Just when people can't get any more nervous in Hawaii.....

I don't think it was because if you look at the tv footage you'll see
that it was the outer skin blew off leaving the structure intact.

That wasn't a containment vessel going up but it's not looking very
healthy all the same.

 

The (presumably reinforced) concrete outer skin which instantly turned
to dust. You can see the shockwave at the start of the video on
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12720219

It wasn't nuclear, but it was still a bloody big explosion.

 

Well at least the hosts of BBC Breakfast got their piece of excitement.
They've had a nuclear power expert in the studio who was very calm,
collected and clear in what he was saying. He refused to bite on the
"disaster" lead that hosts were dangling in front of him.

Meanwhile Charlie and Suzanna are asking "but what's the *worst* case
scenario?" "are you sure there isn't lots of nuclear fuel that will
explode and kill people?" "please please tell us that there will be a
massive explosion wiping the area of the map" [1]. It was toe
curlingly awful. I thought the BBC was supposed to do news not wild,
frantic, "drooling in anticipation" speculation.


[1] slight exaggeration on my part here but they might as well have said
it like that.

 

I wont watch bbc news anymore, horrible presenters that really are poor at
what they do.

Things are bad enough without scaremongering as well, cunts.

 

Amazing set of photos.

I have been watching NHK World on sat telly and the sheer power of the
tsunami is just unreal. They've been showing before and after photos and
if anyone had not managed to get out of the way then they're dead for
sure. Having grown to love the country despite only a couple of visits
it is all immensely depressing. I can't begin to imagine how people, in
the worst affected areas, will be able to rebuild their lives after
this.

And just to keep the panic levels up - the quake tilted the earth off
its axis by 10cm and with the distinct risk of much more to come.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110313a4.html

I had been planning to return to Tokyo in April but let's just say
that's not likely to happen now.

 

Apparently, the main island of Japan has moved by 8 feet.

 

I haven't heard that but I am watching NHK's news service (in English)
and the stories and pictures are beyond comprehension. It is amazing
that people seem to have survived despite being engulfed by the tsunami.
Even so the stories are heartbreaking - how on earth the people are
going to come to terms with the scale of human and personal loss I don't
know.

Parts of the country have obviously been brought almost to a standstill
and all sorts of things we take for granted are not working - heating,
electricity, water, petrol supplies (2 mile queues at petrol stations
are reported in the affected area), food supplies etc. The world as
people knew it has stopped.

The Japanese PM has ordered rolling 3 hour power cuts in an effort to
conserve power supplies. It's not entirely clear which areas this will
affect but I suspect it will affect Tokyo and the surrounding region.
That's going to have a heck of an impact.

 

You'll have a massive impact? Are you off to hit things with hammers?

I'd rather not - I can imagine what the idiots are saying. Japan may be
a rich country, it may have a mixed history, it may have a culture that
finds saying sorry a little difficult but you would not wish a massive
earthquake and tsunami on them and then refuse to help.

The Americans also need to not be "holier than thou" when it comes to
Japan. I read recently about the scale of crime that American troops
"visit" upon the residents of Okinawa where all the big US bases are.
Needless to say there is no criminal justice meted out to the troops and
the locals just have to "put up" with being the victims. It's a
disgrace.

 

Ha, one missing letter makes all the difference doesn't it? There
should have been a t in there.

I've got too much on the go over here to be swanning off to Japan.

 

Send aid? Are you fucking kidding, they're minted.

I watched an interview yesterday with some Japanese bloke and he had
two fucking great boats nonchalantly dumped on his driveway. Aid, my
arse.

--
Lozzo
Versys 650 Inter-Continental Hyperbolistic Missile , CBR600F-W racebike
in the making, TS250C, RD400F (somewhere)
BMW E46 318iSE (it's a car, not one of those 2-wheeled pieces of shite
they churn out)

 

lol!

 

For example? I've looked, but I don't see what you mean.

 

I suppose it depends on what you consider a strange attitude.

Try this for a startter:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110311081658AAB48BX

I was reading some yesterday where the original poster was claiming the
tsunami was God punishing them for the way they acted in WWII. I'm sure
it was the Americans who dropped nukes, not the Japanese.

Again, this may seem normal to you.

 

"Pearl Harbour" was trending quite heavily on Twitter over the weekend.

Seriously. Some people are just arseholes.

 

I guess I'm inured to much of the stupidity in online comments. I read
so much blather but I refuse to believe it represents any significant
portion of the population. The comment section of my local newspaper
has a lot of garbage, but it's always posted by the same few whackos.
I dunno, maybe I'm naive. In that Yahoo link though, you'll notice
there are also a fair number of people with rational viewpoints who
call the whackos on their idiocy.

 

Indeed. Folk who post comments on Web sites are a self-selected lot
and not representative of the wider population. Idiocy is plentiful
and trying to bring the level of discussion up to a higher plane is
so much wasted effort, so the clueful bow out and leave the field to
the ignotes.

<checks for self in newsgroup stats>

 

Oh I dunno - I'll watch if Susannah Reid is on.

The curse of 24 hour rolling news. Gotta fill those slots with
something, and if you can't supply any facts...

 

Just like the fucking Germans then, who can't let their drubbing in WW2
and 1966 and...

 

In Frankfurt last Easter, I got chatting to two locals (in an Irish bar
at about 3am but you can't always choose your sample group).

One of them was asking me if he'd get the shit kicked out of him if he
visited London, because he thought the we all hated Germans.

The other just kept singing "Ten English bombers" at me very loudly.

It was... odd.

 

Well yes but the contrast with NHK World (Japan state broadcaster) is
stark. They do rolling news or something close to it but it is not full
of the scaremongering and crap that the BBC seem happy to generate.
Perhaps it's cultural or just the fact it's the Japanese who're
suffering the disaster and not London based media presenters.