One of the nuclear plants, not TMI, in eastern Pennsylvania is built on a fault line.

But that wasn't the issue in Fukushima's case. The problem was poor emergency design. The main cause of the accident was a loss of power for operations. There was back up diesel generators in case of such loss, but they were installed in a basement, and that flooded by the tsunami. Considering Japan's history with such and earthquakes, it was an inexcusable oversight.

Similar to Katrina, the emergency pump engines were underwater, DUH. I always thought some recycled destroyer engines feeding into chutes would have worked well to move the water out of New Orleans. Build the houses to float up on piers in case of a 20 foot tidal surge. That assumes you want to fight mother nature who always seems to be capable of overwhelming you best measures.

How high can a tidal wave be, how about 1700 feet, Latuya Bay Alaska, less than 50 years ago.

Study the building codes in Bermuda, where they can literally be trapped in a cat 5 hurricane. Houses like pillboxes. Probably not if that large chunk of one island in the Azores breaks away and slides into the sea.

If guns were a problem Switzerland would be a disaster. Inanimate objects are not the problem, as much as lefties want to believe them to be. Our crime rate is not due to guns, it's due to lack of consequences sufficient to deter all but the truly insane from engaging in a given activity. What's truly simple isn't some ridiculous leftist talking point, it's that inanimate is just that, inanimate. That's what's simple as it gets.

I propose the problem can be traced back to the designers’ beliefs. They built anti-tsunami walls that were high enough to withstand historically high water levels, plus added height for a margin of safety. Armed with the belief that this would be an effective barrier to the sea, the designers concluded it was unnecessarily costly (and unnecessary) to build a much reinforced building that could house the backup generators on the roof.

Unfortunately, the designers’ beliefs did not account for the possibility of subsidence. In the case of Fukushima, when the earthquake hit, the land upon which the facility was built subsided by about 2 meters, which effectively reduced the height of the anti-tsunami walls by 2 meters. The rest is history.


Again, I propose the problems can be traced back to people’s beliefs. They included:

• Harsher consequences deter gun crime (Texas and other states with the death penalty do not enjoy lower gun crime than other states, let alone eliminate it).
• Guns make you safer (The US has the highest firearm murder rate per capita of any at-peace nation on the planet)
• Gun killings are perpetrated by insane people (Stats show that legally insane people make up very low single-digit percentages of firearm homicides)
• The US is the “land of the free” (The USA has the highest per-capita incarceration rate of any nation: about 1% of its entire population! It also has more lawyers per capita than the next 5 nations combined)

With respect to the USA being No.1 in mortality by firearm (of any at-peace nation on the planet), I believe the root causes are three things that are unique to the US (the US has all three):

1. Widespread “Not My Fault” attitude. See my previous comments about the most lawyers per capita. The US is the land where a drunk guy can try to trim his hedges by lifting a running lawn mower over his head, get injured, sue the manufacturer, and WIN... because the manufacturer failed to print a warning label indicating their lawn mower should not be used as a hedge trimmer. (No, that’s not a joke.)
   
2. Popular “Don’t get mad, get even / Don’t get even, get ahead” mindset. Raised on Hollywood movies of vigilantes, John Wayne-style heroes, and “getting even” movies, fueled with a mindset that glorifies war (and warriors) while ridiculing peace-loving people as being weak, lesser beings, we coin terms like “road rage” as euphemisms for our acceptance of violence as a part of everyday life. Walking away rather than fighting? Letting someone dis you and do nothing about it? That’s for wusses.
   
3. Ready access to firearms. This, in and of itself, is not a problem, as we can see in Switzerland where every male of military age must, by law, have an assault rifle and ammo in their home. However, when you combine ready access to firearms with the previous two items I mention, it results in the conditions we see in the United Stated today, and which its citizen accept as “normal” and “the cost of freedom.”

I’m a firm believer of “Change your thoughts; change your life.” As long as these three conditions exist in the US, mass murders and >11,000 firearm deaths per annum (excluding suicides and peace officers acting in the line of duty) will continue to be a way of life in the US. And as long as the first two conditions (ways of thinking) permeate significant portions of the US’s population, there will continue to be no will to the change the status quo in any meaningful manner.

The solution to mass murders? Arm more good guys with guns!
The solution to 11,000 firearms deaths per year. Round up and kill the bad people! (but ignore the 1% of the population already in prison).
The solution to violence? Go to war, send out the killer drones!
This way of thinking makes perfect sense to a great many people in the US. To me, it’s like proposing that the solution to drug addiction is to prescribe yet more drugs.

Please note I am NOT saying that the people of America are wrong for thinking as they do. I merely point out that their circumstances – mass violence domestically and abroad – are the logical consequences of popular modes of thought (beliefs, opinions, assumptions, expectations, and understandings of “the way things are.”)

The death penalty is a joke as currently implemented, with minimal deterrent capacity other than the criminal finally executed decades after committing their crime. Guns provide a means of keeping yourself safer if you properly train and practice with them. The U.S. being the land of the free has nothing to do with the number of inmates. That has to do with liberal leftists and jurists who legislate from the bench who corrupt the legal system and fawn all over the criminals while ignoring the victims.

It's no coincidence, places like Japan and the UK have the lowest gun crime rates/homicides because.....wait for it.... they have low gun numbers. The theory that a gun is just an inanimate object is silly, if a child chokes on a small object, we stop giving small objects to children, if a drink driver gets caught drink driving, we take away their ability to drive. If something proves to be more dangerous than beneficial, we should stop making it available to the public. Why do you think there are hundreds of inanimate objects banned from flights? Water bottles, hair clips, scissors etc. The nuclear warheads in Korea are just inanimate objects, they haven't killed anyone so why is the US worried?

Assuming you're probably dismissive of this report, a US study, as it argues against your points. https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...n-deaths-study

Re US Guns: See Jim Jeffries' videos on gun control (Parts 1 & 2)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...uLr658QRubgfzS

Funny as hell, but on point, accurate, and true :-)

I've seen that piece before, it's truly brilliant how he conveys his message whilst being amusing, informative, hilarious and inoffensive. He makes some very valid points too.

Then by your logic you and everyone else must surrender their vehicles since some will be used illegally by drunken drivers or escaping criminals. Too bad for you and the 99.9831742% who never do that but we're going to blame the object not the person. Oh, and order up a lot of concrete to fill in every swimming pool in the nation since they will drown innocent people and children. No pools for anyone. Nope, unsafe objects. Banned.

Landslide tsunami's can be massive, but is Lituya BAy's case, I don't think the wave did any damage outside of the fjord.

There is evidence of a massive landslide induced wave that hit the Mediterranean Sea 8000 years ago, but the Sea is still a contained body of water compared to an ocean.

Compared to an earthquake induced wave, a landslide doesn't displace much water. An earthquake can lift and drop the seafloor ove an area measured in acres or square miles. These waves can hit large areas of shorelines and cause damage. The largest of these on in the 30 to 40 meter range.