Japan's Nuclear Crisis In Perspective

Tim Worstall has a must read post here.

You can only compare the safety of nuclear power to the alternatives, and if an earthquake strikes I'd rather live next to a nuclear power station than a dam.

Update: Okay, I am beginning to doubt Worstallian wisdom on this topic.

Scaremongering Headline Of The Day

Fears nuclear reactor will explode as 'out of control' cooling system fails at plant

Three guesses where it's from.

Don't Learn Their Names

.... or you'll get attached to Japanese Prime Ministers.

What is it with that country, the last few PMs have averaged less than a year in office.

Guess The Publication.

Without googling guess which publication this passage appears in:

I doubt there will be an American apology in my lifetime for the holocausts of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. I count them as atrocities, and don't buy the convenient line that they saved tens of thousands of American lives.

It's not the Morning Star or the Socialist Worker.

For The Attention Of Mr G. Brown.

Gordon-

In Japan a finance minister who has completely screwed things up can atone for his mistakes and the shame he has brought upon himself with one simple act. Just saying.

That Difficult 20th Term.

The most successful political party in the democratic world, Japan's LDP, lost power in a landslide election after having been in power more or less uninterrupted since the 1950s. After almost 2 decades with an economy in the doldrums it's amazing that it didn't happen sooner.

In fact since the end of the Cold War their original raison d'etre has disappeared. As with Italy's Christian Democrats they were initially established as the eternal party of government thanks to large piles of cash from the CIA during the post war era in order to act as a bulwark against Communism. Rigging elections was an important part of preserving democracy back then.

So here's a clip from a Japanese game show:

Quote Of The Day.

A Japanese minister resigns after referring to one of his country's teaching unions as a 'cancer', (very much like ours then). This is apparently not his only gaffe though:

He was clearly struggling with his brief, which includes the promotion of tourism, when he said that the Japanese generally "do not like or desire foreigners".

Fukuda Fuks Off.

There's a possibly apocryphal story about an opinion poll being carried out in the United States to find who was the most famous living Japanese person. It was won by Bruce Lee, a dead Chinese man. Despite the fact that it remains the world's second largest economy no one seems to care much about the government of the country, including me. So whereas there has been months of saturation coverage of the US election, with every twist and turn being scrutinised, the Japanese prime minister can resign and hardly anyone notices.

In theory it should be interesting, Fukuda was in office for just a year having succeeded Shinzo Abe last September, who in turn succeeded Junichiro Koizumi* the previous September so it appears to a highly tumultuous scene. In practice no one seems to find it that important. Perhaps there is a sense that Japan is run in a more collegiate style so that the individuals matter less than their equivelents in France, Germany or the USA. If that's the case though then it's hard to explain why 3 of the last 4 Prime Ministers have failed to last a year in office.

* Koizumi is the only Japanese politician I can recall to have established a public image overseas, apart from the bloke George H W Bush was sick over.