Bing bing. Ladies and gentleman we have a winner. Will Kurt Seaberg of Minneapolis please come on down and accept the award for the most ridiculous letter to the editor to be published in the Star Tribune in 2002? The selection committee is aware that we're only four months in to the year and there will plenty of other contestants to come but at this point it is hard to imagine anyone being able to misstate facts and reach illogical conclusions any better than Kurt. Please read Kurt's letter below followed by a few comments from the committee:
Nuke waste isn't ever safe
The editors at the Star Tribune assure us not to worry about nuclear waste passing through our communities on its way to Yucca Mountain ("Tote that nuke," editorial, April 14). The containers are leakproof, they say, and since there's never been a serious accident in the past, of course there never will be.
Sound familiar? These are the arrogant and irresponsible assurances that rooters for technology have given for generations. The Titanic would never sink, they said. It did. "Smart bombs" won't kill civilians. They do. The World Trade Center buildings could withstand the impact of a 747. They didn't. And so on.
Technology may appear flawless to some, but people aren't. After long hours on the job they pull the wrong switch, give the wrong directions, cut corners to save time and money. Fatal choices are made that result in terrible accidents. This has always happened and always will.
Nuclear waste is a substance so deadly we can't afford to risk even one accident with it. We have no right to play Russian roulette with the lives of our children.
-- Kurt Seaberg, Minneapolis.
Well now, Kurt is quite the pessimistic Luddite isn't he? But he does site some great examples of failed technological promises right? Let's take a closer look.
First off, I'll give him the Titanic. Of course if we want to bring up the Titanic as a reason not to trust technology we might as well fold up our tents, move back into caves, and become tribes of hunter/gatherers again. You say this Apollo spacecraft can safely reach the moon and return? But what about the Titanic?
His next example is where he starts to lose touch with reality. I would challenge Kurt to site an instance in which one of his "rooters for technology" has ever promised that "smart bombs" won't kill civilians. I am certain that no military source has ever uttered such claptrap and no one with a smattering of common sense would be duped into such a child-like belief. Smart bombs certainly do seek to minimize civilian deaths but as the Pentagon tirelessly points out when you go to war there will be unintended civilian casualties no matter how careful you are or how smart your weapons are.
But Kurt really scores big with his next point. Can anyone point out the three factual errors in his WTC claim?
Okay time's up.
1. The WTC buildings were not built to withstand the impact of a 747. When the buildings were being planned they were designed to withstand the impact of the largest commercial plane at that time. A 707.
2. The planes involved in the 9/11 attacks were not 747s but rather 767s.
3. Technically speaking the buildings did withstand the impact of the initial crashes. What caused the buildings to collapse was not the impact of the planes hitting the buildings rather it was the super heated fires resulting from the thousands of gallons of jet fuel being ignited. This had not been foreseen in the original design and was what doomed the buildings.
Kurt then goes on to paint a picture of the nuclear waste being transported to Yucca Flats by a gaggle of Homer Simpson-like dullards eating donuts and pushing the wrong buttons that accidentally dumps the waste in your backyard. In the April 8th National Review Jonah Goldberg had an article detailing the years of research and study that have gone into the Yucca Flats project. This is probably the one of safest and most well thought out plans of action in the history of man. The idea that someone would even be in a position to "pull the wrong switch" or mishear the word launch instead of lunch(70's TV ref for you) is absurd.
Finally, Kurt continues a pattern found in many of his ideological peers. Froth at the mouth in opposition to a position or policy designed to solve a very real and serious problem, in this case nuclear waste, while offering no alternatives. What would Kurt have us do with the nuclear waste that is currently scattered all over the country in facilities that are neither safe nor secure? In this case the genie is already out of the bottle and we can't put it back in. The best we can hope for is to get all the genies and all the bottles in one place to ensure their safety.
