"Your Mr. Obama doesn't like nuclear power"said R___. It was back in '08 during the "drill baby drill," cheap energy at any cost nonsense. He's an engineer, like many of my friends and aquaintances and you would think he'd share a concern with proper design and planning of nuclear facilities but then, as now, if Obama is for it, the Republicans area against it.
Then there was J___, an ex military man with several graduate degrees who told me in robotic tones that "we don't need any more government regulation" when I mentioned that a bit of responsible enforcement of the rules might have prevented the inevitable Gulf blow out disaster.
It really is like arguing with robots, because humans can, at least in theory, learn from experience. Robots need programming and repeat what they are programmed to repeat. It's not quite exclusively American, of course and R___ is Swiss after all. The overall safety of nuclear power is a question subject to debate, preferably between those with a great deal of technical expertise and not unduly influenced by those with a great deal of financial interest in building them. There will always be a danger, of course and there will always be an increasing need for energy pace the neo-Luddites and those who think we can feed and house the world's population using pre-industrial revolution technology, but building a nuclear plan on a coastline and in an earthquake zone seems to this layman a triumph of short sighted greed.
I read with horror this morning of a radiation leak and explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi plant resulting from the emergency backup power system being installed where it could -- and did - flood. Of course the plant is located so as to put a great many people in a danger zone and they've had to be evacuated. Odds are that the current plan to flood the reactor with sea water will succeed, and so far the leak is small, or so they say, but it's not really the kind of risk most people would subject themselves to voluntarily. People other than my Republican friends, that is.
I'm concerned enough that I live just down the coast of Florida from a nuclear facility. I'm part of a group organized to provide emergency communications should all else fail and an 'incident' occur and we have regular drills that are based on frightening scenarios. I'd rather they hadn't built it on the coast and within yards of the sea. Tsunamis aren't common here, but hardly impossible and hurricanes with storm surges happen all too often, but the convenience of having a large labor supply, saving money and cutting corners made the site attractive -- and of course we don't need no more Gummint regulation, do we?
captain my captain
ReplyDeletefoggy you ain't
succinct, erudite
and oh never quaint
foggy my captain
notions so clear
beauty and brilliance
while I consume beer
Octo and others
who inhabit this blog
know that the Captain
is the clearest of fog
a beacon of sanity
so rational in scope
makes one endeavor
vestiges of hope
captain my captain
in this foggiest night
a lighthouse so useful
steer me from the right
Cut it out or I'll have to buy a bigger hat!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, reports of my sanity are an exaggeration at best.
This is sooo typical of Fox News: Bolling Uses Japan's Nuclear Emergency To Push For Granting More Nuclear Power Plant Permits. Quote of the day: “The Hindenburg proves that we need more hydrogen airships.”
ReplyDeleteThis morning, I turned the clocks ahead one hour. Must be one that darn earthquake again.
I read that by GPS measurements, Japan was actually moved by 8 feet and the Earth's axis of rotation shifted measurably. But of course GPS satellites have a liberal bias and are part of a conspiracy to hide the true age and shape of the Earth as set forth in inerrant certainty by Mike Huckabee.
ReplyDeleteBut really, the Gulf oil spill or so they told us, proved that there was too much safety regulation! I wish I were only joking.
I mean did anyone actually see Japan sliding over away from where God put it? It's as ridiculous as evolution.
I have to remember Condy Rice looking earnestly at the TV camera after being asked if the fact that there were no WMD in Iraq weakened the argument that we had to attack without a moments delay.
That only proves that it was necessary, she said.
I know it's not polite to call people insane. I know I should be more analytical and precise and respectful, but you know, that only encourages them. You don't make a straight jacket out of tissue paper or a cage out of soda straws and sometimes you just have to call an idiot stupid and take the microphone away from him.
So forgive me for so often using intemperate language when describing such people, but batshit is batshit is batshit.
Captain,
ReplyDeleteWhat have you done! Now the bats will swoop down and accuse us of maligning them.
Of course, I agree with you. Hardly a days goes by when I restrain myself from letting out a primordial scream. Which is worse: The earthquake catastrophe in Japan or the Tea Bagging Armageddon that has become the U.S. All things considered, it will take more than an earthquake to shake this country out of its arrogance and greed.
I don't know what it will take to restore sanity or change the national conversation. Part of me wants to quit, and part of me wants to fight. Part of me wants to leave; but there is no place to go.