Atrios is pathologically anti-intellectual.

Some Days, Internet Pissing Contests Don't Seem To Matter Much

Days like this there's too much of people declaring that Event X Proves Them Fucking Right while lecturing other people not to Draw The Wrong hasty Conclusions From Event X.

Discussion of the benefits and risks of nuclear power or any other policy question is not a pissing contest.

Atrios mocked Obama recently for saying that the leadership of some country or other country "needed" to do something, as if a statement of opinion were the problem, were not in fact part of the politics of government and daily life. The problem is a surfeit of coercive authority, not opinion. Like Eric Schliesser Duncan Black wants to imagine himself above the game.

Atrios and Schliesser both want to be judges more than players; they want the responsibility without the risk. If they're unable to see issue X in binary terms they throw up their hands and walk away. The comment says it all.

Japan has paid more than enough of a price for the nuclear age.