Point/Counterpoint: Japan's Nuclear Plants

Point: There is no cause for alarm

by Jethro van Goterhoffeschen, Doctor of Nuclear Science and Other Smart-Sounding Stuff

While the news of a release of radioactive material may sound alarming, I assure you there is no reason for concern. It is true that after the earthquake in Japan, a small amount of radioactive material was released into the air. This is mostly only a problem for those in the immediate vicinity, who are rightly being treated for potential exposure.

The prevailing winds in the jet stream are indeed blowing eastward, towards the west coast of the United States, but the cloud of radioactive particles has not reached that high altitude. Instead, it seems to be caught in the low pressure zone formed over the north pacific.

For this reason, it is highly unlikely that any radioactivity will reach the west coast. And even if it did, the radiation dosage you get from eating one banana would be greater than that from the Japanese nuclear reactors. 6000 miles is simply too great a distance for the radiation to maintain any significant concentration.

While the reactor meltdown is a concern, this incident is nowhere near as bad as the Chernobyl incident, which poisoned the surrounding area with nuclear fallout and caused the deaths of at least 50 people. We should not allow emotion and fear to lead us into rash behavior and abandon our successful nuclear program.

Counterpoint: Oh God, oh God, we're all gonna die!

by Hugh Jass, Professional panic-stirrer and New York Times correspondent

Did you hear that? There's a giant cloud of nuclear waste heading towards the United States! It was caused by a catastrophic nuclear explosion--think mushroom cloud--which is due to the total meltdown of several nuclear reactors in Japan.

The radioactivity is being carried by winds to the west coast of the US, which will sometime today be completely enveloped in the noxious cloud! Everyone run for the hills! Shortly after, the cloud will creep over the rest of the states, and people in New York will be dropping dead in the streets by next week!

Quick, everyone buy up all the Potassium Iodide tablets you can! Only that can save you from the fallout which will likely cause a nuclear winter!

This is the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl! Everyone abandon nuclear power--wait, that isn't enough. We should abandon electricity altogether, since it was the melting of the polar ice caps caused by global warming that caused the tectonic shift that started the earthquake to begin with! This is all the fault of Big Oil! Come get your pitchforks, torches,and Potassium Iodide!

And run for the hills!

Shopping for a Delli Sandwich

If buying a sandwich were like shopping for a computer from Dell.
(Inspired by Shamus Young: "PC Hardware is 'Toast'".)

INT. "The Delli"

"Hi, how can I help you?"

"I'd like a ham sandwich on rye with swiss cheese."

"I'm sorry, we don't sell sandwiches like that."

"What, you don't sell ham sandwiches? Or on rye bread?"

"No, we have ham sandwiches and rye bread, but we don't sell them in that manner."

"You mean custom made to order?"

"No, we have custom-made sandwiches but—lemme just explain. We've determined that to serve our customers better, it's most efficient if we offer different lines of sandwiches, each tailored for a particular customer demographic's needs."

"Ok... tell me about your sandwich lines."

"Well, we have the Latitude line of sandwiches for our business user who need best-in-class sandwich reliability. Our Vostro line is popular with small business eaters who need a filling sandwich for not too much money. Our Inspiron sandwiches are great for home and home office eaters who need style and satisfaction from their lunches. And our Alienware line is best for power-eaters who want top-of-the-line sandwich performance."

"That... means nothing to me. Do any of them have ham on rye with swiss?"

"You can get that with just about any of our sandwich lines."

"Ok. Then—I don't know—I guess I need a Vostro ham sandwich? On rye with swiss?"

"Well, we have several different Vostro sandwich models to choose from."

"What's the difference between them?"

"Well, mainly bread size and the amount of meat."

"Ok, I see on your menu that you offer a Vostro V130 on two slices of rye. Can I get that?"

"Sure, but the V130 line doesn't have a cheese option. If you want cheese, you'll need to get either the Vostro 3300 or the Vostro 1014, but keep in mind the 1014 comes on three slices of rye."

"Um, I think I only want two slices. I'll go with the Vostro 3300."

"Ok, we have several different configurations of the Vostro 3300. Do you want the 'essential', 'enhanced', or 'ship fast' configuration?"

"Ship fast?"

"Yeah, we pre-build the most popular sandwiches so that we have them available and ready to go when you order."

"That sounds good. What's on it?"

"It comes with mustard, mayo, lettuce, tomato, and onions."

"Can I get it without the onions?"

"Not in the Vostro line. There's a similar Latitude sandwich—the E4310—that comes without the onions, but it's $200 more expensive."

"Um... I think I'll just pick the onions off myself then, thanks."

"Great. So you wanted the Vostro 3300 fast ship with ham on rye. American cheese OK?"

"Can I get it with swiss?"

"Not with the ship fast option. If you go with the enhanced configuration option, you can choose from five different cheeses and three different meats, but it'll take two weeks to make your sandwich."

"TWO WEEKS?!?!"

"Yeah, it's a non-standard build, so it takes our factory a little extra time. But for an extra $100, we can express ship it, and you'll get it in 7 business days."

"You know what? Forget it. I'll have an apple for lunch."

This is basically the experience I have every time I try to build a work computer with Dell, and I dare you to figure out their system. I went through it twice recently—once when configuring my new laptop and another time when configuring a new desktop for my co-worker.

See, for my home computer, I just by the parts I want, throw them into a case, and call it a day. But Dell doesn't allow you to buy computers that way. Instead, they have five different lines of eight different models of
ten different configurations of computers, and it's next to impossible to determine what's in each configuration and what options you have until you've drilled all the way to the bottom level and started configuring it.

The first thing they ask you is if you want a home, small or medium, public sector, or large enterprise computer. They then offer you several different lines, each of which is described by meaningless buzz words that tell me nothing about the computer. You pick a line and are presented with several different models. The model number seems to correspond loosely to the screen size, but are indecipherable apart from that. For instance, the Vostro line of laptops have model numbers 1015, 1014, V13, V130, 3500, 3400, 3700, and 3300 (that's the order they're listed on the website). One of the numbers in the model name corresponds to the screen size. So for instance, the 1015 and 3500 both have 15.6" screens (see? The 5 in the model number?). The V13, V130, and 3300 all have 13.3" screens. But I dare you to determine from the model number alone which is better or has options for faster components or more memory.

So you pick a model and are presented with several different configurations, each of which can be further customized. Certain models also have a "fast ship" configuration that will ship in two business days instead of ten, but woe unto you if the fast ship configuration has one option you don't want. So I pick a certain configuration and start from there, only to find out that there's no option for 64-bit Windows, despite the fact that the computer offers 4GB of RAM (essentially, wasting a quarter gigabyte since 32-bit OSes can only address 3.25GB). So I go back out and pick another Vostro laptop model, and configure it with basically the same options. It has a 64-bit OS option, but is inexplicably $200 more, despite the fact the Microsoft doesn't charge differently for 32- vs. 64-bit OSes. Same processor, memory, HD size, and peripherals. Whatever, I'm not paying for it.

For curiousity, I also compare it against a Latitude and an Inspiron. The Inspiron doesn't have one of the options I like, and the Latitude is inexplicably $300 more expensive for the same options. It's at this point that I want to rip my hair out and see the Dell executives die in a fire. All I want is a small laptop, Intel Core iX processor, 4GB of memory or greater, 500GB hard drive, with Windows 7 64-bit. But any given line-model-configuration option will only have half those options and its impossible to tell which ones will until you've selected from about four hundred different possible builds. And heaven help you should you want to price compare. "How much extra would it be for a configuration with 6GB instead of 4GB memory?"

/Random

News in Briefs
News reported while wearing underwear.


Local Teen Arrested; Authorities Investigate Possible Sarah Palin Connection

Laguna Niguel, CA—A local teenager has been arrested for shoplifting from several stores in a Laguna Niguel shopping center. According to authorities, shopkeepers had suspected the 16-year-old male for some time, but after one store owner managed to catch the suspected thief on security camera, police were able to act to arrest the boy. According to the sheriff's office, they are also investigating a possible connection to former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. During the recent midterm elections, Ms. Palin spoke frequently of the need to "take back" the house and her "kleptomaniacal rhetoric" may have spurred the boy to becoming a thief.


Link of the Day/Week/Month

John C. Wright’s Patented One Session Lesson in the Mechanics of Fiction

Far and away, the best introduction to fiction writing I've read.


Boring (Short) Political Rant
I'm going to try to post fewer of these and get back to my roots of humor, satire, and cat/baby pictures. I realized that all of my readers, save one, already agree with me. Of those that agree, they're all smarter than me anyways, so nothing I say will be particularly insightful. And the one dissenter will be unpersuaded by anything I have to say.


On the Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell


Were it not for the comment from Robert J. Wizard, a frequent and usually sensible commenter on John C. Wright's journal, that it's impossible for most men to go more than a year without masturbating, I would have a rather hard time understanding the opposition to DADT. I've always known that the sexual revolutionaries think chastity is unnecessary, or even perhaps evil. But what I hadn't clued into yet was that, at least subconsciously, they actually think it's impossible. So from this perspective, a policy like DADT, where gays are admitted to the military so long as they don't indulge their disordered desires, is akin to asking them not to breathe.

Once I realized this, I saw the mentality all over, from the opposition to abstinence-only education ("they're gonna do it anyways; might as well teach them to do it safely") to the hatred towards the Church's opposition to condoms in fighting AIDS (the Church sees the choice not to be promiscuous as safer than the choice to be promiscuous, but using condoms; the revolutionaries see the choice as using or not using condoms when being promiscuous).

But of course, this is neither here nor there. Just as the gay-rights advocates never ask what the purpose of marriage is when assuming it to be a right (to me, gay marriage seems kind of like a tampon for men), they also miss the point of the military. "The military's job," as Rush Limbaugh would say, "is to kill people and break things." The only real question is will allowing openly gay people to serve in the military help or hinder that job?

It's Just Too Easy

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine made a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! on Wednesday, which was touted as something to EXCITE! Democrats across the country and get them ready for November's elections.

Their big announcement? A new logo!

They make it too easy.

Isn't that exciting? Doesn't that just get you pumped? No? You're weird. It gets me excited. In fact, I was so excited I nearly fell off my chair. It's just an amazingly exciting logo. But perhaps it could stand some improvement. Let's see how we can fix it.

Frank, yet candid.

How about that? Think it gets the point across? In an exciting fashion? No? How about:

When you paint a target on your back....

Bullet holes are exciting, right? But oops! Now we're advertising the wrong organization. Let's try again:

Alternate caption: "Better than an F++."

This will certainly appeal to the teachers' unions, right? Aren't they democrats? Lastly, how about:

Dopey indeed.

So there you have it. An exciting new logo for these exciting times! I wonder how long it took the Democrat Party to come up with that! Good thing they have plenty of time to spend on making silly logos! I mean, it's not like there's anything else they need to be doing. No sir. This country is squared away! No problems here, nosiree.

(Of course, the more time they spent working on the logo, the less they spent messing up anything else.)

Got any other ideas for their logo? Post 'em in the comments!

[UPDATE]

Thought of a couple more for ya:

Tilt your head to the right.

A lot of other things could work here "–NIED", "–FEAT", "–UH", "–CIET", "–CEPTION", "–LUSIONAL", "–PRESSION", to name a few.

When did a conservative infiltrate The Onion?

Obama To Enter Diplomatic Talks With Raging Wildfire