Japan

My heart goes out to all the affected people. This is an unprecedented natural disaster in modern times for Japan.I'd like to make a couple of side observations... please don't misinterpret these as any sort of disrespect to the victims - they are the real story here, and not all of this side chatter.1) I am fascinated how each country's news likes to "big itself up" about helping out ... the US news has (since the first few hours) been full of stories about the US navy helping out, provision of coolant for reactors (which I believe turned out not to be accurate), so on and so forth. Meanwhile the British news mentions nothing of these things, instead having prominently mentioned their disaster response team gearing up for action. Perhaps I'm reading more into this than I should, but it seems to me like these news agencies should be reporting stuff like "nations around the world gear up to help" - and then giving details - rather than focusing on just their own country's contributions.2) How many of you are expecting a Pat Robertson quote soon about how Japan had this coming thanks to their "Godless" society?3) A friend jokingly asked me if a meltdown in that region might be called "The USA syndrome" (as opposed to "the China syndrome" - go wiki that if you don't know what it means). Funny comment, but it reminded me just how ridiculous the notion of a "China syndrome" scenario is... even if a meltdown could melt deep into/through the Earth, it would obviously not overcome the centre of gravity in order to "come out the other side". What idiot came up with that notion in the first place I wonder lol?4) Shame that it took a massive disaster to get Charlie Sheen off the front pages.