OT ALERT: Gone on a rant as usual... WAS: Re: [TheForge] Hellooooooo!

[Lon Humphrey]

damn dude
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Demon Buddha" <osan at netlabs.net>
To: "Sponsored by ABANA" <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, May 07, 2006 2:04 PM
Subject: OT ALERT: Gone on a rant as usual... WAS: Re: [TheForge] 
Hellooooooo!


>
>
> Steve Smith wrote:
>> There's also a question of competence. A screw up with a nuclear plant 
>> makes a much larger mess than other energy sources. We have several 
>> historical examples, which I realize plants will be designed to avoid. 
>> What kind of problems don't we know about yet?
>
> Failsafes are all well and good, but some things cannot be fail-safed. 
> Remember when that Titan II blew in its silo in the 80s?  Gomer dropped a 
> wrench down the tube and became history shortly thereafter. The warheads 
> went several miles this way and that, but didn't go off, naturally.  But 
> the silo still went kerblooey and things could have been different.
>
> And Steve makes the better point: problems with nuclear materials have far 
> greater consequences than do others when disaster strikes, and they cannot 
> be readily contained.  Last I heard (15 years ago), the Chernobyl pile had 
> burned its way through three sub levels, god only knows how much 
> super-hard concrete, and lodged in the aquifer beneath, out of reach.  But 
> the water keeping it cool is going SOMEWHERE, and I'm sure people are 
> probably drinking it as well.  That disaster spread for thousands of miles 
> across to europe.  Cancer is rampant in many of the places, especially 
> that of the thyroid.   And the great ex-soviet and other geniuses are now 
> planning to build a concrete tomb around it.  But the area is still so hot 
> they have to build it a mile or so away, put it on wheels, and roll it 
> into place.  And that will be good for 100 years or less.  Then what? Such 
> genius... I think I'm overwhelmed.
>
> And what of our own ticking timebombs at places like Hanford and Savannah 
> River?  They are far worse than the American public is lead to believe, 
> yet we don't seem to be hearing a whole lot about them on the nightly 
> news, which is kept abundantly occupied with our president's masturbatory 
> fantasies in both Iraq and here at home.  Let's all PUHRAYUZ JAYZUS, 
> salute the flag, kick out the Mexicans, and kill all the A-rabs, but let 
> us not even think about any other things because they aren't really there. 
> OK.  RIGHTY-0.  OVER AND OUT.
>
> I'd rather sit in front of a wood fire and read by candle light, doing 
> without so many modern conveniences, than condemn the future to this sort 
> of poisoning.  I just don't think it is right to drag others into my mess 
> and I don't trust people nearly enough to believe that such disasters will 
> not happen.  What do you tell those who get the short end of the stick; 
> accidents will happen?  Oops?  *WE* decided that you were an acceptable 
> loss?  Taking such risks with the lives of others whose assent you have 
> not even asked for is about as atrocious an act as any I can think of.  It 
> is not even an iota better than anything we collectively tend to whine 
> about regarding the acts of people such as Stalin.  And we do it for what? 
> The illusion of progress?  For cheap convenience?  For ego?  So we can pop 
> out as many copies of ourselves as we feel entitled to?  Sheet.
>
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