Editorial: The hysteria of nuclear salads

Unclear nuclear similarities

One is somewhat forced to watch in amusement the hysteria that is taking the place of common-sense and logic in lands where better should be known and done with requisite proof to support decisions being made.

There is no doubt that nuclear power poses threats most especially in terms of the management of spent fuel. However, with Chernobyl and now Fukushima we are met with grave issues of a man-made set of cascading events and a natural disaster that could really have not be planned for except with hindsight.

It is understandable that Japan needs to reconsider the use of nuclear energy and the siting of nuclear power stations because it for all its technological prowess is prone to earthquakes on the one hand and whilst it appears the nuclear power stations can survive earthquakes, on the other hand tsunamis are literally unpredictable.

Parallels in disagreement

All consideration should be on board for other nations too that rely on nuclear power and France is one such country.

The decision to phase out nuclear power stations in Germany by 2022 just does not find any logical, scientific or sensible feet to stand on - their systems literally run like clockwork, German efficiency would prevent a Chernobyl style failure and if there is any earth movement of any significance, it is probably a building site than a natural occurrence. Germany is just not Japan.

Now, the matter of handling spent fuel remains an issue regardless, better ways need to be found to manage nuclear waste but in terms of usefulness, pollution and cost, nuclear generated power represents the best value for money compared to alternatives.

Opportunity to think missed

It really begs that question where Germany intends to make up for the shortfall caused by the loss of nuclear generated power; I think we have heard enough about clean coal, there is nothing clean about coal; the northern hemisphere does not present the abundance of solar energy and you might have to lease large tranches of the continent to get the equivalent from wind power, relying on gas or oil just takes us back to energy dependence from states that are hardly picture-book examples of our systems, values and processes.

Allowing political expediency for the purposes of appeasement that simply raises the economic cost of development will on reflection turn out to be a grave error of judgement - this is a time for thinking heads to work together and discard of the unnecessary hysteria of opportunity to push through views that have no credence or scientific basis in fact.

Half-truths exacerbating hysteria

The Escherichia coli or commonly known as e. coli bug outbreak in Germany is one event that leaves one reeling in disbelief as the news and the analysis seem to have left the facts so far behind you begin to wonder who should be garrotted for the half-truths that have fuelled the hysteria no end.

We now know that this e. coli strain (enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli [EHEC]) is quite unusual, virulent, difficult to treat and turning out to have a rather scary high mortality rate.

It might well have been caught from contaminated cucumbers as first speculated but as one digs for the fundamentals of the story, there is no conclusive proof that the so-called cucumbers were Spanish in origin. As one expert averred, the contamination might have been due to poorly handled food - the original outbreak was in restaurant in Luebeck near Hamburg, it coincided with a yearly celebration for the port of Hamburg.

This outbreak, even though it has spread to other countries, the affected are from Germany and from that region of the far North of Germany and so far, only women have been affected.

Jumping to bad conclusions and decisions

It then leaves one quite bemused as to how Spain got besmirched with the xenophobia of exporting contaminated cucumbers when there was no evidence to maintain that claim; meanwhile, a humongous harvest has been destroyed in Spain because of the ban on its exports and whilst the German authorities are still working for determining the real origins of this outbreak, Russia has place a blanket ban on vegetables from mainland Europe.

It is the job of governments to protect its citizenry from health hazards both proactively and pre-emptively but all that should be done with useful information rather than knee-jerk reactions even if the government could be damned if they ban foods or damned if they allow imports in the midst of scares - it does not absolve the authorities from being measured, sensible and intelligent in decision making.

Russia relies on vegetable imports from Europe in the late spring and early summer because its harvest is much later in the year than in Mainland Europe and suddenly a scarcity of these food essentials might help local growers but they have nothing to sell.

A sorry affair

You find yourself asking whether there is a thinking head in any government establishment, its figureheads and supposedly responsible and knowledgeable experts nowadays.

Furthermore, you worry that the tendency to surf the waves of irrational fear and hysteria would leave many really suspect of leadership at a time when the credibility of our elected officials or the apparatchiks that man the ministry is hardly worth commending.

The terminal decline of air travel

A stopover for an FBI frisking

If I understood this any better, I would be lying through my teeth. Basically, the world has now been overcome with hysteria about air travel that logic fails to feature in any of the so-called reactions taken.

The news wires are now been flooded with the news of a diversion from a Manchester – Chicago flight to Bangor, not the one in Wales but the one after crossing the Atlantic in the state of Maine in the United States of America.

What is really amusing is, if indeed there was a bomb on that plane, why the terrorist did not blow the damn thing up over the North Atlantic rather than wait for it to enter the US air space.

Extradition by stealth

One is also left suspect of the whole issue if a so-called passenger on the security list did get to embark on a flight considering how much information is demanded of airlines, most especially this airline being one of the native airlines – American Airlines.

If this is not a serious and unforgivable lapse in security, then it might be that America is implementing an extradition through the backdoor but allowing suspects to arrive in the United States, creating a diversion melodrama and then nabbing their quarry.

I might at this time be jumping to conclusions and this plane having landed on US soil might have the FBI extricate some sort of evidence no matter how contrived to justify the diversion of this flight – God help you that your name does not sound like Bush, Blair or Bin Laden.

Profiling a typical air traveller

We already know now that if you look different, speak a language other than English, look in your bag to retrieve that pulp fiction or attempt to play one of those games on your mobile phone you are completely done for without redemption.

Let us just agree that air travel is only meant for a particular kind of clone only known to the government, just as your hand baggage should fit into some impossible sizing measurement, you should fit that perfect, ordinary, normal, average buffoon who happens to love subjecting themselves to searches as intimate as would require a gloved hand.

Who compensates for this inconvenience?

However, in some cases, it has been left to those mile-high trolley dollies to profile, assess and subjectively prejudge their passengers and arrive at the preposterous conclusion that a passenger, in the light of increased security, or the plane is somehow in peril.

The trouble with all this inconvenience is that for the supposed misdeeds of one or some passengers who probably have no relationship apart from being brought together on that flight by some flight booking system, the scheduled department and arrival times of others has been put completely out of order.

The question now becomes who would compensate the affected for this outrageous abuse of freedom to travel and liberty to disembark at the original destination.

Indeed, cabin crew vigilance is paramount in these threatening times and I hear that it is good to err on the side of caution, but how much of this exercise of prerogative is intuition, hunch, premonition, supposition, suspicion as opposed to factual analysis of observed circumstances?

As I write, I also hear that a student has checked in a bag containing dynamite on a flight about to depart Argentina.

Conspiracies and opportunities

I am beginning to think this whole thing is becoming a free-for-all conspiracy to completely discredit air travel in favour for a more green earth – not too implausible.

Do we now need a nuclear powered, acoustic iceberg destroyer, ocean liner called 21^st Century Titanic and a EuroStar that traverses all closely linked continents – Europe, Asia, Africa?

The Eurotunnel proves that there might be a viable engineering case for a Gibraltar (UK bordering Spain) to Ceuta (Spain bordering Morocco) tunnel to link Africa and Europe under the Straits of Gibraltar – a mere 14 kilometres in length – (the idea is bridge has been suggested) and this air scare times might just make the Channel Tunnel breakeven, at last.

References

Two U.S. airliners diverted, passenger subdued

UK-US plane diverted over 'scare'

Airline Insanity Merely A Beta Test For Police State Caste System

Explaining a stolen lunchbox

Summer season news madness

I can only find amusement in what has become a sad tragedy of hysteria that lacks scientific proof but feeds the lynch mob in causing the death of innocent people.

Being the summer season, the newswires are usually bereft of useful intelligent news that anything can be spruced up as news. In the West, that really fetches true, however, in Nigeria, some things can be stranger than fiction.

Only yesterday, my friend in African Shirts lamented the fact that the new Superman was a bit less than a man, having a slightly reduced bulge, especially if you have been assaulted before the watershed with Linford Christie’s lunch-box doing the 100 metre dash, you would know what I mean.

There’s a coal in my pocket

I remember when I was in Nigeria, we were caught in a frenzy that required all men to put a piece of coal in their pockets to prevent the unfortunate loss of their manhood.

Somehow, rumour and some information dispersion mechanism that beggars belief spreads the view that if you rub off on a stranger, your manhood would shrivel into nothingness.

The fact is, I have never seen any real proof of anyone who has a manhood of any significance before the event, then show that his manhood has been a victim of involuntary and violable shrinkage.

However, all you have to do is grab your crouch and scream, better wail, pointing your finger at a hapless passer-by who forgot to say his prayers and that person is attacked and finished off long before someone with more than two grey cells warming up each other seeks the evidence of an alleged penile miniaturisation.

To really look at this matter, after the man has been murdered by the mob, there usually is no Aha! Moment, like dip into his pockets and produce that stolen piece of hardware.

Exposé on the lickle womble

Closer to the truth, I would surmise, the accuser has had a encounter where his endowment might have been one of the dramatis personnel of the nursery rhyme – this little piggie which went wee apart from the fact that it was a wee bit on the rather wee side.

How better to explain the lack of that aspect of male chauvinistic self-assuredness exemplified in the myth of James Brown’s sex-machine if you cannot rue the day you lost your manhood?

Reference

Mob kills lecturer over alleged theft of manhood – this site does not keep permanent links to its news items – this link might change after the 27^th of July 2006.