Greens for Nukes!

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I would say ... no.

I think a lot of electric utilities, certainly in the case of Ontario Hydro, envisioned the Olympic swimming pools filled with blue glowing spent rods. Sorry, doesn't work that way. But the "solution" of nuclear power was sold with a lot of unrealistic assumptions and gullable consumers certainly helped here.

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Unfortunately, a lot of waste went up the stacks too, in addition to being dumped into the river. As you may recall, a lot of farmers started noticing their sheep were being born with dry eye sockets (Nothing in the orbit, just the eyelid covering it). That seemed odd, then it became horrifying when the same thing started to happen to newborn human babies.

If you really want to read up on a horrifying example of how incompetent - bordering on genocidal - a nuclear waste program can become, look at the Soviet example.

The USSR constructed their Mayak plant - similar to Hanford in WA as the plans were stolen - in the Chelyabinsk region of the southern Urals. They didn't even try to practice any sort of "safe" material disposal.

http://phys4.harvard.edu/~wilson/publicati...7/techa_cor.htm

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio....?osti_id=219409

It's now considered that the River Techa and especially Lake Karachay are the most radioactive place on the planet.

 

Don't know if you've seen it, but I recommend looking at this article, about a young Russian woman who's taken several motorcycle rides through the Chernobyl area. Includes some amazing photos.

Very, very sobering.

 

Dumping fantastically toxic substances that last hundreds of human lifespans into the ground, in the hopes that we'll have found some way to magically make it harmless in 100 years seems, at best, short-sighted and wildly optimistic without any foundation for it.

It's like saying, "Let's make all our cars run at 10 MPG, 'cause in 10 years someone will have invented Mr. Fusion for cars."

I think we need to have at least a strong path to a working solution before taking that path.

 

Yes I have seen that.

And you know very well this Russian gal is tooling around in an expensive motorcycle that her Daddy paid for thanks to corruption in how the Russians spend *our* money that we sent to help them deal with the mess that *they* created.

I guess as long as we fork over money for them to deal with their missing nukes and their vast expanses of radioactive contamination, they'll pretend to be our friends. Bleah.

 

Oh, I don't defend her lifestyle or her politics -- I frankly don't know enough (or want to know enough) about her to pass judgement.

But the pictures she took on her trip are stark and vivid, and very worth looking at.

I think it illustrates your point about what the Soviet government let happen to the Russian environment very clearly. As well as what happens if we don't take the time, or spend the money, to handle nuclear power correctly.

 

For some reason, that picture of all the equipment (Army trucks, busses, fire trucks, ambulances, construction equipment, etc) parked in an overgrown field did it for me.

All that equipment is highly radioactive, but all that "protects" the people from a serious health hazard is rusty fencing and a sign. Cute.

Given the absolute desperate state of the Russian economy, some folks might be tempted to raid that eternal parking lot for spare parts. I wonder how long they would last before catching that uniquely Soviet health condition Acute Radiation Syndrome?

 

Even when they *had* a good idea, they somehow managed to f*** up the implementation or the long-term management.

Case in point are the nuclear-powered lighthouses that were sprinkled all along the Northern Soviet coastline and major islands under their control. What a neat idea, something the size of a large freezer or a small car that would put out 2 KW-20KW and run without attention for 20 years.

They are also used to run airway beacons, like the VOR we use here, as a navigation aid for airplanes. Given the huge area and isolation, it is very attractive to have a power source with a 20 year lifespan. Especially in the Arctic when you can't always depend on sunlight in winter to run solar PV arrays.

Except nobody polices the d*** things. Thieves have attempted to steal lead from a lighthouse and got - surprise! - a serious case of radiation sickness.

http://archives.tcm.ie/breakingnews/2001/0.../story13735.asp

http://www.bellona.no/en/channel20393n25s400_.html

Let's not forget theft of radioactive material:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sh...ussia/scenario/

I hope there really aren't old stripped-down Soviet nuclear weapons out there waiting for a suicide bomber to push the button. Given the reports though, and the recent HBO movie on the same subject, a Dirty Bomb is far more likely.

 

Cuba might have more luck stocking their hospitals if the US didn't hold them under a trade embargo.

 

Free rule? I think what you're seeing is the result of a 40 year US boycott, which is a far cry from giving Cuba "free rule".

China and Vietnam, which we don't boycott (for some reason) are doing just fine.

 

How exactly are they "doing just fine?"

 

Oh, I always thought their best buddies the USSR - now Russia - bent over backwards to make Cuba a shining example of what Communism can "accomplish."

That might explain why Cubans are so willing to risk crossing shark-infested waters to get to America.

Come to think of it, I've often wondered why Communist countries had such strict borders. It wasn't so much to keep us nasty Free Market types out, it was to keep their own slaves - oops I meant "citizens" - in.

Guess you missed that video of Soviet-era East German border patrol guards machine gunning those poor folks who were trying to escape to the West. Especially that one woman left hanging on the barbed wire as a "deterrence" to other folks thinking of escaping their "Socialist Workers Paradise."

It sort of reflects on how free a country is if the borders are used to keep people in against their will, rather than keep undesirable people out.

 

Exactly

 

Yes, those foolish Chinese. If they want to torture and kill innocent people, they should do it in private like America does, ideally overseas where they can plausibly deny responsibility.

 

:roll:

 

Hey, don't shoot the messenger.

I know the people in China are oppressed, but economically the country is benefiting from US Trade. Probably more than half of your "consumer goods" come from China.

Before you get on your high horse about how rotten the Chinese government is, ask yourself why they have Most Favored Nation status? Because the administration doesn't give a crap about people, only about profits.

If economic boycotts had anything to do with social oppression, the boycott would be on China, and not on Cuba. You tell me why the boycott is still on Cuba after normalizing relations with Vietnam. I can't explain it. I'm just pointing it out.

And your analysis on "free travel" is all wet. Cubans can travel freely outside their country, and many of them do travel throughout Latin America. The reason they can't freely travel to the US is because of US travel restrictions. If the US wanted them not to brave the shark-infested waters, all they'd have to do is issue them visas. But they want them to. It's good propaganda. Hey, you bought it, so it must be working.

By the way, the reason that YOU (a supposedly free citizen of a supposedly free country) cannot travel to Cuba is not due to any airtight Cuban border, but rather to the fact that the freedom-loving US government won't give you, a free adult, permission to leave the "land of the free" if you're going to Cuba.

Canadians travel to Cuba all the time. Doesn't seem to turn ém into commies. Go figure.

 

Because in the 90's, folks like Clinton and PM Chretien here in Canada gave them everything, including the Kitchen Sink. Kind of ironic how a political party that most Labor Unions support put in motion the very thing that will end up destroying most Unions.

Even now the Canadian Taxpayer is forking over billions - not millions but billions - to the Chinese government through EDC to fund even more unfair trade practices. They are even getting generous Canadian Taxpayer funding to buy out the Tar Sands in Alberta, so I guess to h*** to Canadians who run short of fuel, right??

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover012205.htm

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover021505.htm

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2005/cover012605.htm

So why is it that whenever a Cuban athletic team travels to Canada, at least 1-2 members flee and claim Asylum?? Free my a**.

Oh, you mean the Cuban Navy would then stop firing on them?? I can hear the announcement at the terminal now:

"Welcome aboard American Airlines Flight 123, the Asylum Special. The Air Force F-18 jets are for our protection."

Thanks to former PM Pierre Elliot Trudeau, don't be so sure about that Sparky:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2003/klaus082503.htm

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2004/klaus112904.htm

http://canadafreepress.com/2004/cover092704.htm

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2004/cover121504.htm

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2004/klaus021604.htm

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2004/main061504.htm

http://canadafreepress.com/2002/inter90202.htm

http://canadafreepress.com/2002/main112502.htm

I'm a dual citizen and have strong ties to both countries. I'm also very p***** off over all this America bashing. There are some Canadians who openly support our Best Friends:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2004/main070704.htm

 

Because life in Cuba is extremely difficult. Nobody's denying that. The question is: why. Even of you don't think it's because of the US blockade, you at least have to admit that it gives Castro the perfect excuse to blame the US for all the hardships Cubans face. Either way it's a bad idea.

And it's an example of a completely schizophrenic foreign policy. Over the past 40 years, China and Vietnam have certainly been more aggressive opponents of the US than Cuba ever has. Yet we trade with the former two as though nothing had ever happened, but keep the blockade on Cuba.

If you want to favor such tactics or oppose them, that's up to you, but why is it too much to ask that they not be applied arbitrarily and capriciously?