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Yea the whole thing was British led, but the fight was about Canada, a commonwealth of the british.

Canadian troops sided with british and beat US troops at every turn. leading to the US defeat and the burning of the capital not once, but twice

another anecdote from history

"Attempts to invade Canada during the War of 1812 failed even more spectacularly. An early attempt to invade failed before it began when Gen. William Hull, reportedly frightened into a state of near incoherence, surrendered his entire army at Detroit without firing a shot. Two months later another attempt was bungled when Gen. Stephen Van Rensselaer failed to persuade his militia to cross the U.S.-Canada border. A small detachment of troops which entered Canada was shot down and forced to surrender while Van Rensellaer's troops stood by and watched. Another invasion attempt, on 19 November 1812, collapsed when American troops refused to leave New York State and forced their leader, Gen. Henry Dearborn, to march them back to Pittsburgh. Less than two weeks later, Gen. "Apocalypse" Smythe twice ordered his troops to cross the Niagara, both times failing in his courage and calling off the attacks. On returning from the second attempt, the soldiers turned their weapons on Smythe, forcing him to flee to Virginia."

America's first defeat: http://www.lutins.org/1812.html

We were spanked at every turn. War of 1812 is the great embarrassment, hell it's barely even taught in public schools except via small blurbs of propaganda and the sacking of the whitehouse TWICE is never mentioned when I went through the public school system and didn't know about it until I went to the smithsonian where they have a few burnt bricks and old oil paintings of the burned whitehouse in different stages of repair, then the 2nd burning occured.

It's just like comparing a mugging to a war - entirely different things. Why not bring up Kratatoa to point out how more dangerous geothermal is - it's no more irrelevant.
As with anything industrial there is a very long list of accidents and incidents associated with nuclear materials. The US list is relatively short (here's one I found in 5 seconds with google: http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html) and there is a more complete international list hosted on the web server of a physics department in the US that I can't recall at the moment. Now while some of what you've written is interesting it appears the readers can learn a lot more than you can tell them (and more accurate information) after five seconds of googling. Maybe you should put in a little bit of time to catch up before dragging up old disasters that have NOTHING AT ALL TO DO WITH NUCLEAR POWER. I hope I've made that clear enough for you to get the point because this repeated irrelevant example is annoying.

I learned electronics starting as a young kid when i obtained one of those "150-in-1" (or 100-in-one or 200-in-1) kits with an assortment of components on a board with spring connectors, to which you run wires according to directions in the manual. The one i had (probably Radio Shack) had cartoon characters of electron characters that explained the theory behind the circuitry you were wiring up. No need to solder, no need to dig through parts bins, but great for learning the theory behind a variety of circuit types (alarms, radios, high voltage generators, etc.).

There are tons of these type kits out there - as well as kits to build individual devices (also great learning experiences, and you wind up with a useful piece of equipment) - check the links at http://www.lutins.org/lists/electronics.html If you *are* thinking of building a single-device kit, i highly recommend the Midnight Science Ultra-RX1, an ultrasonic listening device available from http://www.midnightscience.com/ultra-kits.html. The kit is built in three sections, with instructions on how to do some troubleshooting-type testing after each section. When you're done, you'll have a device that allows you to listen in on ultrasonic emanations (bugs, bats, etc.) - mine works *way* better than i ever expected!

Actually, the track record of nuclear is excellent. In the West, a single accident nearly 40 years ago (TMI) with no victims. In fact, if all the other energy-producing methods were held to the standards of nuclear, you could never afford anything else...

Only one accident in the US in 40 years? HAHA!!! Here's a list of nuclear accidents in the US. Even France has had spills. Wiki has another list of nuclear and radiation accidents.

Ask the Navajo, Sioux, and all the others where uranium is mined if it's held to high standards.

Wind and solar will always only provide for peak demand, through massive overcapacity, because even occasional blackouts are unacceptable. You need a base supply, and if you cannot get hydro, the only clean alternative is nuclear.

Nuclear power is NOT clean. Geothermal however is relatively clean and can be used as a baseload energy source.

Falcon

There are numerous cases of US Navy problems with nuclear reactors and their management (see for example this list. The other big issue is that naval reactors have little relation to commercial reactors; a big naval reactor might generate 50MW, while each reactor at Brown's Ferry can generate 1100MW.

I'm in favor of nuclear power, but the US Navy is not the magic answer or shining example you make it out to be.

Why single out reactor accidents?

I think the whole idea of comparing nuclear safety with mining safety is disingenuous. There have been a lot of deaths from trees, yet these numbers shouldn't be included when calculating the danger of building houses, or making a fire. Its almost like trying to include the total number of cancer deaths or concrete or steam related deaths as an indicator of how dangerous nuclear energy is. A nuclear reaction, in general, is not something any living thing would want to stand near, yet people make fire all the time. Fires kill far more people, so why doesn't everyone have their own nuclear reactor? If mining deaths are included in coal power safety, then why not include melanoma deaths caused by exposure to a nuclear reaction (aka the Sun)? Takes a lot of water to run those nuclear reactor plants... I wonder how many have drowned.

take a look at this

Anyway, I'd like to know what Chernobyl, and any nuclear accident of that scale, might cost, and I'd like this figure taken into account when considering the cost building more nuclear power plants. kthx.

"3 January 1961
The world's first nuclear-related fatalities occurred following a reactor explosion at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho Falls, Idaho. One navy technician and two army technicians, were killed, with radioactivity "largely confined" (words of John A. McCone, Director of the Atomic Energy Commission) to the reactor building. The three men were killed as they moved fuel rods in a "routine" preparation for the reactor start-up. One technician was blown to the ceiling of the containment dome and impaled on a control rod. His body remained there until it was taken down six days later. The men were so heavily exposed to radiation that their hands had to be buried separately with other radioactive waste, and their bodies were interred in lead coffins. Another incident three weeks later (on 25 January) resulted in a release of radiation into the atmosphere."

http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html

Isn't it funny what people choose to remember...

>"The alternatives to nuclear energy are superior because they are clean and renewable and there are several different truly viable choices."

Pipe dream != viable choice.

reality != pipe dream

>"many perfectly valid, non-panicky, non-paranoid reasons against its use"

Really? You only listed one reason, and that is danger from waste. But that danger is very much manageable, and thus your alarmism is very much panicky and paranoid.

No, I listed 9, and you responded to none of them, brushing them off... whoa... my trolldar must be out of whack here

>"Nuclear power is not safe."

It doesn't matter how many times you repeat that, or even if you make it bold or apply other fancy typeface enhancements. It won't make it any less false.

Nuclear power is about as safe as space travel, which is to say, not very. Its insanely complex, thousands of points of failure. It doesn't matter what I say or what you say, whistle blowers are constantly reporting nuclear infractions to the point where the media no longer reports them. If you were correct, this list would not exist. But you are simply wrong, merely parroting nuclear propaganda. Try looking at the reality of it, then deciding for yourself, instead of merely gainsaying every argument.

Dude, how old are you? Why're you repeating old FUD and propaganda that's been discredited over and over by sensible people? Since you sound like a teenage hotshot and I'm guessing you're at most in undergraduate university, I recommend you take an elective in critical thinking, conveniently offered in the philosophy department.

aha... personal attacks, the last hope of the troll.

The US, France, UK, Canada, Australia and Japan have been using nuclear power 'correctly' for as long as it's been around.

So was Three Mile Island a case of being used "correctly"? If nuclear power is so easy to use responsibly, why did it happen? And why did Chernobyl happen? These weren't a bunch of kids playing with radiation in their backyards.

The reality is you can't forsee all the things that can go wrong, or predict what humans will do. And when something does go wrong, the result is nasty. There's also the question of how to deal with storing the all the nuclear waste.

Some further reading on nuclear material and mishaps: U.S. Nuclear Accidents

These types of kits are still available - just not from Radio Shack. I maintain a concise list of kit (and part) sources. It includes several sources for these type kits, including Ramsey Electronics, which has the "Super-Fun 130 In 1 Electronics Lab" [item PL130], the "Complete 300 In 1 Electronic Lab" [item P300] and the " Advanced 500 In 1 Electronic Lab" [item PL500]. -allen

It's not as if there haven't been quite a lot of nuclear disasters for oh, I don't know, the last 50 years. As a result of accidents, both the American and Russian navies have left ship-based nuclear reactor cores AND nuclear bombs at the bottom of the ocean, all of which will take millions of years to half-life out, some of which are still emitting enough to be detectable near the surface, one of which was recently documented to be producing mutated life forms.

The list of military nuclear accidents is long and a bit frightening, not to mention these related lists of nuclear accidents.

Nuclear power is a boffo idea, on paper, and is not without the well-known risks. Nuclear proponents would be hypocritical to state otherwise.

17 January 1966 A B-52 collided with an Air Force KC-135 jet tanker while refueling over the coast of Spain...

apparently, this thing happens a lot.

Well, this post is a bit late but I hope people find it worthwhile.

I'm not sure what's more scary, the gross negligence that led to the disaster, or the government doing everything possible to cover-up what really happened to the astronauts. The disrespect paid to them by transporting their remains in plastic garbage cans. The secrecy regading the autopsy. You can read about it in this remarkable article from the Miami Herald.

Check out http://www.lutins.org/nasa.html for a copy of an excellent article published by the Miami herald on 13 November 1988 detailing NASA's concerted attempts to cover up the fact that the astronauts survived the initial breakup.

http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html (scroll down to the "ships and submarines" section. (yes, it's a green site, that doesn't mean it's not a valid source if the information is true))
http://www.bellona.no/en/international/russia/nuke _industry/co-operation/31750.html (not quite a nuclear accident but close to causing one)

and the reason why that was allowed:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1992/52/52p10.htm

I don't care much for the issue but I found it hard to believe there had been *no* accidents in about 50 years of service, especially when I knew it definitely wasn't true for the UK which had an accident in the 60s iirc.

AP: Truck Driver Takes to Skies in Lawn Chair

So, are you telling me that unlike in the 70's inspectors at nuclear building sites are no longer having their lives threatened if they don't automatically approve the construction?

Here is a page with a summary of various nuclear accidents and mishaps.

Let me clarify - risk is not that the sky is falling, it's that there is a certain measurable uncertanty over the sky's future position, which we must take into account.

Indeed, which is why I propose we build one of these plants in your back yard. You can put your money where your mouth is.

http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html

It's complicated technology which is hard to control, regardless of political beliefs. Even if you think that we have the power plants under control, you have to be nuts to create waste which will still be deadly in thousands of years.

its just proof that a communistic system of government is a greater threat to its own people than any outside "enemy"

Believing that the human failures that resulted in Chernobyl are only present under communist governments, or that a capitalist system is somehow magically immune to such human failures of reasoning, is dangerous and quite frankly terrifying.

The US is not in any way immune to nuclear-related accidents (http://www.lutins.org/nukes.html), it is just plain lucky that it has not had one on the same scale as Chernobyl, many things might have happened differently that could have resulted in a terrible nuclear accident in the US.

This has nothing to do with communism, this is an essentially human problem that we all need to learn from and understand when designing any system. The first failure in any industrial accident is believing that something bad isn't going to happen to *you*; there are many reasons believe that, believing that these are "communist problems" is only one such reason.

(Note, I agree with the rest of your post, NP technologies today are not only much safer than ever in the past, but they are still in the process of becoming even safer, and compared to e.g. burning coal are far more environmentally friendly. Compared to all other currently viable energy solutions, NP is the only viable one in the human future.)

And in case you think the list linked above ends in 1978:

April 12, 2000: The USS Olympia, a nuclear-powered submarine docked at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sprung a leak in the reactor's water exchange system after the maintenance was completed on a faulty valve in the reactor compartment. The valve failed again and some 500 gallons of water was released into the reactor compartment. This water then drained into the reactor bilge. Six sailors were exposed to radioactivity and subsequently decontaminated with soap and water.

Ah. I've always wondered whether people like you wanted to turn back the clock to the obscene working conditions of the Industrial Revolution. Any thoughts from other libertarians?

This ties in quite nicely with the overall discussion here, IMO. I believe there has been an accelerating trend in the last 10-15 years, maybe more, of using temp employees. Elimination of union jobs and proliferation of temp hiring is equipping many companies with disposable workforces, allowing the consequences of varying economic conditions to be borne by the workers in terms of firings/layoffs instead of owners/management having to manage the company with skill and finesse when the hard times roll around.

Here is a interesting background on the (often incredibly violent, from both sides) history of the labour movement in the U.S.; the labour/union movement has played roles in establishing the 8-hour workday, the 5-day work week, ending child labour, ending sweatshop labour, and increasing/legally mandating (OSHA) workplace safety

Damn right the constitution only applies to the government. The government is the only entity that needs constitutional limits, because the government is the only entity that has an inherent right to deprive other entities of their rights in the name of preserving the rights of others. If OmniMegaCorp (tm) could arrest me and throw me in jail, then they'd need to have constitutional restrictions requiring them to give me a fair trial. But they can't.

It's a mystery. What is it about the so-called "philosophy" of Ayn Rand and Co. that so bedazzles its votaries? How does this silly, airy stuff induce so many intelligent people so blithely to ignore the facts of the world, even when they thrust themselves under their very noses? "But they can't."? They can and did; OmniMegaCorp, or rather @Home, has granted itself the right to functionally abridge Wesley's right to free speech.

While being summarily muzzled by an overpoweringly powerful corporation is not as painful an experience as, say, being thrown in jail, or being beaten to death over a labor dispute by the Ford Motor Company's armed security guards (1932) nonetheless it is a naked violation of one's right to free speech. Yet you assert that the First Amendment only weighs against the government, and does not affect the bully-censors of that odious @Home company. If only the Federal Government is restrained by the First Amendment, then U.S. citizens's vaunted free-speech right is a hollow one indeed.

Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net