ACLU unhappy with nonlethal force on inmates
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To the shock of absolutely no one, the ACLU hates the idea of blasting Los Angeles prisoners with an invisible heat ray. The civil liberties organization has sent a letter to L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca, begging him to not use the pain weapon, less than a week after its installation at the Pitchess Detention Center.
But both sides of this energy weapon fight seem a little, um, confused. The ACLU claims that the so-called “Assault Intervention Device” is a killer — and “robot-like,” to boot. (Not that the system has killed anyone, or can operate on its own.) The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is claiming the ray gun can’t cause lasting harm. (Well, if you ignore those test subjects with second degree burns.)
The Assault Intervention Device is a small-scale version of the U.S. military’s Active Denial System, which blasts a target with millimeter waves that penetrate a 64th of an inch beneath the skin. People almost always run away in agony after just a few seconds. The weapon was briefly sent to Afghanistan this summer — and then just as quickly withdrawn. But the LASD thinks the device could subdue unruly inmates quicker and from further away than a Taser or a billy club.
The ACLU’s Margaret Winter and Peter Eliasberg tell the LASD that they “strongly oppose the view that it is ever appropriate to deploy against the detainees of a county jail – or any other incarcerated population — a military weapon intended to cause intolerable pain and capable of causing severe injury or death.”
Which leads former LASD commander (pain ray proponent) Charles “Sid” Deal to wonder: “What difference [does] it make if the military invented it? Is it more objectionable because of who invented it — even if the motives are the same?”
And while the pain ray might theoretically be able to end someone’s life, so could just about any weapon. To date, the Active Denial System hasn’t actually killed anyone, after more than 10,000 test-blasts on human subjects.
But Heal’s former colleague — LASD Commnader Bob Osborne, who claims to have been blasted by the beam more than 50 times (!) — is off-base, too. “The neat thing with this device is you experience pain but you are not injured by it,” Osborne tells the AP. “It doesn’t injure your skin, the beam doesn’t have the power to do that.”
Try telling that to the airman who had to be evacuated to a burn center after getting zapped by the heat ray. And even if didn’t cause permanent damage, the ACLU executives write, a jailhouse pain beam “creates a wholly unjustified risk that detainees will be needlessly subjected to excessive force — indeed, a use of force tantamount to torture, in violation of the Eighth Amendment, basic human rights norms, and international law.”
Heal counters that “if they are content in having us solve these problems with the primitive weapons we have now, then we can skip the heartaches and expense of trying to do it better (but then they don’t like that either).”
Perhaps the biggest misstep in this debate, however, is found is an ACLU blog post, complaining about this “robot-like,” “Star Wars technology.” Come on, guys: Star Wars? The pain ray isn’t the droid you’ve been looking for. It’s more Rodenberryesque, like the evil, bearded Spock’s “agonizer” compliance device. We’ll presume you meant Star Trek and leave it at that.
ACLU Blasts Jailhouse Pain Ray, Condemns 'Star Wars Tech'
To the shock of absolutely no one, the ACLU hates the idea of blasting Los Angeles prisoners with an invisible heat ray. The civil liberties organization has sent a letter to L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca, begging him to not use the pain weapon, less than a week after its installation at the Pitchess...
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Even before I saw the Wired link at the bottom, I thought to myself, "Hmm, liberally biased techno news... Is this a Wired article?".
Nailed it!
Moving on though, 1/64th inch skin penetration doesn't sound bad, but what about the subject's eyes? If he/she tried to stand there and take the pain, could long-term vision problems result?
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@SuperAnalyst said:
Even before I saw the Wired link at the bottom, I thought to myself, "Hmm, liberally biased techno news... Is this a Wired article?".
Nailed it!
Moving on though, 1/64th inch skin penetration doesn't sound bad, but what about the subject's eyes? If he/she tried to stand there and take the pain, could long-term vision problems result?
I actually heard about it on NPR this morning when driving to work (considerably less "liberal" than Wired, but not exactly what I would call neutral); this was just the first relevant google result, was snide enough to be hillariously stupid, and generally showed how useless I felt the whole discussion was.
I agree, the eye thing could be an issue, but the fact that they're trying to block this, which, if successful, will result in inmates getting beat with billy clubs or tased (both of which could kill the inmate anyway) just doesn't really compute for me.
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The copied text seems very schizophrenic. If I'd ever read any Wired articles before, I might have a pithy remark about how this is their hallmark or something. Alas, I haven't, so I can't comment on that.
Anyway, on topic, I'm afraid that I have to back the ACLU on this one. Burns on inmates? Clearly, that's unacceptable. Just use guns, and you'll never have to deal with that prisoner again!
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@rad131304 said:
...an ACLU blog post, complaining about this “robot-like,” “Star Wars technology.” ...
I thought Star Wars technology used lasers to blast nuclear weapons from low-earth orbit.
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@rad131304 said:
I agree, the eye thing could be an issue, but the fact that they're trying to block this, which, if successful, will result in inmates getting beat with billy clubs or tased (both of which could kill the inmate anyway) just doesn't really compute for me.
People have issues realizing that if you don't adopt the new technology, the status quo is what you get. And the status quo is almost always worse than the new technology-- why? Because if it wasn't, they wouldn't have bothered trying to invent the technology in the first place.
As an example, the way environmentalists oppose nuclear plants. What they don't realize is that since there's only about 4 power generation methods that can provide base-load, and nuclear is the only one of those that's even remotely clean "don't build nuclear" actually translates to "burn more coal, gas, and dam more rivers" in practical terms.
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Hmm heat gun. It sounds like messing around in the electronics lab at college (20 odd years back), anyone with half a brain would never have looked into it and certainly never have pointed it at anyone's eyes. I guess device range and prison guard attitude makes a difference though. Focussed heat gun or tazer / club? I'll take the heat gun thanks.
I've never gotten Wired. It's a bunch of hippies into Tech right? Well I'm a hippy into Tech and I've never had any particular desire to read Wired as all the articles I've thought might have been interesting from their headlines and have ever read on there rarely make sense in any real world that I'm aware of.
As for the status quo, Agreed.
Life is fleeting, enjoy it while you can and then let the next evolution get on with whatever it wants to do, or let the planet turn into Mars. Nuclear or coal/gas/dams they all have side effects. Nuclear with our current tech is likely to have the largest and longest effect on life on this planet though. I'm sure the roaches and scorpions couldn't give a crap about it as long as there's enough prey left over for them after we've all died from radiation poisoning
Such a shame that we consider ourselves to be important, or life on this planet to be significant. Admire the beauty that's here now and wait for the next large scale NEO to come along. Something else will likely pop up after we're gone.
Despite being all for 'green' (Ho Ho, as that really does include nuclear as an answer) I don't consider us important enough to save, our governments and businesses don't give a shit either [ 1: Coal, 2: Gas, 3: Fission, 4: ??, 5: Profit ].
Wind, Wave and Fusion just don't cut it yet and likely won't in my lifetime.Green really means; reduce consumption, stop breeding for the sake of it and invest in research and education. The resources will last longer, it's that simple. Not that profitable though in the short term it seems.
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@pink said:
Nuclear or coal/gas/dams they all have side effects. Nuclear with our current tech is likely to have the largest and longest effect on life on this planet though. I'm sure the roaches and scorpions couldn't give a crap about it as long as there's enough prey left over for them after we've all died from radiation poisoning
I love these types of things. They simply yell "I have no idea how nuclear power works but the it involves radioactive things, therefore I am against it!" Either that, or they are clearly playing way too much fallout 3.
Such a shame that we consider ourselves to be important, or life on this planet to be significant. Admire the beauty that's here now and wait for the next large scale NEO to come along. Something else will likely pop up after we're gone.
And what happens when the next near earth object comes near Earth? Will everybody catch a plague from demons? it's NEAR earth object, not hitting the earth object. You also demonstrate a clear misunderstanding of the relative emptyness of space. Sure, objects passing within the moons orbit are pretty close, but they are almost all too small to ever reach the ground if they were to come towards Earth and the moons orbit is a lot bigger then people seem to believe from those fancy pictures they see in hippie powerpoints.
Despite being all for 'green' (Ho Ho, as that really does include nuclear as an answer) I don't consider us important enough to save
An Emo hippie. How quaint. Just kill yourself and get it over with.
stop breeding for the sake of it
And the truth is revealed! You are really just a virgin with the mindset "if I can't get some, nobody should!" so you're pushing an agenda to match!
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@BC_Programmer said:
They simply yell "I have no idea how nuclear power works but the it involves radioactive things, therefore I am against it!" Either that, or they are clearly playing way too much fallout 3.
Hey, you know I play(ed) a lot of F3, but I'm not silly enough to think that nuclear reactors will bring about our destruction.
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But the cars will blow up when you shoot em. Surely nuclear reactors that do the same thing would be bad.
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@DescentJS said:
But the cars will blow up when you shoot em. Surely nuclear reactors that do the same thing would be bad.
Pfffff
You don't shoot the reactor.
You shoot the people and steal the plutonium.
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@dhromed said:
@BC_Programmer said:
They simply yell "I have no idea how nuclear power works but the it involves radioactive things, therefore I am against it!" Either that, or they are clearly playing way too much fallout 3.
Hey, you know I play(ed) a lot of F3, but I'm not silly enough to think that nuclear reactors will bring about our destruction.
Fallout 3 was one of the first games in quite a long while that I found myself actually unhealthily engrossed in.
Anyway, for some reason a lot of anti-nuclear activists have this idea that Atomic Bomb=Nuclear Reactor- that is, they are the same thing. They are based on the same principles but everything else about the reactor is designed to prevent what the bomb is designed to do.
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@dhromed said:
@DescentJS said:
But the cars will blow up when you shoot em. Surely nuclear reactors that do the same thing would be bad.
Pfffff
You don't shoot the reactor.
You shoot the people and steal the plutonium.
Proper strategy, via Back to the Future:
Marty McFly: Doc, you don't just walk into a store and-and buy plutonium. Did you rip that off?
Dr. Emmett Brown: Shhhhhh. Of course. From a group of Libyan nationalists. They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and in turn, gave them a shiny bomb-casing full of used pinball machine parts! Come on! Let's get you a radiation suit. We must prepare to reload.Of course, it's not perfect:
Dr. Emmett Brown: Oh, my God, they found me, I don't know how, but they found me. Run for it Marty.
Marty McFly: Who? Who?
Dr. Emmett Brown: Who do you think? The Libyans.
Marty McFly: Holy shit!
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@BC_Programmer said:
@pink said:
Nuclear or coal/gas/dams they all have side effects. Nuclear with our current tech is likely to have the largest and longest effect on life on this planet though. I'm sure the roaches and scorpions couldn't give a crap about it as long as there's enough prey left over for them after we've all died from radiation poisoning
I love these types of things. They simply yell "I have no idea how nuclear power works but the it involves radioactive things, therefore I am against it!" Either that, or they are clearly playing way too much fallout 3.
I actually have a very good idea how fission reactors work and I am also aware of just how much nuclear waste we stash in bunkers that has a half life of several thousand years. Oh course some of the depleted uranium we use in weapons to fights wars in countries so we can steal their oil, so that we can keep on consuming. But don't let that reality hold you back.
If of course you've designed a working commercial fusion reactor I'd love to hear about it.
@BC_Programmer said:
@pink said:
Such a shame that we consider ourselves to be important, or life on this planet to be significant. Admire the beauty that's here now and wait for the next large scale NEO to come along. Something else will likely pop up after we're gone.
And what happens when the next near earth object comes near Earth? Will everybody catch a plague from demons? it's NEAR earth object, not hitting the earth object. You also demonstrate a clear misunderstanding of the relative emptyness of space. Sure, objects passing within the moons orbit are pretty close, but they are almost all too small to ever reach the ground if they were to come towards Earth and the moons orbit is a lot bigger then people seem to believe from those fancy pictures they see in hippie powerpoints.
~300000 miles (IIRC) is pretty damn far in the scale of this planet, but not in the scale of even Sol. I'm well aware of the size of space, our local solar system and even our small little galaxy and the inability of humans to understand concepts of size outside of their normal every day scale.
So yes, Near Earth Objects. Plenty go flying by, but every now and then some of them do get caught in our gravity well and do impact on our planet. You might want to check for some of the craters left by them on Google Earth. At some point in our future another large one is likely to hit. Chances are very much that it won't be in my lifetime but it likely will be soon (I'm using the geological definition of soon, the one that says 100000 years is a short period of time)@BC_Programmer said:
@pink said:
Despite being all for 'green' (Ho Ho, as that really does include nuclear as an answer) I don't consider us important enough to save
An Emo hippie. How quaint. Just kill yourself and get it over with.
You noticed the fact I said nuclear power was part of the 'GREEN' answer right?.
Just not our current fission tech. PWRs are not current tech but they are what we mostly use right now. I don't consider them to be safe particularly (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl). There are plenty more designs that are far better, but that's not what we use right now.
You may have noticed my post also said that research and education are part of the solution.
I don't think anyone who knows me (IRL and online) would class me as emo in any way.
I have a very eclectic taste in music and in my lifestyle. I am a hippie for sure though. I'm also very into tech and have in a professional capacity been an electrician, an electronic engineer, a techno DJ, electronic musician and producer, a software developer and a photographer.
I try my hand at just about anything, today I was learning to french polish a 1920s dressing table to attempt to restore it (rather than buying some piece of crap MDF cabinet from Ikea) and went for an 8 mile walk to find the polish I needed rather than driving my 2 litre turbo 2 seater T-Bar sports car, which I prefer to take out for fun on the country roads around here just to get a buzz and burn those hydro carbons, but hey no kids so I think I can say I'm as green as anyone with two kids.
That was all after helping our builder safely secure the mains wiring ring so he can re-plaster our front room of our 1820 Georgian property that we're renovating.
I can't kill myself, I enjoy life too much. However, that still doesn't make me think I'm important in the grand scheme of things. I don't even think this planet or this solar system is significant, or even this galaxy. With recent theories on how the universe came into existence and tenth dimensional reality I'm no longer even certain that this universe is significant. How's that for an understanding of scale? So why the hell I'd think this race of apes with their digital watches is significant I do not know.
@BC_Programmer said:
@pink said:
stop breeding for the sake of it
And the truth is revealed! You are really just a virgin with the mindset "if I can't get some, nobody should!" so you're pushing an agenda to match!
I love ad-hominem attacks, they're so easy to destroy. I lost my virginity 24 years ago. I'm not pushing any agenda. Just giving my opinion. To push an agenda I'd have to be fighting for something. Please feel free to carry on with your life and I'll carry on with mine
You might want to talk to my partner for the last 7 years about that one as well, if you require a witness. The one I have a mortgage with and is of the opposite sex to me. It seems there's a fair chance we're going to spend the rest of our lives together. Neither of us want children, for various reasons. Amazingly there are people out there with very active sex lives ( I rate as equivalent to Extreme Porn Star on various fun online 'tests' I've taken and answered honestly ) and who take precautions to not have children rather than just growing the human race and using more resources (It is a choice you know). I'd rather spend my money on me and having fun. I'm a selfish git like that
P.S. Fixed up that crap HTML you spewed
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@pink said:
I actually have a very good idea how fission reactors work and I am also aware of just how much nuclear waste we stash in bunkers that has a half life of several thousand years.
Then you know we can reprocess that waste into new fuel, increasing its usefulness 10 times. We don't because of pretty stupid political reasons.
@pink said:
Oh course some of the depleted uranium we use in weapons to fights wars in countries so we can steal their oil, so that we can keep on consuming. But don't let that reality hold you back.
Uh-oh, we're like one paragraph in and you're sounding the Paranoid Nutcase Alarm. Not a good sign for the rest of the post!!
@pink said:
If of course you've designed a working commercial fusion reactor I'd love to hear about it.
In the 1000+ years we can power our society using fission reactors and reprocessed fuel, we'll have plenty of time to work on fusion reactors.
@pink said:
So yes, Near Earth Objects. Plenty go flying by, but every now and then some of them do get caught in our gravity well and do impact on our planet. You might want to check for some of the craters left by them on Google Earth. At some point in our future another large one is likely to hit. Chances are very much that it won't be in my lifetime but it likely will be soon (I'm using the geological definition of soon, the one that says 100000 years is a short period of time)
So what's your fucking point? There are a dozen things that would wipe us out "soon" (by your measure). The Yellowstone Caldera thing could explode again. There could be a gamma ray burst in a nearby solar system which fries the whole planet. If you're in the Pacific Northwest like I am, "the big one" (earthquake) could hit any day now. Or Rainier could go off. Or a fucking bus could hit you while crossing the street.
Either you decide right now that you're worried about those things, and ruin your fucking life. Or you do the reasonable thing and say, "eh, well, nothing I can do about it, might as well not think about it." Of course, Paranoid Nutcases are generally the first case, so... another bad sign.
I'm not much of a Christian. (Ok, I'm not a Christian at all.) But I've always been fond of their Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.All the things I just mentioned? Those go into the "accept the things you cannot change" bucket.
@pink said:
You noticed the fact I said nuclear power was part of the 'GREEN' answer right?.
Yay!
@pink said:
Just not our current fission tech.
And... snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.
@pink said:
I don't consider them to be safe particularly (Three Mile Island,
Here's an exercise: why do anti-nuclear activists always consider Three Mile Island to be an example of how unsafe reactors are when, in reality, it's the exact opposite? Three Mile Island showed that, even with that crappy old design, pretty much everything can go wrong, and still no radiation will be released into the environment, and no people will die. That's what Three Mile Island is an example of, how fucking safe the reactor design is... and remember, we're talking about the universally-agreed-upon "unsafe" reactors!
@pink said:
Chernobyl).
Now, as opposed to Three Mile Island, what Chernobyl showed is that if you get a PWR reactor, purposefully disable pretty much every safety system it has, then bring in a group of retards to run a pointless experiment, disaster results. Let's take a look at some numbers:
4,000 deaths-- that includes both the actual first-responders on the scene, and predicted deaths due to increased cancer rates (yes, yes, the real number is unknown and unknowable, but this is a good estimate.) Remember, this is the worst nuclear accident ever. Ever.
5,932 deaths-- average number of deaths due to coal mining each year
0 deaths-- the number of civilian nuclear-power-related deaths in the US (not counting research reactors, or Naval nuclear accidents-- although to my knowledge there have been zero Naval nuclear reactor accidents)10% of the world's CO2 emissions-- the amount of CO2 released by US coal-burning power plants. That's 10% of the world figure. This is the power source Greenpeace, an organization who's goal is reducing CO2 emissions, thinks is better than nuclear! We, as a society, if we had the will, could build a single nuclear power plant in 10 years. We could replace half of those coal plants in 50 years. Lowering the global CO2 rate by 5%. There is No. Possible. Faster. Way. to lower CO2 emissions.
It actually makes me inarticulate, how retarded Greenpeace's position is on this matter. It makes me red with rage. It makes me want to punch those assholes who stand on the sidewalk to talk to me about Greenpeace right in their iPad-using Prius-driving faces.
@pink said:
You may have noticed my post also said that research and education are part of the solution.
If your solution requires changing the lifestyles of billions of people, it's not a solution. If fucking Stalin and Mao, who literally had the power of death over their subjects, never succeeded in making a communist society, what the holy SHIT makes you think you can succeed in your goals? You can't. You're fucking dreaming if you think you can.
If you want to reduce CO2, here's how you fucking do it:
1) Reduce CO2 usage where ordinary consumers do not give a shit. Nobody gives a shit whether their power comes from a coal or nuclear plant, so build the fucking nuclear plant! Nobody gives a shit if their garbage truck runs on diesel or hydrogen fuel cells, so hydrogen that shit up! These are things the government could do *right now* to fix the problem! (Assuming Greenpeace didn't throw a baby tantrum in court every time somebody brought up nuclear power.)
2) Create green technologies that work *better* than non-green technologies. Linux is fucking free, and pretty much as good as Windows for what the average computer user uses it for, and yet nobody's adopted it. Why? It's not enough *better* than Windows... yes even your *free* product has to be better than the competition to be adopted. Nobody fucking switched to Firefox until they added features that made it *better* than IE. You're not going to get people to switch to your green technology until it's *better* than the alternative. It's pointless to even try.
3) On a personal level, stop flying across the fucking country! Whenever I hear someone, in the same breath, talk about how environmentally conscious they are, then talk about their recent trip to London, I want to fucking scream. I can *literally* leave my car idling in my driveway for *three months*, and I still wouldn't use as much CO2 as a single 747 trip from LAX to Heathrow. (777s perform better, but the general point still applies.) If you make ride a bus to work every day instead of driving-- but you take a couple airline flights a year-- you're more of a problem than the guy who drives the huge 10 MPG truck. If you're traveling by airplane, you are not green. Period.
@pink said:
I can't kill myself, I enjoy life too much. However, that still doesn't make me think I'm important in the grand scheme of things. I don't even think this planet or this solar system is significant, or even this galaxy.
Then why the fuck do you do anything you do? What's the fucking point? If you honestly think it's all pointless, why the fuck do you refinish furniture, or take photos, or drive a "T-Bar" sports car (whatever that is), or even fucking get out of bed?
You're like a poseur nihilist. What the fuck, man. You need help.
Oh, and hang on a bit, let's turn on the Hypocrite Alarm as well. You're yelling "stop breeding" while at the same time saying, "hey I have a great lust for life!" Fuck you, man. Fuck you. You can't be passionate about life, while wanting to prevent other people from *even existing*. If you believe human passion is a good thing, you should support having as many children as the planet's resources can allow!
@pink said:
I love ad-hominem attacks, they're so easy to destroy. I lost my virginity 24 years ago.
... at the age of 50!
(Sorry, cheap shot. But I had to.)
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Blakeyrat. Firstly, many thanks for actually raising valid points. I really appreciate that.
@blakeyrat said:
@pink said:
I actually have a very good idea how fission reactors work and I am also aware of just how much nuclear waste we stash in bunkers that has a half life of several thousand years.
Then you know we can reprocess that waste into new fuel, increasing its usefulness 10 times. We don't because of pretty stupid political reasons.</blockquote>Yes we can, as you say we don't. That makes it a pointless excercise to say we can when the political will is not there to do it. In my experience I have found this usually comes back to some financial incentive.
@blakeyrat said:
@pink said:
Oh course some of the depleted uranium we use in weapons to fights wars in countries so we can steal their oil, so that we can keep on consuming. But don't let that reality hold you back.
Uh-oh, we're like one paragraph in and you're sounding the Paranoid Nutcase Alarm. Not a good sign for the rest of the post!!</blockquote>So you don't think the couple of thousand tonnes of depeleted uranium that we (the UK armed forces) alone used in Iraq by 2003 is a problem and is just me being paranoid?
Gulf troops face tests for cancer
Soldiers returning from the Gulf will be offered tests to check levels of depleted uranium in their bodies to assess whether they are in danger of suffering kidney damage and lung cancer as a result of exposure, the Ministry of Defence said last night.
Or is it that there were WMDs and I'm hallucinating.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7634313/
The CIA and the Royal Society seem to disagree.If we didn't go in for the WMDs then using occam's razor would suggest it's oil. Or is it just normal practice where you are from to terrorise a country, pretty much unilaterally, with no evidence and leave it in a state of hell and then set up your country's businesses with the contracts to rebuild it's infrastructure? ( I know that's a simplification of the situation ).
Seeming as the US produces and consumes far more depleted Uranium 234 than the UK I would hate to know how much in total has been used in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone.
@blakeyrat said:
@pink said:
If of course you've designed a working commercial fusion reactor I'd love to hear about it.
In the 1000+ years we can power our society using fission reactors and reprocessed fuel, we'll have plenty of time to work on fusion reactors.</blockquote>Agreed, That would require research right? And in the 50 years that the UK has been using nuclear reactors we've created ~40,000 tonnes of waste material. We consume 1,215 tonnes a year here with current capacity. It's not being reprocessed.
@blakeyrat said:
@pink said:
So yes, Near Earth Objects. Plenty go flying by, but every now and then some of them do get caught in our gravity well and do impact on our planet. You might want to check for some of the craters left by them on Google Earth. At some point in our future another large one is likely to hit. Chances are very much that it won't be in my lifetime but it likely will be soon (I'm using the geological definition of soon, the one that says 100000 years is a short period of time)
So what's your fucking point? There are a dozen things that would wipe us out "soon" (by your measure). The Yellowstone Caldera thing could explode again. There could be a gamma ray burst in a nearby solar system which fries the whole planet. If you're in the Pacific Northwest like I am, "the big one" (earthquake) could hit any day now. Or Rainier could go off. Or a fucking bus could hit you while crossing the street. <p>Either you decide right now that you're worried about those things, and ruin your fucking life. Or you do the reasonable thing and say, "eh, well, nothing I can do about it, might as well not think about it." Of course, Paranoid Nutcases are generally the first case, so... another bad sign.</blockquote>But I can do something about many of those things. I can choose to cross the road safely, reducing my chance of being hit by a bus. I can choose to not live in an area of the planet prone to earthquakes or floods. Admittedly there's not much I can do about gamma ray bursts from a nearby solar system and I don't let it worry me. Because worrying about that would interfere with my fun. I am here, down to a choice made by my parents (and I was a concious choice), so I'm going to have as much fun as a I can. Please note, lack of significance does not neccesarily mean pointless.
My point was in regard of @BC_Programmer said:
"And what happens when the next near earth object comes near Earth? Will everybody catch a plague from demons? it's NEAR earth object, not hitting the earth object. You also demonstrate a clear misunderstanding of the relative emptyness of space."
I hoped I was clarifying my understanding of scale. Not saying it was a current (ZOMG! my lifetime) threat as BC seemed to be trying to imply.
@blakeyrat said:
I'm not much of a Christian. (Ok, I'm not a Christian at all.) But I've always been fond of their Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
All the things I just mentioned? Those go into the "accept the things you cannot change" bucket.
I'm not a Christian either but wisdom is wisdom, wherever it comes from.
Personally my mantra is:
Accept the things I cannot change;
Have courage to change the things I can;
Gain wisdom to know the difference.
I agree with you wholeheartedly on the above. I've not said anything to dispute what you say as far as I am aware.Why do you keep associating insignificance with pointless? It seems like you and BC may have your own issues on this matter and for some reason, I cannot fathom, think that if life is insignificant then it is also pointless. I have much serenity. I accept life is insignificant. I also believe that to assist all animals be they apes or not is something I should strive for. They're all insignificant, but it makes me feel good to be nice to them. So again selfish motive.@blakeyrat said:
@pink said:
You noticed the fact I said nuclear power was part of the 'GREEN' answer right?.
Yay! @pink said:<blockquote>Just not our current fission tech.</blockquote> And... snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.</blockquote>The tech we currently implement IMHO is subject to many factors that make it potentially dangerous. The lack of waste re-processing is one of them, as you said above. Quite simply we don't do it and we don't do it for what are, in my opinion, the wrong reasons.
@blakeyrat said:
@pink said:
I don't consider them to be safe particularly (Three Mile Island,
Here's an exercise: why do anti-nuclear activists always consider Three Mile Island to be an example of how unsafe reactors are when, in reality, it's the exact opposite? Three Mile Island showed that, even with that crappy old design, <b>pretty much everything</b> can go wrong, and <b>still no radiation will be released into the environment, and no people will die</b>. That's what Three Mile Island is an example of, how fucking *safe* the reactor design is... and remember, we're talking about the universally-agreed-upon "unsafe" reactors!</blockquote>It's used as an example because it's well known. Radioactive gases were released into the environment, but thankfully for those in charge, at a level whereby it is unlikely that we will be able to correlate any resultant ilness or death. That does not mean that no-one died as a result and no-one got ill. It just means we cannot correlate the cause and effect. I agree it's a bad example and I should have thought more about that.
@blakeyrat said:
@pink said:
Chernobyl).
Now, as opposed to Three Mile Island, what Chernobyl showed is that if you get a PWR reactor, purposefully disable pretty much every safety system it has, then bring in a group of retards to run a pointless experiment, disaster results. Let's take a look at some numbers: </p><p>4,000 deaths-- that includes both the actual first-responders on the scene, and predicted deaths due to increased cancer rates (yes, yes, the real number is unknown and unknowable, but this is a good estimate.) Remember, this is the worst nuclear accident ever. Ever. <br>5,932 deaths-- average number of deaths due to coal mining <i>each year</i> <br>0 deaths-- the number of civilian nuclear-power-related deaths in the US (not counting research reactors, or Naval nuclear accidents-- although to my knowledge there have been zero Naval nuclear reactor accidents) </p><p>10% of the world's CO2 emissions-- the amount of CO2 released by US coal-burning power plants. That's 10% of the <i>world</i> figure. <b><i>This</i> is the power source Greenpeace, an organization who's goal is reducing CO2 emissions, thinks is better than nuclear!</b> We, as a society, if we had the will, could build a single nuclear power plant in 10 years. We could replace half of those coal plants in 50 years. Lowering the global CO2 rate by 5%. There is No. Possible. Faster. Way. to lower CO2 emissions. </p><p>It actually makes me inarticulate, how retarded Greenpeace's position is on this matter. It makes me red with rage. It makes me want to punch those assholes who stand on the sidewalk to talk to me about Greenpeace right in their iPad-using Prius-driving faces.</blockquote>I never said coal mining was a safe occupation, but those people chose to be coal miners and thereby chose the associated risks. I don't remember being consulted on the construction or running of Chernobyl or any nuclear plant. You were I assume?
I partially agreee with you on this point. The trend of human nature in general that I have experienced in my lifetime is to continue to consume in a mindless manner. So without actually approaching it in the logical manner you have the trend would be to continue to use coal, increase the number of nuclear plants and have the worst of both worlds. Political agendas also seem to mean that the reactors that are to be built are not in order to close coal or gas powered stations but to meet our ever growing 'needs' in addition. This is where I disagree and it comes back to research and education. I don't have a problem with nuclear. I have a problem with our implementation. I equally have a problem with our implementation of Coal/Gas. All for the reasons you have mentioned above.
I have trusted friends who have categorically stated that they have been involved in nuclear naval accidents in the UK. The UK Government (AFAIK) has always denied this has occurred on any serious level. I lived near such a naval base for about 8 years of my life and knew a fair number of people who worked there. They are all either lying or the government is. Why my friends would lie to me about such things I do not know. I do however know that governments lie. Or have they found WMDs in Iraq? Did we (the UK) not supply Saddam with "pipes" for oil that just "happened" to be rifled and suitable for military use? I would not expect you to use my friends as evidence as there are no references, there is no documentation to back it up that I can refer you to, but I do have to take my experience into account. I also lived for all of my childhood near a US military base in the UK and we were consistently told no nuclear weapons were stored there. Eventually when they were decommisioned the government owned up to it (and I can understand that from a security point of view). So they also lied to me for all of my childhood.
It's my life experience that makes me wary of such things.
Please don't get me started on GreenPeace, bunch of tossers for the most part in my experience.
@blakeyrat said:
@pink said:
You may have noticed my post also said that research and education are part of the solution.
If your solution requires changing the lifestyles of billions of people, it's not a solution. If fucking Stalin and Mao, who literally had the power of death over their subjects, never succeeded in making a communist society, what the holy SHIT makes you think you can succeed in your goals? You can't. You're fucking dreaming if you think you can. </p><p>If you want to reduce CO2, here's how you fucking do it: </p><p>1) Reduce CO2 usage where ordinary consumers do not give a shit. Nobody gives a shit whether their power comes from a coal or nuclear plant, so build the fucking nuclear plant! Nobody gives a shit if their garbage truck runs on diesel or hydrogen fuel cells, so hydrogen that shit up! These are things the government could do *right now* to fix the problem! (Assuming Greenpeace didn't throw a baby tantrum in court every time somebody brought up nuclear power.) </p><p>2) Create green technologies that work *better* than non-green technologies. Linux is fucking free, and pretty much as good as Windows for what the average computer user uses it for, and yet nobody's adopted it. Why? It's not enough *better* than Windows... yes even your *free* product has to be better than the competition to be adopted. Nobody fucking switched to Firefox until they added features that made it *better* than IE. You're not going to get people to switch to your green technology until it's *better* than the alternative. It's pointless to even try. </p><p>3) On a personal level, stop flying across the fucking country! Whenever I hear someone, in the same breath, talk about how environmentally conscious they are, then talk about their recent trip to London, I want to fucking scream. I can *literally* leave my car idling in my driveway for *three months*, and I still wouldn't use as much CO2 as a single 747 trip from LAX to Heathrow. (777s perform better, but the general point still applies.) If you make ride a bus to work every day instead of driving-- but you take a couple airline flights a year-- you're more of a problem than the guy who drives the huge 10 MPG truck. If you're traveling by airplane, <i>you are not green</i>. Period.</blockquote>Which I think was exactly my point. Research and education? I'm not sure where I said that people's lifestyles had to change? I said research and education. A point you back up in your own discourse.
Are we not saying exactly the same thing here. Make a better mousetrap and use it.
Do you think that anyone would have used firefox even with it being better if there hadn't been education to that fact, articles about security flaws in IE, articles about speed in IE. Articles about how much better Firefox was/is. That is education. And how did firefox come to be better than IE? I believe by people spending time researching better ways of doing things. Again research and education. This was my point.
Your point about flying across the country is again my point. Reduce mindless consumption. Do the right thing. Educate people. I 100% agree. I'm just also saying at the same time I choose to stop producing more consumers. More people = more consumption.
I don't think my choice to not have kids is going to cause us as a species to die out but it's far more green than choosing to drive a prius. I like driving. No, I LOVE driving. If someone can find a way for me to do that in a greener manner than I currently can and still retain the fun that my 200bhp 2 seater sports car gives me and is within my budget I'll adopt that in the blink of an eye. Driving a prius is fucking boring though.
Couldn't agree more on the flying thing, having said that though I've just recently had the chance to fly a helicopter a couple of times and it was awesome :) I now want to save the money to get my pilots license.
@blakeyrat said:
@pink said:
I can't kill myself, I enjoy life too much. However, that still doesn't make me think I'm important in the grand scheme of things. I don't even think this planet or this solar system is significant, or even this galaxy.
Then why the fuck do you do anything you do? What's the fucking point? If you *honestly* think it's all pointless, why the fuck do you refinish furniture, or take photos, or drive a "T-Bar" sports car (whatever that is), or even fucking get out of bed? </p><p>You're like a poseur nihilist. What the fuck, man. You need help.</blockquote>Believing that the human race is insignificant does not change the reality that I am here. Whilst I am here I am going to do my best to enjoy myself. Otherwise insignificance would turn into pointlessness and there would be no reason for me to live. Is that so hard to understand? Insignificant != pointless.
Insignificant = Too small or unimportant to be worth consideration.
pointless = without meaning, relevance, or force.One is a gradient. It scales by reference.
The other is complete lack of. Non existence.It's like saying 0.1 == null, for some cases that may be true
float function isPointless(float pSignificance) { float lLowestAcceptableSignificance = 1.0; if(pSignificance < lLowestAcceptableSignificance) { return null; } } float lSignificance = 0.1; if( isPointless(lSignificance) == null ) { printf("you suck"); }
:) (yes my variable naming and code suck)By definition a scale can equate to zero, and then it is pointless. But if it is measurably not zero then it's not pointless.
(A T-Bar is a removable glass roof with a T section through the middle to support the glass panels and retain rigidity. Wind through your hair and all that, sun streaming down on you whilst driving).
@blakeyrat said:
Oh, and hang on a bit, let's turn on the Hypocrite Alarm as well. You're yelling "stop breeding" while at the same time saying, "hey I have a great lust for life!" Fuck you, man. Fuck you. You can't be passionate about life, while wanting to prevent other people from even existing. If you believe human passion is a good thing, you should support having as many children as the planet's resources can allow!
Both yourself and BC have taken that out of context. The quote is related to if you want to be green "stop breeding for the sake of it" that's not the same as "stop breeding". If you can't see the difference then I would say IMHO you should not be allowed to breed :)
My parents conciously chose to bring me into this world. I choose to not bring children into this world for a variety of reasons. My partner has very different reasons to mine but because we both agree on the same choice it works for us. If you wish to be green and do your bit for the environment then that's a choice you can make. How does that make me a hypocrite? I did not choose to be here, now I am here I choose to not breed. BC confused breeding with intercourse. You now seem to be confusing my parent's choices with mine. I fail to see how I am a hypocrite because I do not follow my parent's choices.
That's no different than saying if you want to be green then don't fly.
@blakeyrat said:
@pink said:
I love ad-hominem attacks, they're so easy to destroy. I lost my virginity 24 years ago.
... at the age of 50!(Sorry, cheap shot. But I had to.)
...That would be hard having not yet reached the age of 50. :)
<Insert preferred generic slur of your sexuality here.>
You're welcome to take cheap shots, because you're insignificant :P
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@pink said:
Yes we can, as you say we don't. That makes it a pointless excercise to say we can when the political will is not there to do it. In my experience I have found this usually comes back to some financial incentive.
Here's the nihilism. Dude, you can't be a nihilist with a lust for life... it doesn't make fucking sense.
"Your experience" is a retard... we don't do it because the process produces materials that happen to be very useful for making atomic bombs, and there are concerns that those materials could leak to a hostile nation or terrorist group. That's retarded, because a hostile nation or terrorist group would be just as interested in plain ol' Uranium 238, which can also be used to make atomic bombs, and which we have shitloads of-- the fact that they don't have any pretty much proves that existing security is sufficient.
Asterisk: North Korea probably got some from the USSR, or rather a rogue ex-USSR general. But there's nothing we in the US or UK can do about that, anyway, so it's still no reason to not reprocess fuel rods.
@pink said:
So you don't think the couple of thousand tonnes of depeleted uranium that we (the UK armed forces) alone used in Iraq by 2003 is a problem and is just me being paranoid?
Gulf troops face tests for cancer
Soldiers returning from the Gulf will be offered tests to check levels of depleted uranium in their bodies to assess whether they are in danger of suffering kidney damage and lung cancer as a result of exposure, the Ministry of Defence said last night.
Huh? I never said anything about that...
@pink said:
Or is it that there were WMDs and I'm hallucinating.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7634313/
The CIA and the Royal Society seem to disagree.If we didn't go in for the WMDs then using occam's razor would suggest it's oil.
Dude. I'm not a conspiracy theorists. We know now that there were no WMDs in Iraq, or at least none worth mentioning. (There were materials prohibited by various UN resolutions against the nation, for example, ballistic missile fuselages over the maximum limited diameter.) But that is not the point.
The real question is this: before we invaded Iraq in 2003, did we as a nation *know* there were no WMDs in Iraq? The answers are:
1) No, we did not
2) But Saddam was doing everything in his fucking power to ensure we *thought* there were.There's this thing called hindsight. What we know now, we did not know in 2003. Do you understand that? The concept of information changing over time? It's stupid to get on the government's case about invading Iraq for WMDs when *nobody* at the time the invasion happened knew that the WMDs had already been destroyed, and *everybody* had ample reason to believe that Saddam still held functioning WMDs. Iraq was in violation of, what, 13 UN Security Council directives?
That's not to say that the invasion was a good idea, or that it was implemented well, or that the world is a better place now because of it. That's just to say that the reason for invading was not some fucking conspiracy.
@pink said:
Or is it just normal practice where you are from to terrorise a country, pretty much unilaterally, with no evidence and leave it in a state of hell and then set up your country's businesses with the contracts to rebuild it's infrastructure? ( I know that's a simplification of the situation ).
Fucking Christ, man. Stop licking Michael Moore's asshole. Does he pay you? Or do you do it for free?
@pink said:
Agreed, That would require research right? And in the 50 years that the UK has been using nuclear reactors we've created ~40,000 tonnes of waste material. We consume 1,215 tonnes a year here with current capacity. It's not being reprocessed.
Golly gee willikers! You mean after I said it's not being reprocessed, and then you said it's not being reprocessed, you're coming at me with this shocking new information? Who, I ask who, could have predicted this! It turns out that it's not being reprocessed!! What a twist!
@pink said:
I can choose to not live in an area of the planet prone to earthquakes or floods.
Good luck with that one.
@pink said:
Personally my mantra is:
Accept the things I cannot change;
Have courage to change the things I can;
Gain wisdom to know the difference.That's... that's the same fucking thing. Do you have a mental illness?
@pink said:
I accept life is insignificant. I also believe that to assist all animals be they apes or not is something I should strive for.
No, you're contradicting yourself. Stop it.
@pink said:
They're all insignificant, but it makes me feel good to be nice to them.
But-- wha-- how... maybe you don't know the definition of the word "insignificant?" Maybe that's the problem we're having here?
@pink said:
It's used as an example because it's well known. Radioactive gases were released into the environment, but thankfully for those in charge, at a level whereby it is unlikely that we will be able to correlate any resultant ilness or death. That does not mean that no-one died as a result and no-one got ill. It just means we cannot correlate the cause and effect. I agree it's a bad example and I should have thought more about that.
You and every single fucking so-called environmentalist trying to fucking tell me that nuclear reactors will bring about Ragnarök. Look, Chrome's spell-checker even has the correct accent on the o.
Yes, I was being misleading too. There was a release of radioactive material. The reason I didn't mention it is that the amount was NEGLIGIBLE, and BARELY EVEN MEASURABLE, and thus that little factoid is completely irrelevant to the argument at hand. And yes, it does mean that nobody died, unless you have some revolutionary new study showing otherwise-- in which case release it and you'll be fucking famous.
Here's the real point I'm getting at: if someone mentions Three Mile Island as an example of the dangers of nuclear power, that might as well just be typing, "derp I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about derp derp." Because that's really the message they're sending.
@pink said:
I never said coal mining was a safe occupation, but those people chose to be coal miners and thereby chose the associated risks.
... what? How is this relevant?
And yes, I know you never mentioned coal mining specifically. Some of what I typed was in response to Greenpeace bullshit in general, not specifically what you typed, so I apologize for that. What I was getting at is that nuclear power, even *including* Chernobyl, is orders of magnitude safer than other forms of power generation. By every single measure.
@pink said:
I don't remember being consulted on the construction or running of Chernobyl or any nuclear plant. You were I assume?
... what?
@pink said:
I partially agreee with you on this point. The trend of human nature in general that I have experienced in my lifetime is to continue to consume in a mindless manner. So without actually approaching it in the logical manner you have the trend would be to continue to use coal, increase the number of nuclear plants and have the worst of both worlds.
No, because nuclear displaces coal, since nuclear is better by almost every measure: more efficient, safer, less waste, more reliable, etc etc etc. I mean, what you're saying is like going to 1904 and saying "we shouldn't mass-produce automobiles because then we'll have automobiles and horses and it'll be a traffic disaster." No. Wrong. Better technologies displace worse ones.
Asterisk: unless there's a bunch of retarded people who still think the worse ones are actually better, for example, people who still buy LPs instead of CDs. But then again, there are people in 2010 who still ride horses, so I guess you never 100% displace anything.
@pink said:
Political agendas also seem to mean that the reactors that are to be built are not in order to close coal or gas powered stations but to meet our ever growing 'needs' in addition. This is where I disagree and it comes back to research and education. I don't have a problem with nuclear. I have a problem with our implementation. I equally have a problem with our implementation of Coal/Gas. All for the reasons you have mentioned above.
What exactly do you suggest we use for power? Magic beans? Because man, I'm telling you, Jack already used all of those up. Or are you still holding on to your hippy fantasy that if you can just get the message out, people will consume less?
@pink said:
I have trusted friends who have categorically stated that they have been involved in nuclear naval accidents in the UK.
Two things:
1) I have trusted friends who think ghosts are real. Since I don't have to rely on their opinion of ghosts for the things I trust them with, it doesn't really matter what kind of crazy bullshit they believe. In short: tons of people lie about tons of shit, all the time. Some of them are your friends. Some of them you may trust to do things unrelated to the things they lie about.
2) I have no clue if there have been any naval nuclear accidents in the UK, but some cursory research shows that while there have been some accidents involving nuclear subs, none of them were due to the nuclear reactor. I see a collision with a French sub, I see one that ran aground-- that's about it.How about you phone up your wacko-ass friend and get some citations? Then maybe I'll trust him, too!
@pink said:
Did we (the UK) not supply Saddam with "pipes" for oil that just "happened" to be rifled and suitable for military use?
Are... are you playing Mad Libs? Is that what this is? WTF!
@pink said:
I would not expect you to use my friends as evidence as there are no references, there is no documentation to back it up that I can refer you to, but I do have to take my experience into account.
I don't give a shit about your life experience, I'm looking for facts. If there's no evidence, it's bullshit. Period.
@pink said:
Which I think was exactly my point. Research and education? I'm not sure where I said that people's lifestyles had to change? I said research and education. A point you back up in your own discourse.
Are we not saying exactly the same thing here. Make a better mousetrap and use it.
Do you think that anyone would have used firefox even with it being better if there hadn't been education to that fact, articles about security flaws in IE, articles about speed in IE. Articles about how much better Firefox was/is. That is education. And how did firefox come to be better than IE? I believe by people spending time researching better ways of doing things. Again research and education. This was my point.
Ok, fair enough. I misunderstood what you meant by education.
@pink said:
I like driving. No, I LOVE driving. If someone can find a way for me to do that in a greener manner than I currently can and still retain the fun that my 200bhp 2 seater sports car gives me and is within my budget I'll adopt that in the blink of an eye.
Your driving is not part of the problem. You'll never stop CO2 emissions by putting people into buses and trains. Especially since most buses and trains don't do any better, fuel-economy-wise, than single-occupant cars do.
(I ride a train to work that's criminally inefficient-- they pair one freight-sized diesel to 2 or 3 passenger cars, then never, ever shut them down... even on holiday weekends... those four engines are burning diesel *right now*. I asked the conductor about it once and he said that do that because the engines are bitches to get started, apparently.)
People just like to focus on driving because it makes them feel like they're helping, even though they're not really. I mean, it's not like it *hurts*, but percentage-wise, there are much, much, much bigger fish to fry.
@pink said:
Insignificant = Too small or unimportant to be worth consideration.
pointless = without meaning, relevance, or force.Whatever, man. Those are the same thing.
@pink said:
...That would be hard having not yet reached the age of 50. :)
<Insert preferred generic slur of your sexuality here.>
You're welcome to take cheap shots, because you're insignificant :P
Goddamned, man. Make a joke. Don't weasel out of it.
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@pink said:
Just not our current fission tech. PWRs are not current tech but they are what we mostly use right now. I don't consider them to be safe particularly (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl). There are plenty more designs that are far better, but that's not what we use right now.
Chernobyl was not PWR, it was RBMK. They are completely different technologies. As far as safety differences go, RBMK originally had high positive void coefficient (all reactors underwent changes to drop it to a lot safer range, but it's still positive), so when water boils, the power goes up. And once power goes up, even more water will boil and thus increasing the power output. PWR has large negative void coefficient and negative temperature coefficient, so similar accident is impossible by design.
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@blakeyrat said:
Your driving is not part of the problem. You'll never stop CO2 emissions by putting people into buses and trains. Especially since most buses and trains don't do any better, fuel-economy-wise, than single-occupant cars do.
I'm not sure I agree with you on public transit - even crappy, uber-polluting public transit - producing equivalent CO2 emissions to some asshat driving around all smug in a Prius. The more important factor is person-miles-per-gallon-equivalent (as in a person traveling a single mile on a gallon equivalent of gasoline) and in this sense, public transportation generally kicks the crap out of a car any day of the week.
Simple example:
- 1 asshole driving in a Prius @ 50MPGE - 50 PMPGE
- 10 people taking the bus @ 10MPGE - 100 PMPGE
This is the general idea behind the claims that public transit saves fuel. Your train may only get 0.5MPGE, but if its transporting 500 people, then it's getting 250PMPGE which is friggin sweet (IMO).
Edit: So I lied, your train sucks (I just reread your post) 1/2 full @ 3 cars of 15 rows of 4 people ~ 90 people ... so 45PMPGE @ 0.5MPGE.
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Wait, did I miss something from the original article? Are they using spent nuclear fuel to power these heat rays?? What's going on here. . . . .
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@Medezark said:
Wait, did I miss something from the original article? Are they using spent nuclear fuel to power these heat rays?? What's going on here. . . . .
Oh, look, it's perfectly simple.The spent nuclear fuel can only be used to power deathheat rays after reprocessing, but the UK and US governments don't reprocess fuel because they're worried that it might fall into the hands of Greenpeace terrorists, who want to divert it to powering public transport but who [b]also[/b] object to building nuclear plants in the first place (they only like the kind of plants that photosynthesise).
Chernobyl was caused by a group of Greenpeace terrorists, working together with coal miners who were worried about losing their jobs to the nuclear industry (instead of losing them by dying in a coal mine accident, as they had planned). They tried the same tactic at Three Mile Island but failed because TMI had a safer reactor design.
The ACLU is unhappy about the heat rays because they feel the reprocessed nuclear fuel would be better used to power aircraft travel, and also because they couldn't get concealed-carry permits for them. The LASD, on the other hand, wants to use the fuel for detecting NEOs that come a bit too close to Earth for comfort, and blowing them up if at all possible, using teams of (expendable) prisoners for the job.
However, the whole argument is really moot since Doc Brown actually stole all the reprocessed nuclear fuel and is now (for certain values of "now") living in the year 2237 with it, where he has a lucrative contract with the public transport network.
I hope that clarifies things for you.
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@pink said:
I have a motorcycle for sale for $5,000 that makes 199.1HP at the rear wheel. It gets over 50MPG when you drive nice and can do 0-60 in 2.3 seconds.If someone can find a way for me to do that in a greener manner than I currently can and still retain the fun that my 200bhp 2 seater sports car gives me and is within my budget I'll adopt that in the blink of an eye.
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@Scarlet Manuka said:
@Medezark said:
Oh, look, it's perfectly simple.Wait, did I miss something from the original article? Are they using spent nuclear fuel to power these heat rays?? What's going on here. . . . .
The spent nuclear fuel can only be used to power deathheat rays after reprocessing, but the UK and US governments don't reprocess fuel because they're worried that it might fall into the hands of Greenpeace terrorists, who want to divert it to powering public transport but who also object to building nuclear plants in the first place (they only like the kind of plants that photosynthesise).
Chernobyl was caused by a group of Greenpeace terrorists, working together with coal miners who were worried about losing their jobs to the nuclear industry (instead of losing them by dying in a coal mine accident, as they had planned). They tried the same tactic at Three Mile Island but failed because TMI had a safer reactor design.
The ACLU is unhappy about the heat rays because they feel the reprocessed nuclear fuel would be better used to power aircraft travel, and also because they couldn't get concealed-carry permits for them. The LASD, on the other hand, wants to use the fuel for detecting NEOs that come a bit too close to Earth for comfort, and blowing them up if at all possible, using teams of (expendable) prisoners for the job.
However, the whole argument is really moot since Doc Brown actually stole all the reprocessed nuclear fuel and is now (for certain values of "now") living in the year 2237 with it, where he has a lucrative contract with the public transport network.
I hope that clarifies things for you.
Whew.... I THOUGHT that was what was going on, but with the off-topic references to "humane treatment of prisoners" got a little confused.
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@Medezark said:
Whew.... I THOUGHT that was what was going on, but with the off-topic references
to "humane treatment of prisoners" got a little confused.
That just means they let them have spacesuits when they go out to blow up the NEOs.
