Thor 2 is a Dopey (But Fun!) Movie

I had to see Thor 2, if for no other reason that I used to like Thor comics as a kid.  In fact, when I was 8 years old,  for about two weeks I converted to the Norse religion due to Thor comics (true story).   You see, one time Thor's hammer got damaged, so he went to Pittsburgh, where they know about making metals.  I knew Pittsburgh was a real place, so I thought Thor might be real too.  

Thor interacted with real people even though he was a celebrity, kind of like NASCAR drivers do.   


I had a Thor T-Shirt and everything.  

This is the same Thor Tee Shirt design I had back in the day.  He could throw his hammer for miles, and by hanging on to it, he could fly.  I tried this by tying a rope to my Dad's hammer and throwing it, but it didn't work for me.  

Well that brings us to the Thor 2 movie. Great special effects, fantastic visually.  Individually the actors look the parts.  But together the team just does not mesh, and we fail to identify with any of the characters.  The bad guys are rotten elves from some other dimension, and we are told that there is some problem with the Nine Realms blah blah blah... But the movie just does not make us identify with any of this grandiose mythology nor does it seem very important.  In fact, I don't even remember the head bad guy's name or what he wanted other than he was bad and he was interested in the Six Realms.  Make that Nine Realms.  Yawn. 

At least Loki  looks and acts the part.  We get some teases about what makes him tick.  Still I think he would have been a better character if he would occasionally do something good rather than being in bad guy mode 100% of the time.  It's hard to understand why Thor has an affinity for his brother if Thor is always good and Loki is always bad.  On the other hand, Thor seems willfully ignorant about the extent of Loki's power, and the plot twists can occur mainly because Thor doesn't seem to take Loki's powers  of illusion seriously enough: i.e., Thor is dumb.  If it were not so, there would not be a Thor 3.   

http://comicbookrants.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/thor2.jpg
Loki is a sinister guy and has a lot of powers we didn't know about before, but Thor has known him for thousands of years, he should know better.  But he habitually forgets to keep an eye on his half brother.  Thor, you  dope!

However, the Jane Foster character is totally implausible.  In the comics, it made sense because Thor shared consciousness with mortal medical doctor Don Blake, who liked Jane.  But in the movie, there is no Don Blake, hence it doesn't make sense that Thor would be interested in Jane. I mean, compared to Jane, Sif is a goddess.  After all, she is, really!  But Thor and Sif have known each other for 2000 years and nothing happened yet, so maybe that is just not to be.  Additional proof that Thor is a dope!  

My theory is that they wanted Jane Foster to be kind of like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman--kind of kooky but very sexy and sympathetic.  Jane is kooky all right, but lacks the sophistication necessary to  have a boyfriend who is 2000 years older than her.  

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/screencrush.com/files/2013/10/thor-2-photos-jane-foster-natalie-portman.jpg
Jane Foster looks and acts a little like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, but with an IQ in the 200 range. But it doesn't quite work.   

Sif has the body of a Goddess because she is, in fact, a Goddess. Thor paid her no attention for thousands of years.  Thor really IS a dope.  

One of the goofiest scenes in superhero movie history comes when Jane meets Thor's mom, Frigga.  What do you say when your prospective Mother in Law is 5000 years old?  That is wacky.  

http://24.media.tumblr.com/549d36b2ae9fedbaca514e128e24b617/tumblr_mlp5kyxEvL1qc8j6eo1_1280.png

"Oh let me tell you the story about when little Thor used to bring his magic hammer to Little League instead of using a wooden bat!"  "Gee, that's funny, Mrs. Odin."  "Oh, do call me Frigga!"

   The secondary characters are universally wooden, uninteresting and unmemorable.   Even Anthony Hopkins (shades of Marlon Brando's Jor El) fails to score big as Thor's Daddy.  He looks like a wimpy English actor, rather than King of the Norse Gods. Well, no wonder.  He IS a wimpy English actor.  

     Maybe the exception is  Dr. Selvig, who is a half-crazy scientist.  We can understand his frustration because he is the only one who knows what's going on, but he can't communicate with others because he is so eccentric that he scares normal people (can't coordinate his clothes because he is too wrapped up in physics.  I can relate).     

      Anyway, he hooks up with Jane's young interns who are just annoying rather than brilliant.  

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130827211661/marvelmovies/images/1/1f/Selvig_Darcy.jpg

After shopping Wal-Mart on Black Friday, the professor and the two interns score big on discount toy thingamajigs.  But I'm not sure what these instruments do.  Costco has better ones, I'm sure.

     That is the central problem with the movie.  We don't connect well with the characters and we are not sympathetic with who they are and we are not interested in what they want.  I'm much more passionate about Obamacare, say, than the future of Asgard and the Seven Realms.  Er, Nine Realms. Whatever.  

     It's a movie just for special effects and some good comic relief.  It's okay to take your kids to see it, just keep your expectations low.  

Should the US Make a Deal with Nuclear Iran?

   Articles on Iran tend to receive much less attention in the US than articles about Miley Cyrus's underwear.  But this could be one of the most important items for 2014.  

    On the one hand, US Intelligence Agencies still suffer from completely blowing the assessment of Iraq's supposed nuclear program in the 2003 time frame.  In actuality, Saddam had no facilities to actually design and construct nuclear weapons.  The Administration imagined that there might be some sort of secret laboratory with a criminal mastermind that would develop nuclear technology for weapons, much like Dr. No in James Bonds movies.  



Could a real life Dr. No have been making nuclear weapons for Saddam Hussein?  No.  

These paranoid delusions are now discredited, and the fundamentals of nuclear intelligence have been restored.  To make a nuclear bomb, a foreign country needs an entire organization to produce bomb-grade nuclear fuel; i.e., by operating high powered centrifuges running on uranium fluoride gas.  Alternatively they must have a special nuclear reactor suitable for producing plutonium.  They must also be prepared to test the nuclear weapons in special facilities with very thick radiation shielding.   Further, the military must have a delivery system, and they must train specific units on how to handle and operate the military system or systems.   It's not  just one scientist building  nuclear missiles in a secret laboratory.  

     Americans have grown weary of war with Afghanistan and Iraq, and further were disgusted with admonitions from the center-right and center-left that the US should intervene in Syria, Egypt, Libya and other places on behalf of this rebel group or that one.  

     On the other hand, the case of Iran is more dangerous.  Iran actually has centrifuges designed for producing bomb grade uranium.  We know exactly where they are located.  Israel is dead set against the Iranians having nuclear weapons, and if there is conclusive evidence that the Iranians are weaponizing, Israel will certainly destroy the centrifuges and any other facilities supporting such efforts.   The other countries, including the US, will complain and moan, but at the end of the day no one really wants Iran to have nuclear weapons.  Remember also that Iran is a mainly a Shiite country, and that most  Iranians are not Arabs at all.  So Sunni Arab nations are likely to oppose a nuclear powered Iran.  

Unlike the fantasies about Iraq, Iran definitely has centrifuges suitable for enriching uranium to make bomb grade material.  


Iran also has the capability to deliver nuclear weapons should the need arise.

    My take is that Iran is playing a very dangerous but highly profitable game.  As a major oil producer (about 4 million barrels per day worth), they have a vested interest in maintaining high oil prices. Every time they act irresponsibly the world oil price tends to spike upwards.  Hence they have a pragmatic reason to act crazy.   It is a good strategy to antagonize and threaten the West as much as possible, thus raising the crude oil price.  The nuclear program tends to destabilize world peace and to result in higher oil prices.  It's hard to estimate how much the fear factor is worth, but my feeling is that fears of Iran are wroth at least several dollars per barrel, or upwards of a billion dollars per year.    






All that is well and good, but the danger is that the game could get out of control.  If Israel or the US become convinced that Iran intends to create nuclear weapons, then there will be some sort of military intervention.   Israel will likely reduce Iraq's nuclear weapons facilities to piles of ruble.  

By the same token, it is certainly possible that the Iranians might come to take themselves too seriously and they might well attempt to actually make nuclear weapons, and thus necessitate the military intervention that the rest of the world hopes to avoid.  
   
In summary, I tend to think that the Iranians are not quite as nutty as they appear, at least for the most part.  But they are playing a very dangerous game, and if it gets out of control there may well be a real need for military intervention.    This needs to be watched very closely. 


      

No Third Term for Obama?

RandPaulReview.com is the proud author of this little gem. 


Say what?

Yes, you heard that right.  No third term for Obama!  Some of my otherwise normal friends are deathly afraid that President Obama is going to suspend the Constitution and run for a third or even fourth term so that he can carry out some diabolic scheme to ruin America with Obamacare or some other such thing.  

If you don't believe it, just google for Obama Third Term and see how many articles pop up.  Apparently, the Rand Paul Review (not sure if that reflects the views of Senator Paul himself), GOP.com, Fox News, the Washington Post, and hundreds of others have published articles on the subject.

This is just a hallucination that the wacky right has concocted in order to avoid dealing with real issues.  According to one opinion poll, 44% of registered Republican voters believe the third term conspiracy theory ( Public Policy Polling  )  That's sad.  

I want the Republican Party back.  What happened to the people that used to support limited, but good government?  Economic growth?  Conservation?  A clean environment?

Yes that was the Republican Party back in the day.  Now it is a cesspool for conspiracy theories and insanity.  They have been driven mad by losing to Obama, and paradoxically by making him out to be some kind of demonic conspiracy, they make him more powerful.  The Republicans are completely ineffective when they start blathering about birth certificates, Muslim Communist conspiracies, a Fifth Branch of the Armed Forces, and now this, a third term for Obama.  

Well, what is going to happen is that the Tea Party and the far right are going to go nutsoidal to block this supposed candidacy (which will never never happen).  Then they will congratulate themselves for having saved America from being taken over by Obama.  But the rest of America will perceive them as idiots.  

And then Hillary Clinton will get the nomination. No third term for Obama?  Well how about a third term for the Clinton family?  That's legal, since it is Hillary who will run instead of Bill.  

We will never have any serious opposition to the Democrats as long as Republicans are lost in fantasyland.  Please wake up.    


As long as Republicans are distracted by their bizarre fantasies, they are completely ineffective at addressing the real problems that America faces.

Roy and Fran Seitz Celebration of Life

 
That's Roy on the left and Fran on the right, with friends in the middle.  That's kind of the way they lived.  

     Yesterday I attended a memorial service for Roy and Fran Seitz, two people in my personal Hall of Fame.  Mr. and Mrs. Seitz designed their own service, and made sure that it would be a celebration of their lives and not a gloomy service.  Well, there were some tears shed, but it was far from gloomy.  More like a scene from "It's a Wonderful Life."  The sanctuary was packed to overflowing. 

   The Seitzes, you see, touched many many people by constantly being in service for others at the Church, the Children's Home and especially its garden, the Berea Jaycees, Baldwin Wallace College, Little League and a thousand other causes and activities that we will never find out about.   Mr. Seitz served in the Army in World War 2, was an athlete, musician, coach, salesman and probably had 100 other roles that he filled. Among other things, Mr. Seitz was my baseball coach in Pony League when I was about thirteen.  Kenny Seitz was our slugging first baseman.  At that time, truth to tell, I thought I knew much more about baseball than Mr. Seitz (despite the fact that I was the worst player on the team), and I didn't much care for his coaching.  Years later, my mother started attending Berea United Methodist Church, and I reconnected with the Seitzes and to make a long story short, I understood that the Seitzes embodied the teachings of Jesus Christ as much as anyone I have ever known. You see, it wasn't just sports.  Mr. Seitz was trying to teach us about life. 

    The Seitzes influenced everyone around them, and brought people to church and to service projects of all kinds.   I can only imagine how many people helped support the Children's Home, not to mention all the kids who came to attend college under their encouraging influence.  They love to work in the kitchen, cooking dinner for Baldwin Wallace students.  Years ago the BW football team, coached by Lee Tressel, was fueled by chicken power, courtesy of Mr. Seitz.  One time they cooked 500 chickens for a fundraiser at Finney Stadium, and the cloud of smoke caused Dr. Bonds to fear that stadium was on fire and he called the fire department.  Mr Seitz threw out the first ball of football practice for some 50 plus years running.  He taught hundreds of kids at the orphanage how to plant seeds and grow their own food.   


    It was great to reconnect with Don, Ken and Gary, as well as other friends like Keith Keller, Dave Tressel, Kevin Preston and others.


    We had the opportunity to recreate one of their legendary chicken barbecues along with Mrs. Seitz's jello fruit salads.  Very simple, but about the best food I have ever tasted, served with love.  A lot of laughter, band music and some examples of Mr. Seitz's wicked jokes, courtesy of Gary.  

As with most things in life, the Seitzes did it right.

Sports Teams Should Quit Ripping Off Native Americans

Recently the Washington Redskins have been in the news again, due to problems with their unfortunate nickname. I think this may be resolvable with some simple common sense business etiquette.  

When rich white people (i.e., Dan Snyder) insist that they are not being racist, but substantial numbers of Native Americans disagree, that sort of defines a dispute along racial lines, doesn't it?  You can't say that Native Americans are being honored by the name.  At least they don't seem to feel very honored. 

I went to Miami University, which used to be called the Miami Redskins (Miami being the name of a Native American Tribe, by the way), and we changed our name to the Redhawks and nothing really terrible happened.  Similarly, the Stanford Indians decided to change their name and logo and they seem to be doing okay.

I think the litmus test for sports names and logos is that these names and logos should be licensed from a bona fide Native American tribe, along the lines that Florida State does with the Seminole nation.  If you can get a Native American tribe to stand up and agree to be honored with the title and logo with a paying license to the tribe from the team, then you would have a good case that you are not being racist.  However, when you are keeping all the money to yourself, thus stealing the rights to this intellectual property associated with a specific group of people, and turning a deaf ear to the complaints from the Native Americans, then you kind of suck.  Dan Snyder, it sucks that you claim to be honoring a group of people, using a team name and logo from them that generates millions of dollars, and as far as I know you are not sharing a penny of it with a bona fide Native American group.







Incidentally, the Washington Redskins are actually named after the Boston Tea Party participants who were disguised as Native Americans.  The team was originally the Boston Redskins before moving to Washington.  I don't think that qualifies as honoring Native Americans.  The maroon uniforms incidentally come from the old Pottsville Maroons, who moved to Boston and played there one year before becoming defunct.  But the Boston Redskins decided to stay with maroon uniforms and pay homage to the Boston Tea Party.  They were not honoring the Native Americans.  


 If I'm not mistaken, Florida State licensed its logo from the Seminole Nation.  That's the right way to do it.  This is a real logo, whereas as far as I know the Redskins logo is a fake that does not pay royalties to any legit Native American organization. 

   
    By the same token, the Cleveland Indians need to get a new logo.  They were named after one Alex Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot Nation.  So far so good.  But they claim that their "Chief Wahoo" honors the Penobscots. Well, if you can get the Penobscot Nation to agree that this is so, then logically the team should be paying a logo for the use of the logo.  




Who exactly is being honored by logos like this?

    But this is just not going to happen because in fact the logo is a racist caricature and no one feels honored by it.   I think the Cleveland Indians should negotiate with the Penobscot Nation to generate a better mascot, and both the team and Penobscot Nation should share in the royalties.    
Clean this artwork up a bit, and we might have something here. Give the Penobscots a similar royalty deal that the Seminole Nation gets from Florida State.  This would definitely work, in my opinion.  

     By the same token, the Washington Redskins need to come to terms with Native American organizations.  To be sure, not all Native Americans regard "Redskins" or the team logs as offensive. In fact some Native American high schools use that phrase as a nickname for their sports teams.   

     But I wonder if the Redskins logo represents some real Native American tribe.  If so, they should pay a royalty for it.  If not, then it is a cheap imitation, whose main purpose was probably to avoid paying a royalty and it should be scrapped.  It may or may not be illegal, but it is unethical and needs to be stopped.  

     The NFL should get this.  It's like a company selling maroon and gold-colored football jerseys, and they change a few minor details and say that it is not infringing the Washington Redskins team logo.  Well, the NFL would take that company to court, wouldn't it?

  Pro teams should get their logos and nicknames from a bona fide Native American tribe, and legitimized by a royalty bearing license with that tribe.  THAT would be honoring a tribe.  It does not honor the tribe by ripping them off.  

    Does money solve everything?  No.  But in my opinion 99% of the mascot/nickname/logo controversy would go away if simple business etiquette were observed.  

Is Intelligence Analysis of Syria Really Infallible?

Steve Sack, Star Tribune.

    The Village Elliot is not impressed by Secretary Kerry's capsule summary of intelligence on the use of sarin gas in Syria.  In short this rationale is ten times weaker than the flawed rationale that led the US into Iraq. 

     What we are told is that there is physical evidence that sarin (a deadly neurotoxin) was indeed used in Syria and killed hundreds of people.  

     We are also told that the delivery system for the likely weapons originated in government controlled areas and that the target was in rebel controlled areas, and that the government undertook unspecified precautions before the delivery system was actually used.  Doesn't that prove that it was Assad who ordered the strike?

     Not to me it doesn't.  What it proves is that the local military may have been tipped off, perhaps by an informant.  

   The press reports that the Office of the Director for National Intelligence issued a report which acknowledges that the U.S. intelligence community does not know where Syria's chemical weapons are stored.  Also, there is no proof Assad ordered chemical weapons use, nor was any consideration allowed for rogue elements within the Syrian military.  This according to the Huntington Post citing two intelligence officials and two more U.S. officials.  (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/us-syria-conflict_n_3834544.html ) . So there is some evidence behind President Obama's position, but it is by no means a "slam dunk" assessment.  

John Cole / Scranton Times-Tribune, Cagle Cartoons

     There is no understandable motive based on the information given to date.  Assad's forces, by all accounts, were WINNING the skirmish with the rebels.  Why would they they randomly decide to use chemical weapons and invite the US and the West to support the rebels?  That would be stupid.   This part of the story makes no sense.  

     Note that there is not one group of rebels, but perhaps as many as a dozen, most of whom actually hate each other.  The most effective fighting force is said to be Al Qaeda.  Hence there are about eleven groups with a potential motive. 

     Another thing we don't know is the target of the gas.  Was it truly just a random strike on civilians at a random location? Were unarmed civilians the true targets?  Or were there some high profile persons involved?  I would like to know who the prominent persons were who were killed.  

     Moreover, the Russian KGB has gone public with their own assessment (prior to the attack) that terrorists such as Al Qaeda have chemical weapons.  They would be interested in having the government be blamed for using chemical weapons in order to trick the US into supporting their civil war efforts.  That is a potential motive.

    The US intelligence services pooh-pooh the KGB report.  However, it seems to me based on the records, the KGB is not too shabby, and the US intelligence agencies have produced major fiascos when the President leans on their advice. Beyond, that however, why would anyone doubt that Al Qaeda has chemical weapons?  And why would the US want to punish one chemical weapons holder and support another chemical weapons holder?  This rationale is so stupid that it is beyond belief.  I believe the American people should hold the President, Secretary of State and Intelligence Services accountable, and ask them to prove that Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are free and clean of chemical weapons as precondition before even considering the mad debate of intervening on their behalf against the Syrian government. 

Nate Beeler, Columbus Dispatch

    US policymakers like Secretary Kerry claim that the evidence is clear "beyond a reasonable doubt."  Well if you're going to use courtroom language, we may as well ask what kind of trial is carried out with thousands of prosecuting attorneys and zero defense attorneys?  It's no wonder that the intelligence agencies routinely issue false threat assessments, since there are no checks on what they say.  Remember when they said that the per-capita income in Communist East Germany was higher than the per-capita income in West Germany?  What a farce!  They also failed to foresee the fall of the USSR, believing that it was all a communist plot to get America to lower its defenses.  

     More recently, of  course, they have screwed up in assessing the existence of nuclear weapons and chemical weapons in Iraq under the Saddam regime.  They are not infallible. My sense is that the analysis at the lower levels is much more thorough and evenhanded, but as it goes up the chain of command it becomes more and more slanted until it hits the cabinet level.  But at that point all common sense seems to go out the window.  

    They now want us to believe that chemical weapons are being used by Syrian President Assad, and that there are all these political moderates in Syria that can be supported with American aid and military power.  Secretary Kerry reports that three fourths of the rebels are moderates who will become US allies in due course.  Only a small number are extremists or Islamists.  Oh boy!  What exciting news!  Can I have some of these moderates over to my house for dinner?

     This despite the fact that the press reports that Al Qaeda is the most effective anti-government fighting force, and nobody has actually interviewed or even seen one of these "moderates."  In short this is complete madness, and if Secretary Kerry can be so off base in his assessment about moderates in Syria, then he may well be wrong about many other things as well, including the true function of chemical warfare in Syria.  

"Maybe 15% to 25% might be in one group or another who are what we would deem to be bad guys," Kerry said.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/09/04/syria-hagel-kerry-obama-rebels/2764567/

    

Something else that needs to be pointed out is that in a situation where the overwhelming majority of people hate the guts of the US, one way to strengthen Assad would be to say  something like, "Assad must go!"  Fear and loathing of the US may cause the opposite reaction from what is intended.  What exactly are we hoping will happen if we intervene in Syria?  This may be the subject of a future essay.  

For further reading:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/29/us-syria-conflict_n_3834544.html

Tal Toplin, "John Kerry: There are moderates in Syria,"  Politico 9/6/2013,  http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/syria-update-john-kerry-96356.html  

Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 80 Updated - February 11, 2004, Edited by Jeffrey Richelson,  Originally posted December 20, 2002, 

Previously updated February 26, 2003.  http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB80/

Fukushima Still Menaces Japan

    Fukushima is one of the worst nuclear disasters in history, and still continues as TEPCO, the plant owner wallows in panic, and the authorities are indecisive about whether it needs to act.  From the beginning of the incident, I was concerned that a nuclear meltdown might be occurring, and said so in my blog.  I had trouble interpreting explosions at the site as anything but cladding melt, which creates explosive hydrogen.  At the same time, the plant owner (TEPCO) attempted to minimize the severity of the incident, and nuclear experts worldwide chided those of us who expressed concern.    [all-right-its-time-to-stop-the-fukushima-hysteria ;  http://thediplomat.com/a-new-japan/2011/04/12/how-bad-is-the-fukushima-crisis/ .  

  

 Although the explosions at Fukushima have long stopped, it is still an ongoing disaster. 

    Initially Fukushima was ranked below Three Mile Island in 1979 (in which a reactor core was damaged, but from which very little radiation was released).  But making a long story short, it was not possible to lie indefinitely.  It's now understood that very significant amounts of radiation were in fact released; they had to evacuate the area for miles around the plant, and the accident is in fact on the scale of Chernobyl, and in some ways it might be worse.   

   As of August 2013, it has been realized that radiation has continued to leak from the site into the Pacific Ocean.  TEPCO has basically kept quiet about the situation for the past two years, realizing that it's a huge enough problem that they really can't do much about it without help, and the Japanese government has also been content to tolerate the issue.  But it has not gone away, and recent revelations have again caused worldwide alarm for the situation.    

    As a reminder, the nuclear industry promised that this entire event was not going to happen.  Nuclear power was said to be absolutely safe, so much so that a rational person could not help but support it.  Nuclear meltdowns could not, not happen (except maybe in a reactor built by a communist country such as the USSR).   

    I am very put off by commentary that whines that the press is not giving the nuclear industry a fair shake in its reporting of the incident.  To be sure there are some wild articles in the literature that are filled with gross inaccuracies.  But the salient point is that the Fukushima disaster goes way, way beyond anything that the nuclear industry was willing to consider as a likely scenario.  We have to deal with the situation first, and resolving the whining can wait.  

   This is not business as usual.  Thus far the Japanese government has affixed blame to the reactor operators, TEPCO.  However, affixing blame does not solve the problem.  Likewise, allowing TEPCO to go bankrupt would not stop the radiation leaks to the environment.   By now it is all too obvious to the Village Elliot that the fix can not be left to TEPCO, because the size of the disaster dwarfs what they are capable of handling.  The twin objectives of stopping the exposure of the environment and remaining viable as a company are not compatible.  

    Instead, in my opinion the Japanese government needs to stop what they are doing, allocate however many billion dollars are required and fix the damn reactor and fix it now.  If they can't afford it, or need technical help, they need to make an international appeal.  Yes, it's against Japanese custom to confront this sort of situation directly, and they dislike asking for outside help as well.  But customs be hanged, this is no time to worry about saving face.  There are lives at stake, and action is needed now.  Some 400,000 barrels per day of contaminated water are leaking into the Pacific ocean.  

     What does "contaminated" mean?  Of course there are different levels, but in this case the contamination results from flowing water over damaged fuel rods, which allow fission fragments to dissolve in the water.   This is much more serious than the puffs of steam which are occasionally released from nuclear installations, which result in no significant exposure to anyone.  This is not just steam.

  

     What do standards mean?  Commentators angrily denounce standards (some say they are way too high, others say they are way too low).  The idea of setting standards, whether for radiation or air pollution or other factors affecting the health of the public, is to set the standards at a point that the public is not going to suffer health effects if exposure is kept below the standards.  If the standards are exceeded, that is a cause for alarm though not necessarily a guarantee that harm will occur. The standards reflect the collected wisdom of thousands of professionals over a 70 year period.  Hence if the radiation is over the standards, some sort of action is needed. 

     The recent issue is that radioactive material is being transported via groundwater into the nearby Pacific ocean at an unknown rate.    But it is no doubt accumulating in seafood.  As of 2012, Buesseler  reports that 40% of the fish near Fukushima are above the permissible radioactivity standards for cesium (note:  Buesseler remind us all that all animals are naturally radioactive to a small degree, and that the cesium radioactivity is smaller than the natural level.  But the Village Elliot goes back to the point that the standards were set for a reason, and thus the government is correct to ban fishing in these areas.  Part of the logic is that if we are measuring elevated levels of radiation, there may be some other fish that have contamination that are even higher, so it is prudent to ban consumption of fish when they get a low level of radiation).  Buesseler also indicates that the presence of cesium levels in the fish provides evidence that cesium has been continuously leaking into the ocean, and that it was not halted, despite announcements to the contrary by the Japanese government.  This is a very serious point, as the government did report that radiation leaks had been stopped, only to backtrack.  If you or I did that, we would be considered to be vile liars.  

[Ken O. Buesseler, Fishing for Answers off Fukushima, Science 338, 480 (2012)].

[ Japan nuclear crisis: Fukushima radiation leak stopped, By Danielle Demetriou, the Telegraph, in Tokyo 6:40AM BST 06 Apr 2011, Fukushima-radiation-leak-stopped].

It is simply inconceivable that the world can tolerate the radioactive contamination of the food supply in the ocean, particularly since the transfer of radionuclides to the ocean is not stopping and may be accelerating.  This has to be stopped, and it has to be stopped now.  

What is to be done at Fukushima?  Attempts to encase the reactors in cement have apparently not worked.  Now they are thinking of ways to drill underneath the complex and freeze the ground underneath.  That may sound crazy, and is no doubt horrifically expensive, but that is the type of difficult undertaking that needs to be a national priority--or even a global priority.  No more saving face, its necessary to have full and open disclosures and to get this problem solved in order to save lives.  

POSTSCRIPT

One of my friends asks whether there is a threat to Alaska and California.  My first answer is that I think I am not competent to predict that with certainty.  No doubt  some commentators will say that we are all going to die, and others will say nothing can happen.  How can anyone tell who is correct?  Well, for myself I would evaluate radioactivity by comparing it to current levels in the human body.  All mammals are slightly radioactive due to the presence of a radioactive isotope of potassium.  There is something like a one in 150,000 chance in the next 50 years that you will die from cancer caused by your own radioactivity (see  Human Radioactivity Muller ). You have a little more risk if you have a bed partner (who is also radioactive through no fault of their own).   So if I were eating food that caused my body to become appreciably more radioactive, I would be concerned.    Conversely, if the total dose to my body is less than I get from sleeping with my slightly radioactive wife, I'm not going to worry about it.  Let's not confuse people with wacky numbers and terminology.  Let's ask whether the radiation level is higher or lower than you get from sleeping with someone.   I doubt whether anything will happen in the US because of the immense size of the Pacific Ocean, but let's continue to check.