The nutty protestors

[maccant]

Looks like Bruce Gagnon and his fellow whack jobs are planning another protest before the New Horizons launch. They did something similar before the Galileo flight. I wrote to Gagnon after that mission's stunning photos began to stream in and suggested that, whenever one of the gorgeous images appeared on TV, he should turn off the set. I also told him that if his like had prevailed before Columbus' journey, we'd all still be in Europe. ("That ship is much too dangerous - it could crash into a rock and kill a sea lion!')<br /><br />The biggest problem with nut jobs like these is that the press gives them way too much coverage. But I guess a successful mission doesn't provide as much camera fodder.<br /><br />MAC

 

[tplank]

Where ever there is fear and resentment there will always be snake oil peddlars to take advantage. It has always been so. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>The Disenfranchised Curmudgeon</p><p>http://tonyplank.blogspot.com/ </p> </div>

 

[mlorrey]

Actually, this coverage was great: only a few dozen protesters showed up. Signs like "The End Is Near" spell the doom of the wingnut anti-nuker movement.<br /><br />The success of Cassini has helped to embarrass those who protested last time, they are realizing, at least most of them, that they were being chicken littles, at least in that instance, and are likely now directing their energies into other chicken little issues, like global warming, peak oil, the war (pick on).<br /><br />I'd suggest they all read Peter Schweitzer's book "Do As I Say, Not As I Do", they might get motivated to protest their own moonbat leadership's hypocrisy.

 

[newtons_laws]

My first posting to this forum.<br />"The public is tired of being lied to," said Maria Telesca-Whipple, a married mother of two from Rockledge and an organizer with the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. <br />True, but it the anti-nuclear protestors who are being economical with the truth (IMHO) <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[kdavis007]

If it wasn't for those morons, we could have nuke rockets by now...

 

[john_316]

It is utterly irresponsible to allow the very few to control the majority. It us ubsurd for one man and his lil band of merrymen to control the destiny of progress...<br /><br />Should I pay him a visit with a whip and can of salt to show him some encouragement on nuclear space?????<br /><br />Let the man eat fillet of sole "size 10 sole at least"...<br /><br />

 

[CalliArcale]

Welcome aboard, Newtons_Laws. <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> I like your username!<br /><br />That's well said. It was pointed out in another thread (the New Horizons update thread) that the anti-nuclear protesters, or at least their leaders, are aware that this is a silly thing to protest and are instead using it as propaganda. What they're really against is nuclear weapons. They protest this because unlike nukes, New Horizons is going to have live press coverage. In other words, they're not only being economical with the truth, they're deliberately attempting to mislead and manipulate the public -- exactly what they're complaining about the government doing. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[craig42]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Signs like "The End Is Near" <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />They should paint "Why do you think we're leaving?" on the side of the rocket <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" />

 

[henryhallam]

<font color="yellow">They should paint "Why do you think we're leaving?" on the side of the rocket </font><br />Reminds me of this...

 

[nyarlathotep]

>>"That's well said. It was pointed out in another thread (the New Horizons update thread) that the anti-nuclear protesters, or at least their leaders, are aware that this is a silly thing to protest and are instead using it as propaganda. What they're really against is nuclear weapons."<br /><br />What they are really against is safe, economic alternatives to coal and oil.

 

[mikeemmert]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>It was pointed out in another thread (the New Horizons update thread) that the anti-nuclear protesters, or at least their leaders, are aware that this is a silly thing to protest and are instead using it as propaganda. What they're really against is nuclear weapons.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />That was my post. What bugs me is that these people have hijacked the anti-nuclear-weapons movement. I tried to join an anti-nuclear-weapons group and wound up going to these people's meetings instead.<br /><br />So it winds up that if you don't want to thow out the baby with the bathwater you are quite alone.<br /><br />Does anybody on this thread have any idea what people who do not want nuclear war should do? I'd like to see positive answers, not "they shouldn't be doing this". We already know that.

 

[juliemac]

Many years ago I went to a meeting. When I got home, there was a quiet call.<br />"We know where you were and who you were with etc"<br /><br />I had just been discharged from the USAF where I worked on the Minute Man System.<br /><br />Never went back to another meeting.<br /><br />Good luck!

 

[mikeemmert]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>One thing is to really educate people about the differences between a RPG<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />Let's see...an RPG is a shoulder fired Rocket Propelled Grenade, usually a Soviet RPG-7. It's supposed to be able to take out a tank. A nuclear bomb <i><font color="red">REALLY WILL</font></i><font color="white"> take out a tank <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />.<br /><br />To make a nuclear Rocket Propelled Grenade would require the production of californium 251.<br /><br />A Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator is a rocket propelled nuclear power plant. It is powered by alpha decay, a nuclear reaction about a tenth as energetic as fission, which requires about ten fissions per fuel atom to produce. It then uses the Peltier-Seebeck effect:<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_effect<br /><br />to generate electricity. This is about 1%-2% efficient. More modern generators use solar cells with the radioactive material painted black in the colors to which the solar cell responds and white in all other colors to supress radiation in colors to which the solar cells do not respond.<br /><br />In other words, RTG's are obsolete. They use too much fuel, which fuels antinuclear protests.<br /><br />You're right, BruceGagnon probably doesn't know about this device, since he's not going to be reading this board. He may very well not know that plutonium 238 is non-fissionalble, like uranium 238. Now nobody knows how to get to him to explain.<br /><br />If you were to ask Bruce Gagnon what the difference between a nuclear bomb and an RPG is, he would probably say, "Nuclear bombs have killed more people". I don't know; the Iraq war's not over yet... <br /><br />Poor Bruce doesn't know about californium 254. He probably believes uranium is produced by the s process in red giants. One of the failed government lies of the Cold War spread to try t</font>

 

[mikeemmert]

john_316 said: <font color="yellow">Should I pay him a visit with a whip and can of salt to show him some encouragement on nuclear space?????<font color="white"> <br /><br />And juliemac said:<br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>When I got home, there was a quiet call. <br />"We know where you were and who you were with etc" <p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />That sounds like a threat to me. These days they have caller ID. I think I would have taken down the phone number and then posted what he said in a public place and gone to the meeting anyway and told everybody at the meeting about the call. That will usually deter such lunatics. If not, there was nothing you could have done to stop him anyway.<br /><br />If you are a real patriot and really believe in the principles on which this nation was founded, you would defy that lunatic. That would be as much fighting for the rights of humanity as serving in the United States Air Force. Thugs like this cannot be allowed to intimidate your freedom of speech away. This domestic person is as much then enemy as the foreigners.<br /><br />OK, John 3:16 :<br /><br />http://www.christiancourier.com/feature/march2002.htm<br /><br />You better not.</font></font>

 

[john_316]

A threat would not start out with "Should I pay him a visit" Thats a question and even if I was sarcastic it wasnt a threat. I dont feel I should have to defend myself here or anywhere for that matter. If I had threatened the man I would have said I was going to do harm which I did not. But trust me if I was to communicate a threat I would act on it in such a case as to show you that I carried the threat out.<br /><br />I am not Politicaly Correct if you need to know. Many posters here know I dont play that stupid game nor have I ever.<br /><br />I am a soldier and combat veteran who has served this nation in the time of war and peace and I have had it up to here with this and that and whos right and who's wrong. As I can recall the Majority rule in this Republic and as so much as I see it I am not a select few who see the use of nuclear space propulsion. Perhaps if I were to speak in soft tones to support it while morons like bruce **choke cough** gagnon chain themselves up like the idiots they are with all there screaming an rhetoric people will see that they just are thorns not to be taken seriously. But truely they do have to be taken seriously because they cause as much harm as a threat would. <br /><br />If a farmer can plow a field with 2 mules why should a person scream and shout that farmer should do it by hand? Do you see my point here? Progress? The use of the tools we have are here for our benefit. <br /><br />Oh by the way shouldnt brucey boy be out there planting trees and shrubs? I mean dont you think hed be more help cleaning up bad air than mouthing off bad air?<br /><br />And besides who knows maybe some salt in his wounds would make him see the light.. Or does that sound like a threat too? I mean does he have wounds to salt? did someone assault him so i can salt his wounds? Geeez.<br /><br />sob sob **Im a cry baby** sob sob<br /><br /><img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" /><br />

 

[priusguy]

<b>Does anybody on this thread have any idea what people who do not want nuclear war should do? I'd like to see positive answers, not "they shouldn't be doing this"</b><br /><br />Become an engineer and work on precision weapons.<br /><br />I am absolutely serious. No amount of protesting or lobbying will make US give up its nuclear weapons, and if by some miracle it did, it would make a nuclear war MORE likely, not less, because there are people outside US who think nuking their enemies is a DESIRABLE thing worhty of celebration, not a regrettable necessity to avoid at all costs.<br /><br />Precision Guidance Munitions do the job of nuclear weapons without a nuclear explosion. If US has sufficient amount of PGM's, then a) US would never need to use a nuke, and b) no one else would ever use one either because a swift and deadly retaliation would be guaranteed -- without danger of fallout or collateral damage, US government would not hesitate.

 

[nacnud]

Good answer!

 

[tap_sa]

<font color="yellow">"Precision Guidance Munitions do the job of nuclear weapons without a nuclear explosion."</font><br /><br />You must also have cajones to use those PGMs to prevent certain parties from acquiring nuclear capability, parties to whom mutually assured destruction does not work because they think reward from Allah overrides everything. Yes, I'm talking about Iran.

 

[mlorrey]

People who do not want nuclear war should read the following books:<br /><br />"The Art of War"<br />Any physics textbook<br />"Do As I Say"<br /><br />People who engage in ritual dishonesty as the leaders of the anti-nuke movement do should not be trusted by anyone, including those who do not want nuclear war. As Orwell said, "Pacifists are objectively pro-facist," because pacifists are only free to protest in free nations, thus they work to disarm the free despite the threat from the fascist.

 

[mikeemmert]

I think you spoke a powerful truth. New Horizons had an awful lot of problems in Congress and mission supporters are looking for a scapegote. Gagnon's World Peace Crew seems like an easy target in the post 9/11 era; they've got their science wrong about radiation dangers and picked a target that bore only a superficial resemblence to their real concerns.<br /><br />You seem concerned about a smaller slice of the pie. I'm concerned about a smaller pie. America is paying less attention to science across the board. In fact, there is even some hostility. And I think it is religion based.<br /><br />Let's face it. Science and the bible conflict. Many religious people view science as another, competing religion. We see it in the Dover School Board and attacks against stem cell reseach.<br /><br />Like Gagnon's group, they are picking on an easy target. Faced with daily reminders that the Earth is not, in fact, 6000 years old, they are firing at the reminders.<br /><br />Sometimes Congress decides to feed these dogs a bone. Politicians operate on symbols rather than logic because that's what gets them elected. It's all highly emotional.<br /><br />Manned spaceflight resists these kinds of pressures more easily because astronauts are heros. This resonates with "the masses", they think. Congressmen want to be heros, too, especially this current crop who, when military age, "saved their brethren" from the draft. Now these hypocrites want to be military heros.<br /><br />Targets which are not human are easier to attack. It's really all about attack, force, power, and a messianic savoir complex.

 

[mlorrey]

I don't know about you, Mike, but as someone who was raised catholic who is now agnostic, I don't see any conflicts between science and the bible. The only conflict is between science and those fundamentalists who insist that the bible is absolutely true and completely authored by god. On the other hand, there are also those atheists who insist on projecting THEIR religion onto science.<br /><br />The Vatican certainly doesn't see conflicts between science and the bible, either.<br /><br />Those who see science as a 'religion' are inaccurate only in that science is a tool, a technology. That it is, in fact, mislabeled and misused by the atheist religion is another issue.

 

[mikeemmert]

From Yahoo! News:<br /><br /><font color="yellow">British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said he had "strong suspicion" that Iran wanted to build a nuclear bomb but stressed that there was no categorical evidence to prove that.<font color="white"><br /><br />El-Baradei says the same thing. There is no evidence that Iran is attempting to make a nuclear weapon.<br /><br />You concern (also from Yahoo! News) is:<br /><br /><font color="yellow">""We believe the combination of fanatical ideology together with nuclear weaponry is a combination that no thinking person can feel comfortable with," (Russian) Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said."<font color="white"> (I heartily agree).<br /><br />And what do the Iranians have to say?<br /><br /><font color="yellow">President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed talk of possible sanctions and said Iran will "continue the path of production of the nuclear energy. Iranian people do not allow foreigners to block their progress,"<font color="white"><br /><br /> Nor will the Koreans. I doubt anybody reading this (except maybe the religious posters) has failed to notice the gaping hole in photos of the night side of Planet Earth where North Korea is. <br /><br />Claims that Iran "does not need nuclear power" because they have oil are crap. They know they'll run out some day. It's foolish to burn oil if nuclear power is available.<br /><br />There has been no announcement from Iran on the New Horizons mission. But I imagine they would say something like, "Here you are, armed to the teeth, using plutonium for frivolous purposes while we have to burn all our oil and remain naked to the military agression of a completely paranoid regime which demonstratably has taken over our neighbor on fabricated grounds." How can we argue that?<br /><br />My solution would be to let El-Baradei do his job, abandon paranoia, trust the scientists and fly to Pluto.<br /><br />I would like to hear you resolution of this dilemma, Tap_Sa. If we stop the Iranians from building nuclear p</font></font></font></font></font></font>

 

[tap_sa]

You attempt needlessly to muddy the waters by trying to knit RTGs and whatnot into the issue. With nuclear capability I was referring to capability of making nuclear weapons. Given current situation in Iran with it's fundamentalist regime and Ahmadinejad perpetually calling for erasure of Israel such country must NOT be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons because they may be stupid enough to use them.<br /><br />Iran has been given plenty of options where it could have peaceful nuclear energy in such controlled fashion that the risk of mullahs getting their hands on nukes is at acceptable minimal level. Their continuous refusal means only that the talk about peaceful purposes is crap. They want nukes bad. Until this attitude ends let them burn oil and camel dung.<br /><br />Rest assured that Israel will take action before it's too late.<br /><br />PS And launch the Pluto probe, it has zilch to do with the issue at hand!

 

[tomnackid]

"If we stop the Iranians from building nuclear power plants, we have to stop the launch of New Horizons. If we launch the Pluto probe, we have to let the Iranians and Koreans build nukes. Some other viewpoint would be a logical fallacy. "<br />----------------------------------------------<br />How do you figure that? America does what's best for America's national interest. If it is in our (speaking as an American) best interest and national security to limit Iran and North Korea's use of enriched uranium while sending probes to Pluto with RTGs then we will do it. <br /><br />Or are you saying we should risk nuclear war breaking out in the middle or far east or nuclear terrorism just to be "fair" to Iran and North Korea? The US bombed 2 cities with nuclear weapons back in 1945. Should we let every country with nuclear weapons bomb 2 cities of their choosing in the name of "fairness"?<br /><br />There is no "logical fallacy" here. I think you need to improve your understanding of logic.

 

[mikeemmert]

<font color="yellow">"You attempt needlessly to muddy the waters by trying to knit RTGs and whatnot into the issue."<font color="white"><br /><br />Nah. I'm for launch. Gagnon is doing that. It's also my best guess as to what the Iranians are thinking; of course, I might be wrong. Actually, it's most likely that they said nothing about the Altas V 551 because they realize that any complaint will conflict with their desire to own nuclear reactors.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Iran with it's fundamentalist regime ... must NOT be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons<font color="white"><br /><br />OK. No nuclear <i><font color="orange">weapons</font></i><font color="white"> for those lunatics. Fine, we're agreed on that.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">"Iran has been given plenty of options where it could have peaceful nuclear energy in such controlled fashion that the risk of mullahs getting their hands on nukes is at acceptable minimal level."<font color="white"><br /><br />Indeed they have. And they have accepted that and have allowed inspections of their nuclear facilities, which has uncovered pre-acceptance activities from the period in which they were paranoid about Iraq.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">" Their continuous refusal means only that the talk about peaceful purposes is crap. They want nukes bad. Until this attitude ends let them burn oil and camel dung."<font color="white"><br /><br />Serious, serious BS. You are conflicting with what the news is saying. Inspectors are going about their jobs in Iran.<br /><br />This "refusal" is a hallucinatory fabrication of the United States State Department under Condoleeza Rice. It is the word of an amply proven liar against a Nobel Prize laureate. I'm sorry to see you siding with the conspiracy theorists against scientific ground truth.<br /><br />Every time El-Baradei's crew sweeps up some fragment of the old program, W's wrecking crew presents it as "proof they're making nuclear weapons." They simply will not accept that Iran has submitted to</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font>