Radioactive Concrete From Fukushima Found In New Construction 237
mdsolar writes "The Japanese government is investigating how radioactive concrete ended up in a new apartment complex in the Fukushima Prefecture, housing evacuees from a town near the crippled nuclear plant. The contamination was first discovered when dosimeter readings of children in the city of Nihonmatsu, roughly 40 miles from the reactors at Fuksuhima Dai-ichi, revealed a high school student had been exposed to 1.62 millisieverts in a span of three months, well above the annual 1 millisievert limit the government has established for safety reasons."
A bit of perspective (Score:5, Informative)
While the use of contaminated materials is something to be concerned about, let's not forget how much radiation this actually is. It's roughly the equivalent of one chest CT scan per year [xkcd.com].
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While the use of contaminated materials is something to be concerned about, let's not forget how much radiation this actually is. It's roughly the equivalent of one chest CT scan per year [xkcd.com].
You want you children growing up with that? 18 years worth? really?
Re:A bit of perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
From the same chart, 18 years of that (117 mSv), if it were absorbed in only one year, would still be only marginally higher than the lowest dose clearly linked to an increased risk of cancer (100 mSv/year). Since it's being absorbed over 18 years, the body has a much better chance of repairing any damage, so health is most likely not affected.
The human body can take a surprising amount of radiation and do just fine when compared to detectable levels. A report of "radiation found!" really means very little in terms of overall health. Much more concerning is that the contaminated materials were used at all, implying that the construction controls aren't right. Finding some low levels of contamination should lead to an inspection of all buildings recently built by the same company, to see where else (potentially more) radioactive materials have been used, and to assess if there's any real danger.
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Wasn't there some study of a housing complex somewhere in Europe that had very high radon levels for decades.
IIRC. The study actually showed a lower cancer rate than the norm.
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Re:A bit of perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. I also drive a car to work, which is far more dangerous. I also use a laptop on my lap, stand near the microwave, and have a slippery shower floor. I'm a risky person. Please don't tell my insurance agent.
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I do try to be consistent, though I should perhaps note that given the choice between two identical apartments, with all other things being exactly equal except their yearly radiation dose, I would of course choose the one with lower radiation, because a minimal risk is still risk, and with no cost to eliminate it, I would.
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Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all... day, I guess. Back to work tomorrow.
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>Please don't tell my insurance agent.
Ohhhh! Where's your risky nature now?
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From the same chart, 18 years of that (117 mSv), if it were absorbed in only one year, would still be only marginally higher than the lowest dose clearly linked to an increased risk of cancer (100 mSv/year). Since it's being absorbed over 18 years, the body has a much better chance of repairing any damage, so health is most likely not affected.
The human body can take a surprising amount of radiation and do just fine when compared to detectable levels. A report of "radiation found!" really means very little in terms of overall health. Much more concerning is that the contaminated materials were used at all, implying that the construction controls aren't right. Finding some low levels of contamination should lead to an inspection of all buildings recently built by the same company, to see where else (potentially more) radioactive materials have been used, and to assess if there's any real danger.
When I was a child I figured one day that I'd break up the sidewalk with a hammer. This isn't bullshit, I don't know why I did so and I got my ass beat but would my parents have had to take me to the hospital if I lived in this place? What if I eat dirt.
I am not against nuke power. We need it... in my backyard even. But we don't have to put up with failure. We have always been told it could never happen. It does... Then everyone says well it's your fault build new reactors... come on now... If the old ones
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No. Your parents wouldn't even notice if you weren't wearing a dosimeter. Nor would you.
The biologicals in dirt are far more of a hazard than 1.17 mSv per three months.
You're more likely to get tetanus than experience any noticeable effects from the radiation dose mentioned.
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No. Your parents wouldn't even notice if you weren't wearing a dosimeter. Nor would you.
... and that is what scares people ...
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Recent studies have shown that CT scans are not completely safe.
One CT scan in a year is estimated to produce one cancer in 270 women (one cancer in 600 men) or about 29,000 a year in the US.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126082398582691047.html [wsj.com]
Radiation is not safe and we don't really know if there is a "safe" amount of radiation. It's best to avoid all radiation as much as possible.
Re:A bit of perspective (Score:5, Funny)
Norway ... has some of the highest radeon levels in the world...
Radeon levels? Is Nvidia an obscene word in the Norwegian language perhaps?
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Finally a chink in slartibartfast's armor.
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Re:A bit of perspective (Score:5, Informative)
The kid is not radioactive. He carries a "dosimeter" which measures the total dose he receives.
Anyone living in a brick or concrete building gets more radiation than in a timber house, but this particular block has rather more than usual.
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Those are all good questions, which should be answered by the thorough investigation that I hope will follow. If and only if the investigation reveals an actual danger, we should be worried.
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The article is a bit vauge it sounds like radioative material from the fukushima disaster transferred to the gravel pit (probablly via groundwater) and contaminated the gravel that was used to make the concrete.
Re:A bit of perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a good friend who married a Japanese girl 2 years ago and moved there. I mentioned to someone that I was planning to visit him and her first reaction was, "Aren't you afraid that you'll die from radiation poisoning?".
The fear of radiation poisoning seems to me to be an infantile reaction similar to fear of the dark(nyctophobia). It's a fear of something that we can't see, and can't quantify with our own senses. Why be mindlessly afraid of radiation when it can be measured and the risks are understood? I'm not particularly afraid of travelling to Tokyo when Fukushima is hundreds of kilometers away and virtually unaffected?
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I mentioned to someone that I was planning to visit him and her first reaction was, "Aren't you afraid that you'll die from radiation poisoning?".
Either she's a complete dumbass, or she was making an awesome Godzilla joke.
Re:A bit of perspective (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe she was concerned about the extra radiation dose that you would receive from flying in an airplane at high altitudes.
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The correct response is only as much as you fear of dying from tanning.
The real response is people are afraid of what they dont understand.. since the average person is an idiot, and half of them ate dumber than that. They have no understanding of radaition its effects, etc. Therefore it is to be feared. Take a look at religions they love that effect. If it isnt us then it isnt goig to our heaven and often added on then kill it to hell.
Re:A bit of perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Disagreement among scientists is about the range of problems connected to the range of radiation doses received. Below a given dose, nobody except crackpots thinks radiation causes problems. Above a certain dose, nobody except crackpots thinks radiation's safe. These crackpot thresholds apply to almost any risk. There's a certain height above which a fall is deadly. There's a certain amount of water that can be in the lungs without any problem. There's a certain amount of traffic that can go through an intersection before it will work better with a stoplight.
The non-idiots recognize that some things aren't known perfectly, so they learn the crackpot thresholds and just try to stay on the safe sides, without worrying too much. They don't need to know exactly how much radiation causes what problems, just that a little bit has almost no risk. The idiots are the ones who see "radiation" and immediately assume it's an absolutely-deadly dose, and that the child in TFS is now doomed to die of cancer at 20.
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It's a fear of something that we can't see, and can't quantify with our own senses. Why be mindlessly afraid of radiation when it can be measured and the risks are understood?
Well that is exactly why its scary. We can't register it with our own senses, well unless is so strong as to cause heating. I could be being irradiated right now, and I would not know it. So yea anytime you elevate the risk that could be happening by saying going near the TSA, or the site of recent nuclear safety incident, yes I worry.
Now I also understand *some* of the physics and if I had the tools measure and map it I'd worry less. I don't have those tools so the only option is look for secondary ind
Re:A bit of perspective (Score:5, Interesting)
Wlet's not forget how much radiation this actually is. It's roughly the equivalent of one chest CT scan per year.
Sure about that? They're getting 1/3 of a mSv per month, so about 4 per year. one chest CT scan is about two dozen or so as a rough rule of thumb. Closer to a CT scan per six years. Since most kids go to primary school about a dozen years, its about the equivalent of two chest CT scans. Not one per year, not two per year, but two. two total. Hmm I went thru two pneumonia x-rays in the last almost 40 years, although those were not CT scans, at any rate the kids are getting about three times the dosage that a middle age non smoker like me is going thru. Not too serious.
Theoretically the girls are getting mammograms every, like, year or something, and each is about 2 mSv, so you do the math. For genetic risk factors my wife gets the girls squashed and zapped every year or so, which is ... 2 mSv per year, so apparently from a radiation dose standpoint its about twice as dangerous as ... being a girl. Not too serious. Well I mean cancer sucks, but I mean the situation of the kids is not much more dangerous for the girls than being tested for cancer.
Also you get "about" 3 or so mSv per year naturally, from eating bananas, cosmic rays, granite countertops, stuff like that, which is pretty much how the scientists pulled the 1 mSv figure out of some orifice, that an extra 33% probably can't hurt anything? I know the radiation dosage in colorado is much higher than sealevel and the Fukushima kids live at sea level, so you can also describe their increase dosage as a height above sea level. I'm guessing their increased dosage is about the same as moving to Denver. Again, not too serious, although I would not want to live in Denver.
Note this average normal does assumes you don't smoke... the polonium in tobacco means one cancer stick per day equals about one mSv per year, so the 4 mSv increase is equivalent to smoking about four cigs per day, roughly, which is probably about as bad as the second hand smoke from living with a smoking parent. Again, not too serious.
Radiation is fun to learn about because its "secret". Even on /. where people know volts and mV and amps and mA, very few know mSv and rads and rems and such and its pretty easy to learn, and fairly easy to memorize rough comparisons, like a cancer stick per day is a mSv per year, or a CT scan is about two dozen mSv, or a natural dose from mother earth is about a mSv per season depending on your altitude, etc etc.
Wrong (Score:2)
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I said a CT scan, not an x-ray. A CT scan (7 mSv on the chart) is made from a few hundred "normal" x-ray images, composited on a computer. This kid's getting about 6.5 mSv/year from his house. The 1mSv/year exposure limit is for a "member of the public", meaning that if an average person had more than that amount of exposure, it's abnormal and should be investigated (as it is here), because there might be a dangerous radiation source nearby. A malfunctioning x-ray machine in a doctor's office that turns its
Yes you did (Score:2)
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The 1mSv/year exposure limit is for a "member of the public", meaning that if an average person had more than that amount of exposure, it's abnormal and should be investigated (as it is here), because there might be a dangerous radiation source nearby.
I like your explanation and on /. an EE explanation MIGHT go ever better. It reminds me of FCC mandated RF exposure guidelines. Below this specified level of RF power you simply don't have to care. That doesn't mean that a microwatt over means you've instantly built a flaming open air microwave oven beam weapon of death, which can be built if you use multiple orders of magnitude more power, it just means here's an arbitrary line beneath which you just say "who cares".
I forget the UL labs AC leakage curre
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The chart says 40 microsieverts for one chest X-ray. TFA says 1.6 millisieverts in three months. So, the rate is 640 chest X-rays per year, not one. That is much higher than the NRC's public exposure limit of 100 mrem/year (1 millisieverts/year).
Well now you're getting things all confused. First of all a CT (computerized tomography) x-ray takes a zillion xrays at different angles and combines them in a computer with some pretty funky math to make cool 3-d model. Been a long time since a took a nuke physics class (20 years?) but yeah there probably are 100s of xrays taken in one CT scan. A CT scan with only one image taken is kind of a misnomer. Doctors do have to have a reasonable excuse for a CT scan, not just for the heck of it like they do p
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One CT scan is like a couple dozen x-rays.
You do not want to get such a thing regularly.
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Yes, I did know that. I'm not concerned about terrorism, either, but I do worry about my wife being late coming back from work.
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640 chest x-rays / year (Score:2)
64 chest x-rays / year (Score:3)
He said CT scan (Score:2)
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>internal exposure is far more serious
Because, you know, people eat concrete every day.
--
BMO
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From TFA (Score:5, Informative)
The gravel used in the cement came from a quarry in the town of Namie, located just miles from the Fukushima plant. While Namie sits inside the government mandated 12-mile “no-go” zone because of radiation concerns, it wasn’t completely closed off until the end of April, meaning the gravel was exposed to radiation spewing from the Fukushima plant during that time.
Mystery solved. The only thing we need to know is if the contractors got the gravel at a "special discounted price".
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The gravel used in the cement came from a quarry in the town of Namie, located just miles from the Fukushima plant. While Namie sits inside the government mandated 12-mile “no-go” zone because of radiation concerns, it wasn’t completely closed off until the end of April, meaning the gravel was exposed to radiation spewing from the Fukushima plant during that time.
Mystery solved. The only thing we need to know is if the contractors got the gravel at a "special discounted price".
Another important question is did they analyze the isotopic signature of the accident debris and match it to the isotopic signature of the gravel?
People forget that power plant and the processing plant were radioactive before the accident, theoretically all behind closed doors. I'm Sure This Doesn't Happen In Japan, but in a third world country like China or the USA, I would not be totally surprised if something got dumped in a nearby gravel pit back in '73. Digging it up again after an accident in 2011 p
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Scooby Doo, look what you've done!
LoB
Calling Dr. Freeman (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess one important question is, what's the half-life of this particular contamination?
And is it (relativly) sealed in, or can it become airborne?
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TFA says caesium in the concrete, so 30 years half life.
And if the concrete of the apartment becomes airborne, you have bigger worries than the radiation.
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Caesium 134 has a half life of about 2 years, and caesium 137 about 30 years. It is mostly gamma radiation, so that will get through the amount of concrete typically used to make walls.
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Easy Solution. . . (Score:2, Funny)
So, the cesium is in the concrete. We need a way to block the radiation. Lead is usually a pretty good material for blocking radiation.
Oh... Lead Paint!
You're welcome.
John Hodgeman would be proud.
On a more serious note, does this actually matter? Kids don't stay at home 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so any estimates of the increase in exposure should, I hope, include the fact that kids are going to be gone something like 1/4 - 1/2 of the time they live there?
We live in a constant bath of low-level radiatio
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when you carry a dosimeter, it's not an estimate of exposure, it's a measure of exposure.
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It's probably Cesium, and that's 30 years. It is apparently in the foundation, and is much higher on the first floor. Technically I think Cesium is water-soluble but it's probably not an issue when encased in concrete. It's probably a tear-down, but maybe they can use methods similar to radon remediation to reduce the effect.
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Radon remediation is all about getting the radon out of the building. Providing ventilation and airflow is every so slightly different than trying to extract something from concrete...
Radon (and the chain it decays to) is alpha and beta as well - so getting it outside so you won't be breathing it in as much is fine. With gamma (the next step in the chain, a couple of minutes after cesium beta decays is a gamma producer) not so much since it doesn't really care about the walls...
In the apartment's defense, (Score:5, Funny)
Does the nuke industry troll here? (Score:3)
Or are Slashdot posters that infatuated with nuclear? Seems like no matter what news comes out on that disaster, we've got apologists crawling out to explain how we don't need to worry about it and any concerns are the ignorant fears of the anti-nuke brainwashed.
Eating doughnuts in the control room (Score:2)
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Or are Slashdot posters that infatuated with nuclear? Seems like no matter what news comes out on that disaster, we've got apologists crawling out to explain how we don't need to worry about it and any concerns are the ignorant fears of the anti-nuke brainwashed.
A site with endless ranting about software / IT FUD in the early years, then along comes totally non-scientific fear mongering anti-nuclear FUD, what could possibly go wrong?
Re:Does the nuke industry troll here? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or are Slashdot posters that infatuated with nuclear? Seems like no matter what news comes out on that disaster, we've got apologists crawling out to explain how we don't need to worry about it and any concerns are the ignorant fears of the anti-nuke brainwashed.
Yes, because posts like this
by Tyr07 (2300912) on 10:15 16 January 2012 (#38714956)
*snip*
If I lived there, I'd have radiation meters weaved into my clothes.
People go 'OH it's not that much' FINE, let government leaders live in those places. I wouldn't want my life shortened at all, I'm thinking 40 years down the road I don't want to die from horrible radiation inflicted disease, nor do I want to find out some sort of penis monster finds me attractive.
are the epitome of rational and calm appraisal of the dangers...
No (Score:5, Insightful)
It is that there are some smart people who post here, people who can look at numbers and do a bit of math, and thus realize that this story is in fact a complete non-story since the levels are so low.
The anti-nuke crowd gets all worked up over radiation as a boogeyman without any thought. None of them seem to appreciate that you are exposed to radiation every day, every where, just by living. They seem to think ANY amount of radiation is evil.
Also plenty of people on Slashdot can do risk analysis and understand that yes, nuclear power has risks but so does everything else in the world. They've looked at the risk, and decided it was worth it.
Check your damn units. At least on wikipedia. (Score:2)
well above the annual 1 millisievert limit the government has established
1.62 mSv is not "well above" 1 mSv - it is practically the same.
Physics courses should be mandatory for "journalists"- as usual, they have no fucking clue what the hell they are writing about.
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
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Hey - it's nearly double. That has to be significant. Especially with that many decimal places.
And Orange Fiestaware (Score:2)
1.6 mSv is 0.00162 mrem.
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/fiesta.htm [orau.org] Estimates for consumer exposure to the uranium in the glazing of orange Fiestaware show you could rack up to a mSv in just a few hours exposure.
Who wants to bet, that this batch of concrete had some orange Fiestaware mix into it, or perhaps just a natural concentration of pitchblende, and it has nothing to do with Fukushima?
Wrong conversion (Score:3)
Worse things to worry about. . . (Score:2)
That is a non story. (Score:4, Interesting)
Big Fucking Deal. Here around due to the granitic rock and radon , we are getting in average a bit less than 5 mSv per year. For Japan it is about 1mSv. Assuming that radiation dose per 3 month is in addition to the normal natural dose, they are geeting per year about the same as we got in our house : around 5 mSv per year. And the world average is around 2.5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation [wikipedia.org]. Anything under 10 mSv per year I would not even bat an eye.
Re:More importantly, (Score:5, Funny)
Why are the building new housing complexes in the Fukishima Death Zone? Build prisons instead.
to spawn tentacle rape demons, have you never watched anime?
Cocktopus (Score:3)
I believe he's talking about the legend of the cocktopus [upup-downdown.com].
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You put horns and a tongue on the monster and didn't make them cocks? Big opportunity missed XD
A few retards born every now and won't hurt (Score:2)
Because radiation is not THAT dangerous?
Or, which I'm more inclined to believe, it is just a risk some governments are willing to take, with their underlying sentiment "A few retards born every now and won't hurt the polls too much."
Cynicism.
Re:More importantly, (Score:4, Insightful)
Thankfully the Japanese have much more common sense than the person and people like him spouting this prison crap.
Prisons are built to take away freedoms, not cause lifelong implicit bodily harm from radiation exposure. I cake a couple of guesses where you're from, that being some first world country who treats their citizens like third world crap and their prisoners like dogs and feel justified in doing so. You are the problem with humanity.
Re:More importantly, (Score:5, Funny)
Your personal experience is but a single data point...
Re:More importantly, (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about that. I haven't heard many bad things about Chinese prisons; I think it's because, for any kind of serious crime, they simply execute them. It's the US where we keep people in concrete cells for decades at a time, subjecting them to daily anal rapes so that we can drive them insane.
Re:More importantly, (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see... various things that have been and still are criminal: Having sex in an unsanctioned way between two consenting adults. Speaking against the elite of the region you're in. Drinking alcohol.
I'd say "no". I'd say that crime in itself isn't a problem at all - various things that are crimes are, but the fact that something is a crime doesn't make it wrong.
Re:More importantly, (Score:4, Insightful)
Why are the building new housing complexes in the Fukishima Death Zone? Build prisons instead.
They haven't developed the prison-industrial growth complex like the Americans have. Japan is a civilized society and does not have enough prisoners.
Before someone heartlessly suggests imprisoning the Fukishima workers, the guys who designed it / built it are retired / dead of old age, and a heck of a lot of the operators downed when they were sent home after the earthquake before the tsunami, and you don't need to build an entire prison to house the small number of fall guys left, and there seems little reason to punish the temps sent in after the disaster.
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Take a look at their drug laws, and how they sentence about a third of non-violent drug offenders to hard labor. I don't think you picked the right country to make a statement about enlightened treatment of prisoners. They may not have the sheer volume that the US does, but then again, who does?
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There is nothing wrong with a little work, it is better then forcing all the prisoners to do nothing.
The absolutely least likely thing to stop someone from continuing to do drugs is putting them in prison.
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I don't think you picked the right country to make a statement about enlightened treatment of prisoners.
I was commenting on their quantity, both numerically and as a population rate, not their quality. Kind of like saying a heck of a lot more Japanese rent than Americans rent is talking about percentages, going on about how much our apartment buildings suck compared to theirs has nothing to do with the numbers.
Honestly, if they only have 1/10th the percentage of prisoners per population that we have, and we optimistically assume they only incarcerate what would be our worst 10% of inmates, they probably dese
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I was commenting on their quantity, both numerically and as a population rate, not their quality.
Yeah, it is quite low. The US is ridiculously high. Good point. I'm just saying that drug penalties are ridiculous in Asia in general. The low incarceration rate may be as much culture as "system"... of course the two are intertwined, but that makes it even harder to look to another culture's system as a model.
Re:More importantly, (Score:5, Informative)
I'm Japanese and I actually live about 20 minutes from one of the largest prison complexes in the country. The "hard labour" thing is true but it's not like they're smashing rocks in chain gangs - the prison I'm near they build and repair boats. Other prisons apparently make them do construction or factory style work. Most female prisons they apparently have them do things like cook and clean instead of harder labor. They are awarded the ammount of money for the work they've done at a set rate at the end of their sentence and in many cases they end up with skills (and a work ethic) they can use to make a living.
For juvenile offenders there is some physical labor (cleaning of their living quarters, etc.) but mainly they force them to study.
So the Japanese prison system just tries to make use of those imprisioned to reduce their societal debt, and in the process hopefully make them into valuable members of society by release. Of course if you are making the argument that they shouldn't imprison non-violent drug offenders to begin with it's not like other countries don't do the same. Prisons are societally treated like generic rehabilitation facilities anywhere you go in the world.
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You forget that cleaning one's room counts for 'hard labor' in the US.
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Re:More importantly, (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, for most teenagers that I know (I'm looking specifically at my niece), cleaning up their room would be hard labor. Probably on the order of a Superfund site.
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We have "hard labor" in the US as well, but I wouldn't hold the US up as a shining star of a justice system. Hard labor has an uncomfortable resemblance to slavery - especially if the "criminal" didn't actually hurt anyone. In the US after the Civil War, blacks were often arrested on bogus or inflated charges just so that they could be used for cheap labor.
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The "hard labour" thing is true but it's not like they're smashing rocks in chain gangs - the prison I'm near they build and repair boats.
Do not for a second underestimate the wretched misery of boat construction and repair. If you only knew of the forbidden rock smashing chain gang fantasies of those pitiful sons of bitches...
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Happy MLK to you, too.
Yes, a disproportionate number of inmates in the US are black.
Look at the punishment meted out for possession of crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine. Answering the question of "why" will probably explain a lot. Racism isn't dead yet. Better, but not dead.
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Re:More importantly, (Score:5, Funny)
Why are the building new housing complexes in the Fukishima Death Zone? Build prisons instead.
All they need is one kid with a homemade lab growing guppies in that apartment complex to brew up the first in Godzilla's family tree. Hollywood is that desperate for a blockbuster sequel.
Re:More importantly, (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, why is it the Fukushima Death Zone? Because of the people that died there when they drowned or were crushed by the tsunami?
Nobody has died from the radiation released by Fukushima, and likely no one will.
Re:More importantly, (Score:4, Insightful)
A couple of the Fukushima workers were exposed to some pretty heavy dosages. Only a matter of time for them.
And the statistical nature of exposure and the way radiation does its thing means that it's unlikely but possible for anyone exposed to the initial releases of material, or to material that travelled long distances, can ultimately die from it. Japan's population density is much thicker than almost any other place, so this tiny likelihood becomes a statistically significant likelihood across the larger number.
So it's very likely someone will die from the radiation released by Fukushima, but unlikely anyone will ever be able to connect it conclusively.
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I expect that even if they had not, still no one would have died.
Since you so sincerely believe that not to be true, would you mind working up the cumulative dose of radiation over the past year for someone inside the evacuated region near the plant?
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Immigration difficulties. That and there's no real tech industry out that way. I'd gladly live in Ibaraki or Chiba though (both of which are much closer to Tokyo.)
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Nice troll. Attack a meaningless aesthetic issue (someone's knickname on /. - btw, my name isn't Biff, that's just part of a knickname) instead of something meaningful, then put words in someone's mouth that have nothing to do with what they said.
There are some "hotspots" where people should definitely not live till it's cleaned up. The immediate evacuation of the zone was certainly the right thing to do, until the fallout had fallen out, and measurements could be made of actual contamination. At this poin
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Funny thing about that, is locally there is a adolescent/teen sports league called the GNAA. I laugh whenever I see the fliers.
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It works...
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So should we continue to buy Honda's and Toyota's? I certainly don't want a vehicle that's going to expose me to radiation.
My wife has an '05 toyota. Its not made of cement, and to my best knowledge they have not switched to cement since then.
I have heard innumerable stories about people building canoes and small boats out of concrete, which I suppose you'd want to avoid in this application. Most concrete canoe stories seem to end with an explanation that they sunk it in the lake because it weighed 600 pounds, or to avoid rebar corrosion they avoided rebar, so it promptly cracked and sank. That's the only cement vehicle anec
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I'm thinking 40 years down the road I don't want to die from horrible radiation inflicted disease
If you did, how would you know the disaster caused it? Seriously?
Since the typical dose per person is lower than the natural dosage, almost all of the people in Japan who die from "horrible radiation inflicted disease" will have gotten their exposure from smoking, eating bananas, getting doctor xrays, getting dentist xrays, taking transcontinental flights, eating certain seafood, etc etc etc.