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And yes, we are a strange little species. Capable of screwing things up for us, to some degree, but nature is always there to bitch slap mankind, and remind us all how insignificant and puny we are on the grand scale.

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this sizable fissure is not an earthquake fault caused by a single quake, as the name implies. Geologists now believe it is a system of fractures formed during a series of strong quakes when the Inyo Craters and Inyo Domes erupted centuries ago.

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Like all transform plate boundaries, the San Andreas is a strike-slip fault, movement along which is dominantly horizontal. Specifically, the San Andreas fault zone separates the Pacific and North American Plates, which are slowly grinding past each other in a roughly north-south direction. The Pacific Plate (western side of the fault) is moving horizontally in a northerly direction relative to the North American Plate (eastern side of the fault). Evidence of the sideways shift of these two landmasses can be found all along the fault zone, as seen from the differences in topography, geologic structures, and, sometimes, vegetation of the terrain from one side of the fault to the other. For example, the San Andreas runs directly along Crystal Springs Reservoir on the San Francisco Peninsula. Topographically, this reservoir fills a long, straight, narrow valley that was formed by erosion of the easily erodible rocks mashed within the fault zone.

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With a thrust fault, whose plane is inclined to the Earth's surface, one side moves upward over the other. Movement along a blind thrust fault does not break the ground surface, thus making it difficult or impossible to map these hidden but potentially dangerous faults...scientists have not found any conclusive evidence of ground rupture from the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

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In 1985, more than 3000 earthquakes were measured over several months...December 2008-January 2009, more than 500 quakes were detected under the northwest end of Yellowstone Lake over a seven day span... 1620 small earthquakes between January 17 and February 1 of last year

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In a report filed in November 2008, The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency warned that a 7.7 earthquake in the New Madrid Seismic Zone could result in "the highest economic losses due to a natural disaster in the United States," further predicting "widespread and catastrophic" damage across Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and particularly Tennessee. According to some scientists, however, that is nothing compared to what an 8.0 earthquake could do to the New Madrid Region.

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Thousands of birds are falling dead from the skies, tens of thousands of fish are washing up on shore dead, earthquakes are popping up in weird and unexpected places and people are starting to get really freaked out about all of this. Well, one theory is that the New Madrid fault zone is coming to life. The New Madrid fault zone is six times bigger than the San Andreas fault zone in California. The biggest earthquakes in the history of the United States were caused by the New Madrid fault. Now there are fears that the New Madrid fault zone could be coming to life again, and if a "killer earthquake" does strike it could change all of our lives forever.

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On August 29, 2002, the government of Japan revealed that TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) was guilty of false reporting in routine governmental inspection of its nuclear plants and systematic concealment of plant safety incidents. All seventeen of its boiling-water reactors were shut down for inspection as a result. TEPCO's chairman Hiroshi Araki, President Nobuya Minami, Vice-President Toshiaki Enomoto, as well as the advisers Sho Nasu and Gaishi Hiraiwa stepped-down by September 30, 2002.[6] The utility "eventually admitted to two hundred occasions over more than two decades between 1977 and 2002, involving the submission of false technical data to authorities".[7] Upon taking over leadership responsibilities, TEPCO's new president issued a public commitment that the company would take all the countermeasures necessary to prevent fraud and restore the nation's confidence. By the end of 2005, generation at suspended plants had been restarted, with government approval.

In 2007, however, the company announced to the public that an internal investigation had revealed a large number of unreported incidents. These included an unexpected unit criticality in 1978 and additional systematic false reporting, which had not been uncovered during the 2002 inquiry. Along with scandals at other Japanese electric companies, this failure to ensure corporate compliance resulted in strong public criticism of Japan's electric power industry and the nation's nuclear energy policy. Again, the company made no effort to identify those responsible.

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TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), which operates the failing nuclear power plants at Fukushima, has a history of scandals associated with its nuclear power operations. In 2002, one set of such scandals became so severe that the president, vice president and chairman of the company all resigned in disgrace. Most disturbing in this regard is that the scandal related to TEPCO hiding evidence of cracks in the containment vessels of their nuclear reactors. Also possibly related to the current crisis is one report I have found of Toshiba providing faulty gauges that are used in monitoring the reactor coolant systems.

These comments date from 2006 and suggests that the 2002 scandal included the Fukushima Number One (or Fukushima Daiichi) unit number three, which had a hydrogen explosion Monday morning:

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It is very intentionally late. Toshiba Corp should open it in 2002. 2002 TEPCO’s scandal began from many breaks of Fukushima phase I unit 3 by Toshiba Corp on Aug 23, 2002.

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Perhaps even more fascinating, though, is that this person claims that Toshiba supplied faulty gauges to TEPCO and that these gauges were used to monitor coolant flow to reactors:

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When Toshiba Corp replaced meters supplied water for reactor ????? at TEPCO’s Nuclear Plant Fukushima phase I unit 6 in 1993, about the equipments Toshiba Corp altered examination data for TEPCO’s standard data. In Sep 2005 TEPCO ordered Toshiba Corp to confirm that and in Nov 2005 Toshiba Corp was heard the fact from 2 persons of Toshiba’s nuclear power design section.
But Toshiba Corp says the equipments are safty and Toshiba Corp doesn’t do the same in other plants. From Dec 2005 Toshiba Corp orders a 3rd company to check the examination about meters supplied water for reactor ?????

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This is a very important point, because the current crisis appears to have been exacerbated by problems with gauges in the coolant systems. From today’s New York Times:

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Workers inside the reactors saw that levels of coolant water were dropping. They did not know how severely. “The gauges that measure the water level don’t appear to be giving accurate readings,” one American official said.

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Where the hell does heartless, big business cutting cost have any damn thing to do with this catastrophe ?

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