Organized - Head tilted upward - Looking into the future.
__________☂__________
China's one-child policy has exemptions for quake victims' parents
By Andrew Jacobs Published: May 27, 2008
CHENGDU, China: In response to inquiries from grieving relatives, local officials announced Monday that parents whose only child was killed or grievously injured in the May 12 earthquake would be exempt from the country's one-child policy.
The exception, issued by the Chengdu Population and Family Planning Committee in Sichuan Province, said qualified parents could apply for legal permission to have another child, according to The Associated Press.
Thousands of parents have openly challenged the government over why so many schools collapsed during the earthquake. An estimated 10,000 students are believed to have died.
The anguish of parents and grandparents has been compounded by the one-child policy, which was introduced in 1979 to control population growth. Provincial officials, especially those in rural areas or in regions with large minority populations, are sometimes given latitude in the application of the regulations. In some places, for example, families are permitted to have more than one child if the first is a girl.
According to the policy, local governments can levy steep fines on couples who have more than one child; the children of those who defy the rules are sometimes denied government benefits, including access to a free education.
The committee announced Monday that if a couple's legally born child was killed in the earthquake, an illegal child under 18 years could be registered as a legal replacement. If the dead child was illegal, it said the family would no longer be responsible for outstanding fines, although parents would not be reimbursed for penalties already paid.
The changes, however, may come as little solace to parents who have only a photo, a backpack or the ashes of their dead son or daughter. Zhongxin Sun, a sociology professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, said some mothers may be too old to conceive; others may have undergone sterilization. "To lose a child is to lose everything for Chinese parents," said Professor Sun, who is a visiting scholar at Yale University Law School. "A child is their only hope."
Men of Change and Vision Always Tilt Their Collectivist Heads.
Brilliant.
ReplyDeleteah yes...
ReplyDeleteand let's all applaud those wonderful chinese building codes....
let's not for get those 300 dams about to fail
and those 486 hospitals that are now flat as a pancake...
yet another 5 year plan for the collective on the horizon?
I hear a song coming on...
"To lose a child is to lose everything for Chinese parents," said Professor Sun, who is a visiting scholar at Yale University Law School. "A child is their only hope."
ReplyDeleteThis is hope for those who think a war between China and America is inevitable in this century.
Interesting observation. It flies in the face of the Viet Nam era belief that in Asia, life was cheap:
ReplyDelete'The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient." - Gen. William Westmoreland, 1974
Our rulers and masters...
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe "other" always have different values, duece.
ReplyDeleteValus that are a threat to the "common" values, that we hold dear.
Whether the "other" is in China or the California or the United States Supreme Court.
The Islamic "other" does not value its' children, just like the Asians in that regard.
While we all know that, in Africa, life is cheap.
In the US, the lives of as many as 40 million pre-citizens have been terminated. So life must hold little value, here, as well.
Ripping babies from their mothers womb, always a trait of the "barbarians". That the mothers, thanks to medical science, can now survive the ordeal does not civilize it.
No indeed, barbarity is still prominent in thuse societies that promote infantcide by pregnency termination. Whether the mothers volunteer or are coherced by government, the babies lose their right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Where are the American Revolutionaries?
"A child is their only hope."
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"Is FARC’s leader dead? And is this good or bad?"
ReplyDeleteWestmoreland tells US live is cheap, for the Oriental, at almost the same point in the timeline that the US approves the death of 40 million of its off-spring.
ReplyDeleteDebates over the funding sources of this infantcide are still being debated, on occassion, as are the the processes and timing of the terminations.
But the rights to Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness are invalidated, for those terminated.
No debate about the rightousness of that. That's outside the lines of civilized debate.
China Steel Exports to the U.S. down 20% in last year.
ReplyDeleteU.S. Steel Production Up 10%.
It cost $3,000.00 to ship a container from China to the U.S. in 2000.
It costs $8,000.00, Today.
Oil costs are getting ready to bite China in their Big Red Ass.
I guess the million dollar, errr Yuan, question is "Do they have the pricing power to absorb the rising shipping costs?"
ReplyDeleteThe real question, for rufus, does the 10% increase in US production equal the 20% decline in imports?
ReplyDeleteDoes US production fill the import decline. or is there a decline in steel usage, in the US?
I'll catch hell for this here in some quarters, but good god, with 1.3 billion coolies, it's time to knock it off. China India, my twin visions of hell itself. Millions of greasy homonids elbowing elbow to elbow. One child per family? They ought to have a lottery, make it one child every fifth couple, for a generation or two.
ReplyDeleteThat's why you can rest assured by anti-immigrant stance isn't based on racism. Equal opportunity excluder. I remember how things were.
Churchill said 'I don't want to come back as a coolie.'
I notice the gal in the propaganda pic isn't looking to the left like Obama, like she might have been under Mao. And I don't think you can ever have much of a democracy in a country with one point three billion coolies. We're stretching beyond the limit, here, where even your local congressman is beyond your orbit, and you'll probably never met a senator in your lifetime.
ReplyDeleteThis Guy was interesting on C2C last nite. This dark energy/dark matter stuff may not exist. It may be physics is different at big levels, like it is differennt at small scales, according to him. Other interesting stuff. You might not be wasting your money buying his book.
ReplyDeleteNeat Pic Of The Mars Lander Descending, Parachute Deployed, Photo Captured By Our Mars Vehicle In The Area
Astronomy Picture of the Day
If we killed a million coolies a day in a war, in a year we'd have gone through about 1/4 of their coolies.
ReplyDeleteMen of Change and Vision Always Tilt Their Collectivist Heads.
ReplyDeleteNot always. Lincoln sits there looking right at ya.
Some of these revolutions are - or could have been - good things, too. Problem is, both in Russia and France, and elsewhere, they careened out of orbit, and ended up with another small clique at the top, worse than before. But that wasn't known at the time, at the beginning. What they saw was a hereditary monarchy, and the divine right of kings. We thankfully, thankfully, escaped the fate. Long live the USA.
Barry says lay off of Michelle.
ReplyDeleteAnd just out of curiosity, what does it mean, exactly, when a candidate finds something "unacceptable"? In a democracy, finding criticism unacceptable is a surefire way to drive yourself bonkers. It's like saying you find it unacceptable that bears use the woods for a bathroom. It's going to happen whether you accept it or not.
Michelle Is Fair Game
I'm waiting anxiously hoping to watch the rumored video of Michelle launching into "whitey" at Wright's church.
Is "whitey" a racist term? If I'm called "whitey" can I file a lawsuit?
ReplyDeleteWhat about "Whitey" Ford? who was obviously 'ahead of the curve'.
This month the Brookings Institution featured a research paper written by Mr. Masahiro Matsumura ...
ReplyDeleteFor a thousand years, Japan has resisted domination by China. For centuries, the Chinese threat has been the central concern of Japanese security policy. And as Mr. Matsumura discusses early in his paper, it was Japan’s fumbling attempts to cope with a chaotic China in the 1920s and 1930s that led to Japan’s apocalyptic confrontation with the United States.
...
... Mr. Matsumura openly assumes that American power in Asia will decline. He believes this decline will result from America’s painful experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. From this perspective, U.S. war fatigue, economic problems, budget limits, and a new era of American isolationism will lead to a diminished U.S. security presence in Asia.
Such an outcome would lead to a traumatic day of reckoning for Japanese policymakers and for Japanese society in general. Facing a rising China and watching its U.S. ally walking away, Japan would be forced to rearm. This rearmament program would have to include a long-range nuclear strike capability to deter Chinese offensive capabilities.
...
... Yet what is surprising is the growing assumption that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead to a weakened, retrenching, and isolationist United States in the period ahead. Policymakers around the world formulate their policies based on the assumptions they have to make. What happens when those assumptions are flawed? And what should U.S. policymakers do to make sure America’s allies don’t operate with mistaken assumptions?
In the decades ahead, the U.S.-Japan security relationship will be America’s most important. In terms of American security strategy, Europe is fading into a backwater. It is in East Asia that the U.S. could suffer the greatest consequences from strategic blunders or setbacks. Getting things right with China means first getting things right with Japan.
From westhawk's latest offering
Iran Making 'Wireless Atomic Energy' Not Nuke Missiles
ReplyDeleteby Scott Ott for ScrappleFace
(2008-05-27)
— Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in response to an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report accusing his government of withholding information about its nuclear program, today suggested that Iran may be pioneering development of “wireless atomic energy” that could “ultimately end dependence on oil” in some countries.
The IAEA report alleges that Iran has refused to explain its work on explosives, uranium enrichment and missile warhead design, however, Mr. Ahmadinejad continues to assert his nation’s right to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes.
“The American puppets see our warheads, explosives and enriched uranium and they immediately think ‘bombs’,” said the Iranian leader. “They have not even considered that we might have discovered a new, wireless way to rapidly deliver lots of nuclear energy to all of the people in a single city all at once — even a city the size of Jerusalem, or Tel Aviv. Once we deliver this burst of energy to our Jewish brothers, their entire city will be freed from dependence on oil.”
--
I call for negotiations without pre-conditions. We need to talk to the top dog about this. We need to 'bring people together'. "Yes We Can!"
The real question, for rufus, does the 10% increase in US production equal the 20% decline in imports?
ReplyDeleteDoes US production fill the import decline. or is there a decline in steel usage, in the US?
Great Question, DR. I haven't the vaguest.
We only imported about 4.8 million metric tons of steel from China in 06'. I haven't looked up US production, yet; but, I imagine it's more than twice that much.
ReplyDeleteLooks like there might be more to the story, though. Anti-dumping complaints filed by US producers.
Chinese Steel Exports
Bobal: Barry says lay off of Michelle.
ReplyDeleteHillary: "Gosh, Michelle, that's a very nice husband you got there. It'd be a real shame if something happened to him."
Oh, SHIT!
ReplyDeletePDF WARNING, PDF WARNING!
Bobal: Is "whitey" a racist term? If I'm called "whitey" can I file a lawsuit?
ReplyDeleteYeah, call out the firm of Bernstein, Ficklestein, Levy, and Winestein. That's how Whitey keeps us down!
Rufus: PDF WARNING, PDF WARNING!
ReplyDeleteI'm telling you guys, install Linux over that Vista crap, it eats PDFs for lunch and says, "Wham, bam, thank you Ma'am, may I have another?"
Bobal: Churchill said 'I don't want to come back as a coolie.'
ReplyDeleteBy thinking of human beings as vermin, Churchill guaranteed he would come back as a rat. I spent last summer with my "coolie" relatives and it was great, once I got over the fact that it never got below 85 degrees at night and 100 percent humidity.
PDF Warning, PDF Warning!
ReplyDeleteIt looks like we produce around 90 Million Metric Tons of Steel.
So, yeah 10% of 90 Million is a bunch more than 20% of 4.8 million.
Case closed, Nano; Next. :)
PDF is a very common format. I am aware of no Vista problems with .pdf's - other then Doug's. Doug might want to try updating his Adobe Acrobat reader.
ReplyDeleteYou are not a coolie. A coolie is a chinaman that works in a rice paddy, with millions of others. And Churchill didn't think of humans as vermin, but recognized a bad situation when he saw one. He fought mightily against those who really did think most other people were vermin, a term they used in that regard.
ReplyDeleteA week or so ago I read that--was it 150,000 or 250,000--Hindu farmers committed suicide in India last year. You don't hear about it much. Hard to make it with a hoe and two acres, and feed all those mouthts. This isn't putting anyone down, just a recognition of how bad things can get. And a warning to us.
I don't know what a PDF is. Though I might be using one for all I know. I'm a rube.
once I got over the fact that it never got below 85 degrees at night and 100 percent humidity.
ReplyDeleteThat wasn't so coolie...
I've asked other Vista users about pdf's blowing up their systems. So far, no one else has the problem. I think its unique to Dougie.
ReplyDeleteHang on to them guns, God and glory, bob.
ReplyDeleteSo, all the moaning about Chinese steel imports, and they only send about 5% of US production?
That's pretty marginal an influence, it would seem from here.
Cannot "corner" a market with 5% of it. Though one could profit at the margins, with that size market share, even if declining to 4.6% of the market.
A decline in real terms, and also as part of a growing pie.
Flowers at the Wal-Mart, mostly from Colombia, now. Zimbabwae seems to have fallen from favor, as a flower source.
Wal-Mart the largest employeer, in AZ, with over 35,000 on the payroll, here.
Bobal, a PDF is a file that displays a document in its original format, like a fax, instead of as a stream of characters. So when we were snickering about Dan Rather's alleged memo about Bush allegedly typed up on an actual typewriter, it was a PDF that was being kicked around, and it was busted because someone typed the content into the default settings of Microsoft Word, and got such an exact match that an animated GIF looping between a screen capture of both documents showed absolutely no difference.
ReplyDeleteIt seems--
ReplyDeletealso coo·ly n. Offensive., pl. -lies.
An unskilled Asian laborer.
[Hindi qulī, laborer, perhaps ultimately from Kulī, a tribe in Gujarat.]---
originally came from the Hindu--
Columbia Encyclopedia: coolie labor,
term applied to unskilled laborers from Asia, especially from India and China. With the discontinuance of slavery, the use of Chinese and Indian contract labor in British and French colonies increased. Indenture of Indian coolies was usually for a term of five years, in return for wages, certain benefits, and the cost of passage; the terms were enforceable by penal sanctions. At the expiration of their terms, the laborers were free to reindenture or to seek other employment. They frequently became peasant proprietors, although they were entitled to return passage to India. The practice was discontinued by the British Indian government, which in 1922 prohibited assisting the emigration of unskilled laborers, except to a few countries. Emigration of Chinese coolies began c.1845, although it was nominally prohibited before 1859. Between these dates the conditions were notoriously bad; the victims were shipped mainly to Cuba and Peru, where they died by the thousands. In 1859, Britain arranged with Guangzhou for legal emigration to the British West Indies and elsewhere on five-year contracts. In 1860 an Anglo-Chinese convention sanctioned such emigration to British territory, and the regulations were agreed to by the other powers in similar conventions. The British Chinese Passenger Act of 1885 regulated British ships in the trade and resulted in the traffic's falling mainly into the hands of the Portuguese. In 1904, Great Britain arranged with China the hiring of 50,000 Chinese laborers to work the Transvaal gold mines. In the 19th cent. large numbers of Chinese laborers went to California and Australia. Opposition in Australia to this influx of cheap labor resulted in the passage of the Emigration Restriction Act for the gradual elimination of Asians from Australia, by providing that no one should be permitted to enter the country who failed to write 50 words in any prescribed language. Coolie labor was important in building the first U.S. transcontinental railroad, but this type of immigration into the United States was practically ended by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1888 and by stringent federal laws against contract laborers. In 1904, Canada began to exclude coolie labor by charging a head tax of $500.
The Mars lander shot was really good to see, bob.
ReplyDeletePhotos from Mars of the next attempt, who'd have thought ...
Science fiction to fact.
And who profited from the coolie laborer exports from China?
ReplyDeleteWhy Russell Trading Company, which FDR's grandfather was President of and which the subsequent Russell Trust has funded both the Skull & Bones fraternity and Yale University, itself.
Noted here
and
again, here
for those that want more documentation. Smuggling opium and coolies, the elites of America knew the score, as to China.
Betcha they think they still do.
Another that led with his chin
ReplyDeleteAnd this fellow, wonder what he saw, off in the distance ...
ReplyDeleteThe chin leads, here, too
I've run across a term recently and maybe a few of you Military folk can help me out. What does "Garrison Rules" mean?
ReplyDeleteYou have to salute "chickshit" second lieutenants, and Majors.
ReplyDeleteYeah, DR; Anytime someone starts talking about "China" you need to make sure your Bullshit-o-meter is turned up to "Max."
ReplyDeleteSenator John Kerry's grandpa ran opium up the Chinese rivers for awhile, at least according to Michael Savage. I believe it too. Said the ships weren't being used on the Atlantic coast, moved 'em over there for awhile.
ReplyDeleteAnd HERE another beaming politician, youthful, vigorous, yet experienced, forward looking, visionary, lookin' out for himself.
ReplyDeleteMade quite a name too, in his day.
Deuce is that your own photoshop for the Obama/Lenin picture or did you google it? It's a good'un.
ReplyDeleteMussolini Right Side Up
ReplyDeleteMussolini Upside Down
COLMES: Mr. Speaker, I was reading your speech that you gave earlier today. You said we're facing the greatest crisis in the preservation of our government since the 1850s and 1860s. We've become less capable, we're decaying toward decisive defeat, decaying also in our economy, and our education.
ReplyDeleteWhy should the American people reward the political party that's been in power that has brought us the very vulnerabilities you mentioned?
GINGRICH: Well, I think if you look at the whole country, both parties have more than enough blame to share, Alan. I think both parties have been guilty in a variety of ways. I think the collapse of Detroit, for example, has been almost entirely done by Democrats. I think other problems have been done largely by Republicans, and I think the real question for America is: is either of these parties going to figure out the scale of change we need?
And is either of these parties going to offer a program of fundamental real change that enables us to move in a direction that we have reason to believe will succeed? I think both parties can share more than enough guilt for where we are today.
COLMES: We have Republicans.
GINGRICH: And I say that, by the way...
COLMES: Yes.
GINGRICH: ...as a person who's been an active Republican his entire life. I don't say it with any pride. I wish my party had done a better job.
COLMES: Well, that's an honest and candid assessment. But we've had — you know, a Republican running the presidency for eight years. Up until two years ago, they ran the House and the Senate, largely result of what you did in 1994. You guys have been pretty much in charge for years and years and years.
GINGRICH: Yes, but, Alan, they completely — once I left in '90s — in '98, they completely underestimated how deep the changes have to be in the bureaucracy. When you look at the failure to react to Katrina which was a disaster, you look at the failure to react to the Census Bureau collapse, which is a $15 billion disaster, you look at the failure to react to the Department of Energy collapse in clean coal, which is an absurd disaster, again, again, you look at the failure to clean out the State Department.
COLMES: Well.
GINGRICH: . which continues to be, I think, fundamentally opposed to Bush's policies.
COLMES: That's why Americans are likely to vote for somebody who hasn't been in Washington for a very long time come November.
GINGRICH: Well, they might if they — unless they learn what he wants to do.
COLMES: Well, they will. Thank you very much for being with us tonight, Mr. Speaker.
Newt keeps his chin tucked in.
ReplyDeleteLarry Craig Takes It On The Chin
ReplyDeleteThis is republican primary day here, my turn to go vote for Craig's replacement. I'm not voting for Risch. The whole nation holds its breath. Later.
The Genius
ReplyDeleteNewt's got the Trent Lott Mop.
ReplyDeleteVery DC.
The PDF carries a stream of characters along, also.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, Rufus, I'm reading from the bottom up:
ReplyDeleteAll's well, as long as I remember what's up (above).
"PDF is a very common format. I am aware of no Vista problems with .pdf's - other then Doug's. Doug might want to try updating his Adobe Acrobat reader."
ReplyDelete---
I really should update my ADOBE Flash Player too.
...too bad they didn't make it right to start with.
Steel production by country
ReplyDeleteYou should have had Mao Zedong on the other side of Obama. Sandwiched.
ReplyDeleteObama 48 shy. I think he's gonna get that magic number, Rat.
Here's an informative pdf:
ReplyDeleteGLOBAL STEEL CONSUMPTION - 2011 Edition.
Forecasts for apparent consumption of finished steel. Available in PDF and excel.
See Example
An official with Taiyuan Iron and Steel Group Co. Ltd (TISCO) told Interfax in late April that the company would cut production of 300-series stainless steel products in May in order to reduce supply to the domestic market. Major stainless steel mills have slashed prices of 300 series products by as much as RMB 1,500 ($216.14) a tonne in May due to the market surplus.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as domestic spot nickel prices keep falling and stainless steel consumption continues to remain slack, Jinchuan may cut nickel prices again in the near future, Ma Xuexi, an official from Yuanjiang Nickel Co. Ltd., a refined nickel producer in Yunnan Province, said.
The price of 1# nickel on the Yangtze River Nonferrous Metal Spot Market fell by RMB 1,250 ($180.12) to RMB 198,750 ($28,638.74) per tonne on Monday while the three-month nickel price on the LME ended up 3.21% higher to $24,100 per tonne last Friday.
Weakening Demand
"Deuce is that your own photoshop for the Obama/Lenin picture or did you google it? It's a good'un."
ReplyDeletethanks T. It is all mine. It entertains me between work and procrastination.
The visionary and expert on American history does not know American troops stopped at Berlin and did no go into Poland. Someone should show the visionary the Elbe river:
ReplyDelete"Obama admits reference to Auschwitz was wrong
Tue May 27, 2008
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama admitted on Tuesday he was wrong to say his uncle helped liberate the Nazis' Auschwitz concentration camp after Republicans said Soviet troops freed the camp.
Obama's campaign said the candidate meant to say that his great-uncle, Charlie Payne, had helped liberate a part of the Buchenwald camp, not Auschwitz.
"Yesterday he mistakenly referred to Auschwitz instead of Buchenwald in telling of his personal experience of a soldier in his family who served heroically," said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.
Burton said in the statement that Obama's great uncle served in the 89th Infantry Division that entered Germany in 1945 and on April 4 overran Ohrdruf, a subcamp of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Obama had made the Auschwitz reference in a Memorial Day speech on Monday.
More than 1 million people, most of them Jews, were killed at Auschwitz, an extermination camp in Poland. Buchenwald in Germany was mainly a forced labour camp, where some 56,000 people are believed to have died."
Senator Ted Kennedy has brain cancer. To some, this may be news. To others, not.
ReplyDeleteIt is within my authority, as a property owner, to prevent another from moving onto my land without my consent. If, however, I try to extend such authority to prevent others from moving into territory that is not mine, I overstep my boundaries and no longer behave as an owner.
ReplyDeleteI then become a trespasser of the self-ownership claims of others. So, too, with the state, when it acts to prevent others from entering the country.
Or does the state have an ownership interest in the entire country? If so, how was this interest acquired, and how far do the state’s boundary claims extend?
The Immigration Question
Your Federal Govt at Work:
ReplyDeleteGovernment does Microclimatology Forecasts Decades Out:
New Climate Report Foresees Big Changes in Water Supplies and Agriculture
Nice work, deuce.
ReplyDeleteAuschwitz, Buchanwald, uncle, great-uncle, Elbe, Rhine, all kinda the same, interchangeable.
I'll tell you this, one didn't exactly have to stand in line at the Idaho Republican Primary today. I was the only one there, plus about 8 nice lady poll workers, sitting playing cards.
Rat, I voted for Paul, so I could say I did. Our newly minted Senator with be Risch, member of the in group. Didn't vote for him. Kind of any interesting contest for Idaho Supreme Court Judge. Voted for the insurgent, on the advice of my lawyer.
---
Here's a man that seen the light--
A solution to energy problems: go nuclear
May 27, 2008
STEVE HUNTLEY
Gas at $4 a gallon inflicts a lot of pocketbook pain on Americans. To try to persuade you that it can do something about this, government huffs and puffs and threatens to blow down the house of big oil. Washington is capable of hurricane-force hot air, but all that bluster won't save you a penny at the pump.
The Democrat-run Congress seems to be nearing panic. Maybe it should be, given House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pledge: "Elect us, and we will produce a common-sense plan to help bring down the price of gasoline at the pump."
The plan? Sue 'em!
The House passed a bill to authorize the Justice Department to sue OPEC in U.S. courts for price-fixing. Were this symbolic fit of rage to become law, and litigation started, don't expect the sheiks to quake in their boots or gas prices to drop to $3.
The Senate decided to demonstrate its outrage by hauling oil company executives before it for a public whippin'. They responded that profits of 4 cents on the dollar weren't high by any standard of U.S. capitalism. The problem for them is that their companies are such gargantuan enterprises that 4 cents on the dollar adds up to many billions of greenbacks.
Political grandstanding over profits is easier than facing up to what drives oil costs: a globalized economy increasing demand for petroleum; a weak dollar; speculation in commodities markets; stretched refinery capacity; falling production from aging oil fields, and fears of supply disruptions from geopolitical troubles.
The International Energy Agency estimates the world will need 35 percent more oil by 2030. Some experts believe we're near peak production of easily pumped oil. Worse, much of this black fuel is buried in countries where Islamist radicalism thrives. And our thirst for oil soars even as we fret over global warming.
A long-term answer to our energy problems exists -- nuclear energy, already the source of 20 percent of America's electricity.
A leading proponent of nuclear power is Patrick Moore. You may remember him as a co-founder of the aggressive environmental group Greenpeace. He has broken with it over several issues, notably his advocacy of nuclear energy, and he serves as co-chairman of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition.
Moore envisions a nuclear-powered America where private cars are battery-powered or hybrids and buildings are warmed by heat pumps instead of furnaces. Of course, "We're never going to have a battery-operated plane," Moore says. He sees nuclear reactors powering production of biofuels and perhaps synthetic fuels from coal for heavy transportation -- airplanes, big trucks and trains.
True, reactors cost more than coal- or gas-powered generators. But those carbon polluters are likely to face added costs from environmental taxes. Nuclear plants take a long time to come on line: up to 10 years, with half of that attributed to the governmental approval and regulatory process. Still, use of prefab and modular components could bring the five-year building time down to four or even three years, Moore believes.
The Three Mile Island accident happened nearly three decades ago, and it occurred because operators misread gauges. Now reactors boast passive safety systems, meaning no one has to push a button for them to operate. The next generation reactor, the pebble bed, uses fuel containers that are meltdown-proof. Beyond that is the fast reactor that produces its own fuel.
An April poll found 63 percent of Americans favor nuclear power. Among those living within 10 miles of a reactor, it's 80 percent. Moore sums up the case: "Nuclear energy is clean, safe and economically competitive. With it you move away from fossil fuels to a much better energy policy from an environmental point of view, a health point of view and a strategic or energy security point of view."
Conservation and green energy just aren't enough to resolve our energy problems. What's needed is a political commitment to nuclear. Among presidential candidates, John McCain comes closest with his pledge to have 20 reactors in construction within four years.
The Pacific Northwest getting drier?
ReplyDeleteThat'll be different.
And Ohio wetter.
ReplyDeleteI'm not making plans yet. Since I probably won't be around. And the forecast will change anyway.
We've got a total of 66 nuclear plants at the moment.
ReplyDeleteJanet Fischer's students have been reading the book "Daniel's Story" about a boy during the Holocaust and she wanted to bring real-life survivors to speak to her sixth-grade students.
ReplyDeleteOn May 22, survivors Ruth Millman, AdamBoren,Adele Rapaport, and Cass and Ruth Lewart shared their individual stories with the students of Beers Street Elementary School in Hazlet
Fischer said that by inviting the survivors to speak to students, she was helping to educate the sixth-graders in a way that only a personwho experienced the atrocities could convey.
Stories Shared Between Generations
Click through on the links, sam, and notice the license expiration dates.
ReplyDeleteThe clock is ticking, no doubt of that.
Damn, we were building nukes like crazy between '74 and '87.
ReplyDeleteBobal: This is republican primary day here, my turn to go vote for Craig's replacement. I'm not voting for Risch. The whole nation holds its breath. Later.
ReplyDeleteBobble Foot Doll Giveaway
:)wide stance bobble foot :)
ReplyDeleteI thought we had 102 or 104 nuke plants.
You're using US Government figures, Sam, which are always wrong. They don't know the difference between a meter and a foot. Bobble feet, yes.
ReplyDeleteNuke Plants Here
Free Mark Steyn
ReplyDeleteSupport Canadian Bloggers T-Shirts available on site.
Ash, if you're interested, they are having a big go-around about the totalitarianism of Canadian speech laws at B.C. Most of 'em don't think much of beloved Canada, in that regard. Big Nurse Rules.