chrispydog

This is when a country ascends to an another plane of crazy. Schools that are designed to be mass murder retardant. (I'm unconvinced - no machine gun nests anywhere, much less with interlocking fields of fire. Barbed wire obstacles are lacking as well.)https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1012676456655347714 …

Spot on Andrew. That is exactly the way to approach it.https://twitter.com/andrewcatsaras/status/1012608736358121472 …

Unlike other sources of energy like coal / natural gas which expels particulate into the atmosphere that is a silent killer as well that kills a lot more people through air pollution.

It used to be most gun massacres were more or less random - cinema audiences, concert goers, pedestrians. Now it seems more targeted women, black church goers & now journalists. Very, very chilling. The lunatic right are armed & dangerous in the US.

Iodine pills are cheap. Radiation protection expert bodies will not issue a recommendation against pre-stocking iodine pills, so opposing pre-stocking will not gain expert support. And being against them paints pro-nuclear types as out of touch zealots. No win there.

Even better countermeasure than iodine pills is to ensure that there’s enough iodine in the diet. Ukrainians had iodine-poor diet and their thyroids took in all the iodine. But the main reason for having enough iodine in food is to prevent ilnesses stemming from lack of it.

Of course we know that Chernobyl was complete outlier for many reasons irrelevant to every other nuclear power operation in the world. Therefore subtract it, there has never been such scenario. It's like "deadly" used nuclear fuel which has literally never harmed anyone anywhere.

Given that - statistically - the Dutch public will only be exposed to a nuclear meltdown every few hundred thousand years or so (since there are only dozen plants near the country today) the health burden due to inaproppriate use caused by radiophobia can really add up!

Ah, ok I see. In The Netherlands we have already done that, but most recently the government decided to go further and send all citizens iodine pills to their homes (nicluding a scary letter about nuclear meltdown), in the mail! That was - imo - part of a fearmongering campaign.

By the way, the Dutch public health agency recommends AGAINST providing pills to all citizens, because they calculate that the health burden of inappropriate use of pills would be greater than the benefit of the prestocking, indicating how slight the benefit of prestocking is.

There are no credible accident scenarios involving modern civilian nuclear power where acute radiation poisoning would be an issue beyond plant perimeter.

OTOH actual loss of containment accidents proceed so slowly that OPG staff could probably distribute the iodine at the time, and ensure all the protection required.

Journalists tell the stories of our communities, protect democracy, & often put their lives on the line just to do their jobs. Today’s attack in Annapolis is devastating. Our hearts go out to all the victims & their families.

Thanks @LouDingle for drawing to my attention to the fact that children have been in detention on Nauru for as long as the duration of World War 2. Be proud of what you have done, Julia, Kevin, Tony and Malcolm.