MonteZuma

Exactly. He can never argue that the use of nuclear power is an unacceptable risk or that current regulatory measures are insufficient. that wouldn't be good for his career. Yes. That is what you get when there is a near miss. On a good day maybe. Not if you were at TMI or Chernobyl on the wrong day though. In any case, lets eventually try and close down coal power plants too! It is not trivial at the local level. I'd rather have neither. It has stood the test of time because there is no evidence disputing any of the basic premises. If there is evidence, present it. Speculation based on fact is published without proof all the time, even in science journals. That is why we need to read widely and amke up our own mind. Remember the distrust of the Iraqi government that was published without proof? You are being silly. If we needed to have our own 'spy' present before we could comment on an issue, we'd never discuss anything, and we'd be forced to believe everything our government told us. Eh comrade? There is an abundance of expert commentary on almost every issue imaginable. Some of this is based on intelligent, critical analysis of the facts at hand. Seek it out and you'll find it. The traditional scientific method is all about guesses. A scientist makes a guess (aka hypothesis) and then spends time trying to prove that it is untrue. Our scientist will publish his ideas and give other scientists an opportunity to review his ideas and disprove them if possible. The longer his idea stands up to these tests the more credibility is given to the hypothesis. That is why the TIME article, and more importantly the Soviet review paper, is still relevant today. In fact it is even more credible today than it was when it was published.

Her husband and others, including her best friend, testified that she wanted the plug pulled if she was ever in that condition. Even so, people kept her that way for 15 years - without any improvement. The expert opinion was that she would never recover. As for her state of mind in the hospital...She was incapable of thinking. Have you seen the brain scans? Her lights were out AND there was nobody home. It was time to cut the power.

Yes. And the seals in antarctica are happy about the hole in the ozone layer because they get a tan more easily. Seriously, what is good for you or one or two other species is not always good for an ecosystem. Messing with stream and lake temperatures is bad. There is an abundance if scientific evidence that says so. Have you got any links or references that demonstrate this? The Soviets were always secretive about disasters !@#$%^&*ociated with the misuse of their technology. This was normal Soviet practice. But the simple dfact is, that do!@#$%^&*ent has stood the test of time. All the evidence still supports its conclusions. Actually radiation was leaked. Everyone within 10 miles of the reactor got the equivalent of a chest xray that day. Some people got the equivalent of 12.5 x-rays in one day. There is no safe level of exposure to ionising radiation. Any exposure can lead to malignancy. In any case, as you say, this was a near miss. Next time it might not miss. In terms of volume, but not in terms of its threat to human health and the environment. Most waste !@#$%^&*ociated with nuclear medicine is low level waste. Most of the nasty stuff that makes the news is !@#$%^&*ociated with weapons and nuclear energy production. You only need a very small nuclear reactor to provide nuclear medicine. Yes. But a thimble full of plutonium can kill thousands of people. that explains your bias

I agree Zeke. But I suspect the intelligence services are taking the rap for US policy decisions that ultimately weren't based on intelligence. They were based on politics.

Yeah. She was a vegetable and the evidence is pretty strong that she didn't want to be kept alive like that. The family let their religious beliefs intefere with their daughter's wish to be allowed to die. It is kind of disappointing that the parents said that they wanted her kept "alive" at all costs, even if that meant amputating her arms and legs, and yet they weren't prepared to have her in their home because she was too much of a burden. If you want to spout high christian principles and claim that they supercede your own daughter's wishes then you ought be prepared to act on your beliefs and not just dump her in a hospital and throw money and what is basically a corpse with a heartbeat. I suspect that the parents were selfish in this matter. They dragged this whole thing through the courts because their religious beliefs (and maybe issues in the family) made them feel guilt. Fighting to keep her heart beating helped releave them of the guilt and shift it to the husband.

The fact that the boy cried wolf is not a justification for ignoring western scientific opinion. Which part of the TIME magazine article about the Soviet report do you think contains errors or falsehoods, and where is your evidence? Actually they've never been good at covering their tracks. It does happen elsewhere in the world. Three Mile Island happened just 7 years before Chernobyl. The Chernobyl melt-down happened because a safety action that should have caused the reactor to cool actually had the opposite effect. At three Mile Island, there were at least three system failures. A malfunction in a secondary cooling circuit, then a malfunction in a relief valve, and then poorly designed instrumentation that did not reports the status of the relief valve, and then leaking compressors. Another reason that the partial meltdown occured was inadequate emergency response training. Actually, my information comes from sources like TIME, NRC, UCS, UIC, and ANSTO. But in the end I make up my own mind. Exactly. They are too close for comfort. A similar accident at any other type of power station wouldn't cause me to lose sleep. They are human. They and the equipment they use are not infallible. Famous last words. I have no doubt that nuclear reactors in the western world are amongst the safest pieces of complex equipment that have ever been constructed. But the fact remains that uranium is toxic. Nuclear waste is very toxic. An unforseen mishap involving a nuclear reactor can have long lasting and devastating impact over a very wide area involving millions of people. I'd rather risk being hit on the head by a faulty solar panel or wind turbine, or pay a few extra bucks to get more fuel efficient electric appliance.

Mark my words. There will be more nuclear disasters. You don't need to believe the Soviet excuse. That article was written in 1986 and it is still the accepted version of events in the west. Read the report. It says: "most [Westerners] were impressed by [the report's] thoroughness, its spirit of self-criticism and the promptness with which it was prepared". That quote was from a senior analyst at the Washington office of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a group that has been critical of the nuclear-power industry. He then says ''I must confess that I think we know more at this stage about Chernobyl than was the case four months after Three Mile Island,''. Almost 20 years later, that report is still accepted as the definitive account of what happened at Chernobyl. If only the Bush and Blair WMD dossiers stood the test of time like the Chenobyl report did. When it flies in the face of western scientific opinion, it is a whacky conspiracy theory. The communist system and power/authority structure was partly responsible for the tragedy. Soviet workers could not publicly criticise authority the way western workers can. But the engineer responsible wasn't just fired. He was jailed. They aren't dead. In fact the engineer was jailed on the basis of eyewitness accounts of what happened in the control room. There was also an extensive paper trail that proved that the engineer did not do what he was ordered to do. I don't trust the technology or the operator of any power plant anywhere in the world. What makes you think that the operator of a power plant in the US is any more decent, intellectual or hard-working than a Soviet or Russian engineer? My views on Chernobyl aren't based on a Soviet report. They are based on the balance of scientific opinion in the western world. You've chosen to ignore that and accept a baseless conspiracy theory. I don't think solar panels are the answer to our energy needs. But designing appliances than run on them might be useful because it will help us develop energy efficient appliances that can cope with an intermittant power supply. That could lead to better battery technology. Solar power won't cure anything. But it will help.

The focus of this discussion has been on developed western democracies (ie people that are likely to post on Internet bulletin boards, especially this one). I could probably count on both hands the number of people that I've shared a bulletin board with that come from the countries you've mentioned. There may be third world countries that lean further right than the US. Most of them probably don't have a long history with democracy or high living standards. Their citizens views on "gun culture, jingoism, militarism, crime and punishment, litigation, free enterprise, motoring, education, sports, religion, drugs, health care, etc." are not directly comparable with ours. Apples and oranges.

Yes. With sufficient investment in technology, we can cut our demand fro energy dramatically. Electricity, fuel and other consumables like water are so cheap in wealthy industrialised countries that people, in general, don't care about additional consumption. The SUV craze that swept the US is a classic example. Every electrical appliance in my home has low efficiency. I bought them because electricity and water is so cheap, I would have never recouped the cost of a more efficient but expensive appliance in energy or water savings. The reason energy and water is so cheap is that the environmental cost is not factored into the price. Back to Chernobyl... That is just a wild conspiracy theory. See this TIME article for the facts as they are still known today. Of course they knew what they were dealing with. But everyone knows the soviets took more risks that the Americans. That was one of the consequences of the arms race. Every nuclear nation did !@#$%^&*anine thjings the nuclear technology. What makes you think the future will be different?

Socialism is not and has never been the dominant paradigm in western Europe. State ownership in western Europe, Australia and New Zealand has historically been restricted to critical infrastructure only. The greater emphasis on public welfare in most western countries outside of the US highlights the fact that Europe is further left than the US. But where you put the centre is up to you. But I can't think of any nation that is more conservative and further right than the US.

Other issues highlight the difference between the US and the rest. Gun culture, jingoism, militarism, crime and punishment, litigation, free enterprise, motoring, education, sports, religion, drugs, health care, etc. Each of these is a topic in itself, but each has some stark examples that demonstrate right wing/conservative tendencies in the US compared with the rest of the world.

I think the US (and maybe Canada) is the exception. I suspect that most other western countries share a similar view about left and right orientation. So IMO, the core of this question is why is America so different? Undoubtedly it has something to do with individualism and the capitalist ethos. That might have begun with the history and pattern of European settlement and the at!@#$%^&*ude towards property rights. That may have encouraged the entrepreneurialism that made the the US wealthy. As a result, the American dream became the pursuit of happiness through wealth. I think those sorts of things/changes happened elsewhere, but with less speed and intensity. Also, right wing politics is basically the politics of 'conservatism'. Conservatives generally want things to remain unchanged. Therefore right wing politics will vary depending on the culture of the country that you refer to.

Perhaps. I respect your viewpoint, Ducky...and yours Zeke. In fact it seems we have something in common. But its soap box time............... If I was suddenly penniless and homeless and without friends or family, I know that I could find emergency accomodation. I know that I could get a unskilled job and in a very short space of time, and I could move out of emergency accommodation into something permanant. I know where I could go to get free breakfast, lunch and dinner. I know that I can get emergency funds from social services. I know how to buy food that is inexpensive and nutritious. I know how to avoid trouble, and I know that some people are bad company. I can understand why a person that is mentally ill, has a low IQ and/or has few life skills could miss out on this kind of knowledge. But I can't understand why anyone that is moderately intelligent can miss the boat? Can someone explain that to me? Anyway...This is why I think it is important to teach basic life skills, especially to kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who are at risk. Life skills include such things as drugs, sex education, stranger danger, how to fill out forms, how to access social services, how to apply for jobs, nutrition and health. Most schools do this these days, but some kids miss out. To get this back on topic, the kids that miss out, for whatever reason, are the ones that turn into criminals. They are the ones most likely to feel left out of the system. They are the ones most likely to disrespect themselves as youths or adults, be angry at the world, and disrespect other people. If we really want to reduce crime, including violent crime and murder, we need to reduce the number of people that miss the safety net. Retribution and punishment is an important part of the legal system, but addressing the causes is most important. To put this into context, I was once targeted as an "at risk" child - someone who was likely to miss the safety net. But fortunately I had a little more nous and support than many of the other kids I grew up with. I've moved into a completely different socio-economic group. But I haven't forgotten what it was like on the other side of the tracks. Being stuck in a poverty trap teaches you that the world sucks. I feel sorry for anyone that is stuck there and can't see a way out.get out of it.

Uranium and especially nuclear waste are pollutants. Or else we need to lower our energy demand. My preferred option. Uranium mines, nuclear power plants and nuclear waste are never 100% safe. The probability of a catastrophe might be small, but the impact of one is huge (eg Chernobyl). Safety systems in Chernobyl weren't the main problem. Design flaws and poor construction were. In fact, the Chernobyl disaster was the result of a safety test that went wrong. The Soviets wanted to test their reactors to see what would happen in the event of an attack - like the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor that was under construction and destroyed by the Israelis at about the same time. The person in charge of the reactor had a lot of experience and thought he understood how the reactor would work under extreme conditions. He didn't. He made an error of judgment. People do that. To assume that a Chernobyl-scale event will never happen with a modern nuclear reactor is optimistic and in my opinion foolish.

I think that everyone in the US and similar western countries can have 3 meals a day. If you don't, its a matter of choice, or a lack of life skills, or the result of some short-term tragedy. In the long term, everyone can get 3 meals. A roof over your head is also something that everyone in societies like ours can have is they want it. But again, this comes down to life skills. Yes. But judges and juries get it wrong. This is well do!@#$%^&*ented. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that the legal system is good, but not perfect. Because a fair justice system is just as important to society as the education system. True. But if you look at typical case studies of peopleon death row, you know that most of them did not have a golden view of the world. Where I grew up was the same. Unemployment in my neigbourhood was about 30% Average incomes were about one third the national average. Something like a quarter of households were single parent families. Most households received some form of government !@#$%^&*istance. And as far as socio economic status was concerned, I was definitely in the bottom half of that group. I know about poverty and disadvantage. I think it should be. Profiling and generalising is a good way of discovering emergent themes and root causes. I've been there. But now that I can afford cable, I still don't subscribe. You aren't missing much. With the exception of the abuse, I was in pretty much the same situation as you, but probably for very different reasons. I think one of the differences between you and those that don't deal with problems sensibly is intelligence. And probably other factors that haven't been mentioned. The last thing that I would want is to have my country defended by criminals. Or to have a criminal representing my country overseas. Anyway. Thanks for the post.

Heh. It can happen. Join a volunteer group that packs food parcels for the poor - or something like that. An ideal way to learn important social skills and help others at the same time. I like to help people

Even when the cases are 100% certain, I don't support the death penalty, for all of the reasons I've stated earlier. You think society as a whole is no better than a murderer? How sad. I have every problem with people dying. That is why I don't support executions and have a distatste for war. You on the other hand seem very gung ho. Killing people is wrong. Period. My standpoint is clear. No. I'd have the killer psychologically !@#$%^&*essed and probably locked up for life. And then I'd try and find out why the killer did the deed. And then I'd set about making sure that, if possible, the cir!@#$%^&*stances that led to the tragedy could be avoided in future. Its called a holistic approach. If more people in the medical profession took this kind of approach we'd live longer, happier and healthier lives. I think it works the same way for social diseases. Execution is a knee-jerk reaction that doesn't get to the heart of the problem. If anything, I think it makes things worse.

You left out the bits about violence, rape, AIDS, no privacy, loneliness, boredom, etc etc. I guess some inmates are lucky enough to avoid most of those things, but you are kidding yourself if you think that prison life is better than freedom. Stays of execution save innocent or undeserving people from execution. Remove those and the safety net is gone. But, yes. Executing people is costly. It is cheaper to imprison people for life than it is to execute them. The only alternative is summary executions. But that would be ridiculous. People that think life is golden don't kill other people. Because society as a whole is more just, intelligent, compassionate, and progressive. You watch too much TV. Most people on death row have a below average education and are poor. Many have a history involving child abuse and/or psychological problems. They live(d) ugly lives that made it possible for them to do ugly things. Life imprisonment. Problem solved.

I think the possibility of receiving a death penalty or life imprisonment work equally well (or poorly) as deterrents. But I suspect that most people that commit heinous crimes don't think very much about the consequences of being caught. I don't think these people are rational at the time. Most probably have below average IQ. I doubt that they think the way we do when they commit the crime. If they did, they'd be peaceful law abiding citizens like us, right? To be sane and commit murder indicates that the perpertrator has little respect for human life. That is the problem. If we want to make the streets safer, that is what needs to be addressed. And that is another reason why the death penalty is bad. It reinforces a view that life is cheap and disposable.

Took the words right out of my mouth Phyran. Nuclear energy is dirty energy.

I think at the moment, green energy is more expensive than fossil fuel alternatives. In the future that might change, with improved technology and economies of scale. But for the foreseeable future, wind farms will not be as economical as coal power. I'm not sure that there are any cost savings. Of course if we internalise the external costs (costs !@#$%^&*ociated with pollution and environmental impact), the saving are likely to be huge. But nobody does this properly, yet. But isn't the problem with wind power also the fact that wind is unreliable and wind turbines just don't generate the same amount of power as steam or hydraulic turbines?

Yeah. Those sorts of initiatives sound pretty good. They probably are. But I reckon it would be easier to cut electricity use by 5% than it is to build a new power plant. The advantage of cutting power use (demand) instead of increasing supply is that we all save money and improve the environment at the same time.

In any case, Dav is right. Many terminal illnesses are preventable. It is better to buy a lifetime's supply of sunscreen than treat a single case of skin cancer. It is better to buy a lifetime's supply of condoms than treat a single case of HIV/AIDS, etc, etc. Prevention is better than cure. But that is not to say that treating problems and finding cures isn't also important.

We should focus more effort on reducing pollution and consumption. We can enjoy the same quality of life without stuffing things up the way we do. Curing the disease is usually cheaper and more effectove than treating the symptoms.

If programmers were perfect, Windows 98 wouldn't need a blue screen of death. Machines do stuff their programmer or designer didn't intend all the time.