johnpdeever’s Recent Comments

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  Very good points!

  On Global warming is no friend to Russia, ambassador says posted 3 months ago 5 Responses

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  Merely to boil water while producing a poison (nuclear waste) that lasts 250,000 years -- longer than our civilization will -- is wrong, even insane.  But the anti-nuke argument I find most persuasive goes like this: "Fine.  Let private power companies build nuclear power plants ONLY if and when they will assume all the inherent risks."  The unfair (and recently renewed) Price Anderson Act gives companies no-fault government insurance against liability for nuclear incidents at  power plants.  As Public Citizen points out, "No other government agency provides this level of taxpayer indemnification to non-government personnel."  So: Want nuclear? Let it try to compete without this unfair subsidy.

  More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price-Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act

   

  On This White House science adviser thinks America should embrace nuclear power posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago 6 Responses

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  Regarding hankies, reminds me of an African riddle I heard once:  "We throw it away, but the European hoards it.  What is it?"  Answer: snot.  . . .

  http://books.google.com/books?id=Az0O28OtWh4C&pg=PA246&lpg=PA246&dq=throw+away+snot+africa&source=bl&ots=ILUO8QO8Mt&sig=J0KXedtij1QtXm1nCRgPMWjqkwE&hl=en&ei=4fYeSpDDDprNlQesgKHHBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5

  On Ask Umbra on public peeing posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago 20 Responses

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  Good article, but how bout a little kudos for Zach Space and Charlie Wilson of Ohio for leaning toward the green side?  Both represent a whole bunch of Appalachian Ohio counties that rely on coal (and on burning it to power the rest of the state).  Yet these two went out on a limb, publicly expressing willingness to attempt to go green to a degree at least and to do what they can to make our coal industry better.  I'm in Space's generally very Republican district, and he could be a model of how young new Democratic reps even here in coal country can help all you coastal folks , who are on the average better off than Appachian Ohio and Wva and who also have less at stake when coal gets costlier, as it will and should.

  On In the House, a nine-way tie for climate swing vote posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago 29 Responses

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  Wendell Berry on Butz

   In 1977, Wendell Berry foresaw all of this and scolded Earl Butz in the wonderful early essay, "The Unsettling of America."  Butz had proudly declared that "food is a weapon."  Berry replies:

  "To think of food-as-weapon ... may give illusory security and wealth to a few, but it strikes directly at the life of all. ... [The] Department of Agriculture [is] being used as an instrument of foreign political and economic speculation.  This militarizing of food is the greatest threat so far raised against the farmland and the farm communities of this country.  If present attitudes [remember: this was 1977] continue, we may expect government policies that will encourage the destruction, by overuse, of farmland.  . . . . The tendency, if not the intention, of Mr. Butz's confusion of farming and war, is to complete the deliverance of American agriculture into the hands of corporations. [This] will lead to the exhaustion of farmland and farm culture."

  Sadly, Wendell Berry, of course, was right. It isn't just food that has been adversely affected but rural America. And thus, the landbase of all of us.

  http://www.amazon.com/Unsettling-America-Culture-Agricult ...
  On A reflection on the lasting legacy of 1970s USDA Secretary Earl Butz posted 1 year, 8 months ago 3 Responses