I sort of can't stand it any more
Jan. 27th, 2007 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
justalurkrYes, I'm a liberal. I live conservative, but don't really care what the rest of you get up to within the duly constituted laws of man and physics.
aside: I am not a libertarian, because that libertarian utopia the Founding Fathers were supposed to have left? Had slavery and voteless women. Ptui. Took 150 years of diligent populism to fix that mess.
Anyway. I mention my liberal leanings because I am about to lose all liberal cred here. I have been listening to as much of the Iraq Study Group Report as I can stomach (the Shrub clearly isn't reading it; why should I?) and have now embarked on an epic, three-part audio rendering of Michael Oren's The Six Day War, and I about can't deal any more.
It's like this: the more I find out about the history of the Middle East, the more I want to turn up the breeder reactors, deploy the electric cars, pull every Western industrialized asset out of the Middle East and just let the fuckers swim in rivers of each others blood, as they are so clearly peeing their pants in anticipation of doing.
:puff:puff:
I say this in full knowledge of the fact that much of the US's problem in the Middle East is...the US's problem. Bed we made, bed we lie in, all that aphorismal horseshit. My perception, though, is that it's a bed of oil, dependence thereon, and if we weren't, we really wouldn't care what any of them got up to, now would we?
But liberals aren't supposed to be pro-nuclear power, are they? eeek!
Tuffskie shitskie, as my dear old mom likes to say from time to time. I'm having a really hard time seeing anything wrong with nuclear energy that isn't already wrong with fossil fuels.
1. Nuclear meltdown is not a foregone conclusion. Chernobyl = nuclear plant, but nuclear plant =/= Chernobyl. It's not a commutative thing-a-majig. People can pay attention to what's going on in a breeder reactor proactively. All those National Guards busy finding IEDs in Bagdad could be better employed keeping people who don't belong there out of power plants.
2. For nuclear waste disposal, I give you global warming. Breeder reactors, if I recall correctly, don't make as much waste, and we have lots of very fine minds out there wasting their time figuring out why Oil Is The Only Way, when they could be figuring out How To Get Nuclear Waste Safely Into the Sun. (I'm thinking we launch from someplace like Antarctica, where it's not such an issue if something goes splat. Dude, I'm totally talking about the bits with no penguins. I'm not completely heartless.)
3. Nuclear proliferation. Um. Horse, barn? Out of? Some seriously whack people that we'd rather didn't now have nukes, and the US can't do anything about it because we're bogged down in the Middle East, keeping the non-renewable, filthy dirty fossil fuel supply cheap and available.
I'm not kidding here. What you see in the Middle East and in pristine wilderness environments around the world (that unfortunately happen to sit on top of oil puddles) is what you get for the rest of human history that involves dependence on fossil fuels. We are reduced to either the permanent destruction of environments for what amounts to a few years worth of oil, or continuing to interfere in the lives of people who would rather discuss and settle the question of the succession of the Prophet amongst themselves, with a sidebar on Palestine v. Israel.
Why nukes over the plethora of fossil fuel alternatives? Because we have a Federal government that lends itself well to backing and funding uniform solutions to questions, and wind/solar/geothermal/fill-in-blank do not lend themselves to univeral implementation. Plus, isotopes continue decaying at reliable rates even when the wind is calm and the sun is down, but whatever.
There is no figleaf on my shame: I am now pro nuclear energy.
aside: I am not a libertarian, because that libertarian utopia the Founding Fathers were supposed to have left? Had slavery and voteless women. Ptui. Took 150 years of diligent populism to fix that mess.
Anyway. I mention my liberal leanings because I am about to lose all liberal cred here. I have been listening to as much of the Iraq Study Group Report as I can stomach (the Shrub clearly isn't reading it; why should I?) and have now embarked on an epic, three-part audio rendering of Michael Oren's The Six Day War, and I about can't deal any more.
It's like this: the more I find out about the history of the Middle East, the more I want to turn up the breeder reactors, deploy the electric cars, pull every Western industrialized asset out of the Middle East and just let the fuckers swim in rivers of each others blood, as they are so clearly peeing their pants in anticipation of doing.
:puff:puff:
I say this in full knowledge of the fact that much of the US's problem in the Middle East is...the US's problem. Bed we made, bed we lie in, all that aphorismal horseshit. My perception, though, is that it's a bed of oil, dependence thereon, and if we weren't, we really wouldn't care what any of them got up to, now would we?
But liberals aren't supposed to be pro-nuclear power, are they? eeek!
Tuffskie shitskie, as my dear old mom likes to say from time to time. I'm having a really hard time seeing anything wrong with nuclear energy that isn't already wrong with fossil fuels.
1. Nuclear meltdown is not a foregone conclusion. Chernobyl = nuclear plant, but nuclear plant =/= Chernobyl. It's not a commutative thing-a-majig. People can pay attention to what's going on in a breeder reactor proactively. All those National Guards busy finding IEDs in Bagdad could be better employed keeping people who don't belong there out of power plants.
2. For nuclear waste disposal, I give you global warming. Breeder reactors, if I recall correctly, don't make as much waste, and we have lots of very fine minds out there wasting their time figuring out why Oil Is The Only Way, when they could be figuring out How To Get Nuclear Waste Safely Into the Sun. (I'm thinking we launch from someplace like Antarctica, where it's not such an issue if something goes splat. Dude, I'm totally talking about the bits with no penguins. I'm not completely heartless.)
3. Nuclear proliferation. Um. Horse, barn? Out of? Some seriously whack people that we'd rather didn't now have nukes, and the US can't do anything about it because we're bogged down in the Middle East, keeping the non-renewable, filthy dirty fossil fuel supply cheap and available.
I'm not kidding here. What you see in the Middle East and in pristine wilderness environments around the world (that unfortunately happen to sit on top of oil puddles) is what you get for the rest of human history that involves dependence on fossil fuels. We are reduced to either the permanent destruction of environments for what amounts to a few years worth of oil, or continuing to interfere in the lives of people who would rather discuss and settle the question of the succession of the Prophet amongst themselves, with a sidebar on Palestine v. Israel.
Why nukes over the plethora of fossil fuel alternatives? Because we have a Federal government that lends itself well to backing and funding uniform solutions to questions, and wind/solar/geothermal/fill-in-blank do not lend themselves to univeral implementation. Plus, isotopes continue decaying at reliable rates even when the wind is calm and the sun is down, but whatever.
There is no figleaf on my shame: I am now pro nuclear energy.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-28 03:27 am (UTC)And as for there being no figleaf on your shame: rock on, you soul-sister anarchist!
[makes little anarchist sign]
Date: 2007-01-28 05:47 am (UTC)Re: [makes little anarchist sign]
Date: 2007-01-28 06:25 pm (UTC)Anyhow, I'm jonesing for a lurker fix so we'll have to keep our sights on March and April and see what we can do. I may have to live in a soggy haystack these days, but it's an awfully spacious soggy haystack with lots of room for visitors!
Or Atlanta's good, too! :-)
Re: [makes little anarchist sign]
Date: 2007-01-28 06:49 pm (UTC)As to soggy haystacks, I have plenty of rural living experience in my background, thanks to Cedar Chest, GA. You know all about my tropical climate cred from South Swamp, FL. I shall be able to withstand the worst LA can throw at me. :)
I'll be sure not to cannibalize my entire stock of paid time off getting snowbound or, heaven forfend, sick with whatever crap is going around leaving dry coughs and headaches in its wake.
Oh, and...
Date: 2007-01-28 06:50 pm (UTC)Re: Oh, and...
Date: 2007-01-28 06:58 pm (UTC)