http://english.aljazeera.net/watch_now/

Live feed that I've been watching.

i cant stop crying i feel like i'm going to disappear too... i dont want war or disasters i want to feel me and everyone are safe i see their lives ending in a second and it hurts so much. if they survive they have nothing and if they died they lost their dreams and futures.. i dont want people to be robbed of life that's unfair.

i pray that a lot of people survived and other countries will be careful and save everyone. no more pain and tears. i cant stand watching people get hurt.  i'm sorry for saying all this its just i feel very strongly about this. that's the best thing i can do for them is pray, god gives me a lot of hardships but i know he saves me from a lot more, so i'll believe that prayer can help i used it for myself and i will use it today for them. may god help them.

I heard something about this on the radio coming home from school.

Awful, just awful.

Well, that's my ticket to hell. Still not as bad as when PSX linked to the Up Blam video.

Yeah, I have a couple of friends there. Thankfully, they are okay. Scary stuff.

i'm glad your friends are okay jin hopefully they were far from it.

and that's really tasteless craig.
they had a nuclear leak do you know how horrible that is? and the after shock was huge too ... what happened to them is 10 times worse than the new zealand disaster. 

Well, mada, someone had to make the joke at some point.

But honestly Craig could have done a lot worse with it, it wasn't really that tasteless. Hell, I laughed at it a bit.

Anyone know what anime that's from?

I think the movie is called Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, which is kind of cruel in retrospect.

I know how serious all of this is and I'm devestated by it as much as the next person, even if it's only because I selfishly acknowledge Japan as a place where people who's name I know live and a place where companies I buy from are situated. I'm certain that they will recover in time and wish only good for everyone over there.

I'm also concerned about the radiation leak. =/ That's insult to injury.

I think we can spend our time a little better than lashing out at each other over jokes.  More than ever we should be united, rather than divide ourselves in pettiness.  It's been clear from his first post that Craig knew the risk of posting that video, so I don't think we need to spend time focusing on that.

If you want to spend your time getting angry, then be angry at idiots who are claiming that this event was "karma" for Pearl Harbor.  Or be angry at people spreading the rumor that Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokemon, is dead ("he's not dead, he just fainted" claims one snarky commentator).  But don't waste your anger on your friends on the forum you go to.

And of course, donating money to the Red Cross is always a good way that we can help, no matter where we are in the world.  http://www.redcross.org/
Every little bit counts.

So, who's up for some geological nightmare fuel?

If I saw that happening right in front of me, I wouldn't be filming.  I'd be pissing myself and gibbering some nonsense.

Also, if you're looking to donate, I've heard that Doctors Without Borders has a good track record.

i thought craig was one of the nicest people in the world, he broke my hopes dont blame me for being angry at him terg ... and hukos that's horrible laughing and connecting japanese to anime, how would you feel if someone was watching twister the movie and laughing at americans caught by a hurricane. our entertainment from those countries has nothing to do with human compassion. or does that mean if a people you never heard of gotten into a dissaster you wont worry for them? 

i know its hard to feel for strangers, but when something this huge happens its hard not to feel for them, you can appreciate the safety you live in, the loved ones that you smile to everyday. i dont want to lose that wonderful feeling and i dont want some other person out there to lose it either. "love for yourself what you love for others" if you want people to be united terg that's the way for it, when the hearts feel and love each other.  

and thank you for the link terg, i'm waiting for our country to start collecting donations.. it wont miss helping others. i apologize if i'm being too harsh its just i cant help but get angry about this. no matter how hard i try to be open minded there's limits to how much i can overlook.

Gallows humor is a proven method for coping with disaster.  It's a way of taking even the most horrible, psychosis-inducing nightmare scenario and taking away some of the psychological sting.

I work in TV news.  Behind the scenes, we deal largely in gallows humor, because when you have multiple scanners squawking murder, fatal accidents, assaults, rapes, fires and every other horrible thing happening in your metro area at the same time, you either go insane with empathy or you distance yourself mentally.

Just because someone makes a joke about a horrible event doesn't make them a bad person.  It's their way of handling it.  Making a joke doesn't prevent them from helping out however they can, doesn't keep them from donating to a relief cause, and anyone who hears the joke and chuckles has their mental state temporarily soothed from the depressing knowledge that something horrible has happened.

Save the anger for those who claim that whoever the event happened to deserved it.

: (   you seem to make sense to me but i dont know it feels mean still.... i cant see it as coping. i mean i laugh at people falling in olympic stuff and everything but i wont laugh if someone was seriously injured.

i thought craig was one of the nicest people in the world, he broke my hopes dont blame me for being angry at him terg ... and hukos that's horrible laughing and connecting japanese to anime, how would you feel if someone was watching twister the movie and laughing at americans caught by a hurricane. our entertainment from those countries has nothing to do with human compassion. or does that mean if a people you never heard of gotten into a dissaster you wont worry for them? 

i know its hard to feel for strangers, but when something this huge happens its hard not to feel for them, you can appreciate the safety you live in, the loved ones that you smile to everyday. i dont want to lose that wonderful feeling and i dont want some other person out there to lose it either. "love for yourself what you love for others" if you want people to be united terg that's the way for it, when the hearts feel and love each other.  

and thank you for the link terg, i'm waiting for our country to start collecting donations.. it wont miss helping others. i apologize if i'm being too harsh its just i cant help but get angry about this. no matter how hard i try to be open minded there's limits to how much i can overlook.

Well, more often than not, I'm largely apathetic towards death in general. It's a terrible event, sure, but at the same time I didn't feel overwhelming sadness over Katrina when it got hit either.

Or I'm just an awful asshole. Either one suits me fine.

Well, apathy towards death is a necessity in life. Every day, every hour, every minute, (every second?) a disaster occurs, a horrific crime is committed, or someone otherwise dies in a sad way. Simply put, you can't get all broken up about everything; you'd go insane. You'd never be whole enough to break up anyway. That's why there's a topic (well okay there are two but one's closed so I'm not counting it) here for Japan while the various other events in the world go unmentioned. Although scale certainly does have a lot to do with coverage: that was some seriously heavy s___.

Also, stickghost fully endorses gallows humor. Minds that can twist don't snap. That's all I'm saying here.

I would make an inappropriate joke about Gamera or rebuilding tokyo after monster attacks, but even I'm really shocked by the scenes out there. Bought a paper this morning for the first time in ages, just to read the details. Its just incredible. Giant whirlpools, entire towns swept away, cars parked on rooftops. That most of the buildings are still in tact in Tokyo is a testament to earthquake engineering.  Its getting to me how  sensationalist SkyNews is making the whole thing, they even had creepy music dubbed over the images of the disaster.  You don't need that kind of thing, the pictures are enough.

Being apathetic towards death isn't really my thing, as you can guess by the siggy.  People die, it is the only sure thing in life, nothing else can be done for them.  The only important  thing is those who still live.  Within those sky-high visions of levelled townships and flooded streets, they are suffering.  Those lost will be missed by those who knew them, but on this scale death is irrelevant, life is only priority.  They will rebuild, but right now they need help.

On another segue, is anyone else finding it really frustrating that all the news networks have been shouting meltdown about the power plant? I have an uncle who was a nuclear physicist until he retired, he actually visited those plants in Japan when they were being constructed to learn the colossal safety features associated with power plants in earthquake zones.  I didn't believe him at first when he said that Chernobyl was not a meltdown, according to him it wasn't even one tenth as bad as a full scale meltdown would be. It's really scary stuff. Look up the definition of a real meltdown and you'd realise that if it was in such a state there would be a heck of a lot more blind panic going on.

My thoughts and Gossip are with you Japan.

Yea this is quite the tragedy. I have a few friends over there, and luckily they are fine. It's just so ridiculous, so many people and so much destruction. Japan will rise though. For sure.

Hey what's up guys. Been a long time since I've been active here, but I just wanna let you all know that my ship is out here right now. In case most of you haven't heard the news, the USS Ronald Reagan and its strike group are in this area to help out with the relief operation. I've been onboard this ship for over 3 years now, and this is my last deployment before I get out. I was hoping for an easy 7 months out to sea this time around, but no...this whole crisis had to happen. The whole radiation leak scare isn't helping, either. However, I'm glad we're getting a part in helping out. Definitely makes me feel good, although I REALLY wanna get out there and help them in person. We've been rationalizing our food and drinks for the past few days so we can helo everything else out there. There have been rumors that we may actually bring some of these people onboard for temporary shelter. If that's the case, the language barrier's gonna be a tough one. REALLY tough one, in fact.

The news didn't hit me until a couple of days after. I'm TAD (temporary assigned duty) to the ship's library/chapel, so I work there everyday (well, nights actually, since I'm night shift). For the last few days I've been seeing some of my shipmates asking me if they can come inside the chapel to make some prayers. The chapel is open anytime for anyone, so of course I would say yes. While I was cleaning in there, I'm seeing these guys make prayers, and I can just feel the distress coming from them. I've noticed one of them had tears coming down his eyes, and that made me feel something deep down that I haven't witnessed yet for the whole time I've been in the Navy. It's quite a mind-opener.

As of right now, we're okay. Some people got infected with the radiation, but according to some of our higher-ranking reactor personnel, they say the amount of radiation consumed isn't enough to kill. Plus, only their float coats and boots (these guys work on the flight deck) were compromised, so they had to quickly dispose of them. We've been having helos infected with the radiation, so that's how they got infected - they were fueling it. Anyways, I can't say TOO much, because I can obviously get in trouble. However, I believe things will turn out for the better. Gotta keep the faith for as long as I'm out here.

wooooooooow you have a cool job <salutes> and bless you for going out to help them.

i have good news, a japanese man that got drifted by the tsunami into sea for 3 days was rescued from the water by sea potrol ships. his survival is amazing and i hope your ship saves others too shadic.

I was camping over the weekend and spent three days worrying about an old friend on the USS Tortuga who I thought'd been due to go into the earthquake zone on Friday, only to get back and find that out from Reuters that he was actually moored in South Korea to pick up humanitarian supplies and military hardware at the point the tsunami hit, and is currently waiting for clearance to get into the disaster area itself.

There's an appeal for English/Japanese interpreters gone out over here, and 11 tonnes of search and rescue gear flew out of my local airport. Kudos and best wishes to anyone involved in the relief effirt out there - service personnel or otherwise. It's a dirty, dangerous job, but it has to be done.

Shadic, good to hear from you sir! Glad to hear you and your crew are doing fine... since apparently Facebook decided not to bother posting your updates in my newsfeed. From the reports I've heard, the levels of radiation your crewmates were likely exposed to were no higher than the amount of background radiation a normal person would receive in a month... aka nothing at all to worry about. Better safe than sorry though.

Being a Physics/Engineering student, I've seen a couple of my buddies link this article accessing the nuclear situation and explaining it in layman's terms.

Thanks man! Haha, glad to hear that I'm always making myself known to you guys on Facebook, lololol. The ship recently blocked the site. Not sure if it has anything to do with the current situation or whatnot. But yeah, the Captain put out a couple of days ago that everything was going to be fine, and that the levels of radiation were not fatal. However, a lot of people have gotten to the point where they don't trust his word anymore. Long story, but this has been a reoccurrence between him and the crew when it comes to important information being put out. A lot of people are overexaggerating it to be like some sort of zombie virus, which is....well, ridiculous. At this point, I guess I'm thankful for not working in reactor or the flight deck right now. I'm noticing more and more people in uniform with regular shoes on as the days go by. The people who work in the reactor department on the ship are currently working hard at decontaminating this boat, whether it's disposing of corrupted materials or washing down personnel who are soaked in radiation. All I'm hoping for right now is to make it back home safely as I have almost less than a year left of my enlistment, and I have so many goals and ambitions to pursue once I get out.

Thanks man! Haha, glad to hear that I'm always making myself known to you guys on Facebook, lololol. The ship recently blocked the site. Not sure if it has anything to do with the current situation or whatnot. But yeah, the Captain put out a couple of days ago that everything was going to be fine, and that the levels of radiation were not fatal. However, a lot of people have gotten to the point where they don't trust his word anymore. Long story, but this has been a reoccurrence between him and the crew when it comes to important information being put out. A lot of people are overexaggerating it to be like some sort of zombie virus, which is....well, ridiculous. At this point, I guess I'm thankful for not working in reactor or the flight deck right now. I'm noticing more and more people in uniform with regular shoes on as the days go by. The people who work in the reactor department on the ship are currently working hard at decontaminating this boat, whether it's disposing of corrupted materials or washing down personnel who are soaked in radiation. All I'm hoping for right now is to make it back home safely as I have almost less than a year left of my enlistment, and I have so many goals and ambitions to pursue once I get out.

Thanks man! Haha, glad to hear that I'm always making myself known to you guys on Facebook, lololol. The ship recently blocked the site. Not sure if it has anything to do with the current situation or whatnot. But yeah, the Captain put out a couple of days ago that everything was going to be fine, and that the levels of radiation were not fatal. However, a lot of people have gotten to the point where they don't trust his word anymore. Long story, but this has been a reoccurrence between him and the crew when it comes to important information being put out. A lot of people are overexaggerating it to be like some sort of zombie virus, which is....well, ridiculous. At this point, I guess I'm thankful for not working in reactor or the flight deck right now. I'm noticing more and more people in uniform with regular shoes on as the days go by. The people who work in the reactor department on the ship are currently working hard at decontaminating this boat, whether it's disposing of corrupted materials or washing down personnel who are soaked in radiation. All I'm hoping for right now is to make it back home safely as I have almost less than a year left of my enlistment, and I have so many goals and ambitions to pursue once I get out.

a baby was rescued today ... if that tells us anything there is more signs of hope.

i dont know you very well shadic but i have been praying for you and other to make it out okay from the radiation threat. this is something that makes the world depend on america and love americans cause they're the first out to help, i know it might not seem like much to you but i met people americans saved durning a crisis and it means a lot to them and the generations that follow. so thank you and your crew for helping them and good luck out there shadic.

Off topic: Posts #24 and #25 by user Super Shadic 01 have been hidden as they appear to be duplicates of post 23 (deleting could cause blank page errors if the thread has high number of posts).

On: The situation has been one nightmare after another, can't the poor sods be left to pick up the pieces without more aftershocks/volcanoes/reactor cooling failures/tsunami/snow? What next, asteroid impact?

Rant time:

Good God, the 24 hour news in America is pissing me off with their 'NUCLEAR DOOMSDAY' nonsense.

NO IT IS NOT GOING TO BE AS BAD AS CHERNOBYL.  IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR IT TO BE AS BAD AS CHERNOBYL.  AMERICA IS NOT IN DANGER OF BEING COVERED BY A RADIOACTIVE CLOUD FROM JAPAN, YOU PANIC-ADDICTS.

Rant time:

Good God, the 24 hour news in America is pissing me off with their 'NUCLEAR DOOMSDAY' nonsense.

NO IT IS NOT GOING TO BE AS BAD AS CHERNOBYL.  IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR IT TO BE AS BAD AS CHERNOBYL.  AMERICA IS NOT IN DANGER OF BEING COVERED BY A RADIOACTIVE CLOUD FROM JAPAN, YOU PANIC-ADDICTS.

Exactly.

Yes, thank you. It's ridiculous. Like I've mentioned before, everyone makes it seem like it's some sort of zombie virus. It's annoying. I know for a fact the news loves to overexaggerate something that's not really a big deal in the first place.

Apparently we're rinsing and repeating with stepping into the plume of radiation and leaving. Since last night, we've had ALL the vents turned off and the doors and hatches leading out the weatherdecks and flight deck secured. We're playing it safe this time around, because we don't want to spend MORE time trying to decontaminate the boat again. Now it doesn't seem so bad. The initial response of the news was that everyone were panicking all over the place. Now that it's subsided, we can function a lot more. The Captain's been updating us, and we have no choice but to trust him (for those who DON'T trust him, that is). Just as long as we make it back home safely towards the end of deployment, I'll be fine.

Thankfully, I don't personally know any "NUCLEAR DOOMSDAY" people in real life.  I also don't know any May 21st'ers or 2012'ers.  This is good, because when those hypothetical doomsdays come and go without incident, I don't want to have to go around and make faces like this at the doomsayers while pointing out quite often that the world has not ended:

As for Japan, I hope beyond hope that they get this under control.  I'd love to turn on CNN and see the words "CRISIS AVERTED" and know that the people who are inches away from the radioactive boogeyman kicked its ass back into containment and cooled it into submission.  I want this for both unselfish and selfish reasons: "unselfish" being that I want Japan to not suffer continued tragedy in the form of uninhabitable land and "selfish" in that I want the hysteria to STOP.

Rant time:

Good God, the 24 hour news in America is pissing me off with their 'NUCLEAR DOOMSDAY' nonsense.

NO IT IS NOT GOING TO BE AS BAD AS CHERNOBYL.  IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR IT TO BE AS BAD AS CHERNOBYL.  AMERICA IS NOT IN DANGER OF BEING COVERED BY A RADIOACTIVE CLOUD FROM JAPAN, YOU PANIC-ADDICTS.

Amen to that.  It really aggravates me because my dad works at a nuclear plant.  Just recently, the news ran a story of which plants would be most likely effected if an earthquake happened here.

It was all just a very, very horrible fluke.  It was purely a natural one-two punch, and the plants just didn't have the time to recover from the first round.

It really aggravates me because my dad works at a nuclear plant.  Just recently, the news ran a story of which plants would be most likely effected if an earthquake happened here.

that's insensitive of them 0__0 <hugs> i lived near industrial areas before, every few days you'll hear about a problem or fire or something, but it was always okay.. it takes  huge huge conditions for meltdowns the earthquake and tasunami were just too strong and direct. japan is just located in a very sensitive area geographicaly, it has a history of disasters such as this. so its idiotic to assume the same conditions to other places. 

anyway i just have to say ... wow.. its just a totally impressive job your dad has he must be so smart  

He's an instructor, but he also helps during outages and refueling procedures. He's so good at his job that he's usually the one called to go help other plants during theirs.

I actually co-op'ed at the same plant a while back.

wow you worked in a power plant... that's just so awsome you must have an incredible resume... you're so cool uni. and your dad is so dependable that's so wonderful i really respect professional people like that... say uni did you think of sonic one's factory level when you worked there? XD i bet it reminded you of it.

you really impress me uni, you're so modest but you're very cool.

Not really.

Of course, saw blades, rotating platforms, floors that drop out from under you, flame throwers, and crushing blocks aren't exactly OSHA compliant. They tend to look down on such things.

then i dont want to work in a factory : (