MarsBlog.net

Posted on September 6th, 2005 under Miscellaneous. Comments: 33

Chernobyl was about as bad as it can get for a nuclear accident, but apparently it wasn’t quite as bad as originally estimated:
Chernobyl health effects far less than U.N. feared

Nearly two decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine spread radioactive fallout across much of Europe, a United Nations study has concluded the health effects have been far smaller than feared.

The researchers confirmed 56 deaths. They projected that 3,940 more people would eventually die of cancer related to the accident, according to the report released Monday.

The death estimate is a fraction of the up to 150,000 deaths predicted shortly after the 1986 accident.

The higher projections of health effects resulted in part from miscalculations about the amount of radiation to which many people were exposed.

The 150,000 number is much more scary, however, and will no doubt continue to be spread around by the anti-nuclear nutters.

Unsurprisingly, there is a lesson in this for Katrina reconstruction:

But a U.N. official said the countries affected by the accident also deliberately tried to inflate the severity of its impact in order to boost the money flowing to the area.

Kalman Mizsei, an assistant U.N. secretary-general and deputy coordinator on Chernobyl said there had been “a vast interest in creating a false picture” in the respective countries involved: initially the Soviet Union, and after its breakup Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

That contributed to misinformation and fear among the local population. Those countries then spent large amounts of money to help putative victims, helping to create “a dependency culture,” Mizsei said.

And we’re already seeing indications of this “inflation” at work:

The Louisiana Superdome was so heavily damaged during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath that it likely will have to be torn down, a disaster official working with the governor’s office told CNN.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the initial assessment of the famed dome indicated the damage is “more significant than initially thought.”

Katrina sheared away much of the roof’s covering, and rainwater began leaking into the stadium when it was being used as a shelter of last resort for thousands of residents stranded by the storm.

The Superdome is the home of the New Orleans Saints professional football team. The NFL season begins this weekend, and it is not clear where the Saints will play.

Uh-uh. And Tom Benson’s constant angling for a new stadium for his Saints and the leverage Katrina has now given him in his negotiations with Queen Bee I’m sure had nothing to do with this conclusion whatsoever. Nope. Nor the torrent of reconstruction money poised to pour into the city as the waters drain out. Hope the feds have accountants (and prosecutors) watching where all that money goes…

[Chernobyl story via Carl Carlsson]

Posted on September 6th, 2005 under Luddism. Comments: 2

Singing the praises of Mother Sheehan and exploiting the victims of Katrina to promote his silly socialist agenda must have lost their novelty, as our favorite luddite whipping boy Bruce Gagnon has returned to his old hobby horse.

It’s the same dog’s dinner of anti-nuclear ranting we’ve come to expect from Bruce, which I feel no need to fisk any more than I already have (Jim Oberg unpacks his lie about Mars ’96 here). But I am motivated to ask whether Bruce is a liar, or just pathetically ignorant.

The latter excuses his ravings as the work of someone who should know better, but doesn’t. Clearly, anyone who makes it his business to crusade against all things nuclear in space could be expected to understand the difference between a nuclear electric thruster and a nuclear thermal rocket — at least well enough to avoid conflating the two under the term “nuclear rocket”. And then there is that bit about “shipping lanes in space”, which would appear to result from a mistaken application of terrestrial spatial relationships to orbital mechanics…again, it’s such a simple thing that one might be forgiven for expecting a supposed expert on space militarization and space nuclear power to know better. (And don’t get me started on Queen Isabella launching the Armada.)

What makes this apparent ignorance pathetic is not only that Bruce should know his subject matter better than he evidently does, but that he makes these same mistakes time and time again, even after being corrected. Which leads me to conclude that he knows the truth but intentionally spreads lies and willful misrepresentations in an attempt to scare the public into opposing all things nuclear and/or military in space.

Posted on September 6th, 2005 under Luddism. Comments: 2

…coming as it does from a complete jackass.

So, Bruce, when are you going to actually do something to help out? You know…something that shows your concern for those affected by the storm extends beyond their utility as a platform of bodies for your moonbat socialist grandstanding?

Posted on September 5th, 2005 under Luddism. Comments Off

Bill Whittle has an (as always) excellent take on the New Orleans debacle and the mindsets involved.

That?s because the people I associate with ? my Tribe ? consists not of blacks and whites and gays and Hispanics and Asians, but of individuals who do not rape, murder, or steal. My Tribe consists of people who know that sometimes bad things happen, and that these are an opportunity to show ourselves what we are made of. My people go into burning buildings. My Tribe consists of organizers and self-starters, proud and self-reliant people who do not need to be told what to do in a crisis. My Tribe is not fearless; they are something better. They are courageous. My Tribe is honorable, and decent, and kind, and inventive. My Tribe knows how to give orders, and how to follow them. My Tribe knows enough about how the world works to figure out ways to boil water, ration food, repair structures, build and maintain makeshift latrines, and care for the wounded and the dead with respect and compassion.

Excellent. Must-read.

Posted on September 5th, 2005 under Miscellaneous. Comments Off

One of Arthur Chrenkoff’s readers looks at the situation in harder-hit Mississippi vs. Louisiana.

An interesting point:

This was a good reminder that LA has for decades been our worst managed and most corrupt state. I briefly caught a bit of the News Hour last night, and David Brooks pointed that out; he also pointed out something that’s pretty obvious – for the most part, the South has been booming for the past 25 or so years. The major cities went from backwater jokes to leading cities – Atlanta, Raleigh, Dallas, all of Florida, etc. The “hole in the map” in all of this has been Louisiana – it’s like the last 25 or 30 years of southern growth have passed it right by. Get away from the gussified tourist areas and NO is a pretty awful city.

Placing the blame right now, before the facts are in, is really a rorschach game (yes, even when I do it). But there’s no denying the truth of this particular comment when you’ve actually lived there and seen it firsthand. Hurricane response aside, if New Orleans had had competent administration over the past 20-30 years, it could have had a share of that southern boom and we wouldn’t now be talking about the poverty in the city.

Posted on September 4th, 2005 under Miscellaneous. Comments Off

Many Evacuated, but Thousands Still Waiting

Behind the scenes, a power struggle emerged, as federal officials tried to wrest authority from Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D). Shortly before midnight Friday, the Bush administration sent her a proposed legal memorandum asking her to request a federal takeover of the evacuation of New Orleans, a source within the state’s emergency operations center said Saturday.

The administration sought unified control over all local police and state National Guard units reporting to the governor. Louisiana officials rejected the request after talks throughout the night, concerned that such a move would be comparable to a federal declaration of martial law. Some officials in the state suspected a political motive behind the request. “Quite frankly, if they’d been able to pull off taking it away from the locals, they then could have blamed everything on the locals,” said the source, who does not have the authority to speak publicly.

A senior administration official said that Bush has clear legal authority to federalize National Guard units to quell civil disturbances under the Insurrection Act and will continue to try to unify the chains of command that are split among the president, the Louisiana governor and the New Orleans mayor.

Louisiana did not reach out to a multi-state mutual aid compact for assistance until Wednesday, three state and federal officials said. As of Saturday, Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency, the senior Bush official said.

“The federal government stands ready to work with state and local officials to secure New Orleans and the state of Louisiana,” White House spokesman Dan Bartlett said. “The president will not let any form of bureaucracy get in the way of protecting the citizens of Louisiana.”

Blanco made two moves Saturday that protected her independence from the federal government: She created a philanthropic fund for the state’s victims and hired James Lee Witt, Federal Emergency Management Agency director in the Clinton administration, to advise her on the relief effort.

It’s looking like Blanco is going to come out looking bad in this, the poster-girl for Lousiana politicians.

MSNBC right now is running a documentary on the big Florida hurricanes of the 1990s, and what was learned from them regarding evacuation, preparation, and response. Pity Louisiana didn’t learn anything from Florida’s experiences. If there is any justice in this, Katrina and the shameful aftermath will prompt a cleanup of Lousiana and especially New Orleans politics.

UPDATE: Senator Landrieu makes a rather unsenatorial remark. The, er, “punchline” of the article is priceless: “In recent days, Louisiana officials have been criticized for bungling evacuation and rescue efforts. One of those officials, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, is Sen. Landrieu’s brother.”

I think one of the positives that will ultimately result from the many-months-long evacuation and temporary dispersal of NOLA’s population throughout the country is the firsthand experience evacuees will obtain with municipal governance in other cities and states. New Orleans doesn’t have to continue to be run the way it was, and these evacuees will now know that, and hopefully demand better than what they’ve been getting.

The other positive is that there is going to be a lot of attention paid in coming months to cleaning up city and state government there. When it sinks in with the rest of the country just how much damage has resulted from decades of winking at corruption and neglect in New Orleans in particular as part of the “local color” and “charm” of the place, I don’t think there is going to be as much tolerance for it going forward. And this may also in turn prompt people to pay more attention to their own local governments with the same attitude.

Posted on September 4th, 2005 under Miscellaneous. Comments Off

On top of everything else going on, MSNBC is announcing that Chief Justice Rehnquist has died.

And across the country, barking moonbats are finally losing what little grip on sanity they have managed to retain.

Posted on September 3rd, 2005 under Miscellaneous. Comments Off

Will Collier does it.

Posted on September 3rd, 2005 under Miscellaneous. Comments Off