Well, yes, I am concerned about those comments, because if the forum is to be taken seriously, there has to be some individual restraint on what's posted. Little read forum, probably true. But we are here on it, and separating the signal from the noise is something that should be done before certain comments are posted. Sinking millions of Japanese trying to force their way into Australia, and those other comments, take away from what you and others are, accurately sometimes, saying about this very real tragedy, which I have never failed to stress it is.
So I have decidedly not downplayed this tragedy. But when certain comments are made, and stories told about experiences in American nuclear power plants, I am simply presenting clear and compelling evidence that there is, indisputably, another side to such stridency.
And yes, Rick, I have read extensively about this situation in Japan, but it has been overblown, and when it was first happening that can be not only excused but expected. But when more than a year has passed, and studies are showing that the radiation levels are being consistently downsized and reduced, and that steps are and have been taken, I think it is clear that this situation will be solved and then learned from. In a post in this thread you talk of the U.S. military evacuating family members of military personnel. It was a voluntary evacuation, the families were paid quite generous "safe haven" amounts of money, and that is good that those precautions were taken. However, from what I've been reading, those safe haven funds are ending, and because, too, the situation in Japan is safe, thousands of military families have returned.
I just think you should stay updated, so a more balanced understanding can be discussed in the forum. Time does move forward, things change, and things are not always static and anachronistic.
But to extrapolate what happened in Japan to United States reactors (and clearly Americans are learning from it) and to say things like fuel rods are being misplaced by the persons running them and to describe those people in language of some stridency and invective, does not do your argument any good. Those comments are simply not true. So when things like that are said, yes, I do sit up and take heed.
So, like other topics, the topic itself becomes muddled and convoluted, extrapolations and stridency are invoked, this must mean that, and that must lead to this, and then the clarity of the topic becomes very muddied.
I'm very surprised, for instance, that in these threads about Fukushima, I have not read any posts that see the situation from any perspective but panic, recrimination, told you so, we know better, it's all a conspiracy, the workers in U.S. plants, are, ahem, this thing and that thing personally, etc. Go back and read them. I don't remember any comments that show any respect whatsoever for people who work in these plants worldwide, their educations, their skills, their own very real horror at what happened, and so on and on. It's all about personal condemnation and hyperbole, and that certain posters know better.
And that brings me to this point: where are the solutions offered? In all the hyperbole and stridency, where is the actual, specific mention of any solutions. Are we as readers of these threads to think that those posting believe that, well, tomorrow if not sooner all nuclear plants in the U.S./world should be shut down? And then what? And then what? So, yes, the comments, when so hyperbolic, show only one side, a narrow side. And I have simply (in only several posts total on this topic among the threads on it) have been simply presenting contrary evidence. That's ok, isn't it? I have been polite, I have presented my thoughts and evidence, so that is ok, isn't it? Kim
