Chiba City, Just Outside Tokyo

Earth Move Under My Feet: Check.

Sky Tumbling Down: Check.*

Heart Start to Trembling: Check.

*Special dispensation for radiation clouds.

And if you haven’t, please go vote for bluegal to get this scholarship.

Okay, this headline scares me, and it ain’t the HuffPo:

Japan Floods Nuclear Reactor Crippled by Earthquake to Avert Full Meltdown

ADD: And I don’t like it when the word “last-ditch” appears in the same sentence as “nuclear reactor,” especially when it’s the lede.

@SanFranLefty: CNN’s been playing the same angle, with a real-life Nuclear Physicist. He points out that when you flood the reactor with salt water, you’re pretty much destroying all the equipment inside.

@nojo: Yeah, I was wondering what the salt water would do.

Okay, this is too much reality, I think I’m going to clean my apartment instead of reading or watching news…

@nojo: They are making shit up as they go along, in the BP/Gulf tradition.

Passing thought: Why are people who are so eager to desecrate the environment the same ones who tell us we need to solve the deficit now so our grandkids don’t have to deal with it?

@nojo:
Sigh. I’m suddenly flashing back to my old man, a nuke engineer, telling/lecturing me about the general danger in using lightwater reactor designs. He has a point. The more expensive CANDU wouldn’t have crapped out like that as it was designed to avoid what is happening right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor

Only drawback with this design? It’s nuclear fuel turns into Pu239 aka Plutonium.

@nojo:
Because it’s always been about them.

Greedy useless fuckers.

Minor uproar in Canada City.

PM Fatty’s no bid deal to buy Stealth Fighters, the much maligned F-35, turns out to be just a touch more expensive than PM Fatty said. Instead of $16 billion, it’s $30 billion CDN because PM Fatty’s accountants neglected to add in spares, maintenance and replacements.

Works out to about $435 Million a jet (65 jets less than 2 wings worth (each wing = 36 jets)) Using military math (for ever sq in the field, you have one in maintenance and one in training) that works out to about 2 active squadrons.

Considering a $56 billion budget deficit and gubbiment cutbacks, one can imagine that people are kind of pissed.

@ManchuCandidate: What type of nuke reactors are the ones in Wisconsin that Gov Walker wants to have his buddies at Koch Inc. manage?

@ManchuCandidate: Tritium too, according to that Wikipedia article. Boom!!

wtf, the bus!
and more happy news: my usually unflappable dear israeli girlfriend is wringing her wists. they have stepped up security measures and drills for school children in the event of nuclear attack..somebody knows sumtin….
i’m old enough to remember the drills in elementary school, where we pulled down black window shades and cowered under our desks. (as lewis black noted, great idea: in the event of explosions, let’s put the children under kindling) not a word about it in the jerusalem post, but i did find a gem or two. gene simmons, jew (!), is bringing his heavy metal band to israel, where he was born Chaim Witz AND charlie sheen, not anti semetic-wait for it–self loathing. his mother is a jew. also, something about heavy metal klezmer–dodger and reds will be so amused.

http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishFeatures/Article.aspx?id=211585

@SanFranLefty:
Probably Light Water. If I recall, all US Designs are light water nukes. That’s what GE and Westinghouse sold. Only Canada (and South Korea/Romania/China because we sold it to them) uses the heavy water design.

It’s pretty expensive compared to light water design, but it was designed with safety in mind… supposedly.

@Dodgerblue:
What do you think went into US America nuclear bombs? A bit of Canada City in each one!

@ManchuCandidate: That makes me feel better. BTW mywife, kids and I are going to Nova Scotia this summer for music, hiking and spending greenbacks.

@baked: You read about the Israeli family murdered inthe West Bank? Note to Hamas or whoever did this: the Israelis are not French. You can watch Battle of Algiers all you want, but that’s not going to work in Israel.

CNN, quoting Japanese authorities: “A meltdown may be under way.”

ADD: Where’s that nuke flack when you need him?

ADD2: Wolf now talking to Japanese ambassador: “We do not see any evidence of that.”

Fukushima (at least in English terms) is appropriately named.

Fuk.

CNN correspondent now citing “conflicting reports”. Meltdown report comes via Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.