Re: DU scare story from Los Alamos

["Glenn Marshall" <GMARSHALL@gtsduratek.com>]

All of this latest discussion about "deadly" and "highly toxic" DU, Pu, etc. reminds me of the middle-school student who won his school's science fair a few years ago by getting folks to sign a petition calling for a worldwide ban on the terribly hazardous chemical dihydrogen oxide.  All he had to do was stand on the street corner, stop passers by, and show them a list of hazards.  I don't have the details at my desk, but it went something like this:

"This chemical almost always leads to death upon inhalation.  Uncontrolled releases completely destroy whole towns many times each year.  It is always found in cancer cells.  It causes severe burns in both its gaseous and solid states.  When existing as a solid or liquid, it is the direct cause of thousands of fatal accidents each year.  It is a known carrier of almost every serious disease known to man.    Elimination of this substance would immediately eradicate AIDS."  There were many other "hazards" cited.  This young man was able to convince two-thirds of respondents to sign a petition calling for a worldwide ban on water!

A decent argument that the Second Law of Thermodynamics applies also to human intelligence.  Collectively, we're just too dumb to realize it.




Glenn Marshall
(865) 220-1666
gmarshall@gtsduratek.com

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