tell us anything -- we're stupid

was just reading some business news, to get a feel for how the japan crisis is going down on world markets. got to one item from the toronto globe and mail carrying the headline "nervous markets rattled by EU comments on japan.

curious to find out what the EU said, i had to wade through several paragraphs to find out what the "ill-chosen" words that sparked a panic were. check it out:

However, the relative calm gave way in mid-morning trading after investors learned that the European Union’s commissioner for energy told a European Parliament committee that one of Japan’s nuclear plants is “effectively out of control,” provoking what could be a “major disaster.”

the power company and japanese government have tried to reassure the public that things were under control, and that they had a plan for addressing the multiplying problems at the reactors. unfortunately, as one crisis yielded to another more serious event, the efforts of the authorities both to contain the unfolding disaster, as well as manage public perceptions, began to unravel.

in short, if you had eyes to read or watch TV, you could see for yourself that the situation in japan is deteriorating rapidly, and has reached the point of no return.

what is not fully understood, or at least not fully appreciated by the general public, is how awful the situation is. in spite of all the previous reassurances by the government and "experts" in the nuclear power industry about the safety of the technology, as well as the reliability and dependability of the failsafe equipment in event of an accident, the shit is totally out of control and beyond the authorities' ability to fix it.

we've gone from being told that there's no way this could be as bad as chernobyl to finding out that the spent fuel rods, if they catch fire, will create a devastating release of radioactivity that will exceed the previous-worst event in ukraine.

sounds to me as if the EU commissioner is simply being honest -- and not needlessly creating panic. when a wide swath of japan could eventually be rendered uninhabitable for the next 30,000 years, i think we really DO have a problem.

incidentally: president barack obama, who is nothing if not a tool of corporate interests, has announced that his intention to build new nuke plants in the US is proceeding full speed ahead, and nevermind the japanese disaster -- which hasn't even remotely been brought under control. according to this story in the telegraph, the US is going to learn from the japanese experience, and apply it to current and future reactors.

apparently, no matter what we learn from japan's meltdown and release of radioactivity into the atmosphere, this deadly, out-of-control technology will be foisted upon our civilization by greedy capitalists and their enablers in government.