j_b

and now, reactor #4 is on fire. I bet there are lots of very nervous people in Japan, and down-wind from there ...

Largest protest yet (>100,000) in Madison last Saturday. Have regressives over-reached and woken up a sleeping giant? [video:youtube]UeHahlFxy0c Anybody noticed how a few tea-baggers demonstrating get hours of coverage in the news but massive progressive demos are mostly ignored by the corporate media?

Indeed, the bad news keep piling up for the Japanese people. There are tsunami deposits on the shores of Puget Sound. The most recent dated at ~1100 y.b.p. Satellite photos pre and post tsunami: satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami

2.5 m is probably an average over an arbitrary region (smaller than Honshu). The distribution of coseismic displacements: http://www.unavco.org/community_science/science_highlights/2011/M8.9-Japan-images/M8.9-Japan-Sendai_GPS_coseismic-large.gif[/img] From here: more graphics

[video:youtube]LvxcrFBtyfk

it's much more than the oppressed versus the man, it's a civilization crisis and the probability of a hard landing cannot be excluded. yes, but whatever really motivates JayB to say what he says isn't mutually exclusive with his complete and unabashed approval of the neoliberal assault on the republic and the social contract.

especially since that post was quite consistent with Bill's posting history.

I am kind of curious to know what changing BS would do? At least, some of us are focusing on earthquake mitigation efforts and how that would work here if the current crop of loonies in the US congress have their way with scientific funding, hazard monitoring and the regulatory apparatus.

Yes, but that would not be the new, uninhibited right wing way of doing things. Among the new right, being free from social conventions and moral constraints means being proud to display one's sociopathic tendencies.

confusing Japan with Korea is sure to start WW3

after 30 years of widespread union busting in the private sector nationwide, union demographics have changed (duh!)

you pay someone to read the machine output

I agree tsunami watchers are paid way too much for sitting on their fat lazy government ass. Not only, should they get paid as little as possible because watching for tsunamis isn't real work, it doesn't generate any money (meaning anybody can do it and it's not necessary anyway) and their elders do know how much that is worth on the market place. But, especially, they shouldn't have the right to go on strike because what do we do if a tsunami occurred in the meanwhile.

Actually, government provides (or not, depending on locale) the systems to detect, track, warn, and evacuate for tsunamis, as well as respond to the damage afterwards. KKK doesn't need no stinking gubmint overlord to watch out for tsunamis. First, Attila isn't afraid of tsunamis (pussy!) and 2nd, he doesn't live or work by the water so fuck you if you do, you had it coming for not being able to stand on your own 2 feet in 30 feet of water without the nanny state holding your hand. You can watch out for tsunamis on your own dime.

How would like to have that Blankenship dude (of coal fame) own one of these new nuclear plants they are trying to build?

"Pressure inside a reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co's quake-hit Fukushima Daiichi plant may have risen to 2.1 times its designed capacity, Japan's trade ministry said on Saturday, exceeding the 1.5-times level announced a few hours earlier."

Pointing out the resounding success of Japanese building regulations and how it clashes with the world view currently being shoved down our throat by the extremist right wing doesn't seem like hijacking an innocuous discussion to me.

Yet, showing what codes can do to avert a much bigger catastrophe seems like a worthwhile exercise.

It is a resource issue in the most impoverished regions of the world but my point is that most everywhere there is a cheap enough and safe solution.

Safe technologies don't have to be expensive. If you don't have the funds to build a tall structure that is safe, don't build a tall structure. Low structures built out of flexible materials are usually quite earthquake resistant. The huts of Iran and Turkey that crumble are usually adobe buildings without wood infrastructure.

http://factoidz.com/the-turkish-earthquake-of-1999/

Same thing happened in Italy last year when shoddy new constructions failed because contractors shirked on cost to make bigger profits.

Actually, that's false because many buildings that failed in the last major Turkey earthquake were new constructions when contractors had used too much sand in concrete because it's cheaper.

who said we needed to come up with new material when the old material is more current than EVER, in my lifespan anyway?

Right, because consumers would never choose earthquake-proofed buildings on their own and create demand for such products in the free market. Especially in an area in which earthquakes are frequent and devastating. Actually, places with weak regulations have huge casualty counts during quakes (Turkey for example). It's the case for most natural hazard btw: people who live in LA burbs routinely buy expensive houses that were built right in the paths of debris flows. 30% of new shoreline properties will be gone in 50-100 years, etc