Was it overly optimistic of us to find encouragement in the news the radiation level at the Fukushima nuclear power plant is down from 10 million times the normal amount to just 100,000 times the expected level? Yes, says commenter jasonturner.

As an engineer, this line is highly amusing:

"Radiation levels at the plant peaked on Sunday at 100,000 times the normal background levels, which is bad, but nowhere near the 10 million-fold increase that was mistakenly reported at first."

The average American has NO CONCEPT of numbers this large. This is nothing but a little rhetorical hand waving, the point of which is unclear. But yep, it sure is true that 100,000 is less than ten million!

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Ray Gustini