To: downwinders@yahoogroups.com
From: "Russell D. Hoffman" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
Subject: Not all nukes are bad nukes (there's one important exception)

Date: Dec 24th, 2001
Not all nukes are bad nukes (there's one important exception)

Mr. Hoerner,

Dr. John W. Gofman is a nuclear physicist who devised a way to isolate the first "working quantities" of plutonium, for the WWII atomic bomb project known as the Manhattan Project.  He is one of the codiscoverers of Uranium 233.  The first of three patents in his name, on the slow and fast neutron fissionability of Uranium 233, was described by the late Dr. Glen Seaborg as being worth in the neighborhood of "a quatrillion dollars" to the nuclear power industry.  Later, Gofman became a medical doctor, and his work in heart disease and arteriosclerosis garnered him numerous awards and citations.  (A more complete look at Dr. Gofman's substantial c.v. can be found in my STOP CASSINI newsletter #24, available online at my web site.)  He continues to work to this day.  I hope you'll visit www.ratical.org which presents a lot of Dr. Gofman's work.

You argue that low level radiation is harmless.  What research do you have which disputes Dr. Gofman's voluminous studies of low-level radiation, and the conclusions he draws, including that, when it comes to radiation, "any dose is an overdose"?

If you are so sure (that is, despite your recent minor backpedaling (a habit with you, I've noticed)) that 400 rem to your little finger is harmless, I just ask that you find some sort of device that can apply that dose --  400 rem -- to your finger, say, a trillion times a second for the rest of your life.

The radiation in the natural environment was dropping steadily for about 4 and 1/2 billion years until people like YOU came along and screwed everything up.

Until radiation levels dropped sufficiently, advanced lifeforms weren't possible on this planet.  Delicate DNA sequences could not be reliably (that's the key word here) passed down from generation to generation.  It's an incredible chain, this "living Olympic torch" which is passed from parents to children, and from cell to cell within your own body.  Some cells, such as some of the cells lining the stomach in humans, live only a few days and are replaced frequently.  Other cells, like brain cells, can live as long as you do (although perhaps in your case, Mr. Hoerner, something has been damaging or destroying them -- I hear disuse is all it takes).

Radiation from the sun and other natural causes isn't harmless; it's just unavoidable, and the fact that natural radiation exists is no reason to introduce even more radiation into the environment.  The outer layers of our skin, our largest organ, are made up largely of already-dead cells which cannot be harmed by radiation.  Nevertheless, medical authorities agree that skin cancer is a significant danger and that using sunscreen is a good idea, so don't tell me those rays are completely harmless, because they aren't -- even if they have some benefits.

While our skin protects us from most of the sun's harmful rays, we did not evolve a protection against "man-made" radioactive particles released from, say, Chernobyl or some other accident or incident (or by permission of a normal operating license).  These particles get inside us, past our protective-skin-boundary, when we eat, drink, and breath.  While these tiny radioactive particles supply a very low whole body dose, they cause extremely high radiation doses (thousands of times above so-called "background" levels) to the living cells nearest them.  The cells nearest the radioactive particle are killed.  If the particle moves around, it leaves a swath of dead cells.  The entire nuclear industry ignores these problems.  Sometimes, radioactive particles cause problems in the replication of the DNA, sometimes starting a fatal sequence of events, say, a cancer, which sometimes kills us.  The nuclear industry ignores those deaths too, as much as it can.  Only high-dose, immediate deaths are noticed.

If one American nuclear power plant melts down, Mr. Hoerner, I know you'll just say, "wow, that shouldn't have happened, but there's no need to panic" even as tens of thousands die, or are condemned to death by the meltdown.  After all, that's what you did after Chernobyl.

If two plants melt down, you'll be screaming about how incredibly unlikely THAT was -- whatever the triggering event, even as tens of thousands more, or hundreds of thousands (or even more) suffer and die.

If three plants melt down, the citizenry who are left will probably have found a way to stop your slander and close the other 100 nukes across what will then be a very sorrowful and pitiful non-superpower.

Instead of facing reality, and advocating closing the nukes and scaling back our nation's irrational but hidden love for the deadly atom, you have, and continue to, subject me and others to libelous abuse, yet you won't even come out of your shadowy box and show yourself.

Mr. Hoerner, are you aware that at least 25% of all humans die of cancer? How many of those billions of deaths can you explain?

Despite all your dogma about how safe nukes are, the KAPL military training reactors in New York were closed after the 9-11 tragedy because they don't have containment domes.  Hopefully other plants will be closed soon too, because a containment dome doesn't really buy you much (and buys you nothing for protecting the spent fuel pools and dry storage casks).

There's only one nuclear power plant that's any good.  Located a comfortable 93,000,000 miles away from Earth, it operates with a reliability factor of 100%, which no human-built reactor has ever come close to.  Interestingly, it has already melted down, and if we did not have an atmosphere full of ozone to protect us from it's harmful rays, even it would be way too close.

Sincerely,

Russell Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA
Just another victim of Hoerner's abuse...

P.S. Thanks for once again showing unequivocally that: a) you're a real Jackass (see second letter, below, by Jack Shannon), and b) you're on a mission to defame people -- mostly me, it seems, but you've attacked others as well with your shallow, uninformed, uneducated, factually erroneous, and -- perhaps worst of all -- boring commentaries.

I'm still waiting for your detailed answer to my "25 simple ways to destroy a nuclear power plant".  Add #26 -- go on a walking tour of the plant with C4 in your boots and matches in your pockets.  When you're near an (embrittled) primary coolant pipe, light the whole pack of matches -- don't fiddle with one match after another while a tour guide and the other tourists take you down.

Three items appear below:

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At 03:57 PM 12/21/01 , Jim Hoerner wrote (clip):

This one goes out to my fellow partners-in-crime, the pronukers that
try to mislead by posting ridiculous stuff like a 0.004 mrem dose to
your pinky might kill you. :-)  After all, God has been irradiating
all life on earth with 200-300 mrem annually since creation. :-)

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At 03:53 PM 12/21/01 , Jack Shannon wrote (in its entirety):
Russ:
 Hoerner is a jackass
Jack

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Here's one more letter for Jim Hoerner and his pro-nuke buddies to answer:

At 04:47 PM 12/21/01 , SMD wrote (re: dome strength):

We have all seen the tremendous destruction these large planes have caused.
WTC sheared in two, twice !  Steel melting like butter.
then we saw the Pentagon smashed almost all the way through,
and at least two fully reinforced concrete building WITH brand-new
armor plating and heavy rebar inner supports, these walls went down like
soda crackers !   The plane penetrated all the way into the fourth ring!
E was totally collapsed most of D ring, Some of C ring and positions of B ring.
Ok that's about 4 walls fully wiped out and four more penetrated and almost
wiped out.   Ok, even discounting to 6 walls, that's at least 3 feet of
reinforced concrete, not counting any of the inner walls at right angles or
furniture.cabinets utilities etc. in the way.

If that demonstration doesn't prove the point that domes are not good enough,
the fifty foot crater in PA surely must be.  over 20 feet deep into hardened
special compacted mine reclamation fill !  Hard as concrete !

Even the tail made a crater  sticking up from the main crater !
Straight down at 500 mph.

So who are they trying to fool? Certainly not the terrorists !
Only US fools and our equally foolish 'Allies' and investors etc...

These plants are worse than everyone thought, and even Bin Laden
figured they were too strong, that's why they didn't even try.

But now ??? Well they know better now, NPP's are sitting ducks !

Wether oblique and low angle like Pentagon or High Clip, or Straight Down,
doesn't matter , any angle would probably do the job.

They wont miss next time they get their hands on a big plane...

Imagine place like in Japan where they have a dozen reactors all in a row!
Talk about Tora Tora !  No wonder we all fear NKorea now that they
can rocket any of these anyday...And now even they know it would work!
Before they would have only been guessing and risking certain death,
now they know they can take out Japan in a heartbeat.

It would be so bad, it would take us all out later in a couple days
depending on jet stream.   Two for price of one.

Yes it just keeps getting worse, as the band plays on...

I sorta feel like a British soldier with bagpipes standing against the Zulu Hordes !
The Barbarians may be very difficult to stop indeed now that they know
we are as soft"shelled" as Humpty Dumpty.

Got A Hobbit?  Got A Shovel?

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL9911/S00092.htm

Complete with special air filters, isotope extracting grasses
and well water... ;-)  Home Sweet Home !

Keep Sayin Those Prayers !
God Bless For Christmas

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