I am black, arabian, and poor.
In this new saga, you will discover a science-fiction movie dealing with the disappearance of Dinosaurs and with worldwide nuclear power.
To listen to the trailer, surf on my site : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEttx9D2j7E
If you were to attend Explosive Ordinance Disposal School you would find out a lot of strange stuff about explosives. If you studied these substances long enough you would come to find that the effects they create are not dissimilar from the effects created in our social order. For example, and as to their very nature, explosives don't really 'explode,' as we seem to observe. A high yield explosive (or low yield, for that matter) is just a fire. A really fast fire. At EOD school they drive this into the students using graphic demonstrations. The demonstration for the 'fast fire' nature of explosives was as follows: They took five miles of detonation cord (a think rope-looking cord of explosives) and ran it back and forth in front of a set of raised stadium seats. The switchbacks of cord went on and on, back and forth, mere inches apart. When they were done, they put all of us students in the bleachers, then hooked up some sort of electrical detonator to one end of the five mile cord. You see, Det Cord, as it is called, burns at about 18,000 feet per second, which is pretty fast. Five miles of it laid out like that, when detonated, took all of a second-and-a-half to 'explode.' You got to see the 'explosion' start at one end of the cord and then run back and forth all the way to the other end in just under two seconds.. Impressive. Explosives are really fast fires indeed.
Why do I mention this. Our media works the same way. They out there, attempting to start really large fires, all the time. And, like explosives, they have, at the basis of their nature, a lie. Look at the latest potential explosion, with respect to the Pan Am plane that went down from a bomb in Scotland years ago. The only convicted guy to be caught for that was just released in Libya. He received a 'hero's welcome' the media is reporting, with plenty of on location video. The lie is that the media is saying: "Rage and outrage continues to grow over the release of this prisoner, all over Western Civilization." The media is initiating and building that very 'rage' they claim to be only reporting. They are trying to ignite an explosion by igniting one end of the social 'Det Cord.'
And then there is another interesting result when dealing with explosives. It is called sympathetic detonation. When you set a large main charge of explosives you set a small little piece of more volatile explosive next to it. That is called the supplementary charge. Then you set your fuze cord to the supplementary charge. When you pull the fuze igniter the supplementary charge is eventually ignited. That sets off the main charge. The main charge acts in 'sympathy' with the little one.
Our media is doing this all the time. They bring their equipment and attach themselves to what they hope will be a main charge. Then they do an initial report, attempting to instill and build up as much emotion as they possibly can. That is their supplementary charge. After they set this supplementary charge off they call in to their headquarters to gauge the effect. It appears that the Scotland crash is not going to explode in any kind of giant fireball, from their efforts. It appears that health care in America has gone off like a two thousand pounder, however. For that one, national health care, they went around the nation attaching their little supplementary charges to open forum meetings. They got some great explosions. And the main charge may eventually mean that we have to continue with this corrupt and unfair health system we have.
All the explosions the media eventually manages to detonate are bad, by the way. Notice that? Why? Why do only twenty percent of Americans understand that, by population, crime is forty percent less than it was fifteen years ago (the public thinks crime is UP!!)? Why does the public have no clue that the real expenses of medical care are not due entirely to insurance or the lack of it, but certainly due to the skyrocketing prices being charged (up 20% per year!) by your kindly loving doctor, his team, the hospitals and the drug companies? How did the public come to believe that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? How did they come to believe that somehow, through the wildest screwy logic, we are properly at war with the Taliban in Afghanistan? Our country believes in crap and drivel because that is what it has placed in front of it every day of its life now.
Our press is all about bad news. Watch the ten O'clock news tonight. In fact, any night. You will see the lead story (unless Mike Jackson rises from the dead) will be about a local murder. The follow-up will be too, unless there is a notable robbery. Prices and taxes will be up and hopelessly headed ever higher on your news. Politicians of all sorts will also be committing all sorts of theft and adultury, as well.
As long as we are going to compensate the media for telling us the most lurid, horrid and graphically nauseating stuff, they are going to continue to 'report' that to us. They are not going to go out and set their little supplementary charges next to some guy feeding the homeless (for which, in seven states he will be incarcerated for), or being successful in a new business, or even trying out his latest invention. Every once and awhile we get to hear and see about such things. You will note that any such report of wonderful good news is given to us for maybe a twenty second sound byte, now and then (rarely!).
This whole thing will kill us, unless either God steps in or we receive the greatest of good fortune. During the cold war the media set their little supplementary charges right next to some nuclear weapons (which are the mainest of main charges in anyone's book!). The media, in cahoots with our military industrial complex, almost had us in a nuclear war (three times, at least). Only later, when the Soviet Union fell apart, did we discover that the Soviets never had any, read that again, any, intention of launching missiles at us or dropping bombs upon us. And they never had anything like our technology in any area to do it with. The media, for the most part, knew that.
There is no money in good news. Unfortunately, we have discovered only recently, and due to this same toxic explosive media, that societies like to see and hear the bad news every day. For some reason, it makes us feel better about our own situation and life. If things are so bad 'out there' in other people's lives then they don't seem quite so bad in our life or in our backyard.
Do we have it in us to stop this media we have empowered? Do we want to? Or do we just wait, until one of these supplementary charges is attached to a main charge we cannot stop or control? We are playing with fire. Really fast fire.
http://www.jamesstraussauthor.com
http://www.themastodons.com
http://www.from-the-chateau-dif.blogspot.com
The weapon design and arms control communities agree that it is not the capability to design a nuclear device that determines the pace of a country’s acquisition of a first weapon, but, rather, the availability of nuclear weapons materials that can be turned to weapons purposes. For a nation-state, the material for weapons can come from uranium enrichment plants (highly enriched uranium), or reactors and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants (plutonium), or both.
Regardless of its isotopic composition, the minimum amount of plutonium required to make a pure fission nuclear explosive, with a yield equivalent to one to 25 kilotons of chemical high explosives, is quite small, on the order of 1 to 3 kilograms (kg), with the exact amount depending on the level of design expertise and the desired nuclear explosive yield. The minimum amount of highly enriched uranium required is a few times larger—5 to 10kg.
While far from ideal for military applications, the isotopic composition of the plutonium typically produced in civil power reactors does not pose a serious obstacle to fabricating efficient and powerful weapons, as well as crude terrorist devices.
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf
The proliferation of nuclear weapons is inextricably linked to nuclear power by a shared need for enriched uranium, and through the generation of plutonium as a by-product of spent nuclear fuel. The two industries have been linked since the very beginning and a nuclear weapons free world requires a non-nuclear energy policy. http://www.cnduk.org/index.php/information/info-sheets/briefings.html#nuclearpower
HOPE AND HYPE VS. REALITY IN NUCLEAR REACTOR COST
THE ECONOMICS OF NUCLEAR REACTORS:http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Documents/Cooper%20Report%20on%20Nuclear%20Economics%20FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8136918.stm
US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have reached an outline agreement to cut back their nations' stockpiles of nuclear weapons. The "joint understanding" signed in Moscow would see reductions of deployed nuclear warheads to below 1,700 each within seven years of a new treaty. The accord would replace the 1991 Start I treaty, which expires in December. Mr Obama said the two countries were both "committed to leaving behind the suspicion and the rivalry of the past". Separately, Russia also agreed to allow the US military to fly troops and weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, allowing it to avoid using supply routes through Pakistan that are attacked by militants. The two countries also will set up a joint commission to co-operate over energy, and fighting terrorism and drug-trafficking. Military co-operation, suspended since last year's conflict between Russia and Georgia, will be resumed. However, on the contentious issue of US plans to base parts of a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, the presidents merely said they had agreed to a joint study into ballistic missile threats and the creation of a data exchange centre. 'Reversing the drift'After three hours of talks at the Kremlin on Monday, Mr Obama and Mr Medvedev publicly signed a joint understanding to negotiate a new arms control treaty that would set lower levels of both nuclear warheads and delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and bombers. US-RUSSIA NUCLEAR DEAL Each country to cut deployed nuclear warheads to 1,500-1,675 (currently 1,700-2,200)Delivery systems to be within 500-1,000 range (currently 1,600)Reductions so be achieved within seven years of new treatyTreaty to be signed before Start I expires in December and include "effective" verification measures."Within seven years after this treaty comes into force, and in future, the limits for strategic delivery systems should be within the range of 500-1,100 units and for warheads linked to them within the range of 1,500-1,675 units," the document said. Under the 2002 Treaty of Moscow, each country is allowed between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed nuclear warheads and 1,600 delivery systems - meaning each side might only be required to decommission a further 25 warheads. Correspondents also point out that the proposed cuts would still leave the US and Russia able to destroy each other many times over. A White House statement said the new treaty would "include effective verification measures" and "enhance the security of both the US and Russia, as well as provide predictability and stability in strategic offensive forces". By setting low expectations for this summit, the US and Russian leaders have been able to appear to achieve more than had been hoped.The flurry of documents that has come out of this first day of discussions has been significant. President Obama sounded confident that a new strategic arms reduction treaty would be in place by the time the existing Start I agreement expires in December.There is a new framework for military-to-military co-operation. There is an extensive document on joint action related to Afghanistan, not least a transit agreement allowing lethal US military equipment and supplies to transit Russia on its way to the front line.The contentious issue of missile defence - where both leaders accepted there were still significant differences - was effectively "kicked into the long grass.Afterwards, Mr Medvedev said the talks had been "very frank and very sincere", but that they had been, "without any doubt, the meeting we had been waiting for in Russia and the United States". "I would like particularly to stress that our country would like to reach a level of co-operation with the United States that would really be worthy of the 21st Century, and which would ensure international peace and security," he said. The Russian leader called Monday's agreement a "reasonable compromise", but cautioned that there remained "differences on many issues", most notably on the proposed US missile defence shield. Mr Obama said he and Mr Medvedev were countering a "sense of drift" and were now resolved "to reset US-Russian relations so that we can co-operate more effectively in areas of common interest". "We've taken important steps forward to increase nuclear security and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons," he said. "This starts with the reduction of our own nuclear arsenal as the world's two leading nuclear powers the United States and Russia must lead by example, and that's what we're doing here today," he added. The US president said he was confident a legally binding disarmament treaty would be signed by the end of the year, when Start I expires. On Tuesday, Mr Obama will meet Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He said last week that he thought the former Russian president had "one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new". "I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev, that Putin understands that the old Cold War approaches to US-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction," he told the Associated Press. Mr Putin responded: "We stand solidly on our own two feet and always look into the future." This summit is aimed at repairing strained US-Russian relations. Under the Bush Administration, ties between Washington and Moscow were considered almost as bad as during the Cold War. The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus, in the Russian capital, says that while the two countries have not put aside all the suspicions of recent years, they are creating mechanisms to enable a much more positive relationship in the future.
US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have reached an outline agreement to cut back their nations' stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
The "joint understanding" signed in Moscow would see reductions of deployed nuclear warheads to below 1,700 each within seven years of a new treaty.
The accord would replace the 1991 Start I treaty, which expires in December.
Mr Obama said the two countries were both "committed to leaving behind the suspicion and the rivalry of the past".
Separately, Russia also agreed to allow the US military to fly troops and weapons across its territory to Afghanistan, allowing it to avoid using supply routes through Pakistan that are attacked by militants.
The two countries also will set up a joint commission to co-operate over energy, and fighting terrorism and drug-trafficking. Military co-operation, suspended since last year's conflict between Russia and Georgia, will be resumed.
However, on the contentious issue of US plans to base parts of a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe, the presidents merely said they had agreed to a joint study into ballistic missile threats and the creation of a data exchange centre.
'Reversing the drift'
After three hours of talks at the Kremlin on Monday, Mr Obama and Mr Medvedev publicly signed a joint understanding to negotiate a new arms control treaty that would set lower levels of both nuclear warheads and delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and bombers.
US-RUSSIA NUCLEAR DEAL Each country to cut deployed nuclear warheads to 1,500-1,675 (currently 1,700-2,200)Delivery systems to be within 500-1,000 range (currently 1,600)Reductions so be achieved within seven years of new treatyTreaty to be signed before Start I expires in December and include "effective" verification measures.
"Within seven years after this treaty comes into force, and in future, the limits for strategic delivery systems should be within the range of 500-1,100 units and for warheads linked to them within the range of 1,500-1,675 units," the document said.
Under the 2002 Treaty of Moscow, each country is allowed between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed nuclear warheads and 1,600 delivery systems - meaning each side might only be required to decommission a further 25 warheads.
Correspondents also point out that the proposed cuts would still leave the US and Russia able to destroy each other many times over.
A White House statement said the new treaty would "include effective verification measures" and "enhance the security of both the US and Russia, as well as provide predictability and stability in strategic offensive forces".
By setting low expectations for this summit, the US and Russian leaders have been able to appear to achieve more than had been hoped.
The flurry of documents that has come out of this first day of discussions has been significant. President Obama sounded confident that a new strategic arms reduction treaty would be in place by the time the existing Start I agreement expires in December.
There is a new framework for military-to-military co-operation. There is an extensive document on joint action related to Afghanistan, not least a transit agreement allowing lethal US military equipment and supplies to transit Russia on its way to the front line.
The contentious issue of missile defence - where both leaders accepted there were still significant differences - was effectively "kicked into the long grass.
Afterwards, Mr Medvedev said the talks had been "very frank and very sincere", but that they had been, "without any doubt, the meeting we had been waiting for in Russia and the United States".
"I would like particularly to stress that our country would like to reach a level of co-operation with the United States that would really be worthy of the 21st Century, and which would ensure international peace and security," he said.
The Russian leader called Monday's agreement a "reasonable compromise", but cautioned that there remained "differences on many issues", most notably on the proposed US missile defence shield.
Mr Obama said he and Mr Medvedev were countering a "sense of drift" and were now resolved "to reset US-Russian relations so that we can co-operate more effectively in areas of common interest".
"We've taken important steps forward to increase nuclear security and to stop the spread of nuclear weapons," he said.
"This starts with the reduction of our own nuclear arsenal as the world's two leading nuclear powers the United States and Russia must lead by example, and that's what we're doing here today," he added.
The US president said he was confident a legally binding disarmament treaty would be signed by the end of the year, when Start I expires.
On Tuesday, Mr Obama will meet Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
He said last week that he thought the former Russian president had "one foot in the old ways of doing business and one foot in the new".
"I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev, that Putin understands that the old Cold War approaches to US-Russian relations is outdated, that it's time to move forward in a different direction," he told the Associated Press.
Mr Putin responded: "We stand solidly on our own two feet and always look into the future."
This summit is aimed at repairing strained US-Russian relations. Under the Bush Administration, ties between Washington and Moscow were considered almost as bad as during the Cold War.
The BBC's diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus, in the Russian capital, says that while the two countries have not put aside all the suspicions of recent years, they are creating mechanisms to enable a much more positive relationship in the future.
Henry M
Wind power along solar and other alternate energy sources are badly needed in this country. Our dependency on foreign oil has placed this country in a desperate position. We must not allow opportunities to rebuild America's energy independence pass us by. Every part of this country needs energy and locally generated clean energy is good for everyone and it creates jobs that cannot be outsourced overseas. Every home grown energy source should be encouraged and explored. Wind energy has best chance to bring clean energy here and now.
America's Energy Policy is the most important task we face today and without fixing this I how can we fix anything else.
The country of Irate yesterday announced it had launched, "The Finger," an enormous missile, in a show of defiance at the ability to learn from others' mistakes.
Irate's Supremely Exalted Leader I-Yah-Tol’-Y’all I-Was-Ah-Nut-Job shouted, "We are a great super-power! We don't care about seismic activity in our country, the fact we have sunshine nearly 24 hours a day, and that oil that bubbles up to the surface of our wonderful land during earthquakes.
"What do we care about all those sources of energy at our fingertips when we could create toxins of such a strength, in our own borders, that cause hair to fall out very quickly?
"We demand to make the same mistakes the Great Satan has made. We will build nuclear power plants at huge expense and have incessant infighting on where to store the waste.
"We will be sure to waste tens of billions of dollars, taxed from citizens, and hand it over as a jobs program to those in the nuclear sector, thus ensuring our country has high-paying jobs.
"We have studied the Great Satan closely and our conclusion is we will mimic their current status of being like a cluster of ticks sucking on each other."
"What do we care about our neighbors and their concerns about our rockets falling on them. We are ready to sacrifice our children's future by paying for massive weapons and racing to build bigger and more destructive devices, like the U.S. leaders and military. Do I expect to be around in 80 years and have to pay off the bills? Ha ha ha. Like them I plan on retiring before I have any grey hair.
"Who knows, our rockets may even fall on us, but I've got a bunker! Shacks and houses are for the little people. Mighty mansions are for those God favors.
"I recommend all you imperialist swine watch the video below of how our great country of Irate plans on taking advantage of our citizens, in your footsteps.
"Long live nuclear waste!"
See the video here.
Even the idea that the Taliban could possess nuclear material is harmful to our national security. The President should declare that and have spies and satellites vigilant in Pakistan. In the event Pakistan military forces are overrun near sites containing nuclear weapons or nuclear energy material he ought to immediately order those materials utterly destroyed. The Taliban would use those materials in a dirty bomb. It won’t be enough to drop cruise missiles on them because that would merely scatter the nuclear material around, where Bin Laden’s people can collect it. Mr. Obama should be prepared to nuke them, and he should do it immediately, before materials can be relocated. Many lives would be lost in such an action, but they would not be American lives. While all life is precious, President Obama must act decisively to protect our lives above all others.
BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
Accountability: America's Moral Responsibility to Humanity
Eight years of Republican "leadership" has left America both economically devastated, and globally humiliated. Yet, far from apologizing for the damage that they've done to the stability and image of this great nation, instead, they've circled their wagons and gone into damage control mode–not to control the damage that they've done to the nation, but in an attempt to rewrite history in order to control the damage that they've done to themselves.
So now, as President Obama goes about the business of desperately trying to return America to its former position of economic stability at home, and respect, admiration, and moral authority abroad, the GOP leadership seems to be completely oblivious to the nation's desperate and immediate need for a concerted effort in that regard. They're like clueless children who find it impossible to see the big picture. Thus, at this point it has become abundantly clear that their primary concern is not with restoring America to a sound footing in the world, but rather, simply restoring themselves to power at any cost.
The Pickens Plan: For those who would like to become an active participant in a solution for our nations energy needs I urge you to join with T.Boone Pickens in his quest for a cleaner planet through alternative energy.
Also see Green Wave Energy: Green Wave was founded by Mark Holmes and was formulated for viable alternative energy solutions. Green Wave Energy is promoting state-of-the-art energy-saving products and services throughout the country.
Green Wave Energy understands alternative energy technology will become “main stream” when
Call 949.645.1701 for information on how Green Wave Energy can help you save the planet.
Alternative EnergySource: David Apperson
url: http://veterans.barackobama.com/page/community/tag/alternative-energy
Hidden Travels of the Atomic Bomb
The bank of centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the gas centrifuge enrichment plant in Piketon, Ohio. Each stage is relatively inefficient, so many hundreds are required to separate enough uranium for a single nuclear weapon.
By WILLIAM J. BROAD @ nytimes.com - Published: December 8, 2008
In 1945, after the atomic destruction of two Japanese cities, J. Robert Oppenheimer expressed foreboding about the spread of nuclear arms.
“They are not too hard to make,” he told his colleagues on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, N.M. “They will be universal if people wish to make them universal.”
That sensibility, born where the atomic bomb itself was born, grew into a theory of technological inevitability. Because the laws of physics are universal, the theory went, it was just a matter of time before other bright minds and determined states joined the club. A corollary was that trying to stop proliferation was quite difficult if not futile.
But nothing, it seems, could be further from the truth. In the six decades since Oppenheimer’s warning, the nuclear club has grown to only nine members. What accounts for the slow spread? Can anything be done to reduce it further? Is there a chance for an atomic future that is brighter than the one Oppenheimer foresaw?
Two new books by three atomic insiders hold out hope. The authors shatter myths, throw light on the hidden dynamics of nuclear proliferation and suggest new ways to reduce the threat......
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/science/09bomb.html?_r=2&ref=science&pagewanted=all
One of Barak Obama's first bills he signed on was with Sam Nunn. It focused on Non-Proliferation.
We have a crisis right now. Gates has announced he is going to rearm the Nuclear Heads on the US Missles so that they are up to date. In my opinion this was done for two reasons: to give the arms industry more money to waste, and secondly to rekindle the arms race. This is the exact opposite to what must be done. There are many armed missles in the former USSR that need to me destroyed, as well as in the US and in Europe. They are all out of date, and they are worthless except to threaten. They can be sold to terrorists, to unstable governments, etc.
Along with all the other many problems which we have to focus on, this one cannot be forgotten.
You could literally have a nuclear power plant in your backyard. CNN did a story Monday, 11/10/08, on Hyperion looking to manufacture hottub sized nuclear power plants that you could install in your yard. They would need to do the refueling and maintance.
Doesn't that sound like a great idea. Just think of how easy it would be to break in and steal the radioactive material, grind it into a powder and disperse it from a small airplane. No one would even know they were exposed until cases of radiation sickness started occuring. Then comes the evacuation and loss of that city or farm land. Years later the cancers start.
What are these people thinking. I am hard pressed to come up with a worse idea, try as I might. If we go along with this idea, I seriously wonder if the whole race is suicidal.
WOW ! Bombshell from a Republican McCain supporter, and former Secretary of State, on Sara Palins abilities and readiness. What about our National Security ? With all her rheotoric, picture this in your mind, Sara Palin with her finger on the button of our Nuclear Arsenal.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/31/eagleburger-blisters-pali_n_139524.html
Nuclear Power Is Contraindicated as a Solution to Global Warming Because of Nuclear Mutagenesis. Watch: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4397307903287515932
Nuclear Power Is Contraindicated as a Solution to Global Warming Because of Excessive Cost: "When it comes to nuclear power specifically, every dollar invested in new US nuclear electricity will save approximately 2-11 times less carbon, and will do so roughly 20-40 times slower, than investing in the same dollar in energy efficiency and "micropower" (cogeneration plus renewables minus big hydro dams). Buying new nuclear capacity instead of efficiency causes more carbon to be released than spending the same money on new coal plants!
"These conclusions and the empirical evidence supporting them are summarized in "Forget Nuclear," and fully documented in "The Nuclear Illusion," available for download here, which is to be published in early 2009 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences' journal Ambio. (courtesy of rmi.org)
Dan Becker, director of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Program has said, "Switching from coal to nukes is like giving up smoking and taking up crack."
Here is the Natural Resources Defense Council's position on Nuclear Power: http://nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf.
Make a small statement. Join our My.BarackObama.com group, Nuclear Power?, here:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/NuclearPower
Barack Obama is a man of integrity. Our belief is that when all the facts about nuclear power are presented to him clearly, that he will reject it as an option.
The large utilities eager to build nuclear power plants are now suddenly pressing Congress about global warming. Very convenient. But is nuclear power a solution for the problem of global warming? Hmmm, No.
1)Nuclear power plants are too expensive to build. The nuclear power industry refuses to accept responsibility for the unique risks of nuclear power and demands massive federal subsidies so that they can rake in profits on their suspect investments. To quote the Rocky Mountain Institute (rmi.org) position on nuclear power: "Contrary to an argument nuclear apologists have recently taken to making, nuclear power isn't a good way to curb climate change. The power they produce is so expensive that the same money invested in efficiency or even natural-gas-fired power plants would offset much more climate change." Quoting the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC): "Our national electricity needs could be met, while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 70 percent or more, through a combination of increased energy efficiency, wind power, solar power, advanced coal-fired plants with carbon capture and storage, and high-efficiency natural gas turbines."
2)Nuclear power is extremely unsafe. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has acknowledged in a reference document "that early containment failure cannot be ruled out with high confidence for any of the plants." Even with the most technologically advanced checks and safeties, eventually some critical part of everything man makes fails. If an explosion occurs at a gas-fired or coal-fired plant, this is not good. But if a nuclear reactor melts down and breaks through its containment vessel, we have at least a regional catastrophe. Large areas of necessary habitable land are rendered uninhabitable, and people die of radiation-caused cancer.
3)To again quote the Rocky Mountain Institute's position on nuclear power: "Nuclear power poses significant problems of radioactive waste disposal."
4)Quoting the NRDC: "Plutonium is a normal by-product of electricity production in conventional reactors. Thus, the same reactors and fuel-processing facilities that are used for energy production can also be used for the manufacture of weapons." "Perhaps the most serious of all the problems that would be exacerbated by dramatically increasing global nuclear capacity is the threat of nuclear proliferation."
Join our My.BarackObama.com group, Nuclear Power?, here: http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/NuclearPower
I thought McCain scored on one point - energy, by having a clear position on utilizing nuclear McCain seemed more on top of it and Obama was defensive. While Obama has supported nuclear energy, it is tenuous. I suggest the “if it can be worked out” perspective be replaced with a stronger message - “we will make it work – safely and economically” with specifics of doubling our nuclear energy capacity in 10-15 years. This, combined with carbon-free renewable and the strong energy conservation plan will be a winner.
What would we rather have – more coal plants or carbon-free nuclear plants based on modern safety designs and factory production to keep down costs? Those are our real options.
I don't know about everyone else, but I actually prefer our President and Vice President not only to BE highly educated, but to SOUND highly educated.
For eight long years we've listened to tough-talking cowboy George W. Bush struggling to string coherent sentences together, not to mention his purposeful mispronunciation of NUKE-ULAR.
Now we've got the Governor of Alaska, whose speech is rife with gollies, gotchas, and gee whizzes, sounding more like she is campaigning for FIRST CHEERLEADER than Vice President of the United States of America. Oh, and energy expert that you are, Governor, you are, of course, aware that you too mispronounce NUKE-ULAR.
What's the problem? To me it's not cute or folksy, but rather gives a poor impression of the American people, both within our country, and to the rest of the world.
I think the President and the Vice President should represent the BEST that we can be, and not the oppoaite.
With all due respect.
During the presidential debate, McCain spoke of off-shore drilling and nuclear power plants. When pressed on renewable energy, his response was vague, and he evaded the questions by acknowledging that we need to consider all avenues to reduce dependence on foreign energy. I for one am not convinced that McCain would do squat (can I say that?) in terms of renewable energy. He will focus on nuclear power because nuclear power generation has high barriers to entry, and only his billionaire buddies can afford to enter this market. We would be trading one evil (oil) for a worse evil (nuclear waste). McCain did not engage in conversation on how he'd handle the nuclear waste produced by the plants.
Barack has firm plans for brining the United States to the cutting edge of renewable energy. He want the US to take a leadership role in developing these technologies creating several substantial benefits:
1. Reduce dependence on foreign energy
2. Save the environment and stop/reverse climate change
3. Create millions of American jobs
4. Put the United States back in leading position in the world markets
Anyone who thinks nuclear energy is "clean" energy, please read some articles:
http://library.thinkquest.org/17940/texts/nuclear_waste_storage/nuclear_waste_storage.html
http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/issues/nuclear-energy-&-waste/start/fact-sheet_ne&w.htm
