Letters to editor of the Pahrump Valley Times
In all of my 70-plus years, I have never heard of any radiation problems from the Savanna River site. We have been much of the world’s dumping ground for nuclear waste for years. Why should we be the sole site? In my humble opinion, this could easily be solved if it became law that all that waste should be returned to the state/country from whence it came.
Do the people of Nevada think they are better than us? They certainly take advantage of government spending in other ways, like Nellis Air Force Base, Area 51 and Creech Air Force Base. Overreaction is mostly PR concerns from Las Vegas. We all should become responsible citizens and share in the blessings and burdens of our country.
Respectfully,
Phil Bolick
Risk of plutonium shipments to Nevada unknown
I have some comments in regard to your front page article on Feb. 1, 2019, about plutonium shipments to Nevada.
Half a metric ton, 500kg, say 1,100 pounds, was shipped to Nevada. This is enough to make about 50 nuclear weapons. However, the technology needed to make a nuclear weapon would probably be beyond the capability of any terrorist group. Think about the scope of the Manhattan Project, and the years it took North Korea to produce a kiloton device. You need to know how to build a device with conventional explosives which will compress and contain the supra critical mass of plutonium for the requisite time. Only then do you get a nuclear fission explosion in the kiloton range (when measured as equivalent for conventional explosive.) There are other technical factors. See Wikipedia’s “nuclear weapons” for an explanation of the factors in the design and construction of nuclear fission bombs.
But think of the consequences if we were wrong. They would be disastrous. How is Judge Du so sure it is only a “theoretical possibility?” The possibility is real – it is the risk that is unknown.
That being said, what would be more likely is that the plutonium could be spread around in a densely-populated area, with conventional explosives. This is sometimes referred to as a “dirty bomb.” However, plutonium is a dense metal, a substance that is not easily reduced to small particles and distributed over a large area. Still, one can easily imagine an event where there would be many deaths, and a huge cleanup cost.
I hope the shipment was in secure containers, on a truck escorted by armed guards in constant contact with backup. Likewise for any future shipments.
I also think it is a matter of common courtesy that the governor should be informed before any shipments of highly radioactive or fissile substances to Nevada. And we should know the accumulation within Nevada. If that violates any federal law, as suggested by Mr. Lacy, then we should lobby our representatives to get it changed. Nevada is not the dumping ground for the nation’s nuclear waste.
George Tucker
Our country not ready to be a socialist society
I believe that the new “Democratic Socialist” members of the U.S. Congress have their hearts in the right place, but not their heads. Like them, I too believe that our federal government should do more and spend more to help make the lives of our citizens better just like our traditional allies do.
However, there has never been a truly “socialist” economy in the history of the world which was ever able to produce enough wealth to meet the survival needs of its citizens. It has never worked. So, it is foolish to call yourself a socialist. You are just giving conservatives a new insult and put-down to call you.
A lot has been said about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s proposal to tax the income of those earning over $10 million a year by 70 percent. The problem with this is that we need to start taxing wealth because that’s where we can get enough revenue to pass a Canadian-style national health insurance program to cover and greatly help 99 percent of Americans (except for the richest 1 percent). Her income tax won’t raise anywhere close to what a “National Wealth Tax” on all those individuals with a net wealth and net worth of $10 million and higher would raise.
It is possible that we might have a much more equal and a truly “socialist” society one day, but that day is at least 1,000-2,000 years away. We will all have to evolve and transform spiritually, emotionally, and mentally into much more loving, caring, empathetic, compassionate, and altruistic human beings before we are ready for that. Right now, we are simply too individualistic, too selfish, too self-centered, too self-absorbed, too “full of ourselves”, and too much into believing that we are “all that” for it to work.
Because, as the philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin observed, humankind is presently at the spiritual, emotional, and mental level of a 12-year-old child. Sometimes I think that it is more like a 7-year-old child.
And, I include myself in that because every day I fall short of being the kind of human being that I know that I can be and should be. And, I make mistakes every day of my life, so, I am not judging anyone else here.
Sincerely,
Stewart B. Epstein
Rochester, New York
P.S. I am a retired college professor of Sociology and Social Work. I taught at West Virginia University, Slippery Rock University, and SUNY-Brockport.
Governor may not have Nevada’s interests at heart
Once again I “figuratively” take pen in hand to write, this time about the content of the OpEd page of the January 31 issue.
I find it amusing that Dennis Myers is complaining about the apparent inexperience that he sees in reporting from the state capital, when he say’s “It’s amazing how often reporters get things like this wrong…”
I guess he missed Ben Rhodes’ startling revelation:
“… The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
I’d laugh, but it hurts too much.
Then, we drop down to Victor Joecks:
I must admit that he nails the new governor, and probably is Gob-smacking many of the people who voted for Gov. Sisolak with the revelation that much of what the governor wishes to implement can be seen across our western border in California – though I don’t think he mentions that much of our governor’s program was initiated by Jerry Brown over his split-shift terms as California’s governor.
A few examples:
Public-employee Collective Bargaining: Jerry did that back in either his first or second term;
Same Day Voter Registration: Jerry’s last term – and we see the result in the complete destruction of the GOP in Orange County, and the fact that Los Angeles County has a registration figure of around 106 percent of the eligible adult population;
Raising Taxes: Jerry again, on both sides of this split-shift – refusing to rebate excess taxes back to the voters got him Prop.-13 in ‘78, and his increased fuel taxes in ‘17 are “driving” California into a serious recession – one that he predicted on his way out the door.
So, as a California native who left after 75 years as the state evolved into a third-world ….hole, take my word for it that Gov. Sisolak does not have the best interests of the average Nevadan at heart in his proposals. He just wants to make Nevada another solid blue, two-tier state where the 1 percent prosper, and the middle-class/bourgeoisie leave to search for a life they can afford, leaving behind the lower classes to serve the 1 percent and the political elites.
Sorry, but that’s not what I was looking for when I came to Nevada, and I doubt that many other recent arrivals did either.
I yield back the remainder of my time on the soapbox.
Respectfully,
Drew Kelly, Proprietor
Goldfield Small Arms – Goldfield, Nevada
Thinkstock
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