What is relevant here is either alpha (stopped by a couple of cm of air), beta (stopped by a sheet of plastic, heavy clothing, or a couple of micrometers of metal) and gamma radiation. These are the radiations we measure to monitor fallout.
I didn't do the math, but the radiation levels for driving past there, or staying there for a day or two, would probably be very low, and comparable to a lot of other stuff we do without thinking (plane rides, xrays etc.)
"In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong."
I am sure there are many perspectives tonight with the same focus.
Perhaps it is a great impediment to what must be done for our species, but it is hard to let go.
It does not excuse anything really, but I wouldn't wish them pulmonary cancer.
Look at every past conflict, every american soldier in iraq knew, that they were going in to get the oil, everything else was just propaganda for the taxpayers.
What do folks exactly mean by "get the oil" because it certainly wasn't for domestic consumption. About 72% of US foreign oil comes from Canada and Mexico - mostly Canada. The rest, a broad smattering of countries without any meaningful concentration. Iraq accounts for only 3%. Considering the cost of the Iraq war was $2T that's a heck of a price to pay for just not that much oil. [1]
If America just wanted oil would it not go for the single largest proven reserves of oil on the entire planet, in Venezeula, and deposit some freedom there? The government there is equally hostile, and particularly unstable. In Civ parlance, the warmonger penalty would be low. [2]
[1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-produc...
[2] https://www.worldometers.info/oil/oil-reserves-by-country/
Now that doesn’t mean the second Iraq war was about oil, but it does explain why we care more about the Middle East than say Africa.
Double checking and it does look like they increased after the war, though not to an extreme degree. Things had largely returned to normal by 2000. https://tradingeconomics.com/iraq/crude-oil-production
It’s just silly because countries have considered joining NATO because they don’t perceive Russia as a good friend, and in response, Russia doubles down as a bad friend.
Okay, not really a good analogy but sorta good
In Russia different media do not exist for the average citizen. I have no idea how many percent believe the official propaganda at least in its main message that NATO is threatening Russia. But it's probably significant. Even for those not believing it, saying so or actively acting against is dangerous.
Although it's a lot more difficult to defend & give such a benefit of the doubt to soldiers like the ones in the tank that went after & drove over a car [0 video 0]. Thankfully there's another video I came across showing a crowd of people dismantling & literally chiseling away at the wreck to save the person miraculously still alive. It's hard to describe the feeling when you see, in a single situation, the absolute worst and the absolute best of human nature.
[0 video] https://www.thedailybeast.com/ukrainian-man-miraculously-sur...
This simply isn’t the case. We are fed gobs of nonsense on a constant basis. The American elite and American media are utterly shameless.
Did you notice Putin’s jab at the American elite’s claims that Iraq had WMDs? In his speech, he accused Ukraine of building WMDs. Obviously nobody actually believes that, including himself, but everybody also knows the West can’t question his accusation without only humiliating themselves. He was 100% reminding Western leaders how full of shit everybody knows them to be. And he was exactly right to do so.
Have you ever discussed politics with a Russian? As it happens, I did pair programming practice with a Russian peer 3 days ago and we discussed the conflict. She said she was surprised to meet an American with “some political sense.” She was more conscious of worldly affairs than almost any American I know. And she wrote a perfect BFS pathfinding algorithm in a handful of minutes.
I heard prominent counter opinions over invading Iraq & WMD's in the lead up in 2003. An NPR interview with a retired Marine general at the time sticks out in my mind, and was very influential in my skepticism of the invasion. NPR is, in part, publicly funded by the US government. I don't think that any media funded by Russia is voicing similar skepticism over the Ukraine invasion.
Also don't ignore the matter of degrees. I'm not saying that media isn't influenced, that Western leaders don't attempt their own manipulation. I'm saying that Western media is at least a little (often a lot) more open than Russian media with respect to POV's that disagree with the "state".
By saying "this simply isn't the case" you are casting it as a black & white issue, when in reality it's all shades of gray. And if accurate information is the lighter side, then Western media is shifted towards lighter shades of gray than Russia.
How people make use of that, or ignore it all together, are a separate topic.
But thank you for revealing the question to me with such clarity.
[0] from the "live" log on WaPo, so I don't have a direct link to this entry: "MOSCOW — Russia’s tech and communications regulator launched a probe Saturday into 10 independent media outlets that have not parroted the Kremlin’s line on the invasion of Ukraine
The main sentiment here, especially amongst the older people is, "russia is strong enough, that they can do the stuff america has been doing for decades now", but due to media influences, it's not a "war for democracy" and "saving the locals", as the americans would paint eg. attacking afghanistan after a few saudis flew a few planes into a few buildings.
My personal and very contraversial opinion is, that every country that currently has soldiers as a part of an occupying force in any country, should just shut the fuck up, and clean up their own messes first.
Hundreds of thousands of us were out in the streets protesting when western countries attacked Iraq. Most of us are the same people angry about Russia in Ukraine.
In the US, with only two parties to choose from, so-called "centrists" and "liberals" in the US almost all fell in line and nobody could do anything to punish them. "Who else are you going to vote for?"
Similar dynamic in the UK. Labour ("New Labour") was in power and supported the invasion for god knows what reason. Hugely unpopular move, but what were voters on the left going to do about it?
“Dose makes the poison” sounds good and is a good rule of thumb in most cases, but 1) it is not absolute, and 2) some things have an unbelievably small lethal dose.
Or do you have any concrete information that the risk to then is actually higher from this than catching a bullet (or a mine) from the Ukrainian army or resistance?
Because there definitely are already a lot more dead Russians from the Ukrainians than from radiation sources they exposed themselves to a part of this invasion.
Getting shot by Ukrainians however, is very real danger.
They (or their leadership) may not have any sense.
Dust from soil doesn't explain why the readings from sensors around the reactors themselves has been sharply increasing over the last couple of days:
- https://mobile.twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/149701116634159...
Say what now?
> One thing I understand about Western European culture is that they will never tell you no outright as it is rude to do so.
Generally speaking, no, this is not one thing you understand about W. E. culture.
Berlin is famous for this.
This is a ridiculous overgeneralization. If you compare e.g. the Dutch with the Southern U.S., you'll find the Dutch are much more eager to directly tell it how it is.
I don't think they care much about that. They have already assumed they would be. There are several other options for them. It most hurts Europe and their investments/payments, as well as our intelligence tracking of high net worth individuals.
How can it be both non-subtle and yet impossible to read?
1. https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-says-chernobyl-radia...