Archive for March, 2011

Aflac Fires Gilbert Gottfried Over Tsunami Jokes

American comedian Gilbert Gottfried has received a lot of attention after he tweeted a couple jokes about the Tsunami that has killed thousands of people in Japan:

For years, Gottfried has been the voice behind the duck in commercials for American insurance company Aflac. Thanks to his insensitive jokes, he has been fired:

“Gilbert’s recent comments about the crisis in Japan were lacking in humor and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac,” said Michael Zuna, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, in a statement today from the Columbus, Georgia-based insurer.

[...]

“Aflac will immediately set plans in motion to conduct a nationwide casting call to find a new voice of the iconic Aflac Duck,” the insurer said in today’s statement. “It should be noted that Gilbert Gottfried is not the voice of the Aflac Duck in Japan.”

If you’re wondering what voice they use for the duck in Japan, here’s an example of one of their Japanese commercials:

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• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Tokyo Geiger Counter

Do you not trust the information that the press is reporting about the Fukushima nuclear reactor incident? Do you fear that the winds are blowing dangerous levels of radiation towards Tokyo? If so, you might want to check these two sites, which provide updates on geiger counter readings from Tokyo:

• Live Ustream Channel – Reading 12.91 CPM as of 1:55PM Tokyo time.
• Site #2: w/ Regularly Updated Graph – Reading a little over 20 CPM as of 1:55PM Tokyo time.

A few things to consider:

• Normal range is usually under 60 CPM. Over 130 is not good.
• 100 CPM is equivalent to 1 microsievert or 0.1 millirem.
• The dangerous level recorded at one of the reactors this morning was 400,000 microsieverts.

[via Reddit]

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• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

French Embassy Fuels Panic With False Message About Approaching Radiation

International news organizations such as Reuters and CBS are running some alarming information provided by the French Embassy in Tokyo:

“Low-level radioactive wind from the nuclear reactor in could reach Tokyo within 10 hours, based on current winds, the French embassy says. “

According to Mariko Sanchanta of the Wall Street Journal, checks have found that the report is incorrect. There is no radiation cloud heading towards Tokyo. Do not flee your homes in terror.

Update 2: From Durf- “Apparently this warning came from the Administration des français à l’étranger (AFE, association of overseas French), only loosely affiliated with the embassy. Not an official alert, and mostly being ignored by the French population in the city.” It seems the international media has credited the French Embassy with the warning because the information was released through the French Embassy’s distribution channels.

Update: Here is a little information on what we really know has happened regarding the nuclear reactors in Fukushima.

There is a possibility that one or more of the reactors will meltdown. A meltdown does not mean that radiation will fly all over the place Chernobyl-style. Reports indicate that the primary containment vessel remains intact.

A small amount of radiation leaked this morning. It is only apparently enough to be dangerous to people in the immediate area, but residents within 30-kilometers are being told to stay inside as a precaution.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said a fourth reactor at the complex was on fire and more radiation had been released.

He said the reactor, even though it was unoperational, was believed to be the source of the elevated radiation release because of the hydrogen release that triggered the fire.

“Now we are talking about levels that can damage human health. These are readings taken near the area where we believe the releases are happening. Far away, the levels should be lower,” he said.

“Please do not go outside. Please stay indoors. Please close windows and make your homes airtight. Don’t turn on ventilators. Please hang on your laundry indoors,” he said.

“These are figures that potentially affect health, there is no mistake about that,” he said.

He said a reactor whose containment building caught fire Monday has not contributed greatly to the increased radiation. The radiation level around one of the reactors stood at 400,000 microsiverts per hour, four times higher than the safe level.

Officials said 50 workers are still there trying to put water into the reactors to cool them. They say 800 other nonessential staff were evacuated.

The 400,000 microserverts (400 millisieverts) per hour reading was taken right next to the reactor in question. What does that mean? Here is a very good explanation from Gakuranman, who has been updating a very informative liveblog on the subject:

Remember, although these figures may suggest that the level of radiation being recorded at Fukushima is not extremely high, the danger is constant exposure over a period of time. For this reason, people within the 20km evacuation zone are at high risk of serious harm.

7,000-10,000 millisieverts – Person dies from radiation poisoning. (Full body exposure).
1,000 – Nausea and vomiting (Full body exposure).
500 – Will reduce levels of peripheral blood lymphocytes (white blood cells that defend your body) (Full body exposure).
200 – No clinical conditions confirmed below this number
10 – Radiation from the sun
6.9 – CT scan
2.4 – 1 year’s worth of natural radiation
0.6 Stomach X-ray
0.2 – A return air trip from Tokyo to New York
0.05 – Chest X-ray (or the level of radiation expected to be maintained around a nuclear power plant)

At this point, there is nothing indicating that anything close to a dangerous amount of radiation is being blown towards Tokyo.

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The Threat of Panic Buying

As Japan works to recover from Friday’s earthquake, something serious is going on in the Kanto region. Hundreds of miles from the earthquake-damaged northern region, people are engaging in ridiculous amounts of panic buying. Although there may be strong aftershocks, it is highly doubtful that any would be strong enough to endanger the lives of people out here. Still, a lot of them are shopping like the apocalypse is upon us:

• The shelves of supermarkets and convenience stores are becoming empty. On Saturday, basic essentials such as bread, rice, water, and noodles were sold out. The panic buying continues, spreading to different kinds of food. My supermarket’s shelves have not been stripped of meat, cookies, curry, spaghetti sauce, potato chips, soda, juice, frozen food, and noodles.

• Batteries and cell phone chargers are sold out everywhere.
• Following the earthquake, many people rushed to gas stations to fill up their cars. The gas stations in my area had been out of gas since Saturday morning. They were re-supplied some time last night. As of 9:00AM, there was a line of about 30 cars waiting to fill their tanks. High octane fuel had already run out, and the supply of regular gasoline will probably be gone by the time this blog post goes live.

It is hard to understand why so much panic buying is taking place. If people are expecting another disaster, why are they buying items that would require electricity or gas to cook, such as frozen food and meat?

The panic buying of gasoline is especially worrisome. How can we expect new deliveries of food to supermarkets if consumers are hoarding all the gas? I really hope that most food suppliers have their own independent fuel delivery and storage facilities, because any business that relies on normal gas stations is going to have serious problems.

The people who are hoarding gasoline might rest easy knowing that their parked cars have full tanks of gas, but their actions are probably only prolonging shortages of food.

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Tokyo Governor: Earthquake Was Divine Punishment #ishihara_damare

Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara has told the press he believes the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that hit Japan on Friday was a form of divine punishment:

“The identity of the Japanese people is selfishness. The Japanese people must take advantage of this tsunami as means of washing away their selfish greed. I really do think this is divine punishment.”

Ishihara was contrasting the “selfishness and greed” that he perceived in Japan with the identity of the United States with “liberty” and the identity of France with “liberty, philanthropy, and equality [sic].”

With the media focusing on more important earthquake news, his outrageous statements are not getting much attention yet. However, Twitter users are trying to spread the word about Ishihara using the tag #ishihara_damare (“shut up, Ishihara”).

Note: He has since apologized for his remarks.

[hat tip to Jordan]

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Malaysian Newspaper Apologizes Over Japanese Tsunami Cartoon

A Malaysian newspaper has apologized after readers expressed outrage over a cartoon that it printed in its March 13th edition:

The Malay daily published the apology on its website, Twitter and Facebook accounts on Sunday after several quarters demanded that the newspaper apologise for the publication.

‘We apologise for the publication of the cartoon in Berita Minggu. We had no intention of poking fun at the disaster that has befallen the nation of Japan and its people. In fact, we greatly sympathise with their plight and share the sorrow of the Japanese people,’ the daily’s editor wrote.

The cartoon, drawn by Mohd Zohri Sukimi or more popularly known as Zoy, showed the popular Japanese icon Ultraman running away from an oncoming tsunami. The publication created a buzz on social networking sites with politicians and the public criticising the daily’s poor judgment, describing the cartoon as ‘distasteful’ and ‘insensitive’.

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