Category: Guest Authors

America Needs More Nuclear Power

America Needs More Nuclear Power — This article by Chris Freind is being published with his permission.

There is a story about a wealthy man who sought the world’s safest place in which to build his home, a place free from all dangers, natural and man-made. After expending a considerable sum researching such a location, he determined that a particular island in the South Atlantic fit the criteria.

The man spared no expense in constructing the most solid, fortified and beautiful home—one that was virtually impregnable.
But after planning for all contingencies, something happened for which he had not accounted.

The man found himself directly in the line of fire—of the Falkland Islands War.

The point? Life is full of risks, and despite some people’s naïve belief that risks are avoidable, they are not. Instead, our focus should be on mitigating those risks in common sense ways while still living in the real world.
But we don’t.

Already, we have heard the calls to reevaluate our nuclear power program (codespeak for phasing it out of existence) because of the situation in Japan. And God forbid that we should actually forge ahead with new nuclear plants, several of which have been recently approved. That would be dangerous and foolhardy, we are now told.

So let’s get that mentality straight. We should shelve nuclear expansion—a virtually zero emission power source that significantly reduces reliance on foreign oil from hostile nations—because of problems half a world away? Problems that directly resulted from Japan being front and center on the notorious Ring of Fire—home to 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes and 75 percent of its volcanos. And problems that, for the most part, America doesn’t have, since almost none of the country sits on that Ring.

That’s not just naïve. That’s self-inflicted stupidity.

The United States has 104 nuclear plants in operation, accounting for 20 percent of our electricity consumption. It should be double that number, but for decades, leadership has been sorely lacking in both political parties, and the American people are extremely shortsighted on all things energy.

So now that we’re facing $4/gallon fuel—with experts predicting $5 by next year, which significantly inflates the prices of almost everything due to increased transportation costs—what are our options? We have none.

Our drills in the Gulf sit idle, Alaska is pumping but a fraction of its resources, there is no drilling off our continental coasts, and natural gas companies are shutting down operations because the demand is so low.

And now, the stigma of Japanese nuclear problems, combined with political cowardice, will all but halt the expansion of our nuclear program.
We can’t have it both ways. If paying less at the pump, bolstering national security and reducing greenhouse emissions are important, then nuclear power is the only real alternative.

So instead of punting away such a proven and safe energy source, America’s leaders need to show political courage by telling the people the truth, not what they may want to hear.

And here is the truth:

1) Unequivocally, China will not allow its nuclear program to be sidetracked or slowed by the problems in Japan. They have 27 new plants under construction, including the most advanced reactors in the world. While we bury our heads in the sand and bog down any new construction with litigation, our biggest economic and military competitor will continue to challenge our status as the world’s only superpower. And because of their determination and mettle, they will surpass us in a decade.

2) Nuclear power plants are safe. As is the case with anything, risks exist, but with proper oversight and increased fail-safe measures, many of which were implemented after the September 11 attacks, those risks are well within acceptable limits. And for those who may think this author is a NIMBY—Not In My Back Yard—there are four nuclear plants that literally surround my region.

Outside of the Three Mile Island (TMI) incident in 1979, there has never been a major accident in the United States. And not to minimize the seriousness of TMI, but not only was no one hurt or killed, numerous independent evaluations, including a 13-year study of 32,000 people, concluded that there were no adverse effects to the surrounding population.

3) Numerous ships in the U.S. Navy are nuclear-powered (including all aircraft carriers and submarines), allowing them to travel nonstop at high speed without needing to refuel for 25 years. Not only do these vessels represent a huge cost savings and are environmentally friendly, since they forego two decades’ worth of oil, but they are an incalculable asset to America’s national security. And in more than 5,400 “reactor years” of operation with 500 reactors, and well over 130 million miles steamed, there has never been a nuclear accident.

4) Much of the damage to Japan’s plants was due to the tsunami after the earthquake. A common-sense policy might be to build American plants several miles inland from the sea and not on fault lines, especially on the more earthquake-prone West Coast. While the rest of the country is not immune to earthquakes and tidal waves, the likelihood of those events occurring on even a fraction of the scale in Japan is remote. And America’s nuclear facilities are designed to withstand the power of the largest earthquakes.

America’s nuclear energy policy cannot and must not be formulated by what happens in other parts of the world where natural disasters (Japan) or human incompetence (Chernobyl) exist.

Common sense tells us that we can increase our nuclear-power knowledge from Japan’s unfortunate series of events. Those “lessons learned,” combined with the huge technology advances that have been realized from the days of TMI, would make America’s nuclear program the envy of the world.

Incredibly, it has taken a Democratic president to push this initiative, despite the vehement objections of his party’s biggest constituencies.
With Republicans in control of the House and poised to take over the Senate, there is absolutely no excuse for not pushing ahead on the next generation of American nuclear power plants, which would be the first constructed in three decades.

With no end to soaring fuel prices and the Asian Tiger’s appetite growing every day, Americans should embrace nuclear power for what it is: a gift of clean and limitless energy.

To ignore this reality would be too great a risk.

Chris Freind is an independent columnist, television commentator, and investigative reporter who operates his own news bureau, www.FreindlyFireZone.com. Readers of his column, “Freindly Fire,” hail from six continents, thirty countries and all fifty states. His work has been referenced in numerous publications including The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, foreign newspapers, and in Dick Morris’ recent bestseller “Catastrophe.” Freind, whose column appears regularly in Philadelphia Magazine and nationally in Newsmax, also serves as a frequent guest commentator on talk radio and state/national television, most notably on FOX Philadelphia. He can be reached at CF@FreindlyFireZone.com.

 

America Needs More Nuclear Power

Kill Pirates On The Spot

Chris Freind has some good advice on how handle Somali pirates. The only thing I’d add is that you should bury them at sea in a pig skin and YouTube it.

You can read what he wrote here.

San Francisco Legislators At It Again

Just when you think that people have become as stupid as possible something comes along to prove they haven’t. Since the banning of “Happy Meals” at MacDonald’s in San Francisco, a new, more controversial proposal is being considered that would ban circumcisions of all boys under age 17, and it’s causing lots of debate.

According to ivillage.com, “The latest statistics from the CDC (which, admittedly, is from 1999 — not too recent) reports that 65 percent
of all boys nationally are circumcised (but the percentage drops to
37 percent on the West Coast). Plus, it’s a religious or cultural
tradition for many people. And it’s a controversial topic in
general.”

The reason San Francisco is considering this ban? Lloyd Schofield, the
activist pushing the law, calls it “genital mutilation.” In his
proposal, punishment would be either up to a year of jail time or up
to a $1,000 fine. With all that is going on in the world and in San
Francisco and CA at this time, I am glad that this activist can find
the time to work on an event like this one that will keep the tips of
our male genitalia safe.

For
a climate where so many people seem to preach getting government out
of their personal lives it is strange and amazing that some not only
want government in their lives, but in their bedrooms, and even
governing what can be done to the end of their sex organs. This can
only happen in America.


  

Government Doesn’t Want to Hear From You

By Dr. John Gilmore

 

A friend received a petition being distributed by Penn Environment
through email to inform our State Governor about the desire for more
safety regulations to protect the environment and forests in central
PA. Instead of receiving “email sent” upon completing it, she
received a smiling picture of the governor and a code that was called
a puzzler that one had to answer before the email would be accepted.
There was basically a code like FQAH6 (an actual code) and a place
where one had to type in the meaning of the code in order for the
mail to go through. Whether one agrees with Penn Environment or not,
this is yet another example of inaccessible government doing the will
of corporate interest instead of the people and taxation without any
representation. Penn Environment is supporting the legislative
process of regulation in drilling due to the following reasons:

 

  • Gas
    drilling contributed to the contamination of the drinking water
    supply of 325,000 people near Pittsburgh in 2008.

  • Already,
    drilling has contaminated drinking water in seven Pennsylvania
    counties with dangerous methane gas.

  • In
    the past year, nearly a dozen different drilling companies have been
    caught breaking cornerstone environmental laws, such as the Clean
    Water Act, at their drilling sites.

  • Last
    September, drilling activities spilled 8,000 gallons of harmful
    pollution into Stevens Creek in northeastern Pennsylvania. 

Right
now, state officials are considering policies to help protect the
public from the dangers of gas drilling. Unfortunately it seems that
the people are not allowed to have any input in the process—yet
again, and the government is not interested in hearing what the
people think. Whether one is far left, far right, or even out in the field the one thing that we all need is a government that serves the people and makes decisions based on their input.  This is what is known as democracy.  There is nothing like democracy that works.
Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much of it in our country in the 21st Century.

Finally Safe from Sagging Pants

By Dr. John Gilmore

Other than being a bit annoying and aesthetically challenging to many people from my generation, it seems that sagging pants, i.e., pants hanging off someone’s butt, have become a crime in some local jurisdictions.  During these times when people are looking to local government for more support and sensible decisions, and the federal government for less, it is a bit frightening to see the focus of some of our jurisdictions.

In recent years, cities from Dallas to Rivera Beach, Fla. have launched efforts to make sagging pants punishable by fines and jail time. Some of the most vociferous supporters of these efforts claim the fashion was born in prison culture and, by implication glorifies criminal behavior.  Others just argue, like Townsend, that it offends community taste.

“It’s a horrible fad,” said City Councilman Anthony Davis of Paterson, New Jersey.  The 40-something legislator, who spearheaded an anti-sagging campaign in his city, traces the trend to correctional institutions, where belts are often banned, and says many in the African American community worry that young black men are embodying a “prison mentality” when they let their pants sag.

What better way to deal with this “embodying a prison mentality” then by fining them and putting them in prison?  In the study of Symbolic Logic there is a type of logic called “not logic.”  I would definitely say that this is a prime example of not logic, or perhaps logic–not!  I wonder if this is what happened to tube tops.

 

I want a Tax and Spend Government for The People

By Dr. John Gilmore

 

When Bill Meyer was about to retire he
gave an excellent speech on the idea of the Commonwealth. He said he
was born in a very poor neighborhood, but didn’t even really knew it
because we all shared in the commonwealth when he was growing up.
There were parks, free summer recreational programs, free after
school programs, free music programs in the schools and art programs.
Sometimes they even had free summer camps sponsored by the counties
or cities. Anyone could be involved in a sports program for just the
cost of a two dollar insurance policy each year and the school
provided buses that would take the children to the away games on the
weekend.

 

We don’t have many of these programs
because of the movement led by rich people to disassemble the
commonwealth and do away with taxes. As a result of this people end
up paying for all of these programs as if they are a privilege. Many
people spend hours of time driving miles to carry their children to
soccer games and other sports activities, thus spending the money
they thought they had saved in taxes on time and for gas. Now only
the ones who can afford it send their children to music programs and
to art classes. Just think of all of the great musicians from poor
families who started playing their instrument in school. This won’t
happen now in most school districts.

 

Now people who can afford it have to
pay for day care, pay to go to parks, pay to go to the beaches, and
the many other things that add to the quality of life for all
citizens, allowing us to share in the riches of the nation as a whole
group instead of as individuals working and struggling to buy what is
necessary to enjoy the fruit of American life.

 

As we cut taxes the savings are now
being funneled into overseas investments that put us out jobs and
foreign wars—especially to defense contractors. The states and
local governments are broke, so they need to raise state a local
taxes while cutting the services we so desperately need. In the long
run the average person ends up paying more for services than he paid
for taxes, while the rich person has an opportunity to invest in
China and send their children to the best schools, concerts, music
programs and so on so they can make us look like failures when we try
to compete against them. As a result of this the rich communities get
good resources while the average and poor ones decline until they
begin to look like the slums in most Latin American countries. We
end up with beautiful homes in one block and torn up ghettos right in
the next block, except for the most rich areas—all because we don’t
want to support each other by paying taxes.

 

The sad thing is that the amount of
taxes never go down, they only get transferred from the federal
government to state and local governments, utility fees, park fees,
higher car registration costs and licensing fees. We end up paying
the same amount of taxes for no service. That is why I like the idea
of a tax and spend government as long as the money is being spent on
the people who are being taxed instead of on foreign wars and foreign
investments. It is strange that anytime we hear the words tax and
spend government from the corporate media we are hearing it from a
person who’s income is highly invested in stocks in foreign countries
that are taking our jobs. They tell us we can’t depend on the
government to take care of us, but we can depend on private
corporations. That doesn’t even make sense, when you really think
about it. We can pressure the elected government to make changes in
its spending patterns; we cannot do anything to corporations.

What Has Become Of The United States of America?


Charles Martini Sr. of the Media area has had this article published in the Delaware County Daily Times . Charles is a regular attendee of meetings of the Delaware County Patriots.

Has America become the land of the special interest and home of the double standard? For many it has. Here is a review of current events. Make your own decision.

If we lie to the Congress, it’s a felony. If the Congress lies to us it’s just politics. If we dislike a black person, we’re racist. If a black dislikes whites, it’s their First Amendment right.

The government spends millions to rehabilitate criminals and they do almost nothing for the victims. In public schools you can teach that homosexuality is OK, but you better not use the word God in the process.

You can kill an unborn child, but it’s wrong to execute a mass murderer. We don’t burn books in America, we now rewrite them. We got rid of the communist and socialist threat by renaming them progressive. We are unable to close our border with Mexico, but we have no problem protecting the 38th parallel in Korea.

If you protest against President Obama’s policies you’re a terrorist or a racist, but if you burned an American flag or George W. Bush’s picture in effigy it was your First Amendment right.

You can have pornography on TV or the Internet, but you better not put a nativity scene in a public park during Christmas. We have eliminated all criminals in America; they are now called sick people. We can use a human fetus for medical research, but it’s wrong to use an animal for drug research to cure a disease.

We take money from those who
work hard for it and give it to those who don’t want to work. We all
support the Constitution, but only when it supports our political
ideology. We still have freedom of speech, but only if we are being
politically correct.

We can celebrate Cinco De Mayo and
Halloween, but we can’t celebrate Christmas, which is a recognized
national holiday and a religious holiday for most of Americans.

We
can ask law-abiding citizens to present valid I.D. when cashing a check
or making a credit card purchase, but we can’t ask suspicious “illegal
aliens” to produce a valid I.D. to verify their status or identify
themselves.

We explain away individuals who steal classified and
secret communications and distribute them to the press, but can’t hold
the press or individuals libel for participating in this
life-threatening treachery to our country and armed forces personnel.

We
applaud confiscatory taxation and regulation on those who work hard,
run an enterprise and play by the rules, then reward drug addicts,
slackers, welfare cheats and bums with “benefits” they did not earn to
continue their corrupt lifestyles … and call this whole process “social
justice” or welfare for the so-called disadvantaged and poor of society.

Actor
Wesley Snipes goes to jail for tax evasion, while Democratic
Congressman Charles Rangel, who was indicted 20 times for fraud and
evasion, gets a mild censure and no jail time from Congress. And you
wonder why the U.S. Congress is held in deep contempt with a 20 percent
approval rating from U.S. taxpayers and voters.

What has happened to the land of the free and home of the brave?

The answer: America has become a welfare state based on deviant behavior, questionable morals and situation ethics.

1 In 3 Need Gov Permission To Work

1 In 3 Need Gov Permission To Work — About 1 in 20 Americans needed government permission to work in the 1950s. Today it’s 1 in 3, according to Commonwealth Foundation. The loss of freedom comes from requirements for training, fees, licenses and other bits of red tape magic aimed at keeping the Dolores Umbridges of the world happily sipping their tea in bureaucratic positions of power.

A Illinois man, as a remembrance to a friend killed by a drunk driver, began offering tipsy bar patrons a free ride home. He was busted for “operating without a transportation service license” in a sting orchestrated by the local taxi drivers and the police.

In Pennsylvania, an ad hoc barter system popped in where residents gave rides in return for services to the Amish who have a religious prohibition against owning or driving a car.

The state’s Public Utilities Commission pushed  police to set up stake-outs to catch these violators of the requirement to have a transportation license.

It’s for our own good, of course.

“We are trying to protect the public interest and public safety,” a PUC spokeswoman said.

An excellent and scary article by  Katrina Currie of Commonwealth Foundation points out that an attempt was made by the Pennsylvania legislature this year to require a license for interior designers. What was the public safety issue? The danger of mauve rugs clashing with orange walls?

Ms. Currie notes that in 2008 the state sued a a mom for $10 million for selling items on eBay without an auctioneers license and that Philadelphia bloggers now must have a $300 business privilege license if they want to sell ads on their site.

A third of Americans need Big Brothers permission to work. Fighting to stop the encroachment is not enough. It’s time to start being a little like Harry Potter and start fighting to roll it back.

1 In 3 Need Gov Permission To Work

Where the Solar Power Plants

By Dr. John Gilmore

In the Spanish countryside, a strange sight rises from the landscape: a massive concrete tower surrounded by glowing beams of light. That tower may hold the key to a clean-energy future. The 40-story concrete tower is surrounded by four massive arrays of 600 mirrors each, all designed to track the sun on its path across the sky and beam the light back at the tower. Right now only one of the arrays is completed and functional, but construction is continuing on the other three. The Solar Tower, designed and built by Spanish energy company Solucar, generates 11 megawatts of energy–enough to power over 6,000 homes–without emitting any greenhouse gases or pollutants.

 
At present there are plans to create several large solar power plants in the Mojave desert to supply energy for more than 140,000 homes in line with Governor Swarzenegger and CA’s plan to increase the use of green energy creation to 33% by 2020.  This is the first solar energy project of its size in the last 20 years to break ground.  In Pennsylvania representatives have been trying to move the state legislature to increase the use of solar energy to 3% by the year 2020.  They aren’t having any success.  The couldn’t even get our legislators to increase to 1.5%.  My question, “What is going on in PA?”  Building these solar plants create new jobs, create clean renewable energy, and will help us reduce our carbon foot print.  Could it be that in this state, one that is loaded with coal and Marsella shale, that there is no incentive to do so?  One might argue that we don’t have a desert here in PA, so we cannot build a plant, but in Spain they have created a cement structure where they are collecting solar energy.  We can do it.  The question shouldn’t be how to mine coal, frag gas, and flood millions of gallons of water through shale by doing the least damage, or how we can dispose of radioactive and contaminated waste water–millions of gallons of it, that occur from all these operations, it should be how to reduce the need for fossil fuels and become independent of it as soon as possible.

Opinion From the Bottom — Marcellus Shale Process Poisoning the Water

By Dr. John Gilmore

I went to a bed and breakfast in Upstate PA.  Nearby they were just beginning to mine marcellus shale.  There have been several reports about the pollution of fresh water that takes place during this process.  Heavy metals, cancerous agents, and even radioactive elements have been found in the drinking water of many residents around areas who feel they need to suddenly have access to marcellus shale.  On one video a man actually set his water on fire to show how polluted it was by the process done to separate the gas from the shale.  The inn keeper at the bed and breakfast almost panicked when my wife told him of the dangers.

“I don’t care!  We’ve got to do something!” He said.  “We have to put up with some of the inconveniences or we’ll be destroyed!  What can we do?  They say everything is wrong.  We have to do something!”  Come on.  A couple of decades ago we didn’t even know how to get the oil from shale.  Since they discovered how to in Canada and are making a fortune suddenly we have to do this or be destroyed.
A combination of solar energy, wind energy, title energy and geo-thermal energy would easily supply us with the energy we need well into the future, and poisoning all of the fresh water in aquifers is not an inconvenience it is totally stupid.  Van Jones, the great Green advocate who was targeted with a slur campaign and forced out of the Obama administration put it well when he said that our nation is like a group of crack heads addicted to oil  The only thing we know is drill and consume.  We don’t care about our friends, our families, the next generation, anything, as long as we get our next fix.  It is time to change this behavior and build for the future and future generations.
Put solar cells on roofs, put wind turbines and title energy turbines in the ocean, use the geothermal energy from volcanoes and use oil for what we can’t use the others for until we increase the efficiency of the clean energy.  Use the same power lines we use now to move the energy from those sources to where it is needed.  That seems to make sense to me.  Yet again, the people with interest in all the oil might not like that.  They have to make every penny possible off of the oil that they can at peak oil  prices.  They are making a killing and many of us are getting killed.