STOP CASSINI Newsletter #250 -- December 30th, 1999

Copyright (c) 1999

STOP CASSINI Newsletters Index
To: Subscribers, government officials, members of the press
From: Russell David Hoffman (who else?)
Re: Are YOU prepared yet? I hope so! STOP CASSINI #250
Date: December 30th, 1999 (evening edition)

Note: We will be online and reading our email, and will also continue to publish the STOP CASSINI newsletter (if we can think of something to say) during the "Y2K rollover", if necessary.  The STOP CASSINI editor's Internet Service Provider has stated that they expect the Internet connection to remain functional, and we have tested our Internet PC and it is fully operational with a "1/1/2000" date.  So please send any news of local Y2K-related events directly to the editor at:

rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

We would like to thank those who have contributed to this newsletter, and wish everyone a safe and happy Y2K and beyond.

Sincerely,

Russell D. Hoffman
Founder and Editor
STOP CASSINI newsletter

This issue's subjects:

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*** (1) Happy Christmas from the nuclear industry:
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----- EMAIL FROM ANDY SAVAGE: -----

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 21:49:19 +0000
From: savage <savage@easynet.co.uk>
Organization: http://www.eco-action.org/
To: "Russell D. Hoffman" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
Subject: [Fwd: [cndyorks] Fwd:  Happy Christmas from the nuclear industry]

-------- Original Message --------
Thought you might like this. It made me laugh, horrible as it is.
andy

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 11:45:43 -0000
From: "John Thomas" <discovery@oneworld38.freeserve.co.uk>
To: "CND Yorks" <cndyorks@onelist.com>

BBC Ceefax, December 29th, 1999

GROTTO BUILT WITH N-WASTE CONTAINERS

A Santa's grotto used by hundreds of children in the run-up to Christmas
was made of containers used to store nuclear waste, it has emerged.

The grotto, in Thurso, Caithness, was built by apprentices from the nearby
Dounreay nuclear plant.

The four containers had been used to store low-level waste.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority, which runs the plant, said the containers
had been thoroughly cleaned beforehand.

----- END OF EMAIL FROM ANDY SAVAGE -----

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*** (2) New York, New York could go dark any minute:
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New York, New York could go dark any minute (it's happened before) but some minutes are more likely than others to result in a blackout. --- rdh

----- INCOMING EMAIL ABOUT CON-ED: -----

From: MSO9922@aol.com
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 18:50:10 EST
Subject: NYTimes Article

Here is an interesting note from Con Ed:  <<officials said, they might have
some glitches in nonessential computer systems that could cut off power for a
few minutes.>>  In the newspaper of record, no less.  See 4th paragraph.

New York Times

December 29, 1999

Con Ed Expects No Millennial Blackouts
By JAYSON BLAIR
Convinced that there is little likelihood that computer problems or an
overtaxed power system will cause a blackout as the clock strikes midnight on
New Year's Eve, Consolidated Edison officials said yesterday that they were
focusing instead on security at their plants in the region and had asked law
enforcement agencies for assistance.

Officials from Con Ed, which has about six million customers in the New York
region, said they had all but ruled out any major power failures resulting
from overuse or computer problems related to the year 2000.

In an interview, Eugene R. McGrath, the president and chairman of Con Ed,
said that while demand was expected to be high on Friday and Saturday, it was
not expected to approach the levels that contributed to an 18-hour blackout
this summer in parts of Upper Manhattan.

At the most, officials said, they might have some glitches in nonessential
computer systems that could cut off power for a few minutes. But over all,
Mr. McGrath said, he expects the system to be running without incident before
and after the 83,000-watt Waterford ball drops in Times Square.

Mr. McGrath, who came under fire from Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani after the
summer's power failures, said that Con Ed's computer systems would not be
affected by the Year 2000 computer problems, and that the company had taken
"problems like we had last summer, and fed the information back into our
system to fix the problems."

Amid concerns that terrorists could target New York City on New Year's Eve,
Con Ed and the companies that supply its system with power are taking
security precautions.

"We've worked with law enforcement throughout our territory to make sure
certain security measures were taken," said Robert Leonard, a Con Ed
spokesman. Mr. Leonard would not give specifics. But law enforcement
officials said that they planned to monitor certain company sites perceived
as "soft targets."

Deputy Chief Thomas Fahey, a New York Police Department spokesman, also would
not comment on the arrangements.

But law enforcement officials said that their agencies had come up with lists
of nongovernment buildings that could be targeted by terrorists. While
cautioning that little can be done to prepare for all conceivable targets,
law enforcement officials have said that in some cases, including Con Ed's,
they plan to monitor operations.

Yesterday, Joseph Leary, a spokesman for the New York Power Authority, said
that his agency, which supplies one-third of Con Ed's power, had prepared for
the possibility of terrorist attacks. Mr. Leary said that his agency began
preparing for the new millennium three years ago, and that in June the
Electric Reliability Council, an industry group, certified all the company's
critical systems as ready for the year 2000.

Mr. McGrath said there was no reason for concern. "Normally, at midnight on a
winter night we would expect something around 5,000 megawatts on a peak
load," he said. "We could have as high as 7,000 or 7,500 on New Year's Eve.
That is quite a bit higher than normal on a winter night, but it is nowhere
near our peak load of about 12,000 megawatts."

During the heat wave last summer, power use reached 11,850 megawatts,
officials said.

Still, in the celebrations to greet the new year, an anticipated 225 million
watts of electricity -- or enough to light 28 apartment buildings -- will be
used in Times Square alone.

The red, blue, yellow and green ball, which Mr. McGrath will light at 6:57
a.m. on New Year's Eve when it becomes New Year's Day on the other side of
the globe, will use enough energy to power 100 apartments, officials said.

----- END OF INCOMING EMAIL ABOUT CON-ED -----


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*** (3) Top six reasons Clinton should act now to increase safety factor!:
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----- INCOMING EMAIL MESSAGE FORWARDED BY PAUL SWANN: -----

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 18:41:55 +0000
To: y2k-nuclear@egroups.com
From: Paul Swann <pswann@easynet.co.uk>
Mailing-List: contact y2k-nuclear-owner@egroups.com
List-Archive: <http://www.egroups.com/group/y2k-nuclear/>
Subject: [y2k-nuclear] Fwd: [y2kwash] last message?

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 1999 23:04:02 -0800
From: "Soula  " <soula@mailcity.com>
Subject: [y2kwash] last message?


Hi, this is possibly the last message I will be sending out, as I'm getting
ready to leave town tomorrow.

Best of luck to all the world.  I'm sure that all of usl hope that we have
been worrying too much about this moment and that everything will be fine!
------
press memo 12/29

MEMO
To:     Interested reporters
From:  Barbara George, Women's Energy Matters: 510-528-5104
Mary Beth Brangan & Jim Heddle, Y2K WASH: 415-868-1900, 415-505-5987
Mary Olson, NIRS: 505-351-2538 (after Wed. evening)
Re:     Top Six Reasons for a Y2K World Atomic Safety Holiday
Date:   December 29, 1999

The Y2K World Atomic Safety Holiday (Y2K WASH), an international alliance
of nuclear safety advocates has written to the President asking for an
Executive Order to address critical, unresolved Y2K safety issues at
nuclear power plants. Thousands of people in the United States and abroad
have signed petitions, made calls and written similar letters.
Co-chairs of the Senate Y2K Committee expressed dismay at the inadequacy of
the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Y2K program, following a critical
General Accounting Office report. In addition, top computer experts have
confirmed the wisdom of Y2K WASH nuclear safety recommendations.
 "Now, only three days from rollover, we have yet to hear of any concrete
actions. The public needs to know whether the Administration plans to put
safety first in this most dangerous of all industries, when nuclear
technology rolls into the uncharted territory of Y2K," said Mary Olson of
Nuclear Information & Resource Service and co-founder of Y2K WASH.
TOP SIX REASONS FOR A NUCLEAR SAFETY HOLIDAY
#6      "Nuclear fuel rods are so hot when they are removed from reactors,
they need cooling for five years. But most spent (used) fuel pools in U.S.
nuclear power plants have NO backup generators," said David Lochbaum,
nuclear safety expert with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Pools can
boil dry and begin meltdown in as little as 24 hours; adding more water
could make matters worse by flooding sensitive equipment. Reactors have
even less margin of error-only two hours, if the grid goes down and
generators don't work."
#5      Government lab studies from 1982 estimated that one meltdown would
cost over 100,000 lives and $300 billion.
#4      Y2K WASH calls for operators to shut down reactors and back up
reactors and spent fuel pools with reliable generators and more fuel, in
case of grid outages. The alliance also calls for "de-alerting" of nuclear
weapons. "Any time up to New Year's Eve-or even in the following weeks,
diesel locomotives could be parked next to reactors for additional backup,"
Olson said.
#3      Instead of shutting down, the NRC has announced plans to suspend
nuclear safety regulations in order to keep reactors running during the
rollover. The NRC had no answer for the Senate Committee's question of what
minimum standards would apply in their "enforcement discretion" policy.
#2      The NRC denied the Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS)
petition to require end-to-end testing, and kept no list of Y2K reviews at
reactors.
#1      According to Michael Cherry, a top expert on embedded systems,
"Each system must be tested, because the same components will behave
differently depending on how a particular system was designed."
Cherry, President of Century Corp., co-authored a November report with Gary
Fisher of National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST). The paper,
which is on the government web site, proved that embedded systems are a
high risk, after mistakenly being considered low risk for over a year, and
may cause dangerous failures.
After a meeting with Cherry and other experts in November, John Koskinen
expressed a new understanding that some embedded systems that do not appear
to track the date may nonetheless have date sensitive microchips in them.
"Now the issue is what's been done in the nuclear industry since that
revelation, which we have been unable to find out," said Cherry. "I
proposed rolling back all the clocks in the electricity industry away from
the year 2000, so that we do Y2K in stages, not all at once." Cherry has
designed embedded systems including NCR cash registers and scanners and
provided Y2K remediation for large corporations including Xerox.
Cherry acknowledged that time is running out, and if these steps aren't
taken, the only way to assure that nuclear reactors don't experience
embedded chip problems will be to shut them down and provide good backup
generators in case non-nuclear generators also fail. "There's no good
reason to take a chance on nuclear disaster," he said.

Expert contacts:
Michael Cherry, Century Corp.: 201-782-9311, 203-668-0080
NIST article: www.nist.gov/y2k/embeddedarticle.htm

----- END OF INCOMING MESSAGE -----

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*** (4) From the mailbag: Big arguments over fine lines:
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In issue #246 we presented an item from a long-time subscriber.  Here is a follow-up:

----- INCOMING FOLLOW-UP EMAIL FROM A LONG-TIME STOP CASSINI SUBSCRIBER: -----

Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 17:25:42 EST
Subject: Fwd: Re-send:  General
To: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com

In a message dated 12/26/99 8:07:12 PM Central Standard Time,
rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com writes:

> Indeed, I would have thought that the answers to such questions as you've
>  posed would in fact be quite clear from the details in the newsletters,

Thank you for taking the time to answer, although I think you misunderstood a
little my inquiry and jumped to conclusions about my own personal opinions
unwarranted by my inquiry.  I have read many of the newsletters, though not
all of all of them and not all of the ones I have read, but I was looking for
some short summary (like a platform, perhaps?) from you (rather than an
inaccurate paraphrase by me) that I could then pass on to others who might be
interested. 

But I also was looking for a little clarification.  I am sorry if I was not
able to glean from all your writings about different specific uses of nuclear
power whether there were ANY (e.g., for medical purposes) that you would find
acceptable -- but I wasn't sure, which is why I asked. 

As to "ignoring renewable energy solutions, ignoring the dangers from nuclear
operations, ignoring the lies that have allowed nuclear energy solutions to
propagate," I do not believe I expressed any opinion, either way, in my
inquiry, and I do not think you should infer any from my merely asking.

The one exception, I thought, was a statement of my belief that that we are
likely to run out of fossil fuels within a couple of hundred years, which is
but a fragment of recorded human history and a cause for great concern about
what comes after.  You said, "I'm not worried that without nukes, coal and
oil supplies will disappear in 200 years and I find such a question
preposterous."  I am encouraged by your optimism, but I would really like to
understand the basis for your non-concern about the disappearance of gas,
coal and oil; they are not, after all, renewable resources and new supplies
are increasingly hard to find and/or extract.  Alternatives to gas, coal and
oil FOR ENERGY are foreseeable -- e.g., solar, wind, wood, geothermal, tidal
are all possibilities -- but alternatives to them for OUR PETROCHEMICAL BASE
(e.g., plastics) are not nearly as clear to me.  In my view, without
expressing an opinion as to whether we substitute nuclear, solar, wind, etc.,
we should in general be doing our best to preserve those non-renewable
resources for such non-energy uses.

You also said, "I *am* worried that without proper use of renewables that
will happen."  Again, I apologize if I may have missed the answer, spread out
among the 245 issues, but do you have an actual checklist of those "proper
uses" that would preserve and increase the various renewables," whatever they
are?  A concise re-statement of such a platform, which could be copied and
sent to politicians (and by those who accept nuclear power as well as by
those who don't) would probably be as welcome to all your readers as to me.

As to the question about use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances, I
don't believe the "better Red than dead" public policy debate ever reached a
consensus, and I was curious about your view:  IF using nuclear weapons was
the only way to save your life, your family, your community and your freedom,
would YOU use them?  I did not express any opinion of my own.  A question I
didn't ask is whether the firebombings of Tokyo or Dresden were morally
different from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the casualties
were about the same.

Thank you again.

----- END OF INCOMING EMAIL -----

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

Hi

Thank you for your followup, and I've interspersed some answers [[[ the answers are separated by triple brackets -- rdh ]]].:

At 05:25 PM 12/28/99 -0500, you wrote:
In a message dated 12/26/99 8:07:12 PM Central Standard Time,
rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com writes:

> Indeed, I would have thought that the answers to such questions as you've
>  posed would in fact be quite clear from the details in the newsletters,

Thank you for taking the time to answer, although I think you misunderstood a
little my inquiry and jumped to conclusions about my own personal opinions
unwarranted by my inquiry.  I have read many of the newsletters, though not
all of all of them and not all of the ones I have read, but I was looking for
some short summary (like a platform, perhaps?) from you (rather than an
inaccurate paraphrase by me) that I could then pass on to others who might be
interested. 

[[[ Perhaps I wasn't clear.  No, my "position statement" cannot be summarized quickly.  I believe there are minimal legitimate uses of nuclear materials.  Neither nuclear or petrochemicals are sustainable ways to provide electrical power.  They can be replaced by renewable sources which I've listed many times (and do so again below).

Nuclear Energy has had its day.  That day came in the horror of a world war, that day was propagated through the lies of the "Cold War", and that day has infected our health, our welfare, our freedom, our legacy, and everything else in our lives -- all in a negative way.  Not "too cheap to meter" as was promised, rather, nuclear power is "too expensive to believe".  The accounting methods falsify the costs of using plutonium and other radioactive materials by hiding the deaths, which occur randomly and years later, making them extremely easy to hide.

You ask for a positive thing nuclear power has given us.  Perhaps you want me to say "food irradiation".  But Titan Corporation has come up with a way to irradiate food using lasers instead of nuclear waste (Cobalt 60, Cesium 137, whatever).  I still wouldn't want to eat it -- but it's the transport, storage, and dangers associated with the radioactive material used in the food irradiation process, much more than the process itself, which I have objected to.

Perhaps you want me to say "Chemotherapy".  That nasty, horrid procedure whereby the doctors -- with the patients' help, because the patients want desperately to live -- zap you with as much radiation as your mental fortitude can stand, making you nauseous until you can't stomach it anymore -- the more you can take, the more likely the procedure is to work.  And why do they do this ghastly thing to people (while forbidding them the use of "medicinal herbs", which come straight from mother nature's green garden, to ease the nausea and the pain)?  To cure cancers caused more often than not by industrial pollution -- in other words caused by someone's dirty profit -- including chemical pollution AND radiological pollution.  Ugh!

What else?  Smoke detectors?  Firemen have to breath in plutonium when the detectors burn, along with the fumes from the plastic, and you can't incinerate them in dumps either, but the fact of the matter is, you don't need to use Pu in smoke detectors because they can be made with non-radioactive components.  So that's not it either.

Deep space missions?  The D.E. Rockey JPL report in 1981 made clear that Galileo could have been a solar mission even back then.  As discussed near the time of the Earth flyby last August, Cassini could have been a solar mission as well, perhaps as two missions at worst, but so what?  So that's not it.  To see Pluto?  Pluto is not going anywhere or changing significantly.  Find a safer way to go, and I'll gladly support it but no, Pluto alone is not worth more than perhaps .001 Curies of Plutonium -- what's that, 1000 smoke detector's worth, approximately?  Not 400,000 Curies, like what Cassini carried!

Power generation?  Not a chance.  The only reason nuclear power appears to be profitable is because all the big expenses are being taken on by the taxpayer in bills as yet unpaid (the nuclear waste problem) or bills claimed to be for something else ("defense").  We don't need that dirty energy when tide, wave, solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, and many other forms of energy would amply supply our needs if we invested in them instead of in nukes.  They would supply our needs without danger. -- rdh ]]]

But I also was looking for a little clarification.  I am sorry if I was not
able to glean from all your writings about different specific uses of nuclear
power whether there were ANY (e.g., for medical purposes) that you would find
acceptable -- but I wasn't sure, which is why I asked. 

[[[ Whenever you consider if a use is "acceptable" or not, you have to take into account not just the immediate effects, but the entire cycle.  If nuclear power plants are closed, there will be no tritium to make nuclear bombs.  There are no reasons to add more and more nuclear waste to the piles of it we already have, and the crime of dispersing nuclear waste into the environment must be suitably punishable like other crimes against humanity, like dumping oil at sea, for example.  Right now, most nuclear dispersals are ignored and past ones are covered up.  That's been true for 60 years and there are 10s of thousands of radioactive waste sites that are often unmarked, uninventoried, unprotected, and sometimes under water as well, scattered, and leaking.  You keep asking, "where is it good?  where is it good?"   Maybe there is a place.  Sure.  Chemotherapy, for the moment, might be a necessary evil.  Most X-rays could be replaced with better techniques, but not all.  So?  That's about 1,000,000th of the problem of nuclear waste in the environment.  Yet hearing me say something is good about nuclear materials makes such a huge difference to you that you have pestered me for years on the issue.  Why?  Where's your sense of proportion? -- rdh ]]]

As to "ignoring renewable energy solutions, ignoring the dangers from nuclear
operations, ignoring the lies that have allowed nuclear energy solutions to
propagate," I do not believe I expressed any opinion, either way, in my
inquiry, and I do not think you should infer any from my merely asking.

[[[ The answer to your question should be obvious in light of the considerations I listed, and as they say, "not to decide is to decide".  So I think it is reasonable to infer your opinion from your line of questions as well as your lack of cooperative action. -- rdh ]]]

The one exception, I thought, was a statement of my belief that that we are
likely to run out of fossil fuels within a couple of hundred years, which is
but a fragment of recorded human history and a cause for great concern about
what comes after.  You said, "I'm not worried that without nukes, coal and
oil supplies will disappear in 200 years and I find such a question
preposterous."  I am encouraged by your optimism, but I would really like to
understand the basis for your non-concern about the disappearance of gas,
coal and oil; they are not, after all, renewable resources and new supplies
are increasingly hard to find and/or extract.  Alternatives to gas, coal and
oil FOR ENERGY are foreseeable -- e.g., solar, wind, wood, geothermal, tidal
are all possibilities -- but alternatives to them for OUR PETROCHEMICAL BASE
(e.g., plastics) are not nearly as clear to me.  In my view, without
expressing an opinion as to whether we substitute nuclear, solar, wind, etc.,
we should in general be doing our best to preserve those non-renewable
resources for such non-energy uses.

[[[ Why do it "without expressing an opinion as to whether we substitute nuclear..."?  It makes a whole lot more sense to add in the same breath, that we don't want to fix one problem by doing something worse!  My "solution" to the problem of running out of petrochemicals for plastics IS renewable energy, and recycling, and reduction in component needs for the average citizen, etc. etc. etc.   If we stop using oil and gas as energy resources -- for cars as well as for electricity -- we will not run out of petrochemicals for plastics in the foreseeable future.  However (as with nuclear) users of petrochemicals must be made to pay the true cost of pollution and of using irreplaceable resources.

All these things are NOT being done to anywhere near the extent they should be and could be.  Good ideas that would save the country billions of dollars in energy wastage are not being promoted because big oil bought out this, that and the other thing years ago.  Look at what happened to public bus and trolley transportation lines in the U.S. in the first few decades of the automobile, how the lines were bought and then closed by the car companies, or shady subcontractors!  And so on, in little steps and big ones, until now we spent the past 60 years thinking we would find an energy solution that was "too cheap to meter", so we didn't start building the more energy-efficient cars, refrigerators, computers, and so on -- we just kept on (and keep on) burning and burning that gas, oil, coal, and nuclear poison.

This country gets about 15% to 20% of its electricity from nukes.  Big deal.  We could replace that with relatively minor austerity measures until renewable energy replacements could come online in a year or two -- I doubt it would take longer than that.  And an immediate effort into full-scale renewables would result in a complete changeover within 10 years -- I'm sure this country can do that, and I don't see how anyone can think differently.  After all, we replace just about every piece of equipment we own within 10 years anyway -- VCRs, TVs, Computers (many times), refrigerators, cars, lawn mowers -- everything.

Settling for nukes is selling humanity's capabilities short.  I'm sure humanity is entirely capable of switching away from poisonous and short-sighted solutions to its energy needs in a very short period of time, given proper understanding of what we are doing and what we should be doing.  Of course, they have to get by those who can't see past the nuclear mantras "too cheap to meter" and "harmless release". -- rdh ]]]

You also said, "I *am* worried that without proper use of renewables that
will happen."  Again, I apologize if I may have missed the answer, spread out
among the 245 issues, but do you have an actual checklist of those "proper
uses" that would preserve and increase the various renewables," whatever they
are? 

[[[ Well, technically you misquoted me (and your quote marks are mismatched) but assuming it's a minor thing, what do you want me to do?  Run through the list of renewable energy resources again because you weren't listening the other half a dozen times (at least) that I've discussed them?  Explain that only about .3% of the sun's energy that falls on Earth is ever used by society?  Explain the benefits of a ground-based public transportation system?  A ground-based fiber-optic communications system (with no more CDs, Videotape, Cassettes, etc. etc.)?  I mean, I've been over that stuff many times, and you can also visit my web site and see some of the wondrous new pumps, for example, that can increase efficiency many times but have yet to become widespread (this is changing, but slower than it should).   Such steps, if initiated today, would guarantee enough coal and oil for the next 1000 years, at least. -- rdh ]]]

A concise re-statement of such a platform, which could be copied and
sent to politicians (and by those who accept nuclear power as well as by
those who don't) would probably be as welcome to all your readers as to me.

[[[ There are 1000 things wrong with nuclear power and 1000 solutions which should be implemented immediately.  I'm sorry that modern society, and you in particular, think it can all be laid out "concisely" when in fact, it is extremely complicated and indeed, were I to do as you demand, it would serve no purpose, for such a shallow set of statements would be easy to refute.  I'm sorry it's impossible for you to read all 245 (now 250 GIANT) issues of my newsletter, but it's really the only way to explain everything, and even then, there are 20 or 30 excellent books I'd recommend as well. -- rdh ]]]

As to the question about use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances, I
don't believe the "better Red than dead" public policy debate ever reached a
consensus, and I was curious about your view:  IF using nuclear weapons was
the only way to save your life, your family, your community and your freedom,
would YOU use them? 

[[[ Of course not.  Funny you would need to ask.  Nor would I use botulism, mustard gas, depleted uranium bullets, etc. etc.  I'd hope the rest of the world would want to HELP save an honest bloke, who fights a clean fight,  and who was forced into a fight by an unfair attacker.  That's what society is all about.  But no, I wouldn't expect to resort to nuclear weapons.  That's like bringing a grenade to a bar, in case you get in a bar fight.  That's how innocents get killed.

Besides, the situation you postulate is preposterous:  We've already lost our freedom, our health, the health of our families, and the economic and physical well-being of our communities -- to the nuclear "demon hot atom".  As you might have read once or twice, my older brother is dead from complications from leukemia, which is often caused by man-made pollutants, specifically plutonium.  So what you postulate -- the deaths, the loss of freedom -- we have all of that --and your (yes YOUR) nuclear weapons haven't helped. -- rdh ]]]

I did not express any opinion of my own. 

[[[ I think you've made your own misunderstandings about the situation pretty clear.  If you really don't think so, I challenge you to come out of the shadows if you really have something to say in plain English, and show what you know.  Your letters are cryptic, I'll admit, but I don't think they are nearly as cryptic as you think they are. -- rdh ]]]

A question I
didn't ask is whether the firebombings of Tokyo or Dresden were morally
different from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the casualties
were about the same.

[[[ I believe they were even more repugnant because we knew exactly what we were doing, and we knew what pain, deaths, and damage we would be causing.  At least with the A-bombings, many people really did think that -- as one military text actually put it -- no one would die from the radiation because anyone who would be harmed by the radiation would have been killed by a flying brick or other debris first.  Besides, most of the crime surrounding the atomic bombings happened after the bombs had exploded, as the actual gruesomeness of the weapon was purposefully hid from the public, and the integrity of the statistical information that was collected regarding the lingering dangers was compromised. -- rdh ]]]

Thank you again.

[[[ You're welcome. -- rdh ]]]

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


Perhaps the writer has done me a favor, helping me to draw out the "fine line" of what is appropriate use of nuclear technology, and what is not.  I guess it's true; some people just never learn. -- rdh


*************************************************************************
*** (5) Y2K is coming -- good luck:
*************************************************************************

This will be my last issue prior to Y2K starting somewhere in the world -- about 3 hours from now.  May God Bless all of my readers, my supporters, my detractors, my adversaries, and probably most of all (because there are so many of them) those who have not read or even heard of this newsletter, who nevertheless might be affected by my failure to stop this potential nuclear nightmare.

One hundred billion dollars has been spent on Y2K.  I hope it was enough.  I pray it was enough.  I'm sure the world is all praying it was enough.

I believe the world will wake up after Y2K and find everything pretty much the same as it is today -- but is that 100 times more likely than a major catastrophe? 1000 times more likely?  1,000,000 times more likely?  That, only time will tell -- the next 24 hours in particular, and the next few months, and the next few years -- where does it end?  When everyone respectable has a nuclear weapon in their basement (which they have managed to build without blowing themselves and their cities up), and everyone who is not respectable does not?  I don't think so.  I'm not in the "prediction" business, only the "realistic assessment of risk" business (shall we say, or maybe I'm just a comedian).  This is my only Y2K prediction:  I think after Y2K the world will come to realize, sooner or later (hopefully sooner), that safety does not come from promises of perfection, and the nuclear "demon hot atom" is no friend of human life.

Writing these newsletters has been a very educational experience, and I cherish the opportunity it has provided me to give people a forum.  I must have letters and comments from 50 different anti-nuclear leaders (big and small) who have thanked me, in the past three years for the work I have done, but just about all I did was write these newsletters.

There are people who are giants among us.  There are those who stand on the shoulders of giants.  And there are those who present the work of giants to others, and end up getting a lot of the credit where none is due.

I do intend to write less of these newsletters, after Y2K.  I also intend to do more mountainbiking.  Nearly a year ago I had an accident which was very frightening.  Shortly after that, this newsletter became a much hotter item for some reason.  There were heated arguments and a Cassini petition was started.  Near the time of the flyby, I realized the whole Cassini battle was in many ways little more than a prelude to the Y2K battle against the nuclear "demon hot atom".  In a few hours that battle will be over -- hopefully, peacefully, without a shot fired or a Curie spilled.

Perhaps someone will then say -- hopefully, everyone will have the opportunity to say, and probably someone actually will say -- "See, Russell, nothing went wrong!  What were you so worried about?"

If the world is fortunate enough that that can possibly happen -- if 100 billion dollars spent in the United States alone, and billions more elsewhere -- was enough to avert all possible Y2K catastrophes, then I think the world will be so absolutely delighted with itself, that it might consider those first few weeks after Y2K to be, low and behold, the perfect time to make some very real gains in the disarmament campaigns, and in getting the nuclear power plants and reprocessing plants shut down too, or at least properly monitored on the Internet, for all to see, etc. etc.   The euphoria of a perfect Y2K will be -- if, God willing, it happens -- a cherished time, and I hope it brings on a peace that lasts forever.

However, if things are not so good -- if things go wrong, I hope that it will NOT be public panic.  I have assumed that the American public -- and indeed, those all around the world -- are capable of not panicking when things get bad.  After all, as I have said, here in America we've survived a Civil War, a Revolution, two -- count-em two -- World Wars, a forgotten war (or two, or twenty, or two hundred), the debacle of Vietnam, and not to mention corrupt Presidents followed in office by even more corrupt Presidents.  I really don't think public panic is a real danger.  Senseless and unfortunate riots might happen in some cities if the lights go out, but that's not the same thing as "panic", and fear of such things did not warrant the lies that the government has presented and continues to present about Y2K, nuke power plants, nuclear weapons, nuclear waste, etc..

I think lying to the American people is the real danger, and I think despite the government, media and corporate lies, the people know the truth, and they are scared, and "fright" is not the same as "panic".  The problems we face need urgent solutions, regardless of how well we weather whatever Y2K turns out to be.

One thing's for certain.  That ain't no 100 Billion dollar Red Herring coming our way.

Good luck everyone, thank you, and may God bless all of you who have found these newsletters a worthy investment of your time in some way or other.  Please don't forget that you've all already had plenty of chances to say your piece in my newsletter (with the exception of a fellow named Zenon Kulpa, whoever he is, whose letters I found too boring to print, and way too vague, but everyone was invited to contact him directly for his view and I don't have anyone who wrote and told me my assessment of his writing was wrong).

Thus, I think, no one has the right to say they've been censored here.  Anyone who thought they had an argument that could disprove my theories has been offered all the space they could possibly have used.  Those who attempted it made some great reading and I'm sure I speak for all my subscribers as well as myself in saying their efforts, however misguided, are greatly appreciated.

So we're done!  Really!  Thank you!  Good night!

I'll be around if you need me, but I really must get back to being a computer programmer who writes interactive animated educational tutorials for a living.  It's the one thing I'm sure I'm good at and no one gives it much of an argument.  I'm tired of the arguing.  The repetitious claims of those who think they have more proof that we need nukes for energy or defense.  It's all tiring.  The truth is available from lots of places, and the web site will remain up to help you find them.  I wish to encourage others to do what I have done, only better.  It was great fun, and very rewarding (didn't pay, of course, which is one reason I have to cut back).

I hope my subscribers especially and the world in general, have learned from all that has been printed here.  To the best of my abilities and knowledge, it has been the truth, so help me God.

I guess I better mention that I have some real doubts that the U.S. government is laying down sky trails that turn into cobwebs, but it COULD happen (this was discussed in several newsletters some time ago).  The rest, I believe to be true and that one I did at the time, but don't anymore.  They're just not that sophisticated (yet).

Oh yeah, one more thing.  At least part of the problem with the index up to newsletter #150 appearing in the index.htm position of the STOP CASSINI newsletter was my fault, namely, a stupid webmastering error.  I've been meaning to mention it.  However, I believe we made enough tests which indicated that was by no means the only problem going on at that time.  It sure didn't help, though!

Those are the only nagging corrections I can think of.  My heart is heavy for having failed to alert the world to the dangers we face, but my conscience is clear that I have given it my best efforts these past 250 issues.  Many of the things we fought for, happened.  For example, in today's paper, I learned that Alexander Nikitin has been acquitted of high treason for his whistle-blowing regarding Russian nukes.  So we certainly didn't lose every battle we took part in, but alas, we lost the war, and the nukes are, for the most part, all going to be operating for no good reason during the Y2K rollover.

Thank you once again.  Now, for me, it's time to party, with an ever-present prayer running through my mind, that God grants the world a Y2K reprieve from danger, and in the new millennium, peace on Earth rules with gentle persuasion.

Russell David Hoffman
Founder and Editor
STOP CASSINI newsletter
Carlsbad, California, USA
www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/cassini.htm


(6) Tell Clinton how you feel -- Official government contact points:


To contact the top government officials:

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 (same address)
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  Fax -- (703) 695-1149

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

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, 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.

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).


(7) Newsletter subscription information:

Thanks for reading!  Welcome new subscribers!

To subscribe, simply email the editor at
rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com and state:
SUBSCRIBE STOP CASSINI NEWSLETTER
Please include a personal message of any
length and subject matter.  Thank you!

To unsubscribe email me and say
UNSUBSCRIBE STOP CASSINI NEWSLETTER

Published by Russell D. Hoffman electronically.
This newsletter is free and is not distributed for profit.
The opinions expressed are those of the individual authors.
Please distribute these newsletters EVERYWHERE!
Written in the United States of America.

(8) Newsletter Authorship notes and additional URLs:

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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CASSINI TABLE OF CONTENTS

CANCEL CASSINI

This article has been presented on the World Wide Web by:

The Animated Software Company
http://www.animatedsoftware.com
Mail to: rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com
First placed online December 30th, 1999.
Last modified January 1st, 2000.
Webwiz: Russell D. Hoffman
 Copyright (c) Russell D. Hoffman