When they say "physician Janette Sherman MD and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano published an essay," they really do mean "essay," apparently. This just strikes me as irresponsible; there's no serious analysis of the data, of reported measurements of radioactive isotopes in those cities, of anything that could really substantiate that this increase in infant deaths is Fukushima-related and not just a cherry-picked statistical fluctuation.
Yeah, there's some back and forth about that here.
...a 35 per cent spike in infant mortality in northwest cities that occurred after the Fukushima meltdown, and may well be the result of fallout from the stricken nuclear plant.
This struck me as unlikely so I googled and I believe they got that figure from this piece. When they report the 35% increase, they don't adjust for the number of live births and they provide that adjustment for all the other figures. They also don't adjust for seasonality. I'm sure it will have negative effects, but I'm dubious on the 35% figure.
I see on preview that I'm pwned, but really there is no information of the kind that could support this and it wouldn't be that hard to get any of this stuff.
I wonder what this will do to the Japanese political and cultural landscape. The effects of radiation has obviously loomed large in Japanese culture since Hiroshima. Now that they're experiencing a gigantic nuclear disaster that is in some sense self-inflicted, I can't imagine what the effect will be.
The effects of radiation has obviously loomed large in Japanese culture since Hiroshima
Are you referring to Godzilla?
But some research scientist business professor at MIT said hippies were being hysterical and everyone could rely on the Japanese government to be telling the truth about what was going on! And he has a PhD in nuclear engineering supply chain management!
I'm sure it will have negative effects
I'm not. The Pacific is an extremely large ocean, and there is a fair amount of background radiation going on already.
If someone could make me feel better for not leaving the West Coast in the wake of the earthquake, I'd be grateful. Thanks.
It's been a grossly hot summer over here so far, Von.
You demonstrated bravery, determination, and sticktoitiveness by remaining in place while the fallout sleeted down around you?
8: Now you don't have to go hunting for a radioactive spider to give your children all of the advantages that modern science has to offer.
The linked piece reeks of bullshit and tinfoil hat hysteria.
Actual measurements of the fallout reaching the west coast here and here, for instance, don't look large enough to have harmful effects on people.
13: You can tell the first paper is an authentic physics paper because it has more than six authors. The second paper is clearly fake, though.
bullshit and tinfoil hat hysteria
But those are essential elements of a healthy diet, togolosh. Especially once you cut out carbs and refined sugar.
14: Well, it's from an engineering department, but I assume even engineers are capable of doing simple measurements.
Yeah, on the basis of absolutely no actual knowledge of the relative risks and a very expensive but utterly irrelevant law degree, my guess is that any actual health risk to anyone in California, even if it could conceivably be big enough to show up in public health stats, isn't the sort of thing that a sane person would worry about having exposed their family to. If you want, you can knock their total risk of injury or death back down by declaring a couple of weekends 'no driving' zones.
8: If you left California the caesium-137 would have won.
How incredibly insensitive would it be for me to think of the uninhabitable region as an opportunity for a nature reserve?
an opportunity for a nature reserve?
An evolutionary workshop, indeed.
I'm imaging the surviving animals in Bambi being shown to their new deserted home. "No one will hunt you here, we'll just grab a few chromosomes every now and again."
19: That's what the area around Chernobyl has become, right?
I mean effectively, not officially.
23: Exactly. Uninhabitable doesn't mean that everything dies, just that there's an unacceptable risk for people of illness or death. But animals are going to survive.
There aint that many sir prizes in life if you take noatis of every thing. Every time wil have its happenings out and every place the same. What ever eats mus shit.
This gives me an idea for how to save our remaining natural wonders. Anyone have access to a lot of Cobalt 60?
Anybody over 21 can buy malt liquor.
27: Man, that'd be some serious eco-terrorism. Dirtybomb a whole bunch of national parks, and any other wilderness you can find.
Fukushima is a BP and Exxon plot to cover up the carcinomas we are all going to suffer due to fracking. I checked the maps yesterday to see if the white women lived near wells, and the evidence is unclear. But since Obama and the Int'l Banking Conspiracy want to reduce world pop to 2 billion over the next generation without anybody noticing, I promise the epidemiology is gonna get fucking crazy. Expect new flus, melanomas, race wars, small animal attacks, whatever they can throw into the mix to disguise their methods in overdetermination.
You can quote me.
My internal attorney compels me to say that I would strongly disapprove of anything of the sort.
31 intended to be to 29, but I guess I strongly disapprove of small animal attacks as well. And race wars.
Internal Attorney is still available as a pseudonym.
Expect new flus, melanomas, race wars, small animal attacks
All at once? Sounds like Earthdoom. All we're missing are the Hitler clones and the sentient superglue.
On the other hand, we might get lucky; maybe the small animals will chew off the melanomas, and the marauding Klansmen will all get flu. Result, peace!
But since Obama and the Int'l Banking Conspiracy want to reduce world pop to 2 billion over the next generation without anybody noticing, I promise the epidemiology is gonna get fucking crazy.
Forehead penises would be less noticable.
Unfortunately, in reality, such a technique would more likely just be used by wealthy old people to keep those damn kids off their lawn once and for all.
Thinking about it, I may have been too optimistic. Wearing those face veils all the time would probably make the Klan less vulnerable to flu than the rest of us - an advantage they would share, I suppose, with observant Muslim women.
If we're all going to die, I'm going to eat lunch at McD's.
Forehead penises would be less noticable.
Choda Boy will save the day.
Two billion are going to survive, Moby. Better make it Arby's.
"Hey kids, want to see a unicorn?"
Just be careful not to stick your forehead penis in someone else's forehead VCR. The results could be traumatic.
42 sounds like Weiner at a kid's birthday party.
43: Because you'd get jizz on the afikomen hidden in there?
I hope everyone understood that 30 was meant to be funny, with just a trace of irony in hope that people keep their eyes open.
I really did look for fracking maps, though.
How is this apocalypse unlike all other apocalypses?
GIS "small animal wars" (safe for work).
Now I think everything bob's ever said is funny. Oh wait, that hasn't happened yet.
Fukushima is a BP and Exxon plot to cover up the carcinomas we are all going to suffer due to fracking
My new record for spotting a mcmanus comment: 21 words.
30: But since Obama and the Int'l Banking Conspiracy want to reduce world pop to 2 billion over the next generation
Don't stand too close to Dirk Nowitzki, 'cuz you know they're targeting that motherfucker.
Once Germany phases out their nuclear energy program, they won't be able to make any more Nowitzkis anyhow. Attrition should be able to do the job.
I have no idea what the International Banking Conspiracy is doing these days. I don't think they do either. If Greece can't pay what it owes now, why does lending it more money help anybody?
51: Fukushima is a BP and Exxon plot should probably have done it.
But since Obama and the Int'l Banking Conspiracy want to reduce world pop to 2 billion over the next generation without anybody noticing
Why would they want this?
46: If you wnated us to know that 30 was funny, you should have signed it as OPINIONATED BOB MCMANUS.
Why would they want this?
Less competition for the underwater dreamhouses in Bahrain or UAE.
An underwater dreamhouse would be a maintenance nightmare. The smart survivors will be content with just the underground sex grotto.
54: I have no idea what the International Banking Conspiracy is doing these days.
I rely on Lyndon LaRouche to tell me all about that. They're starving us as far as I could gather but Glass-Stegall is going to save us. A couple of other charming bits from the nutter (not linking):
Increasingly, over the course of passing decades, my role in the life of our nation and also that of our world, has been that of a strategic character, a role which I have sometimes performed from the standpoint of what has been my unique function as, in effect, a conspirator against the British empire's role as a certain kind of reincarnation of the ancient Roman empire. It is philosophers who sometimes play the kind of role which I had seemed to have fallen into over the course of my adult lifetime, philosophers who have been able, in their past, as I do now: philosophers, who, sometimes play a crucial strategic role in confronting a threatened, great existential crisis of the planet.
And to the tune of "Joy to the World"
Joy to the world, will come for all
The house of Windsor falls
The Empire's broke
lets kill it with one stroke
but not the guillotine
but not the guillotine
Glass-Steagall will pave the way for victory
Joy to the world, the time has come
for Congress to grow balls
We need less bull and more balls
But not just ornaments
But not just ornaments
But not just ornaments
Joy to the world just get him out
Obama's lost his mind
the 25th Amendment
for when his mind is absent
like Hitler and Nero
like Hitler and Nero
like Hitler Obama has got to go!
Should have italicized, I forget that it crosses line breaks; blockquotes do not as I recall.
Fukushima is a BP and Exxon plot to cover up the carcinomas we are all going to suffer due to fracking
My new record for spotting a mcmanus comment: 21 words.
Honestly, H-L, you should have had it in seven, ten at most.
54:If Greece can't pay what it owes now, why does lending it more money help anybody?
Why the heck would the General Store want you to owe your soul?
Since it is entitled America is Being Raped I wasn't sure about linking to it, even though it is the latest post at Yves Smith's place. It is a crosspost from Washington's Blog, who is reasonably correct but often too hysterical for my tastes.
Michael Hudson may be more your style. June 6, "How Financial Oligopoly Replaces Democracy", a different article than the one posted below. He does write longish articles.
Is a government - or economy - be said to be solvent as long as it has enough land and buildings, roads, railroads, phone systems and other infrastructure to sell off to pay interest on debts mounting exponentially? Or should we think of solvency as existing under existing proportions in our mixed public/private economies? If populations can be convinced of the latter definition - as those of the former Soviet Union were, and as the ECB, EU and IMF are now demanding - then the financial sector will proceed with buyouts and foreclosures until it possesses all the assets in the world, all the hitherto public assets, corporate assets and those of individuals and partnerships....MH
I have been on financialization for a very long time. It was the Red Flag on Obamacare. Wellpoint now owns you and me.
Is it true that Elizabeth Edwards' last words were:"Now they will take everything." Let's make it true.
54:If Greece can't pay what it owes now, why does lending it more money help anybody?
There are specifics being debated in the Greek Parliament, of the protesters allow it, as in selling some Greek islands and tourist sites. If they are not stopped they will foreclose on the fucking Parthenon. This is not a joke.
Finally
I hope the Republicans are totally batshit crazy, because I want a full default.
I hope the Republicans are totally batshit crazy, because I want a full default.
Why is your response to every situation the same? (Make it worse! No such thing as an innocent! Blood in the streets!)
Well, if the basic problems of the world today are due to the deep structure of how our polities are organized, then of course the response is going to stay the same: revolution; destroy the system. What you see as different situations, demanding individualized treatment, Bob sees as symptoms of the same underlying malady.
This isn't a crazy diagnosis, even if his revolutionary bloody-mindedness is the wrong response.
What you see as different situations, demanding individualized treatment, Bob sees as symptoms of the same underlying malady.
This isn't a crazy diagnosis,
It sure can be. But--and I don't mean to be rude--have you read the bullshit he writes about...well.. everything?
Oil well leaking? Blow it up!
Nuclear power plant melting down? Nuke it!
Worried we're going to invade Iraq? Build a pyramid of skulls!
Debt Negotiators Focusing on Medicaid ...Ezra
And sure enough, Janet Hook and Janet Adamy are reporting that "officials familiar with the talks in both parties say they expect Medicaid to be the biggest source of cuts in federal entitlement programs in whatever compromise emerges."...EK
People are gonna die. Lots and lots of people are gonna die, most forlornly without hope or pride, suffering, believing that no one cares about them.
I didn't start this counter-revolution, the assholes started it. But I do understand that in revolutionary times, the only question left is who dies, not whether people die.
Apparently TJ has made his choice about who dies, I guess the poor and marginalized can't pay him enough.
Funny, bob, it occurs to me, at least, that the ones who do the most dying in essentially any revolution are precisely the ones you pretend to care about. Since you are a ghoul, though, you only actually care about the blood.
So you've got that goin' for ya.
77: I would rather they died on the barricades than on the curb outside the emergency room. That's based on what I would want, which is what most of us work with. I definitely recognize that it will always be their decision, not mine.
But I want them to stop listening to liberal tools and flunkies and know that they have the choice to burn shit down and take their stuff. It's ok. It's moral.
The rich and their process liberal servants have abandoned them and broken the contract. You don't negotiate a new deal with oath-breakers.
What is the scenario where default is bad?
It should push investors out of treasuries, dropping the value of the dollar and increasing investments in riskier assets(the ones noone wants to hold now).
and some old rich people and corporations lose some money they were sitting on.
You don't negotiate a new deal with oath-breakers.
HEY, DON'T TELL ME HOW TO DO MY JOB, PENCILNECK.
79: A US default probably means a worse financial catastrophe than the mortgage meltdown. Banks' solvency (and related capital requirements) depends on the existence of a large class of "risk-free" assets, chief among which is the US treasury bond. If all of a sudden treasuries turn out to be risky, banks will suddenly be insolvent and have to recapitalize all at the same time. This would have a massive contractionary effect on the economy, which is not what we need with unemployment still so high.
A material downgrade of US debt would likely have a similar effect.
Also, a default would make future borrowing difficult, which might sound fine if you don't mind being unable to mitigate high unemployment with deficit spending.
Some mild inflation would accomplish most of the beneficial consequences you attribute to default, but few of the bad ones. But it seems like the Fed board just doesn't have the votes for that strategy, unless QE3 turns out to be much more spectacular than its current buzz suggests.
The beneficial consequences being making US treasuries a less appealing asset, dropping the value of the dollar, and (I hope) transferring wealth from the cash-rich to the currently un- or underemployed.
If all of a sudden treasuries turn out to be risky,
Its always been a pretty broadly accepted myth that they are not. "Risk Free" doesn't exist; it kind of worries me that so much of our system is built around the premise that it does. This only compounds the risk. As we may indeed find out in a couple months.
...if you don't mind being unable to mitigate high unemployment with deficit spending.
I don't mind, since to avoid Revolution, the unemployment would be mitigated with the printing press.
Deficit spending simply provides rentiers with interest income and creditor power, and is almost the entirety of our present problems.
84: bob has a PHD from the Ezra Pound Institute of Crankonomics.
I actually think Bob is right in 84. The powers that be picked a fine time to forget how to use the printing press.
85:Try Michael Kalecki. Or MMT.
But Modernism is complicated, and I must watch out for the force majeure.
Economics as Metaphysics and Morals ...Philip Pilkington, via Yves Smith, who has gotten radical as she perceives the tornadoes on the horizon.
PP has a coarse misunderstanding of Hegel, but I liked the post anyway.
PP has a coarse misunderstanding of Hegel
Antithesis: Hegel deeply understood PowerPoint.
I would rather they died on the barricades than on the curb outside the emergency room.
The operative word being "they".
89:Jesus you people are amazing. What are the next few words.
That's based on what I would want
Liberals.
89:Oh, I note you did not provide the number reference (78) so that people might be decieved.
Do you academics and lawyers do this stuff in your published work?
I remember Eric from Edge made a habit of misquoting without citations.
Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station
92: Apparently, the news gets more alarming the greater the distance. This article is more bizarre than the link in the post.