2011 Earthquake and Tsunami Options

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

At 05:46 UTC on March 11 2011, a 8.9 Richter Scale earthquake hit Japan. It was the largest ever recorded and 6th largest ever known happened. It was followed by a devastating tsunami of up to 10 m that has erased entire communities and killed 100s. Just to put it into scale, 80,000 are currently reported missing ... a whole train full of people has disappeared without trace. As night engulfs the nation, the full scale of damage is unknown.

By 06:18 UTC on 11 March 2011 Gnuismail (T-C-L-K-R-D) had erected a 2011_Sendai_earthquake_and_tsunami topic page.

By 12:06 UTC on 11 March 2011 it had to be protected against "persistent vandalism" by such dicks in the USA adding "8.9 Godzilla" to it, or IP editors reporting "over 9000-meter tsunami" hitting Sendai. Our angel Alison being on the case. Oh, and

a naming dispute,
an edit war or two over links,
an image dispute (here).

By 15:15, 11 March on 2011 even the God King Jimbo Wales made a visitation announcing ...

"There are trolls everywhere; we have the tools to defeat them!!!".

I suppose this is emergency "disaster response" Wikipedia style?

Of course, I lose too because ... as people are still trapped under mud and debris of collapsed tower blocks, millions of workers are stuck in cities without transport out or even electricity, individuals have no contact with lost family and loved ones, tsunami alerts remain for aftershocks, complete communities have been entirely erased, and a nuclear power station is at the point of melt down (!!!) ... here I am bitching about crass Wikipedian activity.

Writing as someone indirectly effected by it, with friends or acquaintances and their family beyond any contact and likely lost, I can tell you it feels a little different. Feather in your cap Gnuismail for the win for being first to start the page. Let me nail a barnstar on you personally.

Are there some ethics to be discussed about this?
Shouldn't they really wait until events are actually over until they start documenting them!?!

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy:

[Jon Awbrey]

I was born in Sendai. My parents kept in touch with friends there until their own passing, but I lost track of them over the years.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

More disaster response ...

It seems extremely unlikely (actually, let me go further: impossible) that there is Japanese government censorship of this event in Japanese Wikipedia. (How would that even work? A country with very broad freedom of the press would, at a moment of humanitarian crisis, decide to send police to the homes of Wikipedians? Nonsense.) It is far more likely that the Japanese Wikipedians are having trouble updating Wikipedia because power is cut across at least Tokyo and I think many other parts of Japan as well. It would not surprise me if some major Internet cables are disrupted as well.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:43, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

It is mainly because of trolls (荒らし) that the Japanese page can't (couldn't ?) be read. XIIIfromTOKYO (talk) 15:11, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I have left a note there recommended semi-protection and an insistence on reliable sources. Blanking the page and protecting it does not seem like the best solution. There are trolls everywhere; we have the tools to defeat them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:15, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

(ec)It was not Japanese government censorship. An admin made the article invisible because of vandalism and edit wars. This was the last visible version. Wiki news in ja is here. Oda Mari (talk) 15:19, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy:

[Tarc]

A breaking news encyclopedia entry is a contradiction in terms. That is what the true problem is here, 1,000 monkeys on 1,000 keyboards banging away at the same time, all with eyes and ears glued to CNN and twitter feeds.

I'm trying to envision just what type of person sees breaking news about a natural disaster and thinks "to the Wikipedia!" as their first thought, but the image is frightening.

[Kelly Martin]

This is excellent. It truly demonstrates how far the Wikipedia community has degraded. There was not nearly this much trouble with vandalism and counterpurpose editing on previous similar events.

[Somey]

Are there some ethics to be discussed about this?
Shouldn't they really wait until events are actually over until they start documenting them!?!

Yes... but...

An earthquake/tsunami is different from, say, a school shooting or a terrorist attack or even the death of a celebrity under what might be suspicious circumstances. With an earthquake/tsunami, you know what happened, how, when, possibly even why (if it takes place in an earthquake-prone area). The only real issue is actually where - in other words, a person might enter something saying such-and-such a city was devastated or even destroyed, when in fact it hasn't been, and people foolish enough to look to Wikipedia for up-to-date information on the event might see that and think someone they know or a member of their family has just been swallowed up by the earth.

Even so, immediate reports of physical effects wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if they had some sort of pre-publication review procedure in place, like a responsible publication (or even a low-end news site) would. Casualties are a different story, though - that sort of thing should wait a few days, ideally, unless (again) you have a means of filtering out unsubstantiated reports.

The reality for Wikipedia is that they don't have the "tools to defeat trolls," they only have block buttons and, like Jimbo says, semi-protection. They need legitimate pre-publication review, simple as that. They don't have it, and until they do, they have to either lock things down or let the so-called "trolls" rule the day, or at least "set the agenda" - like they mostly have all along.

[Milton Roe]

I have left a note there recommended semi-protection and an insistence on reliable sources. Blanking the page and protecting it does not seem like the best solution. There are trolls everywhere; we have the tools to defeat them.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:15, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

"I am well able to defeat you" (Mr. Spock to Roman Gladiator (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hmmm.gif) )

The problem, Jimbo, is that while you have the tools, your WP policies regarding IP-editors keep most of your administrators from using those tools. Nor do you really care about this whole matter, truth be told, except when the result emparasses WP in public, as here.

Not that you tell the truth very much.

MR

[lilburne]

Shouldn't they getting together to create some tasteful wikiptan images complete with tentacle pr0n with this as a backdrop.

[Milton Roe]

The reality for Wikipedia is that they don't have the "tools to defeat trolls," they only have block buttons and, like Jimbo says, semi-protection.

Even if they used the semi-protection that they have, they'd at least do better. The problem is that they refuse to use it at the beginning, even in situations where it's completely obvious that they'll get a tsunami of stupid IP edits if they don't.

[Jon Awbrey]

This is all just part of the video game for them.

No one is going to change that — it'd be like taking the hookers out of Grand Theft Auto.

Not gonna happen — you all know it's not gonna happen.

Why anyone keeps pretending I have no idea.

Maybe it's just part of the video game.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/dry.gif)

[Sxeptomaniac]

The reality for Wikipedia is that they don't have the "tools to defeat trolls," they only have block buttons and, like Jimbo says, semi-protection.

Even if they used the semi-protection that they have, they'd at least do better. The problem is that they refuse to use it at the beginning, even in situations where it's completely obvious that they'll get a tsunami of stupid IP edits if they don't.

No kidding. Even when it's utterly obvious that a major problem is coming, they wait until the editors foolish enough to get in on a page early are absolutely frustrated before doing anything about it. There are a few admins smart enough to head these problems off, but many more are idealists with their heads still in the clouds over "wikilove".

[EricBarbour]

This article isn't even 8 hours old, and it already has almost 2000 edits and 96 references.
Most of the edits were made by a small group---about 15 people.
The talk page is, to put it mildly, embarrassing.

"Wikipedia works!" my ass.

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

This is excellent. It truly demonstrates how far the Wikipedia community has degraded.

No, I think this truly demonstrates how far the Wikipedia has degraded. (Taken at random), from here.

In a statement to the press, an official from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said:

“The porn industry in Japan is safe. No worries about tentical porn.[20]”

68.229.249.189 (talk)
(the quote was wrong)

or

The main earthquake was preceded by a number of large foreskins

22:18, 11 March 2011
Zeus011

Shouldn't they getting together to create some tasteful wikiptan images complete with tentacle pr0n with this as a backdrop.

See above, life reflects art ...

It's daily light in Japan now, folks can start heading home and it is only just now becoming apparent how many deaths and damage there is. But, thank God we manage, to ... (here)

"convert incorrect possessive to correct plural"

and ensure no bad grammar added to their sorrow. Remember, despite it being some nation's worst national disaster in all its history, we still need reliable sources chaps!!! (here). And no jacking up the death toll from 600 to 6,000,000. They may yet be pulling out the corpses but Eug.galeotti  (T-C-L-K-R-D) is pulling out the copyvios ... "That was time and efforts wasted".

It goes on and on and on. A quick scan of the talk page has all the makings of a doctorate study on all the idiocy and prejudice that is Wikipedian culture.

Only one possible death has occurred thus far.
According to Newsmax one person was swept away while photographing wave activity on a river in Northern California.

The talk of 400+ Japanese deaths is not relevent compared to an American. (link).

69.112.245.146 (talk) 23:18, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

It's clearly relevant. Poor opinion of the victim is not a suitable reason for omission. Stuthulhu (talk) 22:37, 11 March 2011 (UTC) (... some morons went down to the beach in California to take pictures of the wave coming in, no doubt to stick up on Youtube or Wikipedia probably, then got swept away ...)

as an american i wholeheartedly agree, but then again, the info is still newsworthy.JBDRanger (talk) 22:38, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Correct ... there's no sense bloating the Japanese casualty section with unverified rumor simply to appease 'appearances' 69.61.175.13 (talk) 22:52, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy:

[EricBarbour]

Only one possible death has occurred thus far.
According to Newsmax one person was swept away while photographing wave activity on a river in Northern California.

The talk of 400+ Japanese deaths is not relevent compared to an American. (link).

69.112.245.146 (talk) 23:18, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

It's clearly relevant. Poor opinion of the victim is not a suitable reason for omission. Stuthulhu (talk) 22:37, 11 March 2011 (UTC) (... some morons went down to the beach in California to take pictures of the wave coming in, no doubt to stick up on Youtube or Wikipedia probably, then got swept away ...)

as an american i wholeheartedly agree, but then again, the info is still newsworthy.JBDRanger (talk) 22:38, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Correct ... there's no sense bloating the Japanese casualty section with unverified rumor simply to appease 'appearances' 69.61.175.13 (talk) 22:52, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

It's difficult to tell if these people genuinely think American lives are "worth more" than Japanese lives,
or if they're just being sarcastic. (Or making a point about Newsmax, a notorious right-wing-biased
news source.)

Mahanga protected the article, and assorted nerds started complaining.

Anyone remember the Giffords shooting? Where it was protected, and admins/rollbackers cheerfully started editwarring it in place of the rabble?

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Point taken.

It's ironic I came into this whole shebang a few years back pointing out the obvious, that the Wikipedia is rank with anti-Japanese sentiments and whacko Koreans out to grind axes. I missed this crucial edit to the topic ... here.

Does any one not believe me now?

It should also be investigated whether the local Japanese people used this tragic event as a cover to kill innocent Koreans as the Japanese did in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, where thousands of Koreans were killed according to some sources (although the local government admitted the casualty in the "hundreds") by the xenophobic Japanese.

Surprise, surprise ... 14.33.47.38 resolves to Seoul in South Korea. The edit lasted to poison the topic for 3 hours having being replaced by Flodded (T-C-L-K-R-D) under the guise of removing another Godzilla joke, here.

I'd love to have Checkuser access to know which editor that was getting a dig in.

The media is Japan is being extremely sensitive about the whole issue so far. Have you notice that despite the carnage and rising body count, no images of death or bodies have been shown yet? It is being censored (and self-censoring) at present. Respectful and not wishing to cause offense.

The reality are some quite horrific events are unravelling.

[Cla68]

I was born in Sendai. My parents kept in touch with friends there until their own passing, but I lost track of them over the years.

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/unhappy.gif)

I've been to Sendai many times. It's one of my favorite cities in Japan. We have close family friends living there, who we haven't been in contact yet with to see if they are all right.

Anyway, I think you'll notice with this article that it won't develop as smoothly as say, the Christchurch earthquake article, for various reasons. Japanese media don't use the Internet as much as western media does. So, for several days at least the main sources of information will be Japanese print media and Japanese television. That means that it will be up mainly Japanese editors to keep the article updated, and I doubt they will be as willing and able to do so on the English Wikipedia as the editors living in western countries.

Western media will have difficulty with keeping up with news on the situation, perhaps because of the time difference but also because of the language barrier. I've already seen some misreporting on casualties in British newspapers.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Kelly Martin]

I imagine it will only get worse now that there's a nuclear power plant in possible meltdown. This event now has major political ramifications and you can be certain that the pronuke and antinuke forces are rallying to control the presentation of that aspect of the event.

[Cla68]

I imagine it will only get worse now that there's a nuclear power plant in possible meltdown. This event now has major political ramifications and you can be certain that the pronuke and antinuke forces are rallying to control the presentation of that aspect of the event.

It's actually kind of scary in a personal way. Me and my family have already started discussing our plan of action for if the reactor(s) lose containment and spew radiation across northern and central Japan. As you know, nuclear power is one of the most powerful, efficient, non-carbon producing energy sources, so the proponents of the theory of human-caused climate change should be embracing it. The problem is, however, that most of those activists are liberal/left wing, so they feel uncomfortable promoting nuclear power. How ironic.

This post has been edited by Cla68:

[Brutus]

So far 3 Godzilla sightings reverted? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/biggrin.gif)
(IMG:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/77/Terror_of_MechaGodzilla_1975.jpg)

This post has been edited by Brutus:

[Detective]

a tsunami of stupid IP edits

In the current circumstances, I don't know if that's the best metaphor to use.

[taiwopanfob]

It's actually kind of scary in a personal way. Me and my family have already started discussing our plan of action for if the reactor(s) lose containment and spew radiation across northern and central Japan. As you know, nuclear power is one of the most powerful, efficient, non-carbon producing energy sources, so the proponents of the theory of human-caused climate change should be embracing it. The problem is, however, that most of those activists are liberal/left wing, so they feel uncomfortable promoting nuclear power.

You can see the POV nitwits are already at work. From the talk-page of Fukushima I plant:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fukushim...ear_Power_Plant

"If you have Hydrogen, than you have radioactivity, as I see it. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 12:46, 12 March 2011 (UTC) "

Do people like this really deserve the benefits of modern society? Put them on an island and let their exhalations power their wind turbines, and, when they tire, they can hook up their anuses to the natural gas backup generators.

How ironic.

There are in fact big causes for concern for what can only be called the "modified military fuel cycle" that powers almost all commercial reactors today. They are inefficient, and they are difficult to build and operate. Monster pressure vessels?! High energy waste streams?! Better designs exist -- LFTR or IFR -- but there is an immense institutional inertia in the US for LWR and similar designs. In this case of good ideas only taking hold after the old guard succumbs to entropy, not only do the original leaders have to die off, but thousands and thousands of NRC bureaucrats as well...

[Milton Roe]

As you know, nuclear power is one of the most powerful, efficient, non-carbon producing energy sources, so the proponents of the theory of human-caused climate change should be embracing it. The problem is, however, that most of those activists are liberal/left wing, so they feel uncomfortable promoting nuclear power. How ironic.

It's not THAT ironic, as these issues are (at their base) gender-politics. Women and men have different anxiety-buttons, that's all.

Left-liberal politics is a female view of the world as One Big Extended Family (It takes a village to raise a child (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/smile.gif) (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/blink.gif) ) and why can't we scale natural-family-communism right up past village-level, to State size? Right Wing politics is the male side of that. Give me guns, rockets and weapons, and I'll blast the irresponsible bastards who are fucking up my world... (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/hrmph.gif) Any by the way, dad is the head of this family, not your sewing circle.

When you get to energy politics, it basically comes down to a cleanliness issue, like a bachelor pad. Who cares if the globe is dirty, smelly, and dusty? You can clean it any old time, but meanwhile we have other greasy and more interesting stuff to do on the bike in the living room. You prissy Lefties remind me of my ex-wife. If you don't like your dirty smokestacks, I have some really cool death beam machines to fix the problem, like in Iron Man. Didn't you like Iron Man? Does Iron Man look like he recycles?

The womynsleft-Liberals, who have spent their time going around looking for various kinds of poisons (since women feel about toxins the same way they feel about spiders, rats, and dirt) see nuclear energy as just one more kind of unusually complicated poison. NOOOOOOOOS! (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/noooo.gif) You might as well propose dusting and mopping the world and then fixing it by dumping glowing goo on it. Not around my baby! I don't care if my baby doesn't get good food or clothes or doesn't have a job when he/she grow up-- at least she won't have 3 eyes. Meanwhile, the Right wing is thinking: Radioactive Spider Man! The Hulk! Rads are rad!

Trying for Maximal Political Incorrectness Here,

MR


(But I'm still correct as usual)

[anthony]

As you know, nuclear power is one of the most powerful, efficient, non-carbon producing energy sources, so the proponents of the theory of human-caused climate change should be embracing it. The problem is, however, that most of those activists are liberal/left wing, so they feel uncomfortable promoting nuclear power. How ironic.

It's not THAT ironic

What's ironic is that the ones advocating embracing new technologies are called "conservatives" and the ones opposed to it are called "progressives"

[Detective]

Left-liberal politics is a female view of the world
....
(But I'm still correct as usual)

How do you award a barnstar here? This certainly deserves a "gratuitous sexism" award.

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

I imagine it will only get worse now ...

Woah ... too right ... they keep trying to delete the bit about the dumb Americans who went down to see the tsunami come in or couldn't tell the difference between it and the low tide ... and some even got W-E-T !!! That's notable ... see; here.

C-a-n-t b-e h-a-v-i-n-g t-h-a-t!!! Not with a reliable source like The Curry Pilot.

01:24, 13 March 2011 (view source)
Peter G Werner (talk | contribs)

(→Tsunami: Restoring some absolutely excessive gutting of content by prior editor.
Trimming of excess or repetitious content is one thing, but this kind of hack-and-slash editing is uncalled-for.)

Next edit →

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy:

[taiwopanfob]

From Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, we learn:

At 22:53 JST (13:53 GMT) Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS), quoting Fukushima representatives, has reported that there was an evacuation of 30 staff members and 60 patients due to the explosion. From those evacuees three patients received a checkup for radiation exposure by the hospital staff at Futaba, a town 3.5 miles from the power plant. One of the three people who received the checkup showed an exposure of "100,000 counts per minute" (a Geiger counter measurement; reaches 30 mSv after 1–10 hours of exposure), while the other two people showed exposure of 40,000 and 30,000 counts per minute. While all three patients have been decontaminated, about 90 other evacuees may also require decontamination.[70]

It sounds like someone waved a counter at these people and reported the number to the media, where they somehow became dose figures that have units of power instead of energy, and from there straight into the Wikipedia database as "reliable" fact. The result is babble that reads like "the distance from New York City to Washington is 73 ichnorts per millischorquats", where there are poorly known conversions from ichnorts to distance and schorquats to time.

Someone is trying to fix the problem, but running into the usual nitwit response:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fukushim..._is_WP:SYNTH.3F

Wikipolicy in a Radioactive Nut Shell: Thou Shalt Worship the Main Stream Media, and Bathe Thy Brain in All of its Effluent!

Fortunately, the cited reference has since 404'd, if it ever existed at all in the first place, so Silver seren can now go "improve" the article with little fear of bio/chem/radiological contamination.

But what to do with the stain the process leaves on the mind?

[Tarc]

a tsunami of stupid IP edits

In the current circumstances, I don't know if that's the best metaphor to use.

Yea, stop flooding this thread with bad metaphors, you'll wash away all the good content.

[lilburne]

I imagine it will only get worse now ...

Woah ... too right ... they keep trying to delete the bit about the dumb Americans who went down to see the tsunami come in or couldn't tell the difference between it and the low tide ... and some even got W-E-T !!! That's notable ... see; here.

What is needed is a page call " Media Wanking and other Exploitations over and around some news event" all of the above could be funnelled into that.

[anthony]

State of emergency at nuclear power plant in Onagawa, Japan, where excessive radiation levels reported.

So, this wouldn't have happened with a molten-salt reactor, right?

[Kelly Martin]

So, this wouldn't have happened with a molten-salt reactor, right?

Or with a fluidized-bed reactor. BWRs are very challenging to control, and have far worse failure modes than several other reactor types out there. Their main advantage is that their power output can be modulated fairly quickly, which is essential for the military uses for which they were originally developed, and they cannot easily be used to produce plutonium. The reason BWRs still dominate is political, rather than technical. It's a complete shame that the nuclear power industry is going to take a massive hit for this, when this failure is due proximally due to poor contingency planning (really, you put all your backup generators where they could be hit by a tsunami?), and more deeply because of the inbred politics of the American military-industrial complex, especially when far safer, as well as more efficient, designs exist, but are not broadly used, entirely for political reasons.

But I digress.

[Cla68]

So, this wouldn't have happened with a molten-salt reactor, right?

Or with a fluidized-bed reactor. BWRs are very challenging to control, and have far worse failure modes than several other reactor types out there. Their main advantage is that their power output can be modulated fairly quickly, which is essential for the military uses for which they were originally developed, and they cannot easily be used to produce plutonium. The reason BWRs still dominate is political, rather than technical. It's a complete shame that the nuclear power industry is going to take a massive hit for this, when this failure is due proximally due to poor contingency planning (really, you put all your backup generators where they could be hit by a tsunami?), and more deeply because of the inbred politics of the American military-industrial complex, especially when far safer, as well as more efficient, designs exist, but are not broadly used, entirely for political reasons.

But I digress.

Well, the photos of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant appear to show that the location was protected on the ocean side by breakwaters. Unfortunately, the breakwaters apparently weren't high enough to stop this particular tsunami. So, they should have had a better disaster plan. By the way, our family friends in Sendai were uninjured in the earthquake.

Back to the WP article, you can see that the editors involved are struggling to build an article that does justice to what actually took place. The effects on western or English-speaking countries is well represented in the article, but editors are having trouble locating details on what has taken place in Japan, including how long the earthquake actually lasted and when the tsunamis hit.

[Jon Awbrey]

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1605260179420

[thekohser]

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1605260179420

Non-working link.

Works for me. Did you set up secure browsing on Facebook yet?

Jon (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/huh.gif)

My bad -- I was on a "guest" connection to the Internet, and Facebook was quarantined. Link works fine for me now.

That is a stunning video. It's amazing to me how the "surge" increased relentlessly over a 5-minute period. Not my uninformed impression of what a tsunami wave would look like.

This post has been edited by thekohser:

[wikieyeay]

The Wikipaedophiles get their priorities right, as usual:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the...o_game_industry

[EricBarbour]

The Wikipaedophiles get their priorities right, as usual:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the...o_game_industry

That's pretty wretched, although I daresay this guy needs to be discussed more.
An editor who does nothing (nothing) but videogame trivia and Family Guy.
Not only does he add nothing but fanboi non-knowledge to WP, he goes around accusing
everyone else of naughtiness.

Another one I'd like to ask: sir, are you a machine?

[Somey]

The Wikipaedophiles get their priorities right, as usual:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_of_the...o_game_industry

Unbefuckinglievable. Just when you think they can't get any more trite and idiotic, they come up with something like that.

There's also the usual 20 pages or so of arguing over what to name the article.

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Unbefuckinglievable.

Unbefuckinglievable squared ... if it were not so predictable.

Trust me, we are only one step away from ...

Impact of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on the Japanese Pornography Industry.

Just thank God the Wiki-wankers can't read Japanese or they would be prematurely withdrawing the citations as we type ... "And why not? The Wikipedia is not censored!!!".

Meanwhile back in the real world, everyone from newly born babies to 104 year old women are being pulled out of rubble and left in freezing circumstances without fuel and food, only to face a 3 Mile Island type disaster.

If you want to be really depressed, see Facebook for the usual 1,000 "Fuck you for Pearl Harbor, it is your Karma Japs" comments that leave one feeling the entirely Web 2.0 ought to be shut down. Trust me, the links are there ...

Crisisresponse donations page for Japan quake 2011

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy:

[Milton Roe]

Unbefuckinglievable.

Unbefuckinglievable squared ... if it were not so predictable.

Trust me, we are only one step away from ...

Impact of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami on the Japanese Pornography Industry.

To be fair, my local news out of SoCal did a segment on "What effect will this have on your sushi?"

Journalism has a lot of pettiness and selfishness everywhere. They produce what sells. Wikipedia produces whatever interests the nerds who write it. It's sometimes hard to tell the difference, but not always. Nerds care more about manga than sushi, as a rule.

[Milton Roe]

The Wikipedia article on potassium iodide, normally a few hundred hits a day, has been pulled up 162,000 times in the last 4 days:

http://stats.grok.se/en/201103/potassium%20iodide

Similar increases have been seen at iodine and iodine-131. Nothing makes people use an encyclopedia like something new. Now, back to that contaminated sushi idea....

[taiwopanfob]

The Wikipedia article on potassium iodide, normally a few hundred hits a day, has been pulled up 162,000 times in the last 4 days:

From the article:

Potassium iodide is a possible teratogen.

If we check http://wiki.medpedia.com/Teratogen, it lists KI as a "category D: Studies, adequate well-controlled or observational, in pregnant women have demonstrated a risk to the fetus. However, the benefits of therapy may outweigh the potential risk."

Therapy is probably indicated for people living near the reactor. How about the panic stricken on the West Coast of North America? Perhaps we will see an anomalous spike in birth defects in 9 months.