Fukushima's toxic legacy: Ignorance and fear

[keristor]

I can't do better than quote the title of the actual article from The Register. Oh, and its subtitle:
Hysteria rages unchecked as minor incident winds down

I see that the media are still pushing the "Oh, panic, there's radiation" scare stories. Yes, there is -- and if you eat a few bananas then you'll get about as much as you would get in a day

Comments

[madfilkentist]

This post on the XKCD blag provides some excellent perspective on radiation risks. (What is a "blag," anyway?)

[keristor]

I can't get the chart to work here (some combination of Firefox, NoScript, lack of Flash, or our firewall), I'll have a look from home, but the text seems sensible.

World English Dictionary
blag (blæɡ)

-n 1. a robbery, esp with violence

-vb , blags, blagging, blagged
2. to obtain by wheedling or cadging: she blagged free tickets from her mate
3. to snatch (wages, someone's handbag, etc); steal
4. to rob (esp a bank or post office)

[C19: of unknown origin]

Sense #2 is the one I recognise. But I suspect that they think it's a variant of 'blog'.

[madfilkentist]

There's nothing fancy in the way of JavaScript or Flash, but it is a PNG file.

A search turns up nothing informative about "blag." There's one other blog that uses it; it's about an Attorney General and hence is a blAG.

[keristor]

Odd, Firefox 3 (even an early version, 3.0.x) shouldn't have any trouble with PNG files. It may be the firewall, then.

'Ouch' on the blAG (I suppose one about the price of silver could be a blAg)...

[cmcmck]

Blagging also came to mean blowing safes by the 20th century.

I think it originates as 19th century thieves' cant.

[keristor]

Could well be, all of those definitions have the implication of getting things by illicit means (the tamest, "blagging a ticket", has implications of doing it by persuasion or trickery, all of the rest are robbery of some kind).