Monday, April 04, 2011

A Few Cowslips From The Curate's Coppice

It's not going too well at Fukushima. I think the words "sawdust and newspapers were also used" are the giveaway - never words you want to hear in the context of a leaking nuclear reactor.

A complete history of radiation incidents - I see that Russian criminals seem to be able to get hold of radioactive sources, while in Taiwan and China people use them to attack their co-workers. Many remote Russian lighthouses are powered by radioactive sources - which foolish crooks try to steal for scrap - a usually fatal decision. But the scariest stories of all are the criticality accidents. You're experimenting with a ball of plutonium and accidentally drop a piece of metal too close to it - a blue flash and a wave of heat - you swipe away the metal, but in those seconds you receive a fatal dose of radiation.

I mentioned flight JAL123 the other day, in the context of the downside to Japanese acceptance of responsibility. What I didn't mention was that the Japanese pilots kept the plane in the air for 32 minutes (passengers wrote farewell letters), despite having lost ALL the main controls - rudder, ailerons, elevators. The only control they could exert was differential thrust on the wing-mounted engines. When pilots attempted similar control on simulators as part of the post-crash analysis, they couldn't match the performance of Captain Tamahaka's crew in terms of keeping the aircraft aloft.

JAL123 lost control near mountains and nearly all the passengers and aircrew died. When United Airlines Flight 232 lost all controls after an engine failure, they were over level country. Using only the engines to steer the plane (they could only turn right, so moved in a series of loops), they found an airport and crash-landed on the runway - the majority of passengers survived though over a hundred died. The cockpit recording transcript is as gripping as any novel, and Captain Haynes lecture at Edwards Air Force Base shows you one impressive character.

I missed this one - Julie Bindel treading carefully on the subject of Charlene Downes.



UPDATE - commenter Brian says : "The story of the radioactive boy scout isn't mentioned (in the radiation log - LT)."

Oh yes it is.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

'There is some evidence that disproportionate numbers of men from migrant communities are involved in the abuse of girls. Opportunism is one possible explanation'

Translation:it is overwhelming migrant men.

Why are we allowing this to happen to our children?

Anonymous said...

Laban,

the quote is from the Bindel article.

Anonymous said...

anonymous - because the "our" whose children are being abused are not the same people as the "we" who are doing nothing about it.

JuliaM said...

I notice comments are not opened on that Bindel column...

Brian said...

The story of the radioactive boy scout isn't mentioned.

Laban said...

Oh yes it is.


http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/radevents/2007USA1.html

Foxy Brown said...

Bindel's clearly writing under journalistic restrictions. She wrote far more freely in The Times about this subject. Laban, that particular article is in your archive.

Laban said...

You're right, Foxy. She's sticking to Guardian house rules.

Brian said...

Corrected. But 1993 and 2007? He learnt his lesson.

Mark said...

'There is some evidence that disproportionate numbers of men from migrant communities are involved in the abuse of girls'.

'Downes is angry that her daughter's death has barely been noted outside Blackpool'.

These quotes from Bindel's article do not, of course, imply any possible causal relationship . Only the unenlightened and unwashed could suggest such a thing.

AgainsTTheWall said...

In faireness to immigrant communities everywhere its as well to point out that it is one bunch of parasites in particular and not Hindus, Chinese, Jews, Africans, Eastern Europeans, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders......