Gut feeling: Is Tokyo Electric/Japanese govt. being truthful or deceptive regarding radioactive leak

[Poll_Blind]

After watching both the explosions of Fukushima No.1 & No.3 and after the various stories, including U.S. helicopters detecting radiation 60 miles away from the troubled plants, what is your gut feeling about the truthfulness of the reporting by Tokyo Electric/Japanese government on the severity of the radioactive release?

In regards to the severity of the radioactive leaks at Fukushima No.1 & No.3, I feel TEPCO/Japanese Government are being...

[Warpy]

1. If it's like other major nuclear power incidents

they won't know the whole truth for months.

Evacuating nearly 200,000 people from near the reactors is more than our government would do for us. They'd just say a bunch of mealy mouthed crap to each other about avoiding panic and let us get cooked.

You know they would.

[Contrary1]

3. Not only that, they would most likely pull a Katrina...

block off the exits, and not allow aid to get in.

[Poll_Blind]

4. I haven't voted in the poll yet but I agree with everything you said.

Because in a situation like this it's so effin' true it's not even funny.

If there was ever a situation which tempted deception, this would be it.

Having said that, though, I am not sure how I feel- I mean the Japanese spokeman has been seemingly straight up when saying "Yep, the core is probably melting down" and yet there have been other things, like a high reading at another reactor which was blamed on a leak like 50 miles away (don't remember details, this was yesterday). Just, lots of stuff going either way.

PB

[snagglepuss]

8. The Japanese have had a long track record of lying about nuclear accidents.

What always gets me is that officials/spokespeople almost always seem like they are concerned and telling the truth.

People are very convincing actors. It's often impossible to discern sincerity.

[RandomThoughts]

2. If you want my guess.

I think there is some malicious behavior somewhere in the mix of that situation.


Flobots - Handlebars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLUX0y4EptA


Note that story is about people that do not think or feel, and just get directed to do things, in my view.

I once had a friend that use to like to drive his motorcycle without hands on the handlebar. I explained to him, that if he hits a rock doing that, he is toast.

Although it is difficult, and letting someone else drive you can get some rewards.

On a side note, there is a comment, God as my copilot, I don't think that is something that wants to steer you, but help advise while you still have thought, heart, and choice. Or through education. I think that is the difference between Gould and Tokra from SG1 show.

[Poll_Blind]

9. Firstly, Random, is there any specific element of this that you...

...find (above others) doesn't pass the "smell test"?

Second, interesting video. I'd never seen that or heard the song before. I kind of have a similar vibe about the video- for me it seems to describe a mind cognizant of possibility and potential but not burdened with the moral consequences of those possibilities.

Never saw the Stargate show, unfortunately. By the way, I love that Burgess Meredith picture in your signature. I always find it...soothing. He had an incredibly kind face.

PB

[RandomThoughts]

11. The video is really deep.

First you have to ask if you think on the ideas of the visuals. Note it uses a couple images to paint some side, same as label trap.

But the song itself is not a person singing, but someone saying they can talk through a person.

In the normal it would be an executive that pays to have media, or cultural influence, and it has the thought process of being able to do anything. However in truth, it is not the person steering.

If a person is not acting on what they have thought and felt is best, then they are not steering, 'servant becomes master'

In that it is a person watching life happen in front of them, not living it by choice, thought and feeling. It also has a few things like fear and control doctrines to create despair. Since it tries to make people feel powerless.

Basically the most used way to hurt people is make them feel powerless, and that is the intent of that video.

I post it to try and show some things want people to feel that way, and how those things think, so people can avoid those that think it is about them having power, or those that think they should be terrible with power. Note nowhere is there a justification for any of the actions mentioned in that song. It is the concept of having the power, being the justification for doing something, not the right or wrong of it. And it has a bragging tone.

Many inspired people think and feel, and do many things for better reasons. And actually getting out the thought concept in that song, if you can see it as informative, not to create despair, is a good thing.


So it is wrong first by intent, second by taking the joy in power, not some better result, and third by the obvious only self feeling for someone to think the way that song does.

I posted awhile ago the concept of some wanting power, that song is the definition of thirst for power.

Those that deserve power, in my view, should not think like what that video says, but can learn from it by learning what traps to avoid.

And most better people do not think like that video.


(side note) The timing of the post was for riddle purpose, not because I believe that video, but to challenge people to be able to separate some concept like having power, from a concept of using some power to help many people.

[ananda]

5. Mostly deceptive and here's why.

I've decided that the official powers are downplaying the nuclear incidents in Japan, and I think I know why. If the truth about the radiation were known, who would come in to help them?

[Poll_Blind]

12. Well, I had heard a nuclear analyist explain it this way: With so much infrastructure gone, if the..

...Japanese government is honest about how bad the situation is, the Japanese populace anywhere remotely near the place (and who, as he said, "view anything involving radiation as certain death"), will likely flee, possibly endangering themselves in that flight more than the danger of the accident itself.

In other words, mass panic might result in more injury and danger than keeping people placated but implementing responses designed to minimize their exposure or (as in the case of the iodine tablets) lower their exposure.

Now, do I believe that? Partly. Partly not.

PB

[Hannah Bell]

16. yeah, because no one else can monitor radiation levels. and high radiation

release has no visible effect on people.

japan is smaller than california. it is densely populated. there are a lot of foreigners there, americans & brits and others.

so obviously, if there were lots of people with radiation sickness & high levels of radiation were being released, no one would ever know.

[Tx4obama]

6. experts say radioactive releases could last months

11:40am

The New York Times has reported that experts say radioactive releases could last months.

As the scale of Japan’s nuclear crisis begins to come to light, experts in Japan and the United States say the country is now facing a cascade of accumulating problems that suggest that radioactive releases of steam from the crippled plants could go on for weeks or even months.

From Al Jazeera Live Blog: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/live/asia/disaster-japan-live-blog

[Poll_Blind]

14. Yeah, I've been rolling that thought around in my head a little bit and it gives me The Fear

Like some slowly smoking radioactive censer...

PB

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. I get some of this

Between they really have no idea what is going on the totality... And they want to prevent a panic, and the industry is known to downplay...yes we are seeing some deceptive behavior, how much the jury is still out. Take some of what they say with a grain of cesium.

[Lucinda]

10. I think so too. All of these "We assume..." statements coming out

supports the notion that they aren't fully sure about many of the details.

[Poll_Blind]

18. Agreed- that mix sounds about right. One thing during the press conferences is that...

...the government spokesman seems to refer back to information from Tokyo Electric so heavily, it starts to raise the question: "Well, what do government scientists say?"

PB

[Newest Reality]

13. The masses, my friends,

are always meant to be managed. We always have been and always will. They will say whatever they have to in order to keep us in a specific state and to prevent panic, even if that means some of us could be exposed to danger.

[TheMadMonk]

15. Truthful enough, but cagey.

Their biggest problem with getting information out, is that there is no realistic way to get a direct look at the situation in the reactor buildings.

If they find a hot spot in the form of a piece of ejected kit then perhaps they might make it "go away", but difuse contamination, the major environmental risk, is not something easily hidden. I think they're telling it as best they know it.


Just speculating here mind you, but the small spikes in readings, and the handful of individuals with measurable low level contamination could quite possibly be down to little bits of lost "rubbish" that got caught up in the explosions.

Yes there have been localised high readings, but they also seem to have fallen as quickly as they rose, and apart from workers on site (for which I think for now, information is being suppressed). We know those poor bastards are risking and quite possibly sacrificing their lives to save the lives and property of others. Just as coal miners do. Just as our soldiers do when acting in the best, rather than worst, traditions. We do not need to have our noses rubbed in exactly what they are going through on our behalf at this time.

How belittling is it of these people's herosim to redefine them as victims, simply to score some bloody political points.

The truth is, that under intollerable conditions of cascading failures which would have turned any conventional industrial facility into rubble or made a raging inferno of any petrochemical facility these reactors are still holding together.

To compare it with the recent Gulf of Mexico disaster, the situation in Japan is roughly equivalent to successfully plugging that leak at the surface and holding a lid on it. The difference between the two is that unlike the oil rig, nuclear reactors are designed to withstand such forces, albeit just barely as a result of aging infrastructure and less than complete foreknowledge at the time of construction.

[SoCalDem]

17. CYA, full steam ahead..n/t