This is no joke -

http://youtu.be/NKfN9hE2dg4


Anagrammy

Agreed this situation is very serious.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html

I can't check videos out at work without annoying people.

rodolfo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Agreed this situation is very serious.
>
> http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011
> /06/201161664828302638.html

ahh... aljazeera - sometimes they are the only channel which will tell you the truth........ sometimes

Aljazeera did not influence Italy or Germany to reconsider their nuclear power operations.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/23/italy-nuclear-power-moratorium-ban_n_839502.html

http://www.aolnews.com/2011/04/12/japan-elevates-nuclear-crisis-to-level-of-chernobyl/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk2%7C55500

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/30/germany-nuclear-power-plant-shut-down_n_868786.html?fbwall

aljazeera is just like any other news source. You should question everything no matter where it comes from.

I agree. Unfortunately, I don't think the church will relocate them. There was a period when missionaries were moved out of Tokyo for fear of a nuclear cloud, but that was only temporary. I spoke with a church official about the situation a few months ago and was told that they believed it was safe.

got a newer vid?

Thinking the same thing. A 3/16 vid on 7/15 leaves a lot of lag time.

I think I heard a blurb on the local news that the church wanted to send thousands of volunteers over to Japan to help with disaster recovery. Wow, that isn't a good idea!

This is not a joke. The contamination in Japan has continued, it has not decreased. It is cumulative, it doesn't dry up and blow away like a rain shower. Tokyo is now contaminated to an unsafe degree. Prefectures to the north of Tokyo are severely contaminated.

The Japanese guv is now shutting down many shelters for the refugees from Fukushima. They have said they expect the citizens to return to their homes and resume their normal lives. But the whole place is severely contaminated, and the people living there will sicken and die. The government knows this.

They are also distributing foods grown in the Fukushima area thru the normal distribution networks throughout Japan. They have essentially capitulated to the fact that high radiation is the new normal for Japan.

They will monitor the illnesses and deaths as a great lab study.

Japan is dying, Honshu is not safe to live in. Missionaries should be taken out asap. They are getting severely dosed by the constant radiation in the ground, the water, and the food.

How can LDSCorp. justify this abuse of their missionaries? Is the temporary favor of the host government more important to them than the lives of their servants?

A few weeks ago I visited a neat store called "Muji" in midtwon Manhattan. I picked up a bunch of really cool household items; most for use in the kitchen. I thought about the radiation and although I didnt' want to seem ignorant; I put everything back. I was afraid.

out

And another example of Mormons being dumb. Use your brains people. Do not allow your kids to go over there.....JS will not save them from this. And if any die will they say... It was God's will????

Let's see some actual numbers to go with this breathless jeremiad. a source for the numbers would be nice too, since everything in this post looks like it was pulled out of thin air, or someplace where the sun don't shine.

Numbers, please. Dosage maps would be even better. Compare dosages to standard limits set by USNRC.

While you're at it, look up how Japan was able to rebuild Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The way you make it sound, they, hit not with contamination, but with a full on deliberate nuclear explosion, should have been contaminated for centuries. Why weren't they?

Congratulations. You make ex-sushi-chef sound moderate. O_o

http://www.9news.com/news/article/207689/188/Rainwater-radiation-linked-to-Japanese-nuclear-disaster-

It is a perfectly legitimate concern that the numbers we are being given by the Japanese government are deceptively low, same as those given by the Russians after Chernobyl.

It is already a matter of record that facts have been distorted to minimize public panic and a negative impact on the Japanese economy.

Your comments suggest that because a city or a house or a cow is "still there" it is not radioactive. The government's response? To raise the safety levels.

That would not make me feel any safer and if my son were serving a mission in Japan, I would insist that he be returned immediately.

Why would YOU trust the government or a big corporation like the Mormon Church to have your missionary son's health interests at heart. Especially when you have heard the stories printed here of missionary parents not informed of their child's illness or injury, and even of medical attention not provided, or provided too late.


Anagrammy

Even if they were able to rebuild the cities, that doesn't account for many of the atomic bomb survivors who developed health problems as a result of their radiation exposure.

This is also an ongoing problem that has no end in sight. It took TEPCO months to admit that the reactors were beyond saving within the first week of March's earthquake. Their efforts to cool them down have produced a staggering amount of contaminated water that has nowhere to safely go. According to the Japan Times, TEPCO's water filters, which were expected to last 6 months, reached maximum capacity within 5 hours because the water was so filthy.

According to Bernama (Malaysian National News Agency), several mothers near Tokyo were found to have contaminated breastmilk. This raises concerns about newborn babies who are breastfeeding. Although the Japanese government promised to look into the situation, they haven't breathed a word about it since April.

Radioactive iodine has a half-life of 3 months. Cesium-137 has a half-life of *30 years*. It's no joke if that stuff is contaminating the environment, because it means people will be exposed to it and their bodies will absorb it.

Admitting the hazards would be a huge blow to Japan's economy. It's no surprise that they're downplaying the dangers. Can you imagine how fast people would leave Tokyo if they announced it wasn't safe to live there? It would be devastating.

Maybe people aren't dropping dead in the street, but it's not an over-exaggeration to say that hundreds of thousands could eventually die an early death from cancers caused by exposure to these materials. History has repeatedly shown that corporations and governments will deliberately downplay these risks for their own personal gain. By the time the true scale of their actions is known, the people who made those decisions are no longer in a place where they can be officially held accountable.

Unfortunately, many TBMs who see the missionaries in Japan are under the mistaken impression that God says Japan is completely safe. In reality, their continued presence is likely more of a political move and a grave misunderstanding of the current situation.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2011 10:06PM by faboo.

They showed a t-shirt that said on the front, "I survived Three Mile Island". And on the back it said, "I think..."

Chilling, and all too true.

First, here's a recent data set from Japan that tells a sad tale:
http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/07/radiation-in-japan-as-it-is-being.html

Shelters are closing, and people will be sent back to those contaminated areas to pick up the pieces of their lives. The kids will have high mortality and illness. BTW, the evacuation zones have always been guidelines only, with many people remaining in the area since the event for lack of alternative.

Here's an audio recent report from Japan in English:

http://rense.gsradio.net:8080/rense/special/rense_Deagle_071111.mp3

http://femalefaust.blogspot.com/2011/07/fukushima-seasons-tuna-catch-taken.html

Along with the beef and fish, vegetable marketers are also simply placing contaminated vegies into boxes with produce from "safe" areas. Just as ashes and sewage sludge that is over limits for radwaste per kg is being mixed with less contaminated waste to dilute it, so it is "legal" to bury in landfills etc. and used to make concrete. And people are just digging up radioactive dirts from their schools and yards and dumping it in the woods or waste places nearby.

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/07/13/52547-bqkg-cesium-radiation-soil-tokyo-135-miles-south-fukushima-34691/

http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=15665

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/07/10/radiation-japan-beef-detected-levels-international-nuclear-waste-limits-34451/

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/07/09/children-forced-clean-dirt-japan-swimming-pool-33851/

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/07/08/765-kg-uranium-burned-march-11-oil-refinery-fire-japan-quake-33771/

http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/07/06/japan-sets-radiation-limits-infant-drinks-international-limits-nuclear-waste-33411/

http://arthurzbygniew.blogspot.com/2011/07/japan-radioactive-contamination-map.html

http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=15536

http://ex-skf.blogspot.com/2011/06/radiation-in-japan-radioactive-cesium.html

BoJ, do you not understand the difference between a one time, small kiloton, limited area uranium explosion (like Hiroshima), and an ongoing burning and vaporising of tons of mox (uranium/plutonium), leaking and spreading into the ground, groundwater, seawater, and air? Radiation exposure is cumulative in its effects on the body, and the biggest danger is particulate ingestion. One particle in a lung can kill a person. And particles ingested with food and water will also kill.

Not to minimize the health effects of Hiroshima/Nagasaki. Have you checked the mortality and illness from those events?

This event in Fukushima is more like Chernobyl, where the fallout was widespread, and contamination continues. Altho the place was buried fairly quickly, it still kills today, with assessments being one million deaths from Chernobyl to date. Large parts of Europe and it's ag products are still uninhabitable or unusable today. Fukushima cannot be buried like Chernobyl, in fact they have no idea how to stop the contamination.

There will be mass mortality and illness in northern Honshu for a long time, even if nothing else adverse happens. The rising generation will be marked by deep tragedy. And of course, there will be health consequences for all populations downstream/downwind from this event too.

There is video from TEPCO's cameras from 14 June that seems to show another mass burning of radioactive materials in #4 reactor. This is an ongoing event, not old news. We had a spike in Hawaii between 6/24-27. Who nows how much more fuel remains in the site to continue burning? The contamination in the local seas is extreme already, so groundwater contamination likely is too. Spent fuel was also burned right in Tokyo Bay after the earthquake. Many reactors in other areas have sustained damages as well. More earthquakes etc. could widen this disaster. But Fukushima is already the single worst nuclear disaster on earth.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2011 04:07AM by hello.

I was in both cities during my missionary days in Japan (living in Hiroshima and visiting Nagasaki). A sensei of mine in the Hawaii Language Training Mission related how he lost his mother and brother in the firestorm that engulfed Hiroshima when the bomb hit the city. Then again, they weren't Mormons.

I saw living victims of the A-bombs (as well as graphic photos of those who didn't survive). It was horrifying.

Nothing like a good pair of Mormon garments to fend off radiation poisoning or incineration.

Testimonies, please.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/15/2011 08:45PM by steve benson.

anagrammy Wrote:
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> This is no joke -
>
> http://youtu.be/NKfN9hE2dg4
>
>
> Anagrammy


Am I missing something?...this is from March. Old news

You didn't read the above posts. Radiation news is not "old" news. This is an emerging story of concern to all of us.

From the standpoint of recovery from mormonism, I think this is an example of people believing Mormon superstition, garments/three nephites/angelic intervention, the form doesn't matter--that suggests that god will protect "his own."

Even if the mission presidents completely believe the Japanese government and corporate falsehoods, thinking parents and loved ones of missionaries should call for their immediate release.

Over time, radiation spreads in food, water, and other vectors of contamination (see above by Faboo).

Look, none of us want radiation to be part of our daily lives, but as exmormons we chose to live in reality, no matter how unpleasant. We owe it to those still allowing others to do their thinking to raise an alarm when we think it's justified.

I believe there is valid concern for them and for ourselves. You may not agree.

Anagrammy

And I don't believe they understand the casualty/death numbers. They'll send their missionaries into Kabul if it makes them look good. Parents tell themselves that their kids are protected because it makes them feel better and they are experts at putting doubts "on a shelf." Oh, and they are more concerned about the celestial kingdom and everlasting families and the magic planet of Kolob. So why worry about your live child? What matters is the bragging rights!

Don't forget the belief that missionaries who die get sent straight to the CK. That pretty much gives the church a free pass to do whatever they want without suffering much backlash from members who truly believe in it all.

I'm with Anagrammy on this one. If I had a loved one in Japan on a mission I would tell them to GET THE HELL OUT. And faboo, I absolutely HATE that effed up "righteous dead missionary goes straight to heaven" steer manure. I've known people who had a missionary relative die while serving and while I'm certainly not going to begrudge them anything that gives them comfort, that just always seemed sick to me. It'll be interesting to see what happens to people healthwise down the road.

following the ABomb tests in Nevada in the 50's.

Hard to calculate the numbers because not everyone who is exposed gets cancer. But the rates are still higher than normal. Japan will be the same.

radiation is very dangerous stuff. It can also be measured with great precision.

When poster "hello" said that the entire island of Honshu was effectively uninhabitable, and all of Japan was dying, I calling bullshit. I asked for numbers. I haven't looked through all the links that hello provided, but I will.

I did a single google search and the first hit was the International Atomic Energy Agency. That seemed like a good place to look for real information.

Here's the link to the page I read:
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/tsunamiupdate01.html

Here are 3 paragraphs from section 2 of the page - it is bureaucratic and boring, but I tend to trust bureaucratic data. It turns out it is actually hard to fake really boring data, and the IAEA doesn't have a whole lot of incentive to fake the data in any case. Anybody can buy a radiation dosimeter and check the numbers themselves.

OK, the 3 paragraphs:
_____________________________
2. Radiation Monitoring

The daily monitoring of the deposition of caesium and iodine radionuclides for 47 prefectures is continuing. Since 17 May, deposition of I-131 has not been observed. Low levels of Cs-137 deposition were reported in a few prefectures on a few days since 18 May; the reported values range of from 2.2 to 91 Bq/ m2 for Cs-137.

Gamma dose rates values for all 47 prefectures are reported daily by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan. On 31 May the gamma dose rate reported for Fukushima prefecture was 1.5 µSv/h. In all other prefectures, reported gamma dose rates were below 0.1 µSv/h; with a general decreasing trend. Meanwhile, the decrease of the gamma dose rate has slowed down, since the short-lived radionuclides have decayed away.

Gamma dose rates reported specifically for the monitoring points in the eastern part of Fukushima prefecture, for distances of more than 30 km from the Fukushima Daiichi plant, showed a general decreasing trend, ranging from 0.1 µSv/h to 17 µSv/h, as reported for 31 May.
_____________________________________________

I said it was boring. I don't know much about Bequerels per square meter, but I do know a bit about ionizing radiation. Long story. Anyway, in the middle paragraph, the following figures are given: 1.5 µSv/h in Fukushima (I assume that is an average, because it has got to be much higher than that within the exclusion zone). 0.1 µSv/h in neighboring prefectures.

OK, so how much is 0.1 µSv/h? 0.1 µSv is what you get from the potassium in 1 average banana. Or 6 minutes flying in a commercial jet. Or about 100 minutes of just sitting around in Utah (because of the altitude). It is about one seven thousandth of a chest CT scan. It is an amount so small that it is on the ragged edge of what they can measure, because it is so much lower than normal background radiation.

BTW, the dose you get each year from the potassium in your own body is 390 µSv, the equivalent of 3,900 bananas.

The average annual background dose of gamma radiation for a person is 4,000 µSv/yr, or 40,000 bananas.

So, when the readings reported in prefectures near Fukushima are only 20% [edit: I blew the math. An extra 0.1 µSv/hr is a 2% increase over normal background radiation. D'oh!] or so higher than normal background radiation, do you see why I tend to call BS on claims that Japan is dying?

I found the rest of the IAEA report fairly alarming. They have a major disaster on their hands, and there is potential for it to get much worse than it is. But "Japan is dying"? Hardly.


And if you think the IAEA is lying, show me the proof of that. Greenpeace was backing up US govt figures in Hawaii, and reporting the same results. None of this is rocket science. a bachelors degree in physics would be enough background to be able to double check the figures, and there are a lot of physics grads in the world.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2011 12:53AM by Brother Of Jerry.

Brother of Jerry, these figures are being questioned. That's the point. Neither the corporation nor the Japanese government has not been honest about the scope of the accident. They have minimized it and have had to readjust the figures up...

Which is to say that the figures given to the U.S. and other countries have not been accurate.

Which makes the resulting links, calculations, physics background yes/no irrelevant.

We could not trust the United States Government to give us, it's citizens the true story when it came to the Downwinders and you can bet the Japanese government is no different. We have to look out for ourselves and not assess our risk based on government statistics, which have already proven to be just wrong.


Anagrammy

You may have read more into my words than I meant to be there, BOJ. I said Honshu is unsafe, not that it is uninhabitable. And I didn't say all of Japan is dying, I said Japan is dying, which it is. Radiation there is killing people as we speak, and will kill many in future. It remains to be seen if the Japanese economy, and the culture of Japan, will survive this blow, at least in current forms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfgYRIGjNkA&feature=email

It's a 15 minute video.


The point is, that many people in Japan have bought their own Geiger counters simply because they have no faith that the info they are being given is truthful.
Many people are posting their own videos of Geiger counter readings on-line.

This video shows shows/translates some of those videos. It tries to be fair - for example, pointing out that none of the devices will be calibrated to give scientifically acceptable evidence - but the overall conclusion is that the situation is a lot worse than the Japanese government and TEPCO are willing to admit

There has been so much said from the situation in Japan from "Radiation is good for you" to "The whole nation will die" to everything in between. As with anything today, you just don't know what story is the truth or who to believe.

I've been lurking here for a long time and have posted under different screen names. We live on a military base in Japan and have been through the earthquake and everything that followed. It drives me crazy when people say, "Get out now". Yes, the quake was devastating and the nuclear situation scared us (and our families back in the US), but life is pretty much back to normal in most parts of Honshu. Are the missionaries in question in the devastated areas? Then yes, I would be worried. If not? Life goes on as usual with everyone doing their part to help those that need it. The bullet train (Shinkansen) is running again throughout Honshu and travel restrictions were lifted long ago by the military authorities.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that everything is fine. We are careful with our produce purchases and don't travel through the Fukushima area. I don't think that everyone needs to panic and leave the island. I thought that we were done with all of the panic....enough if that.

ooops...enough of that!!

I would prefer the mormons congregated around the reactors and started praying. That would solve at least one of Japan's problems.

(ok that was cruel)

....but funny!

A close friend who is native-born Japanese just returned from Japan where he went for a month to help out. He said that many individuals whose land is contaminated, leaving them with no way to continue their life work, have committed suicide.

The untold consequences of this tragedy will continue to reverberate.

Many of us who live here can't just up and leave. We have homes, spouses, jobs, children in school, etc. Yes, the radiation worries me some, but there isn't much I can do about it besides being careful about what food I buy and trying to stay healthy in general. Life here in western Japan has gone on as usual.

As far as the missionaries go, maybe it would be better if they stop sending them over. After all, they really don't need to be here.

Twinker, that's so very sad about the suicides. Japan has a long difficult road ahead.