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For anyone wondering why we were down so long this morning/afternoon --- somehow the server lost contact with the disk array. Which means our hard drive(s) became invisible. Or as the tech heads phrased it "there was an issue with the parent recognizing your instance." It was a malfunction they had not seen happen before - so it took a while to first diagnose and then correct.

The new leaf on this Pinanga caught my eye at Utopia yesterday. It looks to be a P.kuhlii one would think.

That thought did cross my mind

Well, given recent events i was worried the first thought on most people's minds would have been "Oh Oh" not politics again.

The PalmTalk Committee carries out it's numerous discussions using the PM Conversation feature here on PT. The advantages over email include the ability to add people as necessary, to see who has read what and when, ability to edit/correct, and it is all preserved and neatly archived if there is ever a need for review, etc. In addition, the polling feature could be used for any voting as necessary. Where better to hold discussions than on software specifically designed for discussions?

Andrew, You are correct. There are more ways than one to look at this, and number of dead is only one way. But it's probably the number one issue for those who are affected. And let's not forget, the United States, as well as France and Great Britain, were guilty of deliberately destroying the lives and livelihoods of people in the Pacific for about 50 years without actually directly killing them. They just poisoned their environment with hundreds of nuclear tests. Bo-Göran

This one pales in comparison with the worst nuclear disasters the world has ever experienced. And that's a serious understatement. The nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki left countless dead and injured, and with serious health issues for future generations as well. Japan, as the only country at the receiving end of a nuclear attack, is probably more conscious of these issues than any other country.

Come on Dave - do I really have to help you with this??? Drug resistant TB only means it is resistant to the drugs we have now. What happened when penicillin was the only antibiotic and a disease became resistant? But to answer your question - how could someone have explained to Columbus how it was possible to attach a few tiny boxes to his ships and everyone around the world could watch his entire voyage at their leisure in high definition color from the comfort of their sofa on a reality show? You want me to explain technology to you that does not yet exist? But just a couple of possibilities: - a genetically modified bacteria that consumes radioactive waste - a technology (new kind of reactor) that can use spent fuel to create even more electricity, converting it to a benign element or one with much shorter half-life. But if nuclear waste is such a concern, are you equally concerned about the waste from x-ray machines, cancer treatments, and radioactive diagnostic methods? Maybe we should stop using radiation altogether because it is inherently dangerous - like fire. Don't you understand that there are still advances in technology to be made that we may not yet begin to imagine - ways to make it safer. In the grand scheme of things, nuclear physics is still a fledgling science.

As Paul said - always question the source of "news" story. In addition, I have never found that highly technical and scientifically complex subject matter such as this always suffer severely when dragged through the standard media. And virtually everyone of these "news" outlets have a predisposed bias that influences the reporting. And much of the hyper-negative and alarmist reporting are from sources that oppose nuclear power. And people who read them come away with statements like Andrew's - "I told my brother I am concerned for him living in Southern California as they get japan's winds" I have not yet read any credible evidence that people in SoCal have been in any danger. Energy for modern man has to come from somewhere. There isn't a method of creating it that doesn't have a downside. And like all technology and scientific advancements, we learn from our mistakes and make things better and safer. The burning of fossil fuels has a much larger and negative impact on a global scale than Fukushima ever will. The pH of all of the world's oceans is turning more acidic from the increased CO2 in the atmosphere. Worldwide we are told to limit our intake of certain fish due to mercury contamination from burning coal - but not from radiation from Fukushima. Nuclear power does neither. Perhaps it is (or could become) a safer source of energy than what we use now. It would be a shame to abandon the potential for safer energy sources by listening to the alarmists and proclaiming here on PalmTalk in the immediate aftermath that, "Reindeer meat in Finland has tested positive for radioactive isotopes, a large radiation cloud is over the East Coast of Australia and thyroid cancer has increased in America"

Just saying, man, if I want to back up my position I quote the peer-reviewed science article, not a fluff piece in conspiracy blog... http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Globalresearch.ca I am very aware of how ocean currents work, and where they go. What I think you are not aware of is just how much volume of water is in those currents vs the volume of material leaked from fukushima and the resulting dilution of the radiation. There is little, if any, direct threat to the US or its food supply.