You Need a Laugh

Sunday morning in Japan. It's going to be an excellent day.


Here's a short from the movie "One Crazy Summer" that should give you a chuckle.

If the movie doesn't play, go watch it here. It's pretty funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4wJMvw_ra4

Thanks to Steve "Poots" Candidus.


Steve also always sends along these great quotes to ponder:


"...In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him
to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility
of becoming partly a dog..."   -   Edward Hoagland

"...Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and
your dog would go in..."  -   Mark Twain

Suicide Blogger

People create blogs because they have something that they want to say. The best bloggers, I think, are those, like musicians, who make their songs for themselves and don't care what others think. 

Tokyo has had some pretty bad sh*t happen 

to it before yet we're still here.

The best bloggers don't blog because they want to get high numbers of readers daily, they write what they want and as they please.


Someday, when I grow up, and am fully able to suppress my inner child, I want to completely say and write what I want. 


The music example above is a good one, I think. The best music comes from people who have a message they want to say to the world and don't care if it sells or not. If it does sell, great. If it doesn't, well, that's too bad. 


The best musicians are not going to change their music to Top 40 style just to get fans. Although, unfortunately, this happens far too often and that's why Pop music sucks so much. 


Of course, like selling many CDs or downloads, for bloggers it is also gratifying to get lots of readers.

2012 is supposed to be the end of the world. 

Hope you have your bags packed. 

When a musician sells out and gives up on his music for sales, then he "sells out" as the term goes. Selling out is a sort of lie. It is not telling the truth and it is doing something purely for money (though I cannot slag off anyone who wants to make money).


Like being truthful to your music, writing the truth on a blog is not a good way to make "sales." What I mean by that is it is not a good way to garner many readers.


Sensationalism sells.


Just look at the news rack at your favorite grocery store upon checkout next time; Gossip and rumor magazines galore. Gossip and rumor and innuendo sell. They are all a form of sensationalism. 


If you want many readers, then writing sensationalism sells. You needn't believe me. Just look at all the media. Sensationalism sells and that is a fact of life.


Newspapers, TV, magazines and the Internet do not sell well when they write boring stuff, like the truth. They need sensationalism to garner readers.


I don't know about you but I don't want the kind of readers who enjoy gossip tabloid publications. I probably couldn't can't get them anyway. I want to write the truth on this blog. That's also why there are no advertisements on this blog either.


Telling the truth is not as good as sensationalism to get readers. Sensationalist nonsense makes waves. Just look at the recent remarks from Keith Harmon Snow, Arnie Gundersen and Michio Kaku. 


These guys make outrageous unfounded claims. People actually listen to them and print up their absurd remarks.


Sensationalism sells.


I blast these clowns out of the water whenever I can. If I wrote more wild nonsense about Fukushima and how people in Japan were being born with extra limbs or animals were deformed or birds were dropping from the skies and joined in with the scare-tactics of the sensationalist crowds, I'd probably have a large increase in readers everyday.


But, as it is, I don't. I want to write the truth and expose the charlatans as best I can. Writing the truth and telling people that no one has died from Fukushima or that rabbits are probably not being born deformed, or that deadly radiation is most probably not being secretly bombed on the Tokyo populace, or that 1/3 of Japan is most likely not to be evacuated and will be quite inhabitable for the next few hundred years at least, thank you, is not exciting stuff. 


If I can, I just want to get the truth out. What I write is not exciting. So my blog readership, as with all truthful blogs on Japan, has declined.

When the truth is that things aren't as bad as all the doomsayers claim, then he truth is boring. The truth being boring doesn't capture the folks who like gossip or sensationalism (or watch American Idol on TV).


The truth doesn't attract so many readers. The truth can be quite boring. Boring will cause a drop in readership. Continued drops in readership may kill off the motivation of a blogger. No motivation, no blog posts. No blog posts, no blog.


Doing something that kills you could be suicidal.


That is what a suicide blogger is.


So, make a choice; are you true to yourself and your "music" or do you want to sell out?  

Notes and Dead Babies From the Fukushima Apocalypse

People really like to exaggerate. People really like to bend the truth to fit their agenda.


Most times that agenda is politically or financially motivated. At other times that agenda is pure and simple narcissism and those who are guilty of this are very many. These people insist upon being right no matter what and no matter how much facts get in the way.


Not being an expert on everything, and with a mass media background and much news experience, I like to stick with the facts... Just the facts.

Shell in Nigeria. For every 1 person who dies from nuclear power, 

900 will die from industrial uses of oil...

 And that doesn't include innocents killed in wars for oil.

The people who have an agenda are easier to understand than the narcissists, money is a great motivator. The motivation of a narcissist is a dark and strange place. 


Many narcissists are so often completely illogical that they write things and fail to recognize to comical nature of their comments.


In my post of June 20, entitled, Return of the Coal Industry and; Massive Health Problems and; Deaths Because of it, I wrote (and linked) to proof that about 3.3 million people a year, every year, die from pollutants from coal and oil based industrial pollutants. I also linked to proof that, per unit of energy, for every one person who has died from nuclear power, 4,000 die from coal industrial uses alone. Throw in oil and the death rate is more than 5,000 times and that doesn't include millions killed in wars for control of that oil. 

Aerial view of massive environmental destruction at Kingston Coal Factory

But the anti-nuclear crowd can't have that. They cannot argue with facts so they come up with nonsense comments. Like this one that was directed to me on Twitter:


"Is it OK for you to portray nuclear risk so low that someday coworkers will lose health, cannot feed their kids cuz they're dead?"


Yes, thank you. If you consider the level of risk so low then that is your value judgement. I portray the facts. That is what I deal in. What do you have to say about the fact that many more people die from coal or oil pollution than nuclear power? 


Also, those people working at Fukushima are not slave workers. This is not ancient Egypt or 18th century slave nations. Those people can quit that job anytime they wish. If they die? Well, have you never heard of life insurance? It was created for just such unforeseen emergencies as, well.... death.


Or is that case different if, as you say they "cannot feed their kids cuz they're dead," due to a much larger killer than nuclear energy; the coal industry and oil industry? Where are your protests about that which is demonstrated and proven as a bigger killer and destroyer of our environment?


By the way, I've noticed that protesting the oil industry is not the trendy flavor of the week... It sure was in the 1970's!


I sure do wish school's would start teaching math and logic as well as critical thinking skills. Our world sure could use it.... 


Sigh...


In a post yesterday, I blasted a writer for calling Fukushima "Japan's nuclear apocalypse."


It is total and complete nonsense to hyper bloviate and call Fukushima a "nuclear apocalypse." That's just total and complete rubbish.


I already explained what the definition of apocalypse is. It is defined as: "imminent destruction of the world and the salvation of the righteous. There's also great or total devastation and doom." 


Get that? Destruction of the world. Doom. Death. Everyone dead. This is not a fender bender.


About the BP Oil spill, some writers were even calling that an apocalyptic event. Total deaths? 11 so far. Many health issues and many more deaths to come most probably. But factually, only 11 so far. You call that apocalypse?


They called Chernobyl "apocalypse" too. So far, the total number of predicted dead from Chernobyl? According to the Chernobyl Forum: 4,000. You call that apocalypse? Very unfortunate for those who died, but hardly what I'd call "apocalypse." 


There's been a litany of events over the past 150 years that have been called apocalypse. The biggest one that comes to mind was World War II. How many people were killed in WWII? Over 60 million. 


They called that one apocalypse too. 60 million is a lot of deaths, but still not the apocalypse. Last I looked humanity was still infesting this planet. 


Words have meanings and when those words are misused, they become tools of propaganda. Intelligent people would be wise to take notice. Chernobyl happened over 25 years ago. They called that apocalypse? Laughable. Did you know that, since Chernobyl, over 17,500,000 people have died in car accidents worldwide? Over 1.2 million people per year and over 3,200 people per day die in car accidents worldwide! I suppose if we are going to be so loose with our terminology I could say that if you want to avoid the apocalypse, then you'll want stay out of your car and off the roads.


The total number of deaths from the Fukushima "Nuclear apocalypse" so far? 


Zero.


And this event at Fukushima some are calling "Japan's nuclear apocalypse"? Pardon me if I do not soil my pants in fear like some people are doing.




NOTE: Finally a big thanks to Michael Distacio of Rock Challenge Japan for reminding me of this great article. It heartens me that Scientific American, a journal of science publication, criticized the same article as I did. The only difference is that while I railed on Arnie Gundersen's nonsense. The Scientific American took other scientists to task:  


"...physician Janette Sherman MD and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano published an essay shedding light on a 35 per cent spike in infant mortality in northwest cities that occurred after the Fukushima meltdown, and [sic] may well be the result of fallout from the stricken nuclear plant.” The implication is clear: Radioactive fallout from the plant is spreading across the Pacific in sufficient quantities to imperil the lives of children (and presumably the rest of us as well)."


(snip)


That data is publicly available, and a check reveals that the authors’ statistical claims are critically flawed—if not deliberate mistruths.


Read more here.