I can't remember what my dad and I danced to! That's awful.

a Bob Marley song would always be appropriate

My dad is not a dancer, per se. Specific exceptions. At the wedding we went to a couple of weeks ago, the DJ played "3 Little Birds", and he went running all over the hall trying to find Emeline because that's "their" song. So awesome.

New England Candy COmpany!

The answer to the trivia question "What is the oldest U.S. candy company still in operation?"

Helen Caldicott has stated on more than one occasion that is is okay for a scientist to lie for the greater good, which is one of the more appalling things I've ever heard. I wouldn't trust her to take my temperature.

Fukushima is so hideously dangerous that 30 utility chief nuclear officers, mostly from the U.S., toured there last week. Yes, Tokyo Electric has lied, or at least tried to put the best face on things, but that great thing about nuclear power is that a lie can't be sustained. One of my favorite quotes was from the manager of a hazardous waste disposal company. He said, "I love nuclear waste. When you lose it, you can find it again."

I will address a few points from Dr. Caldicott:

"Noble gases are very high energy gamma emitters similar to x-rays,"

WTF does that even mean? There's argon in between the panes of high-efficiency windows. Vegas is a sea of neon. Some radioactive isotopes of noble gases emit gamma rays, which can be compared with X-rays. Almost all of them are very short lived, though.

Iodine-131 can be accumulated in the thyroid and cause thyroid cancer. It is not, however, a danger for generations. It has a half life of 8 -- count 'em -- 8 days, so it's essentially all gone now.

Ingested cesium may increase the chance of cancer, but it passes through the body pretty quickly. The Fukushima cesium is widely dispersed, so the odds of getting much of a dose is low. It has a half life of 30 years, so again, not so much generations.

At the time of the Fukushima accident an unprecedented quantity of highly radioactive water was also released into the Pacific Ocean.

Yep, it was unprecedented, but what does that say about its danger? An unprecedented amount of molasses spilled into Honolulu Bay last week, immediately killing more sea life than the Fukushima spill.

Amongst the many other radioactive elements which are almost certainly escaping into the sea is plutonium which lasts for 240,000 years and is one of the most potent carcinogens known, such that a millionth of a gram can cause cancer.

Poor plutonium. We absolutely know no such thing. The humans with the highest known exposure to plutonium were the clean-up workers at Los Alamos. Their exposure was so high that 40 years later, their bodies still excreted plutonium. (They called themselves the I P PU club.) They had a higher survival rate than the rest of their age cohort. Bomb workers did not have a statistically higher amount of cancer than the general public.

Also, some plutonium has been found near the plant, but there's been no significant amount elsewhere. Fukushima did not explode like Chernobyl. Plutonium is not water soluble. It also mainly emits alpha particles, which means it has to be ingested to do any harm.

Of great concern is the fact that 18 cases of childhood thyroid cancer in children under the age of 18 have already been diagnosed and 25 more are suspected in Fukushima. This is a remarkably short incubation time for cancer, indicating that these children almost certainly received a very high dose of iodine 131 plus other carcinogenic radioactive elements that were and are still being inhaled and ingested.

The odds are those children were already in the process of developing cancer. The only way any of these scare statistics hold up is if you assume the population would have been cancer free.

One x-ray to the pregnant abdomen doubles the likelihood of leukemia in the baby.

Surely no one here believes this.

Overall, the Health Physics Society, the experts in radiation exposure, predicts a cancer increase of .002% and premature death increase of .001%.

THIS is why I love Ginger. Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

One x-ray to the pregnant abdomen doubles the likelihood of leukemia in the baby.

Surely no one here believes this.

That was where I began to think, "Wait a minute ..." Otherwise, I know so little of what's being discussed that I had no way to judge.

Thank you!

applause

I love when people know shit.

Oh, Steph -- are you going to change your name? I was surprised today's bride apparently is, but only because she must be close to 50. I think they are both more traditional than I would have expected.

I love Ginger.

Oh, Steph -- are you going to change your name?

I'm 99% planning to make my name Stephanie Maidenname Timsname.

I think.

Man, and I texted him (he's out with his brothers for shenanigans) and asked "Can we put 'It's Raining Men' on the playlist?" and he replied "...maybe."

No one likes a hater, Tim.

Keep your name. That'll show him.

No one likes a hater, Tim.

Snerk.

You're very equitable, Steph. My SiL secretly changed the flavor of their wedding cake to the one she liked best.