On the other hand, more people have gotten skin cancer (and more people died) from the sun than from nuclear power plants. And even wind farms have not gone without complaints from some people who fear that the rotating blades kill birds. Just can't win with some people! Maybe the philosophy of 'nuke a baby whale for Jesus' will win out. Nuclear energy wouldn't be so bad (dangerous) if profit mongers weren't allowed to cut corners on safety. But, as Lenin said: "A capitalist will sell you the rope to himself with". But before you can make the world safe, you have to control the capitalist's selfish and greedy ambitions. And that won't happen until the people take back government from those greedsters (both Republicans and many Democrats).

As Robert Scheer wrote in his article "Treason of the Intellectuals" yesterday: Even the "left-leaning" intellectuals have sold us out. Those who have posed as liberals were all for the Iraq war, in the beginning, largely because they had no backbone to stand up to the might of the war mongering (patriotic?) right-wingers. 10 years after Iraq, many are now trying to pose excuses why they were all "tricked" into supporting the Iraq war. Many of these opportunists avoided being "under the gun" for personal and political gain. And now, they are trying to wiggle out from under their (now unpopular) positions. Makes me wonder how many so-called "liberals" are, even now, acting like the conniving Inn-Keeper ('Master of the House') characters in Les Miserables, or the slimy, slippery character (Smeagol/Gollum) in Lord of the Rings.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_treason_of_the_intellectuals_201...

Nuclear Profit Plants should be shut down. They are inherently unsafe. None should be operating until a method is designed to neutralize the waste materials that are piling up around them. The waste piles are as dangerous as the operating rods. These nuclear profit plants produce thousands of tons of radioactive waste material every year. There is no known method of safely storing or neutralizing this waste. If we produced laws that required those who owned nuclear profit plants to live within five miles of the plants they would close in a week. The nuclear power plants that fuel submarines and aircraft carriers are safer because the folks who operate them live on the vessel; they have skin in the game. Today we have billionaire owners who do not live with the zip code of the power plants calling the shots for everyone else.

Well, we all suspected it would happen but now it has...the Keystone Exxon pipeline has burst in Arkansas and gushing through the streets of Mayflower, Arkansas.

In other news...swat teams burst into a man's home in Connecticut, and kills the owner and severely wounds another man huddled in a corner. Both men unarmed. The cops only found a tiny amount of cocaine in the home.

In Kansas, Swat teams invade a couple's home, scaring the 7 and 11 year old children, all because they suspected the couple were growing marijuana in their basement. What did they find? Several tomato plants and some squash. If you buy hydroponic equipment...you become suspect...look out! At least, in this case, the swat teams didn't actually shoot anyone. This hasn't always been the case. They often do.

And now, after the Dorner case where he claimed the LAPD had unfairly treated him as retribution for speaking out, yet another veteran LAPD cop whistle-blower is speaking out the LAPD that had an illegal gun-selling ring within the force. They are not only in the business of buying up our guns...they are selling them too.

Right you are SueN...and of course...we all have a choice about whether or not we heat our homes or drive our cars. If we want these 'luxuries?' we must use some way of getting the energy we need to provide our comfort levels we are all accustomed to. There are some people, even in New York and elsewhere, who have decided to go completely without using energy...no driving of cars....no heat in the winter time (just dress warmly). But for the rest of us who think we really do need various forms of energy...we have to compromise somehow.

I personally think nuclear plants are a very bad idea, in light of the fact that they are built and operated by capitalists who sacrifice safety for profits. Building them in earthquake areas is insane. Building them in heavily populated areas is nuts. I lived in the Wash DC area at the time of the 3 Mile Island accident and we were worried that, being down wind and only 85 miles away could be very disastrous. Those people who live on the west coast have been seeing flotsam and jetsam on their shores from the Fukushima accident. Reports of radioactive fish are a big concern. The radioactive pollution could get into our fruits and vegetables and into our livestock.

But then, fracking is suspected of releasing radioactive materials from deep in our bedrock and polluting our water. It won't be long...we'll all be 'glowing' radiantly in our future...just like the fish.

I am all for solar and wind farms and geothermal. Electricity can also be generated by wave action. Other countries are way ahead of the US. We need to busy and get off the hydrocarbon energy sources.

New York is actually one of the most environmentally friendly places to live in America, because so many people live in small homes which are kept warm by the homes around them, and they do not drive cars.

Green_TZM It does not matter what party you identify with because they have both been purchased by the highest bidder, the Corporations and the Wealthy. Conservative or Progressive, these are just name tags so people can identify themselves with some entity they think is going to save our sorry asses and make it alright once again here in America. It has never been alright, they just did a better job of hiding the truth from the American voters in the past, all 50% of the people who bother to vote. Obama rammed through Sequestration in 2010 as well as the Affordable Health Care Act, two of the worst pieces of legislation that have ever been enacted! And the Democrats led by Obama are trying to make out that the Republicans are the people forcing Austerity upon America! The L.A. Times reported on Saturday that Obama Care will increase the cost of health insurance for the middle class in California. who purchase their own health insurance by 30% this year! Like they stated, when bills like these are passed there will always be some group won wins and a group that loses. Obama made sure that the Insurance Corporations would have a way to recoup any loses they would incur as a result of his bungled health care bill that he admitted was flawed, but stated he would correct the problems in his second term! He did not know if he would be here for a second term, but he made sure the Insurance Corporations would be covered by the loop holes he left in his bill, and the Democrats and the Republicans knew what he was doing. Did anyone notice that once Sequestration was enacted the Stock Market began to climb higher and higher? Why, because the Wealthy knew Obama and the politicians in Washington had taken any risk out of the market by cutting the budget deficit on the backs of the poor and lower middleclass with Sequestration, but he only asked for a mere raise of 5% on Capital Gains from the Stock Market to make sure the Wealthiest Americans paid the least in taxes per capita income ratio. The Wealthy and the Corporations own Obama, the Senate and the House. It does not matter whether they are Republicans or Democrats; they have all sold out to those who finance their next campaign. Politicians from the House and the Senate, as well as the White House would sell their mothers on the street to keep the power they think they now hold in Washington. We can all talk about what we think is going on, but until some group stands up and does something about the corruption fed by the greed for power, not a damn thing will change in our country. It will only get worse with each passing election until this society is a two tier society, the Wealthy and the Working Poor. And brother and sister, we are not far from that society becoming the reality of the American public. Only when they, the Wealthy and Politically Corrupt, actually have something physically tangible to loose, the stench in Washington will only get worse and worse. I think everyone knows what I think needs to be done, but to be honest I would just be blowing hot air at this point to ramble on. Hopefully, there will be a group of brave Americans that will come together and do what has to be done. At my age, which is only sixty (I know some of you think that is old!) I am beginning to doubt I will see any change in my life time, hopefully I will, but it looks like most people are just too whipped by the present powers that be and are only concerned about surviving another year. Hopefully, Europe will stand in the streets and disrupt the Banks and Corporations to bring change and we will follow. It is the only chance I see for our future generations to have any quality of life in our society...As far as the voters changing Washington, that will never happen as long as Corporations are seen as people and money is deemed as free speech by the Supreme Court. It will take violence and disruption of profits to bring change to our society.

The problem is the true cost of energy. Without the government subsidizes green energy would cost up to five times more. With one of five on food stamps how the hell are they going to afford to heat there shitty government housing project house when energy triples. Natural gas is they way to go. Clean, affordable, and available but the problem is you have to buy it from those big bad oil companies. I can't say anything about nuclear I live thousands of miles from one and know nothing about them.

Love the night fishing glow in the dark thing Ken W

I wanted to add that I am also against nuclear because of the dangerous waste issue and the fact that I live near the nuclear plant that is in the top three in the nation for safety violations and which stands on the shores of the largest freshwater source in the world--the Great Lakes.

Wind and solar are the pathways to the future.

agree , no nuclear power plants can be both safe and cost effective and therefore they should be discontinued. BBBBBBBBbbbbbbuuuuuttttttt........ wind power as it is being done now is FAR FROM green energy. Entire mountains are strip mined to produce the most rare metals in the turbines , And there is no plans to take the wind mills down when their life cycle has left them as a hillside paper weights

. for example in California along the I 5 we have an entire wind farm which no longer produces power because the mills are now too old. The cost of taking them down is left to the public while the utility has taken the fake "profit" and run away with their money. If you account for these hidden costs ,... wind can't be done on a large scale.

" If you account for these hidden costs ,... wind can't be done on a large scale."
If you "account for the hidden costs" of nuclear and fossil fuel contamination they can't be done on a large scale either.

I agree that we are all being fooled by cars being run on electricity (unless they are being recharged by solar or some other green energy). One still has to charge their batteries, most likely, using non-green sources. You will use a lot more electricity to charge these cars than you would have just for your normal home use. And electricity is expensive. Your "carbon footprint" just shifts from your direct production of hydrocarbons out of your tailpipe to the massive hydrocarbons produced at the electrical generating facilities (unless they are green). And all those batteries have to be replaced periodically which means you are adding to the contamination in the production and disposal of lead-acid batteries (unless you are using some other kind of batteries). But, at least it is a start in the right direction.

We don't need nuclear power plants and they are dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. They are not fail-safe and only by the day-to-day vigilance of their current staff have we come this far without massive "accidents" causing death and destruction on the scale of a chemical, biological, or even a nuclear weapon. It is not reasonable to set ourselves up for this and it is not reasonable to continue to maintain it.

The "accidents" can be expected and one day we will lose a large swath of Pennsylvania, or Ohio, or {insert your state here}. There are 104 power plants operating in the United States. Many of those who now live in the "accidently" selected area will die miserably from radiation-induced illness. Like Chernobyl, we will abandon the affected area to mutated fauna and flora. The power plant closest to you is listed at http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/reactor/.

The fuel rods at Three Mile Island had begun to fuse together into a self-sustaining nuclear reaction. Had things progressed just a bit further it would have burned through the containment building floor and burned down to the water table. Harrisburg, PA would no longer be inhabited. Gettysburg Memorial Park and all it’s monuments would be deserted. The Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay would be full of mutated life forms and commercially unusable. If the wind had been to the south, Washington DC would have been evacuated, to the west Pittsburg, to the east Philadelphia, perhaps Trenton N.J., perhaps New York City. How do you evaute a city? What a huge cost in money and life disruption. How could that be worth it?

One of these predictable disasters has now happened at the GE designed power plant in Fukushima. It will happen again -- somewhere else -- if we don't back out of nuclear power production and shut down the existing plants. Nuclear power cannot economically produce safe and sustainable electric power. We need to start shutting these plants down now.

Happily, perfectly satisfactory alternatives are at hand. Solar and wind along with improvements in production, distribution, and consumption will more than cover the 15% of the current electric power supply that nuclear plants now supply.

But if we are to succeed we must be aware that Duke Power, GE, and other economic/political behemoths need a centralized infrastructure to keep centralized control over the energy market and to survive in their current forms. Nuclear power plants are part of their centralized infrastructure. They are working hard to block the development and deployment of decentralized technologies. Their PR flacks overwhelm the media with argument and presumption. They lobby and are otherwise active at every level to protect nuclear power and to discourage even the belief that solar and wind power are viable.

Sadly so many of our government officials -- federal, state, and local -- seem committed to protecting the behemoths continuing operation of nuclear plants as well as their activates to block the development of competing alternatives. This is a perversion of "business friendly" government.

We can overcome these institutional barriers. Left on their own, government officials will not shut down plants nor will Media find and report the unvarnished facts. We must push them. We must communicate to legislators and other officials that they can lose their job by continuing to support nuclear power. We must engage and protest and create media events. We must write letters to legislators and governors. We must post to web sites and write letters to the editor. America is a democracy and we can retire officials who are too "business friendly" in the interest of over-grown, over-powerful corporations. We will have to impose nuclear plant shutdown and to do so we will have to push, push, and push again.

I Know you read the current comments, and as this is not about nuclear power (collect methane from landfills) l'll try to be brief. Mike Papantonio was on your show Thurs and he furthered the discussion re: progressives ability to unite and accomplish. A gentleman called about 2:50pm est. - I think his name was Clayton from Pine something Illinois.

He said in essence that the Democrats were progressive and were getting things accomplished. (I disagree on both counts but no matter) then he said we don't need any big shots, or head honchos coming around telling us that we are unsuccessful.

Two problems: 1) I was disappointed that you didn't have Pap's back, the stalwart progressive that he is. And that you didn't tell the guest of Pap's accomplishments FOR US in the struggle (not to mention plug his show and CPT ) so that man could see for himself the schooling he's missing

But 2) THAT is the problem with Progressives like Pap says, we think we know everything. CORPORATIONS are destroying us and we need to walk away from them in every way possible. ESPECIALLY POLITICALLY. If your politicians are taking money from corporations, they are not serving you as well as they could. And ALL Democrats are not Progressive. If you remember the progressive budget vote, 65 DEMOCRATS voted against it. Bill of Rights Defense Council has a saying: "Dissent is Patriotic" . If you can't take the criticism, of Democrats, and Obama how are we going to shape progressives into what we need them to be.

(original was made on cell phone, can't see the preview)