What are you talking about? Did you read the article? The entire thing was pretty much stating that the Japanese failed on several levels by they're own admission. Reading comprehension skills are in serious jeopardy in the blogosphere.

@ Sees Thru Gloss

Wow dude, you need to go back to school and learn how to read and comprehend.

In particular, the panel said that even though both Tokyo Electric and the regulatory agencies recognized as early as 2006 the potential dangers of a giant tsunami causing a complete loss of power at the Fukushima plant, no safety measures were adopted out of fear that a renovation might disrupt the reactors' operation.

Working myself in the Nuclear Industry, I find it disturbing that there was knowledge, since 2006, about the potential tsunami danger and associated total loss of power, and nobody acted on it. To what extent this is due to the Japanese way of accepting, or not, responsibility and acting upon it, who knows, but it is part of the culture. Not good though.

Let's hope that the right decisions will be made to get the reactors back on line after appropriate improvements have been implemented.

Man made disaster? ...gee ya think?

Here 's y'ur sign.... /sarcasm off

so are we starting to blame earthquakes and 30ft tidalwaves on man now?

sure maybe they could have built a wall to withstand a 30ft wave, but where do you stop?

40ft, 100ft, 1000ft tall wall?

this was a HUGE event! this wasnt just an eye drop of water being moved! it literally moved the earth off its axis, so how do you plan on something changing the ecology of the earth?

lets not forget, this earthquake made islands in an instant, not over millions of years!

@ travis E. and @ Subliminal - Japan essentially issued an admission, or perhaps an expression of regret. Not an apology.

This is a pithy comment. I have lived in Japan for 8 years and extensively studied their atrocities in Asia prior to and during WWII. The extent of the horrors committed by Imperial Japan is beyond any crime against humanity ever committed in the modern world. For example, Unit 731 in Manchuria was the project of a medical doctor-turned monster named Isshi. One of their developments (as a result of live human experimentation) was a bubonic plague bomb consisting of a ceramic case filled with infected fleas. They were widely used on villages in rural China. The Chinese port city of Ningbo was a major bombing target of Imperial japan and it was felt that the terror created by infecting the city with plague would benefit Japan's war effort. A special film of the use of this grotesque weapon was prepared by Isshi and presented to Emperor Hirohito in a special screening for his enjoyment. (The current Emperor is a decedent of Hirohito) Not only has Japan never apologized for the use of a banned weapon (the Atomic bomb was NOT banned at the time of its use), there is a SHRINE in Tokyo to the "heroes" of Unit 731 and you will not find any mention of it in Japanese history books. Most Japanese are kept in the dark--as are Americans--even though American soldiers were also used in the experiments. See the excellent book, The Fallen about biological experiments performed on American POW's.

Rob88-3865766: A quick check of my local library system here in Japan finds 14 books on Unit 731 written by Japanese scholars (as well as a translation of the book by Harris that introduced the topic to English readers). Ten of the books were published before Harris' was, and four have been published since. All of them were published before Landas' "The Fallen." Note that I did not check a large, scholarly library: it is a public library accessible to anyone who lives or works in this part of Tokyo, and the books are popular history books. War, general history, or academic libraries have many other such volumes.

I have also checked several history textbooks used in schools in Japan, and every one that covers the war includes information on Unit 731. This also is the case with supplemental materials used, for example, in cram schools and the like, even those in comic book form. Besides your local library, the Showa Museum also has extensive contemporary documetation on Unit 731 available, as does, of course, the Internet (e.g., http://www.anti731saikinsen.net/ and, of course, Wikipedia at http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/731%E9%83%A8%E9%9A%8A and http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%81%AE%E6%88%A6%E4%BA%89%E8%AC%9D%E7%BD%AA%E7%99%BA%E8%A8%80%E4%B8%80%E8%A6%A7). I have never met anyone in Japan (besides children) who was not aware of Unit 731.

I would be interested in the shrine for Unit 731 members, as I have not heard of that (though a shrine to kamikaze pilots is in my neighborhood); if you could provide an address it would be appreciated.

To another point, many would dispute your "beyond any crime against humanity ever committed in the modern world" and cite Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Yugoslavia/Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda, and many others. No one will deny that Unit 731 and Japan's sanction thereof were horrible, but hyperbole will not help convert people to your position.

@Subliminal,

Fukushima Daiichi had 3 meltdowns#1-3, plus a damaged reactor#4 with a spent fuel pool filled to the brim with spent and new fuel removed from the reactor for maintenance. #4 i teetering on the edge of collapse. I do not think Daiichi will be back online for the next century or more. #3 contained Mox fuel and it blew sky high. Tepco also admitted there were 14 crippled reactors after the earthquake and Tsunami. If three meltdowns equal crippled plants, we are in serious trouble.

"is becoming"

?

Your one of those "half full" kinda people eh ... ha ha ha