Copyright (c) 1999

From: Russell David Hoffman, worried citizen

Re: Frothing at the bit: STOP CASSINI #219

Date: November 1st, 1999 -- less than two months to go before Y2K-day

This issue's subjects:

• (1) From the mailbag: A Response to Andrejs Jansons by Jack Shannon
• (2) JUST ANOTHER NATION GOES TO RESERVATION (a poem)
• (3) Chinese Embassy Bombing-- and something a million times worse
• (4) A skilled attack on the editor of this newsletter? Hardly, but a calculated one.
• (5) United States Government official contact points
• (6) Subscription information
• (7) Authorship notes and associated links

(1) From the mailbag: A Response to Andrejs Jansons by Jack Shannon:

Note: The following letter from Jack Shannon to Andrejs Jansons was sent out to the usual STOP CASSINI list separately yesterday, along with the following paragraph added at the end:

"This letter has been forwarded by Russell Hoffman and refers to comments presented by Andrejs Jansons in Mr. Hoffman's STOP CASSINI newsletter #218, October 30th, 1999 which was sent to subscribers and media yesterday and will be posted later today (October 31st, 1999) at the STOP CASSINI web site. For more information about Jack Shannon, see STOP CASSINI newsletter #156 and others, or visit his web site:"

http://www.mindspring.com/~kapl/reactors.html

The editor regrets that he has not had time to post the last few newsletters as he indicated he would, but he will do so soon. To learn what's happening right away, it is best to become a subscriber! -- rdh

----- LETTER FROM JACK SHANNON TO ANDREJS JANSONS: -----

Mr. Andrejs Jansons:

I read Mr. Hoffman's letter when I can. I was more than a little upset by your discussions about space exploration.

I have heard for years now how the research from the space industry has improved the lives of residents of the Earth, etc., ad nausea.

It is all nonsense. We keep throwing money into something that has brought us high speed computers and some new materials, however, more people go to bed hungry in the World, even in the "Richest" country in the world, the good old USA, even on a percentage basis than during the great depression.

The USA has no National Medical program, which makes us the disgrace of the western world, homeless abound all over the world, maybe the worst in history, including my own, the good old USA.

High School graduates in the US read at a sixth grade level, even at our "best" Colleges like the US Naval Academy, virtually every incoming freshman needs a tutor and half of the freshman class can't go on summer training, because even after a year they are not up to College Work, most of them are barely at High School Graduation level. We keep throwing money at the educational bureaucracy rather than having teachers in the class rooms who know the subjects they are teaching

Our political system, as in most of the world, is in chaos. Big business owns the US and in most other countries.

Most American households must now have two incomes just to put food on the table and a roof, such as it is, over most peoples heads. Hollywood is not the USA, most Americans and peoples of the World do, in fact, ". . .lead lives of quiet desperation." This in spite of our great ". . .technical advances for the good of mankind. . . "

I could write a book, a dozen books, but nobody cares The important things in life are Marilyn Monroe's dresses and water on Venus or whatever.

Wake up. The space program has nothing to do with anything except who can kill the most people the quickest with the most sophisticated intercontinental nuclear warheads and who will be able to protect ". . .their atmosphere space. . ." Sound familiar. Like in air space, coastal waters, etc.,

How dare we put the most dangerous material known to mankind in space and not tell the public what is going on. The DOE [and it's predecessor names] is nearly sixty years old and has never told the truth to the public -- not once in all of it's corrupt history.

If you want to find out about big business and big government read "At any Cost Jack Welch, General Electric, and the Pursuit of Profit," by Thomas O'Boyle.
When you are done you will know a lot about Jack Welsh [America's Manager par excellence], but mostly you will wonder why he is not in jail. You will also know that Welch is just the cookie cutter copy of what America is all about, Corruption, Power, Wealth and Treason.

John P. Shannon, Major USMC (Retired)
Retired Nuclear Physicist and Nuclear Reactor Designer
etc..

----- END OF LETTER FROM JACK SHANNON TO ANDREJS JANSONS -----

----- FOLLOWUP: LETTER FROM JACK SHANNON TO RUSSELL HOFFMAN: -----

At 07:51 PM 10/31/99 -0500, Jack Shannon wrote:

Russ:
Did you forward my letter of 10/31/99 to a bunch of people. I must have received twenty responses so far.
I didn't think it was that great of a letter. I just got pissed when I read Janson's letter and kind of shot from the hip.
I don't mind you forwarding it, but I didn't take but a minute or two to write it
Thanks
Jack Shannon

----- END OF FOLLOWUP LETTER FROM JACK SHANNON -----

----- MY RESPONSE: -----

Hi!

Yeah, I forwarded it to everyone on my list as a separate item... I thought it was brilliant. I corrected "quiet" for "quite" in the quote from Jansons, but left your letter otherwise untouched, figuring the minor typos and stuff proved it was "off the cuff". I'm delighted that you got so many responses -- haven't checked my email bag yet. I hope they "cc'd" me. (Note -- now that I've checked -- they didn't. What sort of letters did you get? I got my usual dead silence. People like to pretend I don't exist, Jack.)

My wife [who reads most of the newsletters prior to publication] called your letter "218 issues of the Stop Cassini newsletter -- summarized in ~700 words."

I realize most responses might be bad, but it's still good to stir up trouble! It went out to my usual list. I'd be happy to help you respond, or to publish responses, or whatever. I haven't yet posted the newsletter it responded to at my web site, although I said I would by now. I'm answering a really sick dude from mercer.edu instead.

Yours,

Russell

----- END OF MY RESPONSE -----

(2) JUST ANOTHER NATION GOES TO RESERVATION (a poem):

We do not know who the author of the following poem is, but it was apparently written prior to the commencement of the bombing of Yugoslavia (see further notes from the person who sent it to us, following the poem). I had written to this person originally because he was asking a mutual friend (who forwarded his letter to me) about where Depleted Uranium might have been used (the answer is, just about everywhere), since he is chemical-sensitive and has been suffering various afflictions since the war, and had to move from Belgrade because of it (D.U. can cause both chemical and radiological health effects, not to mention its obvious ballistic effects (its use should make the world go ballistic)). I mentioned that more than 25 years ago, as a young teen accompanying my mom and older (now deceased) brother, I had been in Makarska in what was then simply "Yugoslavia", where I had found the most delicious chocolate ice cream I have ever had (and many wonderful friends, too, whom I have grieved for over what must be happening to them -- or by them? -- since then). Here's part of the response I received :

----- CLIP FROM LETTER FROM D. S. CVIJOVIC: -----

Regarding Makarska, it is in another country now - Hrvatska... I have a house there myself (on an island near Makarska), but I am not allowed to go, otherwise I would have been there and not in Montenegro. By the way, most of the icecream there was kept by Albanians (except if it was in a hotel or so), so by buying that icecream, you have sponsored Albanian separatism and Kosovo war :-) :-) :-) It is a joke, naturally!!! But when I mentioned that war, it reminded me that you might like a poem that was assembled *before* that war started (I think I have seen a similar poem in one of your texts)...

----- END OF CLIP FROM LETTER FROM D. S. CVIJOVIC -----

In the following poem, the baseball home run king's name is quaintly misspelled. Not being one to talk, and hesitant to change poetry sent in by others, I've left it all exactly as is. -- rdh

---- POEM SENT TO THE STOP CASSINI EDITOR: -----

JUST ANOTHER NATION GOES TO RESERVATION

Nothing to fear, nothing to worry,
It is an old, well known story.
Don't think too deep,
Don't loose your sleep
Just another nation goes to reservation.

Serbian people, they are so bad,
The world would be best if they were all dead.
Let's throw some bombs, lets burn them all,
Put them against or behind a wall.
Lets find a new desert, a new location,
Let's call it "The Serbian Reservation."
Don't think too long, don't think too deep,
Serbian land is now so cheap.
Croats, Albanians, come and get some -
A piece of Serbia to every world's bum.

It gives me sorrow it gives me blues
Whenever I hear the CNN news:
Kid kills his schoolmates with a gun,
Maguire hits another home run.
The San Diego zoo got a new panda,
Eight-hundred-thousand killed in Rwanda.
Eight-hundred-thousand dead on the scene,
Is NATO going to intervene?
Give me a break, come on, get real,
They were all black, not a big deal,
Eight-hundred-thousand, their throats slit,
We all remember what Clinton did.
The support he offered was only moral,
At the time he was just getting oral.

In the case of Rwanda he was too slow,
But now he's ready for a final blow.
The peace on the Balkans someone disturbs,
So let's go there and bomb some Serbs.
Let's get Kosovo ethnically clean,
Ten percent Serbs, and they're so mean.
Lets kick them out to reservation
Kosovo is for the Albanian nation
Ten percent only, used to be more,
Seventy percent after Second World War.
After fifty years they almost all left,
Under the pressure, terror, and theft.
Some ten percent just wouldn't go,
Now Clinton's ready for the final blow.

Serbs from Croatia, Serbs from Bosnia,
We chased them all to little Serbia,
What Hitler started, lets get it done,
Let's go to Serbia and have some fun.
Let's test some weapons, cause some destruction,
Let's see what will be the Russian's reaction.
It'll be good for the bonds and stocks,
'Cause the market lately really sucks.
Let us create the New World Order
For every country, we'll write a new border.
Everyone has to dance as we play,
Or he'll become NATO's pray.
Just make him show how he can be mean,
And the World would support us to intervene.

Nothing to fear, nothing to worry,
It is an old, well known story.
Don't think too deep,
Don't loose your sleep
Just another nation goes to reservation.

---- END OF POEM SENT TO THE STOP CASSINI EDITOR -----

----- COMMENTS FROM THE PERSON WHO SENT ME THE ABOVE POEM (ALL ELLIPSES ARE THE WRITER'S): -----

I got it from a friend who got it from someone from abroad... But by the time he got it, it has already lost the signature, so I don't know who had written it.... It had circulated much before the bombing started, so it is obvious that the author easily predicted all that happened later... It is very important to point out that it originates from before the threat of bombing so it downplays the declared reasons for all that NATO action... By the way I by no means support Mr. Milosevic and the current politicians here (neither the opposition ones), but (as I think I have seen in one of your texts), Milosevic's wrongs doesn't approve Clinton's ones... And who has more power should have more responsibility (Western politicians)... As I kept saying, Milosevic is just a local fool...

----- END OF COMMENTS FROM THE PERSON WHO SENT ME THE POEM -----

War is only a step, for many a final step, along a path. But societies that fight, in most instances, carry on after a war. It is impossible to wipe out any major group of people. Even Hitler could not wipe out the German Jew completely. Someone, always, survives. Wounded, suffering, their numbers decimated or worse, those groups which are beaten (and even the winners sometimes) have no choice but to carry on, and so they do, suffering. When the land is poisoned by the war, generations unborn suffer as well.

Right now approaches a new kind of warrior, who threatens the whole world with poisonous destruction. It could be worse than any battle in the longest war ever, against the unstoppable Mother Nature (hurricanes, cyclones, floods, earthquakes, etc.). Anyone who does not believe a nuclear war can happen by accident has not considered how close we've come in the past!

This new techno-warrior, known as Y2K, is one we have never fought before. It is one against which we have no defense, because of the law of nature that says, if you fix a hundred million lines of computer code, some of your fixes will have errors.

You can't win by proclaiming victory against the "Y2K Bug", even if you spend trillions to beat it (which the world has done). You can only win by making real war impossible. That is, by de-alerting and dismantling the weapons, and by shutting down the nuclear reactors NOW while it is safer to do so than it will be when/if the grid fails, on Y2K-day. The phones might fail. The Internet might fail. There may even be riots preventing people from getting to work. All this, and yet those who bring us the "demon hot atom" keep right on keeping on like nothing can go wrong, and shutting down is not the obvious solution.

Someone might leave a valve open that should have been shut, or shut one that should have been left open, or open one that should have been left shut, or -- well, these things DO happen! Normally, there are many, many layers of backup systems -- not enough, but many. On Y2K many of those might be compromised. That is the classic definition of "an accident waiting to happen". THIS accident will wait less than two months. Then it will happen. Will it be a fender-bender or the mother of all catastrophes? That depends on how prepared we become in the meantime.

If we shut down two commercial reactors a day in the U.S.A., we would have them all shut down by Y2K. Then if we are foolish, we can start them up again. But at least, shut them down NOW!

Y2K, a very bold combatant, has announced his arrival with 1000 clear warnings, and an unmistakable calender appointment. Yet America remains less prepared for disaster now than ever in her history.

-- rdh

(3) Chinese Embassy Bombing-- and something a million times worse:

The following is the beginning, end, and an interesting middle paragraph from a report sent to us by Richard Wilcox:

----- CLIP FROM REPORT BY THREE MAJOR MEDIA REPORTERS: -----

FAIR-L
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports

ACTION ALERT: U.S. Media Overlook Expose on Chinese Embassy Bombing

October 22, 1999

A detailed investigative article in the October 17 London Observer reported that NATO deliberately bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade last May, after discovering that the embassy was relaying Yugoslav military radio signals.

The report contradicted the public assurances of NATO leaders that the missile attack had been an accident. The Observer's sources included "a flight controller operating in Naples, an intelligence officer monitoring Yugoslav radio traffic from Macedonia and a senior [NATO] headquarters officer in Brussels."
...
In July, CIA director George Tenet testified in Congress that out of the 900 targets struck by NATO during the three-month bombing campaign, only one was developed by the CIA: the Chinese Embassy (AP, 7/22/99).
...
ACTION: Please call national and local media and ask them to follow up on the Observer's investigation of the China embassy bombing. Mention that news outlets should present the idea that the embassy was bombed by accident as a claim made by NATO, not an objective fact.

New York Times
Andrew Rosenthal
Foreign Editor
mailto: andyr@nytimes.com

Washington Post
Jim Hoagland
Chief Foreign Correspondent
mailto: hoaglandj@washpost.com

USA Today
Douglas Stanglin
World Editor
mailto: dstanglin@usatoday.com

----- END OF CLIP FROM REPORT BY THREE MAJOR MEDIA REPORTERS -----

The following letter was sent in response by YH&OS. -- rdh

----- OUTGOING EMAIL FROM THE EDITOR OF THE STOP CASSINI NEWSLETTER: -----

To: New York Times, Andrew Rosenthal, Foreign Editor
mailto:andyr@nytimes.com
Washington Post, Jim Hoagland, Chief Foreign Correspondent
mailto:hoaglandj@washpost.com
USA Today, Douglas Stanglin, World Editor
mailto:dstanglin@usatoday.com

Dear Sirs:

I just want you to know that the STOP CASSINI newsletter has consistently stated that the bombing of the Chinese Embassy was only "questionably" an accident, starting with our first report the next day, in newsletter #123, which is reproduced in its entirety here:

***** FROM STOP CASSINI NEWSLETTER #123, MAY 8TH, 1999: *****

NATO bombs Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia

Yesterday, NATO "accidentally" bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. Smart bombs? Collateral damage? Reportedly, three missiles struck the building -- clearly, this was a very carelessly thought out attack. Were the coordinates wrong? Did the video-game playing cross-hairs control-freak have the wrong building under his sites?

At least two people were killed including a reporter for the official Chinese news agency, and 21 injured, many seriously. Undoubtedly the weapons used in the attack contained Depleted Uranium, so long-term health effects can be expected both for the victims of the attack and the rescuers, and the civilians who live nearby, and downstream, and downwind.

******** END OF REPORT FROM SC NEWSLETTER #123 ********

As you can see, right away I felt this was very disturbing and things just weren't "right". Things didn't add up.

By May 27th, issue #131, we were blaming the CIA, for "arranging (by accident? I doubt it!) the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by NATO forces".

By newsletter #140 on June 19th, 1999, we wrote of the CIA, "They bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, and have yet to explain how that happened to the American People (let alone, to the Chinese, who still today, aren't buying their explanations)".

We have consistently deplored the attack first because it was an attack on journalists. And second, for a million other reasons.

We've sent every issue of our newsletter to our elected representatives, and to some media outlets as well. Alas, it has done no good. But I must say, that if you think that Chinese embassy bombing and the subsequent cover-up of the facts is something frightening (which it is), please realize what is happening regarding the Y2K-nuclear issue. It's a million times more frightening. Hindsight may be 20/20, but it could be a terrible place to realize we all should have done something, now just 62 days before the deadline. ONE nuclear meltdown anywhere, because of any problem, means we didn't do enough. I have written extensively and talked to many anti-nuclear experts (not just activists) about the problem. The planet is in grave, grave danger.

Thank you for reading this letter.

Sincerely,

Russell Hoffman
Peace Activist
Carlsbad, CA
Founder and Editor
STOP CASSINI newsletter, now in its 218th issue

----- END OF OUTGOING LETTER TO THREE MAJOR NEWSPAPER PEOPLE -----

Please contact the above-named authors directly for their complete statement (please tell them you read about it in the STOP CASSINI newsletter!). -- rdh

(4) A skilled attack on the editor of this newsletter? Hardly, but a calculated one:

This person unsubscribed, so I sent him the usual "unsubscribe" letter which currently reads as shown, which included the 50-question Cassini quiz first shown in newsletter #197, (September 27th, 1999) which Andrejs Jansons tried to answer, as shown in newsletter #218 (October 30th, 1999). Instead of answering the questions, I received the calculated B.S. which follows the outgoing letter: -- rdh

----- OUTGOING TYPICAL EMAIL TO UNSUBSCRIBERS: -----

To: Brian Bennett
From: Russell D. Hoffman
Re: (This email is in response to your email to us, shown below)

Hi!

You have been "unsubscribed" from the STOP CASSINI newsletter list. If you have any comments as to why you have dropped off at this time, or what you would have liked to have seen instead, I would be interested to hear.

In any event thank you very much for having subscribed in the past and I'm sorry to see you go. I hope you will work to oppose other nuclear launches on your own. If it's not too much trouble, please take the time to answer The Cassini Quiz, shown below, and return it to me, so that I can gauge the effectiveness of my presentation these past several hundred issues.

Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,

Russell Hoffman
Founder & Editor
STOP CASSINI newsletter
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/index.htm

STOP CASSINI WEB SITE:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/cassini.htm

FIFTY CASSINI QUESTIONS (compiled by Russell D. Hoffman) [as shown in newsletter #197 -- rdh ]

----- END OF OUTGOING TYPICAL EMAIL TO UNSUBSCRIBERS -----

Sending this letter often gets responses (which is why I send it). Here's what Mr. Bennett sent:

----- INCOMING "EXPLANATION" OF WHY THIS PERSON UNSUBSCRIBED: -----

At 07:22 PM 10/31/99 -0500, Brian Bennett wrote:

Actually, I'm from the other side and support NASA and anyone else working to get us off this planet. The use of nuclear power in space is, IMHO, safe, cheap and practical.

My reasons for leaving the list are twofold:

a) In the past year I have not read anything on the newsletter that passed remotely as "knowledgeable discourse," just the ramblings of you and your captive audience; and

b) I doubt your sincerity to the true sciences involved here. It seems to me that you are among the people who believe that attaching the word "nuclear" to anything automatically makes it evil.

The simple fact of the matter is that your laughable little Luddite movement will be seen by future generations as a joke. Imagine this conversation in a future 20th C. History class:

"Among the threats faced by these intrepid men were engineering problems never faced by mankind before, immense budgetary problems that forced these people to beg monies from know-nothing Congressmen, and a small but vocal environmental fringe who fought them tooth and nail, attempting to prevent them from using the tools they had been provided"

"Teach, lemme get this straight. The atmosphere was polluted, factories were encroaching on forests and the water was becoming poisoned by industrial waste, and some people wanted to KEEP this mess on Earth??"

"That's right, Sally. They had little or no effect on the actual timeline as we see it, but the ill-will they helped to create towards science took several generations to 'unteach' from the people."

As I am studying for finals right now, I'll pass on your test, but to answer #50, RGB 139,104,077

B

PS -- I loved your switch to Y2K scare tactics. It would seem that you are polishing your act as a doomsayer and have latched on to the "cause du jour" for your pitiful little soapbox. Send me a note when you decide to tackle the all important issue of "falling skys" [(sic)]

----- END OF INCOMING "EXPLANATION" OF WHY THIS PERSON UNSUBSCRIBED -----

----- MY RESPONSE TO BRIAN BENNETT: -----

To: Brian Bennett (bennett_bf bennett_bf@ACADMN.MERCER.EDU )
From: Russell Hoffman ( )
Re: Your followup "unsubscribe" email to me [shown above]
Date: November 1st, 1999 (less than two months before Y2K)

Sir,

It is my opinion that your letter is, at best, [a] tale told by an idiot. I am certain you did not really read many of my newsletters. You say I am trying to block people from getting off this planet. I have NEVER said anything remotely like that. In fact, since long before I came into the Cassini battle, I have been FOR human exploration of the solar system. In a reasonable, safe, HONEST way. Not the current NASA way.

And I have said that time and again to Luddites like YOU -- yes -- you are the Luddite, because you think all technology is good. You love the demon hot atom -- where do you oppose it? You should be more careful whom you call a Luddite, or your ignorance will betray you.

What is good about technology is, for example the Internet. Global positioning systems are good (but don't really have to be orbital). Home PC's are good. The renewable energy sources that could be built (but instead we are suffering under the nuclear options accepted by the public through lies and secrecy) would be good if we would start building them. Ground-based public transportation systems are good and we should build vastly more.

(Recently, I slammed Boeing and Lockheed together in the same sentence in an aside in a newsletter (you probably missed it). I said these were the wrong companies and these were the wrong technologies for America to be building its future with. Since then, a top Lockheed executive suddenly resigned, and a EgyptAir Boeing 767 crashed off Nantucket Island with 217 people on board.)

Ground-based transportation systems - -magnetic levitation lines, specifically, are hundreds or even thousands of times safer than air travel. America needs to learn this.

Who are you, Mr. Bennett? You are a liar. I call you a liar and a charlatan. A plant. A fraud. Your letter is meaningless. You are at best, a fool.

If you really had studied the things I said more carefully, you would have had ample opportunity to reply to specific statements you believe I am in error about. You would not find the quiz to be something that takes too long to do. You would not call the famous people who have written in support of the things I write my "captive audience". You would, perhaps, start to face reality.

You are clearly one of those who thinks mankind is capable of perfection. You are right about one thing: There is nothing wrong with nuclear power in theory. In practice, however, it is a living nightmare. Why do you support it? Because you believe lies, you assume fallacies, and you decree wishful thinking to be fact. You live, in a word, in a dreamworld.

And clearly, you are not one who walks down the halls of the cancer wards for an opinion, but you ARE one who does not grasp that the statistical studies you base your claims that nuclear power is safe on, are falsified.

You call me a Luddite. You can defend that only with your claim that my attacks on Cassini's nuclear threat are unjustified, even though that attack was PROVEN WHOLLY JUSTIFIED by the lost of the Mars Climate Orbiter, which you evidently missed! You certainly cannot defend that statement against the whole of me -- I have supported high-technology like the Internet for 20 years. My company was the first to supply software via America Online as long-time readers --as opposed to lurkers like you -- would know. I have supported large technology projects such as the G.E.N.I. project, I support high-tech wind farms, tidal and wave energy, geo-thermal, and many other forms of renewable, mostly small-scale energy solutions.

What do YOU support, Mr. Bennett? Nuclear death from cancer, leukemia, and birth defects. The demon hot atom. 400,000+ Curies in one rickety rocket is NOT within the scale of reason. It is too much. You are a fool.

As for Y2K, you obviously are oblivious to government actions, government reports, and government fools. Because there are clear signs that to proclaim "all is not well with Y2K" is the understatement of the millennium. Are you storing food and water yourself? Medical supplies, cash and ammo? Anything?

The truth should be clear that AMERICA'S DUTY is to ALL nuclear facilities, everywhere in the world -- to see that they are as safe as possible. We owe this to our own children, to protect the world from the danger of spilled, leaked or explosively distributed radioactive poisons. If the rusting and dilapidated Russian subs lose the grid that powers their pumps, it matters greatly to us here in the United States, and to our descendents. That is why Y2K has become my cause. Because unlike your fantasies about the technological problems with space missions (NUCLEAR ISN'T VITAL), my fears of Y2K are reasonable, and grounded firmly in the reality of the situation.

If they weren't, we wouldn't be planning to pull our embassy staff from Moscow and other "high risk" places, would we? Have you bothered to sign on to Paul Swann's Y2K-nuclear list? Or are you afraid that's just my "captive audience" too?

Captive? Who's captive? Certainly not my subscribers, most of whom I don't have any idea who they are. But I know they go out and get things done, and agitate the heck out of NASA (as they should!), and somehow, I get the back up of folks like you, from Bud Aaron to Woody Smith, NOT ONE OF WHOM has been able to follow up on the debate and stand and deliver logical, scientific arguments they claim they have, just as you claim to have.

So go, Mr. Bennett, and proclaim to the world that you have studied The Stop Cassini Newsletter, because you were a subscriber for some time! Proclaim your lies about what is in it, and who reads it, and what it says! But I will likewise tell the world what a fool you are, and how little attention you really paid.

Sincerely,

Russell Hoffman
Peace Activist
Computer Programmer
Etc.

P.S. Attaching the word "nuclear" to something does NOT automatically make it evil and I've never said it does. But using the nuclear option any time a benign alternative exists, or whenever it is excessively dangerous, IS evil, and that covers 99% of the topics I talk about in my newsletter. Take food irradiation, for instance. Titan Corp, a local defense contractor here, has come up with an irradiation system that uses electricity and lasers blah blah blah the net result is that it doesn't use Cobalt-60 or any other radioactive byproduct of the nuclear fuel cycle. No waste to store, isolate, carry, no radiation when the thing is "off" -- most of my arguments against food irradiation are obliterated by use of this machine over other options.

SO, have I ever written against Titan's food irradiation system? No, and as far as I know I never will. Others might oppose it, but I don't, as long as it's used on meat (which I don't eat!) and is properly labeled (on principle). Yet it does irradiate the food.

I pick my battles carefully, Mr. Brian Bennett. You cut with your swath across everything I have written. You label anything by "Russell Hoffman" to be foolishness, yet you cite not one clear example.

----- END OF MY RESPONSE TO BRIAN BENNETT -----

(5) United States Government official contact points:

NASA needs to be told in no uncertain terms they have lied too often to the public and we want a SEA CHANGE away from their nuclear policies!

To learn about the absurd excuses NASA used to launch Cassini and its 72.3 pounds of plutonium in 1997, ask them for the 1995 Environmental Impact Statement for the Cassini mission, and all subsequent documentation. At the same time, be sure to ask them for ANY and ALL documentation available on future uses of plutonium in space, including MILITARY, CIVILIAN, or "OTHER" (just in case they make a new category somehow!). To get this information, contact:

Cassini Public Information
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena CA 91109
(818) 354-5011 or
(818) 354-6478

Here's NASA's "comments" email address: comments@www.hq.nasa.gov

Daniel Goldin is the head of NASA. Here's his email address:
daniel.goldin@hq.nasa.gov
or
dgoldin@mail.hq.nasa.gov

Here's the NASA URL to find additional addresses to submit written questions to:

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/facts/HTML/FS-002-HQ.html

YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW WHAT NASA IS DOING TO YOUR HEALTH.

NASA should never have been allowed to launch monstrosities like Cassini and Galileo (which recently suffered a nine-hour "lost in space" anomoly (NASA calls it "safe mode" which is the opposite of what it really is) just before it did a flyby of Io), but the next breed -- such as Europa Orbiter and Pluto-Kuiper Express are not much better and the policy is being set for greatly increased rates of missions! The danger continues! To complain to NASA about their future nuclear space probes, here are two addresses you can use:

For Europa Orbiter:
Europa Orbiter comments" osseuropa@hq.nasa.gov

For Pluto-Kuiper Express:
"Pluto-Kuiper Express comments" osspluto@hq.nasa.gov

Be sure to "cc" the president and VP and your senators and congresspeople, too.

President Bill Clinton
White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20500
Phone -- (202) 456-1111
Fax -- (202) 456-2461
e-mail -- president@whitehouse.gov

Vice President Albert Gore
White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.,
N.W.,Washington, D.C. 20500
Phone -- (202) 456-1414
Fax -- (202) 456-2461
e-mail -- vicepresident@whitehouse.gov

Secretary William Cohen
1000 Defense
The Pentagon
Washington D.C. 20301
Phone -- (703) 695-6352

Secretary Bill Richardson
Department of Energy (DoE)
1000 Independence Avenue SW
Washington D.C. 20585
Phone -- (202) 586-6210
fax -- (202) 586-4403

Always include your full name and postal address in all correspondence to any Government official of any country, because otherwise they will throw it out unread, or hand it directly to their police force to try to identify the author. (Thus, nothing good will come of it.) Also, ALWAYS include a personal message of some sort, indicating YOUR OWN VIEWS, even if you include a lot of material written by other people (me, for instance).

(6) Subscription information:

Thanks for reading! Welcome new subscribers!

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Published by Russell D. Hoffman electronically.
Written in U.S.A.
This newsletter is free and is not distributed for profit.
Please distribute these newsletters EVERYWHERE!

"There can be no democracy without truth, no justice without mercy, and no nuclear dispersals without ill consequences."

(7) Authorship notes and associated links:

**************************************************************

Many of the issues presented by Russell Hoffman in this letter are based on conversations with Dr. John W. Gofman (who isolated the first working quantities of plutonium), the late Dr. Karl Z. Morgan (who was known as the "father of health physics"), Dr. Ernest Sternglass (who has done statistical studies about LLR), Dr. Jay Gould (ditto), Dr. Horst Poehler, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Dr. Ross Wilcock and dozens of activists, as well as many others on both sides of the nuclear debates, including ex military nuke expert Jack Shannon (responsible for the design of the D2G Navy reactor, the most widely used reactor in the U. S. navy), award-winning investigative reporter Karl Grossman, ecologist and human rights advocate Pamela Blockey-O'Brien, etc. Also, I've read a few dozen books on the various subjects. And scads of government documents purporting to explain how something so dangerous can be safe. Professionally, my pump training software is used throughout the pump industry and even in some nuclear power plants around the world to train their staff about mechanical pumps. Any errors herein are regrettably my own, but I believe it would take an extremely unlikely preponderance of errors to invalidate my basic position on these issues.

*************************************************************
Russell D. Hoffman, Carlsbad, California, Peace Activist, Environmentalist, High Tech Guru:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/whoisrdh.htm

Hoffman's Y2K Preparedness Information:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/y2k/index.htm

Learn about The Effects of Nuclear War here:
http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/tenw/nuke_war.htm

************************************************************
** THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY
** Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer
** Carlsbad CA
** Visit the world's most eclectic web site:
** http://www.animatedsoftware.com
************************************************************

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The Animated Software Company

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