RE: Four Non-HPs vs One HP radium article

[rurban@jason.com]

Bill Lipton wrote...

"Although your facts may be INCONTRAVERTABLE [sic - I think you mean "incontrovertible"], your response is highly misleading: 

While radium is created by natural processes, human activities change its form and location.  While radium...when concentrated as a source... may have significant... impact.."

     (a) Sorry, spell-check didn't catch something.

     (b) Agreed, human intervention ALWAYS changes things, the comment was the article made things SOUND as if the radium was CREATED by the factory, then dumped there, NOT something that was already in the ground.  He may state it elsewhere, or in one of the accompanying articles, but MOST people don't read that much into things, hence the USA Today style graphics that are popping up everywhere.



     And he STILL doesn't quite get it. Read the 3rd para from his rebuttal, 'The radium was NOT ALL natural'... or the 5th para, where I am getting exposed to radium at the dentist office? How can such a thing be allowed???  These are the misrepresentations that result in the masses being against anything nuclear.  My point was to get him to further educate himself by pointing out some of his misstatements and omissions, and giving him NON-Anti sources.



"How did you reach your generalizations: 

"Most of the people on the ANTI side of radiation stand to make money in some way from their case...

Most of the PRO’s actually stand to LOSE money if limits were loosened, as there would not be as many personnel needed to monitor ..."

     15 years of reading about lawsuits in Nuclear News, the daily newspapers, listening to the radio and TV,  the published statements of Greenpeace, Union of Concerned Scientist, NRDC, etc..., THIS LIST...



"Since you are a scientist ...." Nope, just a lowly little technician who has seen millions wasted over the years, IMHO.



"Saying that, since 25-30% of the population gets cancer anyway, what's a few more from radiation, is the equivalent of saying that we should not make a fuss over someone killed by a drunk driver, since thousands are killed in auto accidents, anyway."

     As Beevis would put it, "Uhh, yeah, huh huh..."  

Try again, someone being killed by a drunk driver is AN ABSOLUTE... saying there is a POTENTIAL, MAY, COULD BE 1 in 10,000 is NOT.  Intoxication has been PROVEN to diminish responses; LDR has not been PROVEN to cause anything.

This was part of the point I was trying to make to the reporter... that any 1 in 10,000 limit has NEVER been proven, by anyone.  It is a guess at best, and certainly not even close to being a best guess.  And the legislation of LNT has admitted that it is not a proven.



"Even worse than your misleading presentation of "facts" is your self-righteous..."

     (a) Comes from years of having the locals blame ME for 'All that there radumation stuff that I am putting out of them power plant smokestacks', while we are standing in the shadow of an oil refinery belching black clouds of chemical smoke.   Seems they get their vast nuclear expertise from Jane Fonda and Christie Brinkley.  

Read again, and you will see it's not directed at the reporter...



"...with self-proclaimed "spokesmen" for the industry..."

     (b) I never claimed to be a spokesman for anybody other than myself.



Richard Urban Jr.

Yuma, AZ



Speaking for nobody by little ole me.