furniture was all getting put in the moving van, beagle #2 escaped from the back yard. He went tearing across the front yard with the “ha ha ha, here I go” look on his face, but then he saw the moving van and somehow figured out what it meant right then and there. He put on the brakes and lay around the front yard ALL DAY LONG. It was the only example of his brain power that we ever got.
John Cole
It isn’t slander if it is true.
And I have to say, as much as I loathe owning beagles, I still think they are adorable. The people down the street have a beagle/basset mix named Daphne, and she really is the cutest dog imaginable, and has the happiest disposition. I just love her, but only because I do not own her.
gbear
My one and only experience with Beagles was the first 45 record that I bought in 1964 at a Ben Franklin store. I got all excited when I saw that the song on the record was ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, and failed to notice that it was by a ‘band’ called The Beagles instead of The Beatles. Needless to say, by 10 year old Beatlemaniac self learned a hard lesson about the wheels of commerce that day.
Dave
Not to jump to DBrown’s defense…but he isn’t wrong. The issue here is that the Fukushima #3 reactor switched over to using MOX fuel in September of 2010, which is partially compromised of weapons-grade plutonium. This stuff is super-hot and if it gets into the atmosphere, it’s way more toxic than the material used in the other reactors.
gbear
@John Cole:
Nope. Even if it’s true, it’s slander.
Damned at Random
I’m too old and lame to own a beagle, but I love the sound of their baying. It would make a great ringtone IMO
Robert Sneddon
@Omnes Omnibus:
The Japanese don’t have any breeder reactors. The word-salad fearmongering we are being inflicted here and elsewhere is conflating assorted bits of information about the conditions at the Fukushima power plants into a giant Tower of Babylon prophesying the End Of Days.
One of the Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs) at Fukushima had mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel rods in its core before they were removed to the cooling ponds when the reactor was defueled in November last year. MOX is a mixture of low-enriched uranium (about 3% U-235 up from the natural 0.6% level, the rest being non-fissile U-238) and plutonium oxide which is residue from normal reactor operations and removed from older fuel rods during reprocessing. The plutonium is a mixture of Pu-239 and Pu-240, the result of neutron capture by U-238 via a Neptunium-239 short-lived intermediate product. The Pu-240 present is the result of a second neutron capture by Pu-239 atoms. Just to be clear, Pu-239 is what is used in nuclear weapons. The presence of significant amounts of Pu-240 in the mix prevents a plutonium bomb from exploding properly and it is very difficult to separate Pu-240 from Pu-239, a lot more difficult than separating U-235 and U-238. It is believed that the first North Korean nuke was made from plutonium extracted from fuel rods. It had too much Pu-240 which is why it squibbed.
The expended MOX rods in the ponds at Fukushima are about as dangerous as regular expended fuel rods and for the same reasons. Some of the daughter isotopes are present in different ratios compared to a regular LEU fuel rod but that’s it. They are thermally hot for the same reasons, daughter isotope decay and they get treated in much the same way as an LEU rod would be — water storage for several months while they cool down then air storage in dry casks before (since this is Japan) reprocessing and reuse of the uranium and plutonium and concentration and storage of the small amount of real waste in each rod.
JCT
@John Cole:
Yes — this is why they still exist. Our beagle is naughty on a daily basis, but when she comes to us at bedtime and insists on being carried to bed so she can put her head on the pillow like a baby and sigh? Well, she could have burnt down the house and we wouldn’t be mad. Speaking of burning down the house, we still pull the knobs off the stove…..
And our little beagle, Kaleigh, is 8 today — have to stop and get her a special birthday SNEK!
DBrown
Omnes Omnibus, no insult directed at anyone – there is no accepted fact published that breeder reactors cannot undergo a small nuclear explosion if the fuel melts.
That said, look it up on the internet? Really – yes, the breeder reactor site … wait, they don’t care to talk about that or … wait, those sites are written by nuclear engineer’s who realize its not relavent since reactors never lose their coolant. Wait use google… no, google is mostly paid sites and deeply buried information that is not paid for has hits on all the key words in usless order so good luck…
No, if you want to “prove it” you have to get a book – try the “Careless Atom” or the book “We almost lost Detroit” (like anyone would have cared?)
Breeders have been forgotten here since the eightes because they were far too dangerous and costly to build. That is why I say, learn to research information yourself and don’t waste time asking for links to second source writers that have their own reasons to say bullshit. Be smart and use your own brain, it is a wonderful thing.
Here are a few links:
here is the wiki on breeders (it notes the book) and points out the US, UK and France have all abandon breeders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor
Here is the book (and reviews) at amozon: http://www.amazon.com/Almost-Lost-Detroit-John-Fuller/dp/0345252667
And a song on Youtube (see it must be real, because its on youtube! Damn, the best proof for this generation of disbelievers.)
Scientific american printed an article on this in the late seventies but that is not on-line.
Catsy
@SiubhanDuinne:
I wonder what the creators of the Homefront video game would have to say about that–especially since the game’s story was penned by John Milius, who wrote Red Dawn.
FWIW, the game is actually a lot of fun both in SP and MP–it’s basically a spiritual successor to BF2 from a gameplay perspective. The SP campaign is really emotionally brutal, though.
Comrade Mary
@Robert Sneddon: Ah, thanks. I’d heard about MOX, but the babble upthread about breeder reactors threw me.
Can you assess whether there could be any significant concentration of Pu isotopes left in those rods? If the half-lives are short, are we looking at hours, days or weeks before they decay? And IIRC, unless you get a really intense explosion and fire that throws particles high enough to enter the jet stream, fallout would be local (and horrible, evacuation or not) rather than extended. Is that right?
DBrown
Robert Sneddon, you missed giving the percentage of Pu in the MOX fuel (strange, the #3 had the Pu added fuel rods but all were removed – good timing.) That would clear up a lot and help prove your point and convince me that their is no such danger.
Again, I didn’t think there was enough Pu in the reactor’s fuel to be a serious concern but it has been the actions today by the Japanese that has me concerned – any reason they are ignoring the cooling tank (that you say has fuel rods with a MOX and Pu mix) and risking lives to save one (nearly fully enclosed) reactor when others and a fuel storage area is also in danger of melting/burning? What gives there?
An expert opinion would go far – lets see if you, at least can give an explanation to their rather strange behavior on #3 since the NRC has publicly stated that #4 (pool of fuel rods) is the greatest danger and source for a lot of the radiation – please clarify.
By the way, it was published by the New York Times that the rods had plutonium and we all know that trace amounts exist in fuel rods, so what gives – the NYT is lying?
Thanks
Nied
@DBrown:
Jesus Christ this is so wrong it’s tough to know where to begin correcting you. 1.) Reactor 3 is not a breeder reactor, it’s a pretty standard Boiling water reactor fueled by MOX (Mixed OXide fuel) a type of reprocessed fuel that does contain pu but not in the quantities you seem to think it does. Japan only has one experimental breeder reactor on the other side of the country, but it operates on a completely different principle than Reactor 3 (all of Fukushima’s reactors are light water cooled, while the overwhelming majority of Breeders, including Japan’s are cooled by molten sodium). 2. While there’s a remote possibility that in the event of a complete meltdown the fuel in the reactor could reach low level criticality and begin reacting again, the chances of a supercritical reaction like you’re talking about is so remote that it’s actually more likely the reactor will spontaneously cool itself off (ie so remote it’s ridiculous to even talk about). 3. While the fuel pools in the deactivated reactor 4 are a concern, reactor 1, 2, and 3 all have their own spent fuel pools as well all of which received unknown amounts of damage during the hydrogen explosions over the past few days. Dumping water on the outside of the reactor vessel would do just about zero good in cooling a reactor but it would be quite helpful in re-filling the spent fuel pools for that reactor. There’s added concern that MOX is somewhat more flammable than the Low Enriched Uranium fuel of the other reactors so keeping it cool would take priority.
DBrown
Comrade Mary,
stating points of view is not babble or is acting like a pre-teen child your norm?
Catsy
@DBrown:
No, but stating uninformed points of view is.
DBrown
Nied, your last line in your post is the best information and is a very good point that supports the Japanese actions.
Some of what you said is rather silly (spontaneously cool itself ) and pointless to say unless mockery is of value here.
As for droping water on the fuel rod pools, yes, that makes sense – are there such pools in reactor #3? If so, again, that would futher support your point and make sense.
DBrown
Catsy – and how are my points ‘uninformed’ or are you too just trying to change the subject?
MattR
@DBrown:
The way I see it, everyone on the Internet is just babbling uninformed thoughts unless they can provide links to back up the facts that they assert. (EDIT: You may be 100% right, but how am I supposed to know that you are any more informed than anybody else)
Comrade Mary
@DBrown: It’s not a “point of view” to claim that No. 3 is a breeder reactor. It’s just plain wrong. Your original comment was poorly written, and your belligerent response, with no attributions of coherent arguments, was worse.
But you’re reading and replying to the responses you’re getting and seem open to changing your perspective, so I appreciate that.
Nied
@DBrown:
It absolutely was intended as mockery, because what you said was so flat out wrong as to be ridiculous. Again speaking in terms of probability it’s actually more likely that the reactor will spontaneously cool itself than cause a nuclear explosion. It’s also more likely that a tornado will rip through the parking lot at my office (it’s a clear day here in Boston) and assemble the cars into a working 747. It could happen, but the chances of it are so small that discussing it as anything other than a joke is stupid.
DBrown
MattR,
Strange you should say that since I did included links on my post – now prove what you just said with links. Otherwise, you are a rather dishonest person to make an unsupported statement just to fill up space here by your post.
Or are you too afraid of people asking, speculating and putting forth informed guess when trying to figure out actions that agencies that all to often lied or mis-informed the public and even uses trolls to spread propaganda?.
DBrown
Nied, I never said I was right but it is a fact that breeders can undergo a nuclear explosion if the fuel melts and collects – I never have said a word about standard BWR so that is your error, not mine. Try to read what someone says before you comment and make mistakes.
DBrown
Now, if you think mockery proves anything of value then you are either afraid of people exchanging information here that you don’t like or you too are so immature that it is your only recourse in discussing topics.
DBrown
Comrade Mary, please post my “belligerent response” so I can see what you are saying because I have made none.
Nied
@DBrown:
Then why bring up breeder reactors at all since they aren’t in any way relevant to the discussion of Reactor 3 (a BWR)? Either you brought it up as some kind of red hearing or you honestly thought reactor 3 somehow transformed from a BWR into a high temperature sodium cooled reactor at some point (or didn’t know the difference). So either you’re being dishonest, or you’re so colossally mis-informed as to be worthy of a healthy dose of mockery.
Comrade Mary
@DBrown:
You claimed No. 3 was a breeder reactor in your original post (wrong), you speculated about the reasons for the apparent concentration on No. 3 (fair enough, but getting defensive when asked for backup doesn’t help you make a theory into fact), and you were snotty and insulting to liberal, telling him to do his own research, when all he asked was this: “Where did you get the info that #3 is a breeder that could undergo a nuclear explosion?”
We all know breeder reactors exist. That wasn’t what was being questioned. Look, we’re all trying to figure out what’s happening here. Theorizing is fine. Just offer theories as theories, not received truth, and don’t lash out at people with reasonable questions.
DBrown
Comrade Mary, whether it is uninformed is a strange statement since you have not, as yet asked me what it was based on? That is rather unfair and proves your point only relative to you and the post.
Still, it is a fair question you should have asked so here is my answer.
Looking on goggle, I found technical papers that did say that the #3 reactor used both enriched uranium and plutonium. This has been confirmed by a poster here and the NYT – to my knowledge, and again, please correct me, I know of only breeder reactors using Pu – so my logic is sound. I too doubted that there was enough to be any danger but the Japanese behavior which even alarmed the NRC got me to thinking (yes, dangerous but how else do people learn?).
So, no, I am not using uninformed thinking and this term was a significant error on your part without first having the courtesy of asking me on my thinking.
Last I checked this was a blog and speculation is common unlike formal research.
Finally, I am always interested in facts or guesses based on good thinking and wil lchange my points when such are oftered.
Comrade Mary
You know what? If I’d done the research you did, I probably could have made the same assumption, and would have come here to verify if my theory was correct because, like you, I’m a civilian with no special knowledge but a lot of curiosity. All sorts of plausible theories make sense, but not all plausible theories are right.
Give other people a little credit when they ask fair questions, that’s all. You were wrong today. I’ve been wrong a lot, too. We just keep learning.
MattR
@Comrade Mary: This is pretty much my response to DBrown’s response to me.
Robert Sneddon
@Comrade Mary:
Fuel rods are usually pulled from a reactor after about 10% of their fissile fuel has been “burnt”. There are various reasons for this, mostly operational cost-effectiveness and for safety reasons.
I don’t know what the exact mix of Pu-oxide and uranium was in the MOX fuel rods used at Fukushima. The recipes for MOX vary between reactor designs and the operational plans for that fuel cycle. I’d expect that the amount of Pu fissioned in the reactor during the fuel burn would match the amount of uranium, pretty much so you’d expect to have about 90% of it left. Pu-239 and Pu-240 have long half-lives, 24000 years and 6500 years respectively which means they are not that dangerous in terms of radioactivity. They emit alpha particles which are easily screened by, for example, a sheet of paper or similar. The really dangerous radioactive materials such as Cobalt-60 emit penetrating and energetic gamma rays and have short half-lives like Polonium-208, famously used to poison a Russian journalist in the UK a few years ago. The consolation is that the dangerous “hot” stuff decays quite quickly. Once the site is stabilised, the reactors at Fukushima will be left to cool down radiologically speaking for a couple of decades before dismantling will proceed but this is true of any nuclear plant being decommissioned at end-of-life.
The biological toxicity of plutonium is vastly overrated by folks who don’t know better but that might be what is worrying you. It is not “the most poisonous element known to man” as some anti-nuclear liars have proclaimed in the past. There are quite a few other elements and compounds which easily beat it in that competition — beryllium for one, or arsenic and that’s before you get into man-made compounds such as neurotoxins designed for chemical warfare.
If you are worried about the MOX plutonium getting out into the environment and being dispersed any significant distance from the reactor site, I think it very unlikely. The big worries are the traditional daughter radioisotope threats such as cesium, potassium, strontium and iodine which are absorbed and retained by the body — iodine in the thyroid gland for example, or cesium in the bones. Having a radioactive compound absorbed in body tissues long-term is a bad thing hence the precautionary potassium iodide tablets being issued in Japan as they flood the body with these elements preventing the radio-isotope from being absorbed quite as much. With plutonium there’s no preferential biological pathway or concentration process to subvert using non-radioactive substitutes.
There have been very few cases of people known to be exposed to significant amounts of plutonium to use as a baseline for prognosis but of the ten or so known cases of plutonium exposure of American workers in nuclear weapons development programmes in the 1940s and 1950s, I think four or five of them were still alive fifty years later and only one of their deaths was attributable to cancer and even that may not even have been primarily due to plutonium. On the other hand they had first-class medical care and regular checkups all their lives after the incidents that exposed them so that might have distorted the data.
DBrown
Comrade Mary , saying saying do your own research is “snotty and insulting to liberal”? Please, and what a few people have already posted here isn’t? Telling someone to search for information is helping people to learn – it gets old spoon feeding people but your being very one sided and hardly honest in that respect when you use such insulting terms because of what I said and you are one being unprofessional and down right childess.
As for a breeder – your statement, without bases is rather incorrect and very misleading because any intelligent person who has read up on breeders knows full well that Pu is used and regular reactor never add Pu? So even if I am wrong on it being a true breeder, it was a very valid conclusion and only someone with a false agenda would say this if they understood what a breeder was and is used for.
As such, my usage is not far off regardless and far better than saying it is a typical BWR – a reactor which never has Pu put into them.
DBrown
Robert Sneddon, thanks for the information. I do not consider Pu significant danger unless inhaled. Still, I am not the only person who was wondering about the issue of Pu in that reactor (again, NYT said it,too)- like I said, some papers (tech.) claimed that reactor had Pu added to the fuel and this confused me since I too, know that one needs a liquid metal to cool such a reactor to avoid fast neutron loss.
Still, despite his unprofessional behavior, Nied made excellent points that answered most all my concerns – strange that comrade mary had no issue with that but consistency by posters around here is not the standard.
Nied
@DBrown:
You are incorrect. Most reactor types are capably of running on MOX fuel that contains small amounts of P-240 (less than 7%) which is not capable of undergoing the type of nuclear reaction you hypothesized (weapons grade Plutonium is p-239). Fast Breeder Reactors of the type you’re worried about 1. Operate at vastly higher temperatures (so much so that instead of using water as a coolant they use molten metals instead) and 2. Contain vastly higher concentrations of plutonium in their fuel mix (40%) and do create significant amounts of p-239.
Comrade Mary
Robert Sneddon: thanks for the incredibly helpful and detailed answer. I should have remembered that Pu has a ridiculously long half-life.
DBrown: seeing your post below: I think you at least partially get what I’m saying. Thanks. I’ll drop this.
DBrown
Comrade Mary in post 93 I accept your explanation and withdraw post 96’s conclusion (too late to delete) but you were rather harsh just because you didn’t agree with me – however, many people do that so I shouldn’t have made such an issue of it. Yes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing since incorrect conclusion can be the result – that is why I tell people to look it up themselves – I am not making political statements here – these are based on technical information anyone can goggle and they should.
I fully accept Robert Sneddon not because he included links (he didn’t) but because his statements are easy to prove/disprove by doing a simple search – why should I be the only person required to link for all my statements when they are easy to check themselves and far better off if they learn how? That is the bases of learning – get interested and do the work to find out. QED
Comrade Mary
DBrown, see my revised post above.
DBrown
Comrade Mary,
Sorry, but I have no idea what you mean by that last post, and I looked it up and the answers made little sense except to someone who is a math major, so please explain.
DBrown
Neid, your answer is convincing beyond any reasonable doubt and I stand corrected and agree you are correct and my posts are completely incorrect (i.e. I was wrong) relative to the Pu and its danger for Reactor #3 – QED for you, point and match. Thanks, you corrected a very sore point for me.
Comrade Mary
DBrown, ignore it. I gave in to librarian sarcasm because I thought you weren’t listening, but you were. So even though we still are a little bit in disagreement, I take it back and apologize.
Peter
So is there a word for people like DBrown, the Disaster equivalent of the 101st Chairborne? Badly-informed rubberneckers who pollute the dialogue with speculations on the barest of evidence, all from a safe distance from the disaster itself?
Comrade Mary
Peter, he’s revisited his conclusions. Let it go, eh?
Nied
@DBrown:
Fair enough. It takes big (wo)man to admit they’re wrong so big props to you. Sorry if I got a little combative there but I’ve been doing my damnedest to knock down a lot of ignorance about nuclear energy and Fukushima specifically and I think it’s starting to wear on me.
cckids
@MikeJ:
And hadn’t they come up through Texas, straight into Colorado? My memory is quite fuzzy about the movie, but I remember at the time it seemed like quite the geography fail.
DBrown
Comrade Mary – no problem and I too have been guilty, so I have no room to talk or cast stones.
Nied – know the feeling but your facts are and were right on and I am grateful for both your time and efforts to correct my mistakes and errors. The reactors at the site cannot undergo any non-chemical explosion – you are correct – period; topic closed.
Thanks again
Peter
@Comrade Mary: I made the mistake of not refreshing the page before posting te comment. My apologies, DBrown.
That being said, a Disaster equivalent of the Chairborne does seem to me to be a real phenomena: You got the same thing with the Gulf oil spill, with those idiots running around screaming about how the bedrock was cracked or something and the entire oil reservoir was going to come pouting out any day now.
rickstersherpa
Scott Walker has column in “Fox on 15th Street” (a/k/a as the Washington Post). His basic meme is a return to “divide and conquer” strategy as he uses his column to once again try to pit one set of workers against another (in this case Federal workers against his State Workers). He finishes once again that he is “doing this for the children” (apparently the children currently being educated in Wisconsin schools don’t count – like most Republicans he prefers to throw his love to abstract, non-existent people in “future generations” with the exception of Galtian Overlords like the Kochs). I think it must disappoint Frank Luntz when someone so inartful starts playing with his memes. I won’t link to Scott, but rather to Dean Baker who points out that health benefits are part of total compensation package, and that what Walker is doing is a pay cut for employees who already receive relatively low pay for work. http://www.businessinsider.com/governor-walker-tells-post-readers-that-he-doesnt-understand-basic-economics-2011-3
Right now, with 8.9% official unemployment, employers can cut and freeze salaries, so in this way Walker is acting like an appropriate Galtian overlord wannabe.
Being from the north suburbs of Chicago, with lots of friends living in Kenosha, Wisconsin, I am familiar with Milwaukee and the darker side of its racial politics, which is twinned with the decline of traditional industries and unions in Wisconsin which has allowed the election of Walker and Johnson last year. Walker comes out Milwaukee County, whose white suburbs have roughly the same regard the predominately Black population of the city. And then the Catholic Church in Wisconsin, in part to change the subject from pedophilia, has become particularly militant on abortion. (Again, the protection and passion for humans in a rather abstract form. Once they travel down the birth canal, per St. Augustine, they become wretched and worthless sinners like the rest of us, and if born black and or poor, properly damned), a movement that Walker and the Fitzgeralds have strongly associated themselves. This is the trade mark of the three pillars of the current Republican Party: militant laizze-faire in regard to business and what it can do to labor, consumers, and the environment to make a buck, militant state interventionist in the sexual lives of women and their health, and militant willingness to whatever it takes, bomb, torture, etc, to what does not look like a “real American” to bring back a mythical sense of “security” for “real Americans. White workers and middle class Catholics voted for Walker because the meme was dancing around in their head that all this Goverment debt and “stimulus” was going to Blacks and Browns, that Walker and Johnson were right to life while Barrett and Feinberg were not, and finally, that they had some magic dust to bring back jobs and job security when the Democrats appeared pretty indifferent to the issue. He has now disabuse them on these issues, but they will have live with the results for at least the next 4 years (and he may well be reelected as the economy actually be strongly growing in 2015-16 as many of its wound may finally be healed by then, and nothing helps a politican more than a strong economy and nothing hurts more than a weak economy. Very stupid that we vote that way because in the short term Governors have very little influence on economic conditions, and compared to the chairman of the Federal Reserve, neither do Presidents.)
But another part of the puzzle about how this Jerk became Governor goes to the racial politics and divides of the country. And unfortunately in Wisconsin, as in the South, the career Black politicians of the City appear far more interested in keeping a permanent hold on office and helping their cronies then advancing the interests of the constituents and working in coalition for the liberal and progressive agenda (after reading the entries in this blog, I must admit a speculative suspicion arose in my mind about how hard Mr. Holloway, Chairman of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors and now Acting County Executive, worked for the election of Mayor Barrett when Scott Walker’s election would allow him to become Acting Supervisor). http://bitchesonabus.blogspot.com/2011/01/king-walker-scotty-god.html
DFH no.6
We had a beagle-mix rescue who we inherited from my peripatetic daughter (Air Force, assigned to Alaska base, can’t take your beagle mix there with you, and even if you could – Alaska and beagles?).
Just a couple years old when we got him, and though he wasn’t the brightest bulb, he was incredibly sweet and just a wonderful addition to the pack (we typically have 3 or 4 around).
Loved his baying, and loved to get him to do it by doing it myself (others were not so sanguine about that, but too bad – my house). His baying was the first thing I’d hear upon pulling into the garage coming home from work. No matter what, that made me smile every time.
He had the beagle “eating gene”, and some time during his second year with us I noticed he was starting to get a bit, well, paunchy. Never had a fat dog in my life, so I decided to nip that in the bud and put him on short rations. 2 years later he was back down to a svelte weight, but he was always after more food, poor guy.
He was always fine on walks, too. Maybe because he wasn’t purebred, but if you’d seen him you’d have said, “Beagle, and some other hound, I guess”.
Just one year ago he started moping around on a Saturday morning, and though we thought it odd, went on with our usual weekend activities. Early that evening I said, “This isn’t right” and decided to take him to the nearest animal hospital emergency room. Massive peritonitis. He was dying, so we did the merciful but heartbreaking thing at 1 am, with me holding him in my arms. He was just 5 years old.
I miss all my dear departed furry children from over the years, but he was the last, and too young to go so soon. Beagle or not, goddamn do I ever miss him terribly.
CaelanAegana
@5 stuckinred: No. If you have never been cursed/blessed by a scenthound, you have no idea how much less other dogs are driven by their noses. It’s like the difference between a 10-watt or 100-watt light bulb, where the 100-watt light bulb is also preprogrammed to follow you around when you have a migraine (the migraine in this metaphor being the 3 molecules of food on your shirt from lunch). Hell, my beagles love food so much they try to eat fruit-scented soap, and the actual taste of soap is not a deterrent in any way. My parents’ 1-year old labrador is comatose by comparison.
Still, I love the little buggers to death. My love can even be quantified by my cabinet latch expenditures.
JCT
@CaelanAegana:
Been there, done that. Accidentally left some soap in the outer pocket of a piece of luggage after a trip, older beagle ATE through the cloth to get to the “yummy” soap. Took a bite out of it, too.
I am also an expert on metal “beagle-proof” latched garbage cans.
We always tell my son that the beagles love him the best, his older sister usually points out that it’s because he spills food on himself…
But even with all of the tsoris and “beagle drama” I will always have at least one…
Platonicspoof
Sounds like an unfortunate home environment, but since all problems can have more than one primary cause, I’ll mention a friend’s beagle that had a weight problem in spite of being on a diet.
Poor dog was accused of being lazy, stealing the other dogs’ food, and mooching.
During a checkup, the vet found the beagle was hypothyroid.
FmrBeagleOwnrCurntLabOwnr
Owners are responsible for their dog’s weight. It’s that simple. Beagles are a very active breed. If you are not very active (be honest with yourself) then don’t get a beagle.
If you want to sit on the couch, get a tiny dog that will find enough exercise from walking around your house.