The fact that Coulter is hawking this dog-eared theory (which has had a LOT of money thrown at it by the pro-nuclear lobby and nuclear industry) comes as no surprise. Here's a woman who seems to have a pathological hunger for self-immolation and would shill for a penny. 

Whenever I listen to Coulter (along with all the other American shock jocks) I'm reminded of the truckload of self-important sophists in Plato's dialogues who, when confronted with the reason of good natured Socrates, resort to mind-boggling fictions meant to leave their opponent not knowing which way is up. Bill O'Reilly is no Socrates - but I'm sure the old Greek would have approved of his performance in that exchange. 

Of course, the theory of "Radiation Hornesis" is a joke. It has almost no support in the scientific community and even the various nuclear regulatory bodies (who are notorious for setting "safe" radiation limits well above those considered so by physicians just so that people can actually work at atomic facilities) think it's a crock of shit. The idea that "Radon gas is good for smokers" is absolutely crazy. Smokers ALREADY receive significantly higher doses of radiation than non-smokers. Indeed, it's the REASON they develop cancer. It's a little-known fact that the tobacco plant functions as a natural receptacle for the radioactive element Polonium (which cannot do any serious harm outside the body as human skin acts as a secure barrier, but once inside in begins wreaking havoc with cell replication leading to tumors) and it remains tightly bound to the leaves throughout the manufacturing process (the tobacco companies have been trying to neutralise it without success for decades).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Werewolf Girl 

Ann Coulter to Bill O’Reilly: ‘Radiation Is Actually Good for You’ 

 

Wow, I never thought I'd see O'Reilly being the voice of reason.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geoff Foster 
Of course, the theory of "Radiation Hornesis" is a joke. It has almost no support in the scientific community and even the various nuclear regulatory bodies (who are notorious for setting "safe" radiation limits well above those considered so by physicians just so that people can actually work at atomic facilities) think it's a crock of shit.

Might want to check your facts, buddy.  Coulter's representation of it is massively distorted (to the point of outright falsehood), but hormesis is a real thing.  But it's not 'a little radiation is good for you' as Coulter was saying, so much as 'a little radiation can, potentially, trigger a disproportionate immune response that can be beneficial.'  The body overcompensates for the damaged cells and overall health goes up, but prolonged exposure and even slightly higher doses will eventually wear the effect down and then you're fucked.
 

My response was aimed at Coulter's explanation of afforded beneficial effects, not the existence of the phenomenon itself.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fafhrd 

Might want to check your facts, buddy.  Coulter's representation of it is massively distorted (to the point of outright falsehood), but hormesis is a real thing.  But it's not 'a little radiation is good for you' as Coulter was saying, so much as 'a little radiation can, potentially, trigger a disproportionate immune response that can be beneficial.'  The body overcompensates for the damaged cells and overall health goes up, but prolonged exposure and even slightly higher doses will eventually wear the effect down and then you're fucked.
 

 

Rush... just listen to what your saying...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/16/rush-limbaugh-mocks-japan-refugees_n_836384.html

I've never been a fan of someone getting killed in a horrible fashion, but Rush continues to challenge my stance.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joseph P. Brenner 

http://www.unitedatheistfront.com/GodBlessAmerica.jpg

One of the post was so stupid I couldn't get angry. In his words he is still pissed at the "krauts" for " 'nuking" Pearl Harbor.

Fingers crossed everywhere for a swift recovery for Nuclear Boy

PSA provided by a friend in the Japanese news industry. As awesomely silly as it is to US ears, please get crazy generous with Red Cross donations, thanks.

Nobody wants Nuclear Boy poo.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jacob Singer 

And there's good ol' Frank, in the thick of things. Stay safe, fella, and give our regards to all our forces over there.

Thanks.  We're working our collective ass off, flying hundreds of tons of food, blankets, and support equipment up to help the people of Miyagi Prefecture.  Morale is super-high, too - if there's one thing people love doing, it's helping other people.

The Wall Street Journal did a write up about the differences between how the Japanese media and foreign media are covering the nuclear plants.

And, for good measure, a chart comparing the levels of radiation dosages a person can get from various sources.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fafhrd 

Might want to check your facts, buddy.  Coulter's representation of it is massively distorted (to the point of outright falsehood), but hormesis is a real thing.  But it's not 'a little radiation is good for you' as Coulter was saying, so much as 'a little radiation can, potentially, trigger a disproportionate immune response that can be beneficial.'  The body overcompensates for the damaged cells and overall health goes up, but prolonged exposure and even slightly higher doses will eventually wear the effect down and then you're fucked.

Well technically, it is not the radiation you have to worry about. It the chemical toxicity of the heavy metal isotopes, that give off the radiation, that will even in very, very, microscopic amounts slowly kill you. Think lead or mercury poisoning, but taken to level 11!

It's not guns that kill people, people kill people.

...well that, and the bullets ripping through peoples bodies.

 Breaking News. This happened 35 minutes ago...

A magnitude 6.5 earthquake has struck north-eastern Japan, the Japan Meteorological Agency reported on its website.

The agency issued a tsunami advisory after the undersea earthquake, which struck at 7.24am local time (9.24am Melbourne time) near the east coast of Honshu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEn0vnq1PVI&feature=player_embedded

Tsunamis have always scared the bejesus outta me.  This video is pure nightmare fuel:

I watched that earlier today. Jesus Christ.

This video tops that easily. I was watching this live and it's not often that something makes my jaw drop.

The solution is to genetically create giant hamsters and put them in giant metals wheels that will create all the power we need.

Another quake. 7.4 this time. They aren't catching a break.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/07/japan.quake/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1

God dammit, Mother Nature, knock this shit off!

Sheeyit... 2012's not that far away. After watching some of that footage, I'm going to have trouble sleeping.

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE: "One little change has a ripple effect and it effects everything else. Like a butterfly floats its wings and Tokyo explodes or there's a tsunami, in like, you know, somewhere."

Quote:

Originally Posted by DARKMITE8 

Sheeyit... 2012's not that far away. After watching some of that footage, I'm going to have trouble sleeping.

 

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE: "One little change has a ripple effect and it effects everything else. Like a butterfly floats its wings and Tokyo explodes or there's a tsunami, in like, you know, somewhere."

I've heard lots of people saying the "end is nigh" and all that jazz, and to be fair we have had a crazy last couple years for earthquakes. But on the plus side. The big quake that kicked this whole thing off was "only" the 5th largest in the last 100 years, and it wasn't long prior to that where records weren't even kept, so I think it's safe to say we'll keep on truckin'(until we pollute ourselves to death, anyway).

What's really scary are the religious nuts who WANT the end to come. Gah I hate those people.
 

No thanks. Got too many movies in my to-watch pile. ;)
 

Gahhh speak of the devil.

Some breaking news posted by one of my probably soon to be former facebook friends...

I like how the same quake hit Japan again, like it smacked Japan in the head, then circled around the pacific only to come back and swat it again. And Japan is multiple Islands, I'm not sure it's going to "detach" in quite the same way we think of, say, Cali breaking off into the sea. Oh yeah, and the Jesus stuff.

It's interesting to see how many people think that before Jesus returns, He's just gonna murder the shit out of thousands of people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jacob Singer 

It's interesting to see how many people think that before Jesus returns, He's just gonna murder the shit out of thousands of people.

Fear is a great motivator

Also, Jesus spreading love and understanding around the world couldn't happen if he wasn't, at some point, allowed to bring down the heavenly wrath upon our mortal bodies.  He's Jesus, not some dirty, free-loving hippy.

Yeah, this is such a sad, sad, disaster.  Nuclear anything sucks.  It's sad about how we're in denial we are in this country.  This shit will happen to us sooner or later, but we won't learn from what's happening in Japan first.  We'll have to wait until something similar happening here to even discuss it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yt 

ps. I was anti-nuke before this but I think you have to be crazy or in severe denial to not see what a blight we humans are to ourselves and this Earth. 

I'm not pro-nuclear and don't want to diminish the shittiness of the current crisis, but it also seems a bit odd to me to lament how evil and dangerous humans are considering the tsunami itself caused far more death and damage and was beyond anyone's control. I'm also wary of seeing this crisis used to demonstrate the inherent danger of nuclear power given that realistically most of them don't even face the possibility of a natural disaster on this scale.

how many lives have been lost due to nuclear energy accidents?

how many lives have been lost due to oil, and coal accidents?  I don't see the entire eco-system in the gulf getting fucked up due to nuclear energy.  Nuclear energy has it's risk, but lets not make it the villian.

...and within the context of yt's post above, more good news.

Disaster at Fukushima now as bad as Chernobyl

Not much to say really. Fucking hell.

I'm going to leave this mentioning of a scientific study and its rather incendiary implications here - seem as good a place as any...

Climate change compared to the super moon activity or the sunspots?

Where does it fall in those regards?

Quote:

Originally Posted by yt 

 

 

 

Let's not make it the villain?  Natural disasters on this scale are unlikely?  I hate to rain on your parade but to the first point, wait twenty years and take a look at the effects this accident will have on the population, or better yet, take a look at Chernobyl and the horrible congenital defects, diseases and death it has caused.  And to the second point, welcome to the era of global climate change.  I know the earthquake/tsunami wasn't (at least that we know) the direct result of global climate change, but that phenomenon is increasing the severity of virtually every kind of weather condition, the spin and speed of hurricanes, tornadoes, severity of drought, etc.  When you cut off the power on a nuclear reactor, this is what happens, so we have to babysit these rods with no interruption in power for the next, what, half a million years?  I'm sorry for the snarky tone but both of your posts sound like denial to me, and oil and coal are a false alternative.  With investment, we could eliminate all of these dirty and dangerous systems with solar, wind, geothermal and biomass power. 

 

ETA: And by the way, they're dumping radioactive water into the Pacific ocean.  The sea around Japan will be potentially poisoned for God knows how long, all those animals will die horrible deaths, and do you think that radioactive material will stay in one place?  No.  It will move around and up the food chain.  You can't downplay what's happening over there.

 

ETA Pt. II:  On Three Mile Island, of the 2000 people who filed lawsuits, 200 have died of cancer and a disproportionate number of children have been born with congenital irregularities, including Down Syndrome, not just in the immediate area but in the outlying areas.  Just because the nuclear industry can manage to have the discomfiting facts about hazards censored doesn't mean they don't happen. 

A power outage in a given regain for say 3 to 5 day will cause a meltdown. What happen in Japan was the best case scenario, as it happen in a east cost in the northern hemisphere. A west cost event would be the worse cast scenario. A Solar flare could cause more then one nuclear plant in a given regain.

Sorry, but solar, wind, geothermal and biomass power cant even come close to replacing fossil fuels. Orbital solar or maybe helium-3 fusion can, but that is about it, and they are decades away. You are talking about a lot of power.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yt 

What makes you say that?  Is there a study on the subject?  Why are you so sure of this "fact"?

yes

I have posted this before. this a speach give by Dr. Smalley before he died on energy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpYTVMhPUzc this will give you all the info you will need in about an hour.

Really the elephant in the room is that yes, replacements for fossil fuels and nuclear power aren't enough to sustain the world at it's current population density. The fact is the population of the world has spiked to an unprecedented level in the last 110 years all thanks to a finite resource. When looked at within the context of all of human history, these population figures are a complete abnormality. Once the resources that have bolstered this abnormal growth are gone, we're going to have to revert to more traditional world population numbers to cope. It won't be pretty, but it will be necessary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yt 

 

He's clearly brilliant and that's an incredibly fascinating speech, but he's not the only scientist and his conclusions aren't empirical truth.  He's hypothesizing from his own perspective (a Republican perspective, I might add, and his admiration for oil seems blind to the political muscle of the oil industrialists, seeing only the "perfection" of the resource).  I wish more people would speak up for the need for an Apollo program for energy though--this country hasn't had an energy policy since Jimmy Carter! 

 

With science, investment and a sense of urgency, that resource could be found and solar/wind/geothermal/biomass could be improved in the meantime. 

 

It's completely defeatist to say that just because we don't have the ability to fulfill the current energy needs now (not even taking conservation into consideration), we shouldn't immediately start transitioning to cleaner power.  The point is, it's an urgent question and nuclear power is NOT a viable solution.  No amount of innovation could change our fate if a meltdown ends up poisoning all life on the planet. 

but we need a minimal of 10 Terrawatts of power by 2050, more likely 20 to 30 Terrawatts of power. the only reason he talking a right side to his view point is that is the side that need to be convinced. Wind/geothermal/biomass, can't do it, in theory Solar could, but grown base is only good for ½ of the day, this mean you will have to quadruple the price. To make it affordable for everyone it will have to be a lot cheaper then coal is. Maybe as much as 10% the cost, at 30 Terrawatts of power, which is almost 10 time the power out put we have today. We also are going to need in about 40 to 50 years. He talking about the energy density of gasoline, which is very hard to beat. The man work in the oil industry before he won his noble. He know energy very well, and is simply telling you what it will take.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yt 

True, but I read an interesting factoid--that fertility is down and population models are actually leveling off. 

 

Maybe so, but unfortunately 'levelling off' doesn't change the fact that we have a completely unsustainable population on this planet right now. Be it by war, famine or disease, when the resources run dry the population has to be seriously (and some may use the word 'catastrophically') reduced back to levels much more akin to before the industrial revolution for us to continue on as a species.

Let's not kid ourselves about the future, even if our governments were doing everything they could to combat climate change at this point in history (ha!), there would still be serious and traumatic changes that would need to take place for the continuation of what we consider civilisation. It's not a simply matter of 'if we simply went green everything will be okay and stay the same'. Incredibly serious and species altering change has to happen for our survival regardless of what we do now. All we can do is try and minimize that change as much as possible. The last century has been an anomaly and those times will not return. Not based on the resources we use now anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BurnInHell 

The solution is to genetically create giant hamsters and put them in giant metals wheels that will create all the power we need.

And how are we supposed to feed these giant hamsters? You obviously haven't thought the implications of this all the way through, have you?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shan 

And how are we supposed to feed these giant hamsters? You obviously haven't thought the implications of this all the way through, have you?

...and what happens when those hamsters break free of their servitude and run amock with killing and the biting and the gnashing teeth??

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Rain Dog 

...and what happens when those hamsters break free of their servitude and run amock with killing and the biting and the gnashing teeth??

 

now I have the doom song in my head:)

Quote:

Originally Posted by yt 

Well, here's some nightmare fuel on nuclear fallout from Dr. Helen Caldicott:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMXvpWoHzeE&feature=player_embedded

 

Warning: she is very blunt on the devastating effects of Chernobyl.  This is some scary s*** and she's a pedigreed doctor and researcher. (http://www.helencaldicott.com/about/)

A counter argument to Helen Caldicott:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/05/anti-nuclear-lobby-misled-world?INTCMP=SRCH

A counter argument to that counter argument to Helen Caldicott:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/11/nuclear-apologists-radiation?INTCMP=SRCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by yt 

Hilarious!  But don't forget that where there's a lot of money to be made (i.e. nuclear, coal, oil), all the given industry's law firms and PR firms and fake scientists and internet sock puppets have to do is confuse the issue just enough that you don't know what's true and what isn't.  It's a strategy that has worked quite successfully for a long time. 

That can work against them as much as for them though. Perception is everything and at the moment, perception of nuclear power is especially bad because of this disaster in Japan. Even before this disaster, I don't think a new nuclear plant had been built in the US for decades, possibly not since Three Mile Island or even before.