It’s certainly possible that there will be bodies. There are boats and houses in the field.
That’s not a word. Also, there isn’t precedence for being charged for the wreckage of a tsunami.
It’s been checked and levels are at normal levels of radioactivity. Also, the Fukushima event was weeks in the leaking. The stuff got washed out to sea minutes after the tsunami hit.
You still appear to be working under some misconceptions.
So, ralph124c, when Katrina hit New Orleans and destroyed vast swathes of the city, throwing vehicles and buildings into other structures, would you take the position that the owner of any given home or vehicle which was thrown into another home or vehicle and damaged or destroyed it is liable?
(We’ll ignore the fact that Japan helped in both disaster aid and clean-up after Katrina).
There’s no legal precedent that forces anyone to be liable for Acts of God; that is, in fact, why they’re called that.
It was a tsunami. It destroyed parts of Japan, and now its after-effects are unfortunately affecting other locations. Just because Japan was unfortunate enough to bear both the brunt of and be the first to suffer from it doesn’t mean that it’s is thereafter liable for all future effects of the tsunami.
When one is unfortunately affected by an Act of God, there is no liability attached. This applies whether it’s the initial strike or the later effects. One rebuilds oneself, hopefully with the assistance of others. Assistance is readily given nearly all the time - Katrina, the tsunami, Haiti, and so on - because when it comes down to it we are decent people. What we don’t do is, as a civilized race, is blame others for the unfortunate effects of an Act of God and, thank God, we legislate to that end, too.
A world where one was made liable for such things would be a dire place indeed.
I have no doubt that if it needs it, the US will receive plenty of aid fixing this unfortunate but blame-free effect of the tsunami, just like Japan did.
Things you might have missed from the article that Philster linked to:
First: “Only a small portion fo that debris will wash ashore…”
Second: While marine pollution is a concern, “…the amount of tsunami debris, while massive, still pales in comparison to the litter that is dumped into oceans on a regular basis.”
Third: While some of the material may be radioactive, “…it would be a very low risk” according to a scientist they interviewed for the article.
And finally, the article also says that what isn’t blown ashore will end up going back toward Asia, so you can rest assured that Japan will be getting some of their “garbage” back.
If you remember this every time you open a ralph124c GQ thread, you will be well served.
Of course you totally ignored the part of my post where I said:
The “right” thing to do is the Japanese government find a way to not make this another’s problem.
But don’t let that stop you from stating that I think we should DEMAND payment from the Japanese. What I said is that the Japanese government should take it upon themselves to make sure that this problem doesn’t become a financial burden for others.
However, now that I think about it I am positive that no one here would ever think that if the situation was reversed and it was a massive pile of USA junk that we should be responsible for the situation. Because a double standard NEVER applies to the US. And I am positive that we wouldn’t be hearing from inside our borders how we caused this because of all of consumerism, there wouldn’t be that massive floating garbage debris if we didn’t consume so much. And of course we would have caused the Tsunami due to our use of fossil fuels and Global Warming being mostly an American caused issue.
Am I doing that right? Every problem in the world should be ours and we should always be responsible for the financial aspect of every disaster, right? There is nothing in the world wrong with the US helping Japan, we should. But that doesn’t mean that the Japanese should let others bear a financial burden if they are in a position to keep that from happening.
As far as bad news, there are many, many instances that bad news is followed by a large bill. Someone dies, very sad but pay the hospital, pay the funeral home, pay the ambulance service. I am not cold and heartless, but the US cannot keep being the turn to country every single time the shit hits the fan. We have got enough of our own problems to tend to. Helping immediately after the event is what we should do. Continuing to drop money at it years and years down the road is asking a bit too much.
Dude. Chill. If California falls into the Pacific, I assure you that no one will be asking us to pay to clean up all the breast implants that wash up in Japan.
What the hell, dude? Victim complex much?
Don’t believe all the isolationist propaganda you’re fed. The world does not hate you and your country. And neither is your country the only one to take on goodwill and peacekeeping burdens. We all do it.
If the world does have any major issue with the US, it’s this “you all hate us yet we are your saviours” rhetoric. No we don’t, and no you aren’t. We like you just fine, we help you when you have disasters, we send our children to support you in your wars, just like you do in reverse.
You guys have to stop this, because one day you’ll drive away your friends. And don’t kid yourself that you don’t need them.
Hey, free furniture!
So you failed to read my earlier post where I pointed out the SkyLab incident. We purposely brought down SkyLab before it went into an uncontrolled dissent. We messed up the math, so rather then it ending up in the ocean it hit Australia. The local government issued a littering fine for the incident. It was an insignificant fine for us to pay, still we found even fining us an insignificant amount was petty and refused to pay it.
Go on about your double standards and keep putting up the assertion that we should damage our relationship with our allies because the cost to us of their tragedy. The right thing to do would to be let this one go.
Sure you can go around expecting them to pay up and judging them morally for not doing so but when it comes down to it if Japan followed our past precedent they should have directed the garbage to our shores then refused to pay for it.
To those arguing for the OP: am I correct in assuming that when Yellowstone finally blows, you would argue the US should send money to Canada to pick up houses and other debris thrown there by the blast? And Iceland should have paid up to have all the ash that fell on Europe last year swept up, right?
This isn’t like the incidents pointed out before which were deliberately caused. Nor was it something avoidable, like a tree falling on a neighbors house, or a badly placed trashcan. Rather, it was a force of nature too big to prevent or realistically prepare for. That’s where the whole Act of God thing comes in, get it?
I do assume your argument is liability based, not nationality based. In other words, you’re just as willing to tell a resident of Washington or Virginia that after their house, car, pet and loved one were all pulverized and dragged out to sea, that they should use what little (if any) they have left to pay a rich mans cleaning bills halfway around the world. And of course if they are left with nothing, like many were, well it’s still their nations responsibility, meaning US taxpayers nowhere near the costs will have to make good on the cost. Is that what you’re saying? Because if it is it’s fucking ridiculous.
The more I look into this the sadder it becomes; Two-hundred thirty-six children were orphaned by the disaster. The quake and tsunami, as of 28 April 2011, killed 378 elementary, middle-school, and high school students and left 158 others missing. One elementary school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Okawa Elementary, lost 74 of 108 students and 10 of 13 teachers and staff.
But yeah, some trash on the beach is the real concern here :rolleyes:
I remember the neighbors gathering out on the sidewalk, trying to tell where that funny sound was coming from… and Mrs. Basinski, who took in darning and sewing projects to supplement her income as a checker at the grocery store, turned to Mr. Mahoney, but we could all hear her, with her hands on her hips, and I have a clear recollection of her standing there in this hideous floral print housecoat with that yippy little Bichon at her heels, asking:
“Wait a minute. Aren’t we WEST of Krakatoa?”
It was a joke, dude. We Australians have this thing called a sense of humour. Most Americans do, too.
http://news.discovery.com/space/celebrating-july-13-skylab-esperance-day.html
**ralph124c ** IIRC the eruption of Mt St Helens covered southern BC and Alberta with ash. Did the US pay to clean that up?
I honestly don’t know, but I can’t imagine that they did.
There is a common misperception that liability follows property rather than fault. Generally this is just not true. I’ve seen it a number of times. I remember once a trawler owner came to me wanting me to sue the owner of another trawler that had been moored alongside. The other trawler had caught fire, almost certainly due to lightning, and the fire had spread. I went around and around in circles with the guy:
“They won’t pay for the fire on my boat. I want you to sue them for me”
“We can’t sue them. The fire wasn’t their fault”
“But their trawler set mine on fire!”
“I know, but that wasn’t their fault, it was a lightning strike”
“You’re not getting it, their trawler set mine on fire”
“Yes but that doesn’t make them liable. They didn’t do anything wrong”
“But t-h-e-i-r t-r-a-w-l-e-r set mine on fire. Don’t you get it? I’m getting another lawyer.”
It’s a common misconception.
The normal run of things, in communities where people care, would be:
Shit all over the beach => clear it up (volunteers or paid for by tax dollars)
In these unhappy cases, we would see:
Natural disaster => shit all over the beach => clear it up
However, the highly litigious and, one might argue, insert another layer:
Natural disaster => which occurred in someone else’s country => shit all over the beach => clear it up (at the expense of the country in which the disaster occurred)
I hope that, when laid out simply like that, you can see that there is no ‘fault’ or ‘liability’ involved. It was a natural disaster - its geographical location is irrelevant. And if it were pumice from a volcano floating towards US beaches, I’m sure it wouldn’t even occur to you to seek recompense from the country in which the volcano exploded.
Rather stupid while simultaneously staggeringly heartless.
Well, I know that “take a dump” means to produce a pile of crap, such as the OP argument that the primary victim of an Act of God is somehow responsible for collateral damage.
The first pieces have started arriving at the Washington and British Columbia coastlines.
Sue Japan.
Do you have any links? I’m interested to know what they consist of.