Earfquake!

Anti-Bunny · 2011-04-05T21:11:13.000Z

Jason McCullough:

Maybe you should mail the IAEA about how they’re being stupid!

Why bother? I’m sure they know that, like many UN organizations, they are a joke, anyway.

Sarkus · 2011-04-05T21:34:11.000Z

Reports say they’ve plugged the leak that was allowing radioactive water into the ground and on into the sea from the reactor that is believed to have breached its containment.

Blackadar · 2011-04-06T09:18:00.000Z

caesarbear:

I agree. Actually it’s so misleading that one could call it a stupid comparison.

Yet you’re the one who made the comparison of the death tolls.

caesarbear · 2011-04-06T10:00:40.000Z

Blackadar:

Yet you’re the one who made the comparison of the death tolls.

?..
a “comparison” of they not being comparable.

Seriously, I’m the one accused of not knowing the definition of the word?
English is a tricky motherfucker fo sure, and those multiple connotations can fuck you up fo real, but saying “Fukushima compares to Chernobyl,” ya know the whole reason this spat started, the way the media keeps making the comparison irresponsibly, is stupid.

Are you guys seriously justifying this apples to oranges with ‘well literally there’s no reason why someone could not compare an apple to an orange as they are both fruit’ bullshit?

AlanQ · 2011-04-06T10:20:38.000Z

Fukushima does compare to Chernobyl.

Observe:

Fukushima is a less serious nuclear accident than Chernobyl.

This is a comparison.
This is not stupid.
Therefore not all comparisons of Fukushima and Chernobyl are stupid.

we can quibble as to which specific comparisons are apt, but it’s dumb to claim that any comparison between two serious nuclear accidents is impossible.

caesarbear · 2011-04-06T10:53:07.000Z

So yes then on the fruit option.

Dan_Theman · 2011-04-06T11:23:06.000Z

Well, that’s one fruit option as opposed to “prunes are stupid, so all fruit sucks”

Jag · 2011-04-06T12:33:49.000Z

This is amazing.

Tsunami-hit towns forgot warnings from ancestors

“High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants,” the stone slab reads. “Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”

It was advice the dozen or so households of Aneyoshi heeded, and their homes emerged unscathed from a disaster that flattened low-lying communities elsewhere and killed thousands along Japan’s northeastern shore.

Hundreds of such markers dot the coastline, some more than 600 years old. Collectively they form a crude warning system for Japan, whose long coasts along major fault lines have made it a repeated target of earthquakes and tsunamis over the centuries.

Honor thy ancestors indeed.

Blackadar · 2011-04-06T12:58:34.000Z

caesarbear:

?..
a “comparison” of they not being comparable.

Seriously, I’m the one accused of not knowing the definition of the word?
English is a tricky motherfucker fo sure, and those multiple connotations can fuck you up fo real, but saying “Fukushima compares to Chernobyl,” ya know the whole reason this spat started, the way the media keeps making the comparison irresponsibly, is stupid.

Are you guys seriously justifying this apples to oranges with ‘well literally there’s no reason why someone could not compare an apple to an orange as they are both fruit’ bullshit?

Except you also threw in Windscale, a disaster that Fukushima has in all likelihood probably surpassed. That is, of course, unless you use some sort of arbitrary scale based on long-term deaths vs short-term ones like you seem to use. But for everyone else, Fukushima was the 2nd worst nuclear plant disaster ever. Chernobyl is the worst. So comparing the 2nd worst disaster to 1st is now comparing an apple to an orange? Wow, we better not compare the Steelers to the Packers because they’re not exactly equal! OMG!!!

As you said, English is a tricky fucker. You seem to be confusing comparisons with equivalences. If you can find someone saying Fukushima is as bad as Chernobyl, let me know and we can call that person stupid together. But can we compare Fukushima to Chernobyl? Sure we can, all day long.

caesarbear · 2011-04-06T13:14:56.000Z

what started it:

Anti-Bunny:

Pretty good Journalism Wall of Shame on the Fukushima disaster.

Sarkus · 2011-04-06T23:22:01.000Z

Blackadar:

Except you also threw in Windscale, a disaster that Fukushima has in all likelihood probably surpassed. That is, of course, unless you use some sort of arbitrary scale based on long-term deaths vs short-term ones like you seem to use. But for everyone else, Fukushima was the 2nd worst nuclear plant disaster ever. Chernobyl is the worst. So comparing the 2nd worst disaster to 1st is now comparing an apple to an orange? Wow, we better not compare the Steelers to the Packers because they’re not exactly equal! OMG!!!

As you said, English is a tricky fucker. You seem to be confusing comparisons with equivalences. If you can find someone saying Fukushima is as bad as Chernobyl, let me know and we can call that person stupid together. But can we compare Fukushima to Chernobyl? Sure we can, all day long.

Fukushima probably has surpassed Windscale, but I don’t think it’s surpassed Kyshtym, where even official Soviet records indicate as many as 8,000 people died directly or indirectly from what happened. But again, we have to seperate the international event rating, which is only concerned with how much radioactive release there is and whether there are long-term areas that have to be isolated, vs. actual human loss of life.

Blackadar · 2011-04-07T05:52:17.000Z

Sarkus:

Fukushima probably has surpassed Windscale, but I don’t think it’s surpassed Kyshtym, where even official Soviet records indicate as many as 8,000 people died directly or indirectly from what happened. But again, we have to seperate the international event rating, which is only concerned with how much radioactive release there is and whether there are long-term areas that have to be isolated, vs. actual human loss of life.

Well, you also have to consider that the Soviets didn’t tell or evacuate people nearby, not to mention nonexistent safety and handling procedures that exacerbated the disaster.

Woolen_Horde · 2011-04-07T07:52:51.000Z

Goddamnit, a 7.4 just hit off Japan’s coast. Tsunami warning going out now.

Cougar · 2011-04-07T08:02:16.000Z

Japan doesn’t need this. :(

~C~

Canuck · 2011-04-07T08:15:01.000Z

I was doing situps at the time. I thought the vibrations of my bookshelves were simply the effect of my fat getting worked off.

Jag · 2011-04-07T08:38:04.000Z

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdwsLRqj5Lg&feature=youtu.be

That’s Sendai. Looks like a transformer blew and the lights went out.

Alan_Dunkin · 2011-04-07T12:05:50.000Z

I’ve heard some people say these are “earthquake lights” actually, rather than transformers, but impossible to say for sure just from that…

— Alan

Lynch · 2011-04-07T15:58:39.000Z

Anti-Bunny:

Comparing Fukushima with Chernobyl is pretty stupid, actually.

I guess you’ll change your mind in ten years maximum. Probably earlier.

antlers · 2011-04-07T16:28:46.000Z

Lynch:

I guess you’ll change your mind in ten years maximum. Probably earlier.

So is that how long it’s going to take for the containment buildings to be completely blown away and a core to burn up? Because if those things don’t happen, it’s not really going to be comparable to Chernobyl.

Lynch · 2011-04-07T16:36:12.000Z

Fukushima is currently the second worst civil nuclear incident of all times so I’m not quite sure why it is stupid to compare it to the worst incident of all times first of all. I think findings about the consequences of the catastrophe will take at least a decade to be evaluated realistically. Maybe it will take much longer.