- Good morning, everything is terrible! With reported deaths climbing steadily after the awful 3/11 earthquake, Japanese authorities are frantically trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. A second explosion at the plant blew the roof off a containment building, and the cooling systems are inoperable at a third reactor. To prevent a Serious Meltdown, Japanese reactor operators have employed an “emergency cooling process,” which involves “flooding two stricken reactors with seawater” and then “periodically releasing radioactive steam.” The Japanese insist that containment walls have prevented widespread contamination, but U.S. aircraft carriers are apparently detecting low levels of radiation more than 100 miles away. Also, food shortages have been reported in Tokyo. This is the worst. TRAGIC UPDATE via Reuters/CNN: “About 2,000 bodies were found on Monday on two shores of Miyagi prefecture in northeast Japan.” [NYT/BBC]
- Our corporate-controlled media had a friendly bull session with Barack Obama at the annual Gridiron Club/Operation Mockingbird snob potluck. At least someone’s having fun! [The Caucus]
- A top State Department spokesman resigned after calling the treatment of Bradley Manning “counterproductive and stupid.” [McClatchy]
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In other words, another Happy Monday! as our society gradually dissolves into chaos.
G.E.: "We bring good things to life!"
Godzilla: "Remember me?"
~
Yeah, you don't exactly have to be Siegfried Kracauer to predict those Godzilla sequels.
A top State Department spokesman resigned after calling the treatment of Bradley Manning “counterproductive and stupid.”
Telling the truth is not a good career move these days.
I don't think it has EVER been a good career move. In Serbia they have a saying: "Tell the truth, then RUN!"
I see. So they are actually running government like a business?
That's the reason we have whistleblower laws. That aren't enforced. Because the people who are malfeasant can't handle the truth!
Only if you're a Democrat.
U.S. aircraft carriers are apparently detecting low levels of radiation more than 100 miles away
This is good news for Jack Stuef!
Mothra was just seen boarding a flight to Seoul.
Are you kidding? Mothra is the flight to Seoul.
ROTFLMAO!
Things are really bad when top State Department officials start telling the truth.
Clinton admitted that Al Jazeera was a better source of news than anything in the U.S. Never saw that coming from the Feds.
I know, what got into her? Truth *from* power, WTF?
Clinton resignation in 5, 4, 3…
Ain't that the truth. We are royally boned.
Obama, in a bold move, just made this a No-Fly Zone.
What? No ChaCha Sheen news? FTW.
No no, this week's bread'n'circuses distraction from "real" (depressing!) news is the college basketball tournament. It's important, although what a "bracket" might be is kind of hard to understand.
GO HUSKIES!
So whether it's NPR or the State Department, it looks like in the modern world telling the obvious truth is a fireable offense.
"Well, it's all in the editing." — James O'Keefe
Speaking of that douchenozzle, he was the Power Player of the week on Faux Noise Sunday. And of course, there was no mention of the fact that his videos are edited to take statements out of context.
And to listen to him talk, he seems to think that he's doing Good Work in going after any organization that may have a liberal slant.
I think he used to get his ass kicked in school every day.
Hey, Nixon's plumbers thought they were doing good work in committing crimes to prevent a Democratic candidate from beating him for re-election; doesn't change the fact that they were evil criminal thugs.
Only for Democrats.
I just want to know why the homosexuals and Messicans hate Japan enough to make God do this.
Don't forget the Jews!
and working women!
JEWS DID 3/11
It's not just an American thing, apparently.
Source (Generic AP update on the disaster)
Was it the Shinto God?
Or was it the Xtian God, putting the double-whammy on them because they aren't Xtian?
"authorities are frantically trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown"
Is there any other way?
"authorities are casually trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown"
(don't want to cause any panic)
"authorities are nonchalantly trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown"
"authorities are reactively trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown"
"authorities are sexually trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown."
Mad-Libs for everyone!
Actually, if you don't prevent the meltdown is when you are fucked.
He generally tunes out his critics, Mr. Obama said, before naming a list of liberal and often-critical Web sites that “most days I barely skim.
Was Wonkette on the list?
It's like he goes out of his way to make me dislike him.
Is the downfister unmasked!?!
No. Obama might be holding a US citizen in inhumane conditions and generally perpetuating Bush's lawless Guantanamo regime, but he still has enough dignity not to troll the internet or whore out his daughters in Dancing with the Stars.
You would think he woud be thrilled with Wonkette, we often comment on his and Michelle's hotness and our willingness to get our leg over either one , or both, of them. Ingrate
I'm sure it's nothing personal. Oh who am I kidding – of course it's personal!
Fuck Obama, and the noxious cloud of "hope" his silly ass flew in on.
Am I the only one getting this bullshit comment section that has no way to give a thumbs up? And what’s with this name and email crap?
Also, food shortages have been reported in Tokyo.
Jack better watch out. He appears to have a lot of meat on his bones!
Apparently there is a history of cannibalism in Japan when things get really tough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshio_Tachibana
Don't read Flyboys if cannibalism offends.
Oh dear…I bet one of the American prisoners said "Bite me" when under torture.
Foo. Every culture has a history of cannibalism when the going gets tough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_%28whaleship%2…
"Donner, party of five… uh, four?"
A fat Wonkette? Surely, you jest.
Would make the dissing of the diabetic scooter battalion a little hypocritical, then.
(Then again, my fiercest adversaries in fat branding, at the scholastic level, were fatter than I. Josh, Jonathan, Larry, "Tricky" Tran — I still know who you are, & you're still assholes.)
I think perhaps the Gridiron Club bullshit might have taken a pass this year. It's unseemly right now for a bunch of corporate jackholes to sit around and mock each other.
Exactly! That's our job.
Jettison escape pods from planed Earth in 5…4…3…2…
So where do you think you're going?
I'm going to hang out with Lou Reed, Mike Nelson, and Joel Robinson……SATELLITE OF LOVE!!!!!!
It's going to be an adventure, this land you are going to.
YOU MANIACS! DAMN YOU ALL! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!
I've felt of late that there is a secret Koch rocketship primed to leave this doomed rock soon, and the rightwing media darlings/crooked pols haven't even saved up enough for passage in steerage. Hence they pay their way by encouraging us give more to those flying first class.
EDIT: I hope it's been christened the LZ 129 Bhilndernbeurg, for fuzzy nominative determinism purposes.
I saw the dolphins leave yesterday.
Above all. DON'T PANIC!
With Japan's reactors about to go, I think it's time to start taking bets on how long before the zombie apocalypse starts over there.
Nah, it's Japan; the monster apocalypse is the big threat there. There's only one way to stop it – a set of five differently-colored giant robot animals, or maybe vehicles, that combine to form one giant humanoid fighting robot.
We need Ultra-Man!
Unfortunately, John McCain crashed Johnny Sokko's flying robot, so Japan's on its own this time.
Or Space Battleship Yamato.
Quick shōbijin! Call Mothra!
I call 1970.
I knew the Fukushima reactor crisis was really getting serious when I saw that Pedobear was now luring Japanese schoolgirls with offers of potassium iodide tablets instead of candy.
EDIT: Of course, right after I make the comment above, they add the "Tragic Update" to the original post, so now I look like a jerk for making a Pedobear reference in a thread about thousands of people dying. You're harshing my mellow, Riley!
The missing three-eyed puppy ruse seems to be working too.
"Schoolgirl in Concrete" is now considered a civil defense pamphlet.
I can't snark about Japan. Whole towns are gone. There are people who will never be found. Three nuclear reactors are having major problems. It's too horrible for snark.
Snark is the only way I get through the day without crying or drinking myself to sleep. Was prepared for more bad news so I picked up a fifth of gin yesterday.
Seen elsewhere:
Dear Japan,
Suck it.
Love,
The Whales.
PS The dolphins in "The Cove" also helped compose this note.
I'm hoping that THREE meltdowns at once will finally convince some people that we need renewable energy, not fossil. Nuclear energy is fossil energy, in a way. It's "fossils" left over from the creation of the Earth, and -will- run out.
"will finally convince some people that we need renewable energy, not fossil" – that's so cute. I wish I had a picture. No break from fossil fuels as long as the Koch whores are in charge.
Pretty comical to watch Yertle The Turtle (R-KY) repeately say that he was not going to debate American Domestic Energy Policy while the Japanese Home Islands are being irradiated.
I want to see how the Republiklans spin a push to build more nuclear reactors in this country, if thousands of Japanese start dying of radiation poisoning.
Localized fascism and national corporatism in the U.S., earthquake tsunami and meltdown in Japan, mass slaughter of leaderless rebels in Libya, economies of western Europe collapsing into a sinkhole of debt…
I always thought that the death agony of capitalism would be more a lot more fun.
So much for the "die with a whimper" sorta thing.
Oh, it will get more fun, when the raping and pillaging begins. At least, it will be more fun, if you are a raper and pillager, and not a rape-ee and pillage-ee.
Jesus. Everything is horrible today.
No. A Republican state senator from Wisconsin lives outside of his district with his mistress. And his ex-wife (not yet, by the way) said she'll sign the petition to oust him.
So take an iodine tablet, sweetheart. We gonna be aright.
The guy screaming the loudest ALWAYS has something to hide. God I love this country…
And his name is Randy Hopper. How perfect is that?!
He is from Fond du Lac…there has got to be a joke there…
Hopper?? I barely know 'er!
My homemade bread toast was excellent this morning!
And my wife (who never cooks anything, so on second thought, maybe it was my daughter) made oven pancakes for breakfast today, even before I got up!
If you can't tell your wife from your daughter, you may need more coffee (or you may be a redneck).
With all these nuclear plant problems, "Land of the Rising Sun" may take on a whole new meaning. What a horror show.
I would hate to think that the Prez has become a centrist slob who would propitiate the professional stenographers of the scribbling class at a drunken circle jerk but it seems that has come to pass.
You make "drunken circle jerk" sound like a BAD thing.
Meltdown? What exactly does that imply? I have a meltdown if my hair doesn't turn out. The husb has a meltdown if the car has a flat. Maybe we need a code to explain meltdown. It could be a color code with shades of puce. A lot like the terror color threat level.
An event like this hasn't been seen since:
1. The final Nazi showdown scene at the end of "The Raiders of the Lost Ark" ("Don't look at it. Shut your eyes, Marion, and don't look at it, no matter what happens.")
2. The night of Walnut's concession speech when Palin found out that they cut her mike and she wasn't going to get to wordify her own concession speech.
Think of the endless possibilities for Sci-Fi monsters.
Say, isn’t it about time for some TeeVee minister to weigh in on this horrible event and make some terribly tacky comment on how God did this because the Japanese aren’t Christian enough?
Japan grants full religious freedom, allowing minority religions such as Christianity, Islam and Sikhism to be practiced. Figures that state 84% to 96% of Japanese adhere to Shinto and Buddhism are not based on self-identification but come primarily from birth records, following a longstanding practice of officially associating a family line with a local Buddhist temple or Shinto shrine. About 70 percent of Japanese profess no religious membership and 84% of the Japanese claim no personal religion. And 64% do not believe in God, and 55% do not believe in Buddha.
They aren't really very religious at all, it seems.
If the Japanese reactor has a meltdown, is it gonna lead to The Argentina Syndrome?
OH NOES, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE THINK ABOUT THE CORPORATIONS!!!!!!!1111!!!???one
Hilarity has ceased to ensue.
Impatiently waiting to find out how this really all about Sarah Palin…
I'm waiting to see if Rudy Giuliani updates to "3/11" as his catchphrase.
There is only one way I'm gonna face this shit today. Are the liquor stores open, yet?
This IS tragic story, but I 'm not at all sure that this article, and others like it are giving us the full picture. That's why this crisis calls for the newshound know-how of James O'Keefe and his team of citizen journalists. Let's have them do a video of the earthquake cover up.
Remember how Geraldo bust into some gangster's tomb/hiding place? We should do something similar with O'Queef…like lowering him into the containment vessel from a helicopter.
That's the hard-hitting, cutting edge journalism we need today.
Oooh I can't wait to see his new disguise.
It's a big full picture. Here's some before/after satellite imagery with a slick way to compare the two. http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/japan-quake-201…
Wow. That may be the most devastating set of before/after pics I have ever seen, and that includes 9/11.
And Jenny Craig.
Please let him start filming inside the containment building.
At least the United States can unite in in sympathy and empathy for the Japanese people.
Wait…
What? http://community.livejournal.com/randompictures/1…
But what does Sarah Palin have to say about this?
Please be patient. Sarah is still working on how this tragedy affects her personally. The leading idea is that because of the Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami the liberal, lamestream media has pushed all references to her to the back pages. It is just not fair and probably "Blood Libel" also!
A nuclear meltdown is like the loss of a woman. At first you think they're just relieving some pressure, blowing off a little steam, but then things get out of hand. You're frantically trying to keep everything together, but it unravels so quick. And then at the end of it you wonder if you'll ever be able to trust again.
I had a relationship end recently, so I definitely understand how Japan must feel.
How are you managing to clean up all the corpses washing up on your beach?
But the really important question: How did this affect Sarah Palin's pull over to the side of the road event and/or coverage?
I wonder what the Westboro Baptist Church's take is on all this God on man violence?
What, no looting? The Japanese obviously have some things to learn about how to react to natural disasters.
God Hates Slants?
here's a picture
According to the media, would the Japanese be "finders", like white people, or "looters", like black people?
It's not looting. It's a salvage operation.
I guess the alternative to the bodies washing up on shore is those bodies disappearing entirely forever, which is… worse??
Dead is dead, in my book. Maybe it's just me, but I'd hate to have my family have to come down to some ravaged beach littered with bloated corpses to I.D. my remains.
Easier to remember me with G n' T in my hand, and smile on my face.
Cholera is not my idea of a good time, so this is worse.
2012 is coming early. Palin to be installed as president in a military coup?
Has she retaken her rightful post as Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard?
well but at least the market closed up on friday.
I gotta say I feel bad for the people of Japan and I hope this doesn't get any worse.
Hooray for the upfisting patrol. Oh and by the way fuck you troll.
I'm sorry, but we can't have State Department officials telling blunt truths out loud in public about people we have chosen to persecute.
Is this looking like the very worst disaster ever to befall humanity, with the exception of those disasters we wreak upon ourselves, wars, which routinely exceed this by orders of magnitude?
I mean, as bad as this is, didn't we do worse to Iraq with a week of air strikes? And thats just a little war.
Ironically, March 9 was the anniversary of the firebombing of Tokyo in 1945, by the US Second Air Force, which killed over 100,000 civilians, more than at Nagasaki, and which was barely a blip, in the big picture of what happened in WWII.
So as bad as this is, war is a million times worse, yet, we still actually choose to commit war (it should be considered a crime, always in every case. "War Criminal" is redundant).
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The Tanshin quake of 1976 killed 250,000 to 750,000 Chinese. This quake, while not insignificant in carnage, will not be among the worst for killing.
You are correct, though, that war is the worst, even if not the most deadly. People get over natural disasters, sometimes modifying the place or way that they live to avoid future disasters. People never get over betrayal by fellow humans.
Your thinking is so pre-9/11.
Why don't we tell the Westboro Baptist Church members that there's going to be a memorial service at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station? Then refuse re-entry into the country to those who manage to make it back.
10 years of constant lies from US government,
10 years of constant lies from controlled media
only 10?
Hey, give the conspiracy theorist this: he actually managed to make a comment that doesn't blame the Jews for 9/11, for once.
I am still amused that he compared me to Judas Iscariot when I mentioned my religion.
Yeah, totally not about antisemitism.
Microscopic plutonium fallout inhalation.
PleaseGodnomakeitstop!!!
First 9/11, and now 3/11. We should seriously think about following the example of hotels and 13th floors and just remove the 11th from all the months of our calendars.
But WW I ended on 11/11. Why do you hate the troops?
I think the Spanish already have the copyright on 3/11, for the Madrid train bombings back in 2004. Of course, since they're Euros, it's 11/3.
“Before he was governor, Mitch was a pharmaceutical executive and he was George W. Bush’s budget director. I don’t have a joke here,” Mr. Obama dead-panned. “I just want to point it out. To all the journalists. In case you didn’t know.”
Either Barry has learned from Stephen Colbert, or he's straight up ripping off material.
As long as Monstrous Threat to America Bradley Manning is still sleeping in the nude in his cell, I feel safe from danger no matter what happens elsewhere. That guy's scary!
Welcome to this fine Monday morning – same as last Monday morning…..but worser.
Notorious conspiracy crank Alex Jones offers this advice:
Because of the fear that the radiation from the Japanese nuclear meltdowns will hit the Western United states (see this and this), potassium iodide has sold out in most health food and supplement stores in many California, Oregon and Washington locations.
But taking potassium iodide when there is no radiation can actually damage the thyroid gland … at least in some individuals. A doctor told me that potassium iodide is given to people with hyperthyroid disease in order to partially kill the thyroid – i.e. to lower thyroid function.
And buy gold. And ammo. And vegetable seeds.
Yeah but that was legitimate – we were in danger of having Democrats elected!
The U.S.S. Otosan Sokko?
Whaaat?
You mean all those GOP operatives who told us Nuclear Powe was perfectly safe were…lying?
Ever heard of a solar panel blowing up?
Eh, too much work to translate signs vilifying dead, gay tsunami victims.
Not to defend the nuclear industry, but I would like to point out that the damaged plants were designed and built in the 1960s. Supposedly, modern designs don't have the risks and dangers. Just saying that I hope we don't totally give up on nuclear.
Michelle is so going to be on Hoarders.
Oooooh no
there goes Tokyo
Go Go
Godzilla
I take some comfort in the fact that all of those super smart Japanese scientists, physicists and other well-educated elitists are on the job. Over here, we would have the Larry the Cable Guy or Joe the Plumber make a run out to the plant, soon as he had the time.
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