Theres nothing certain so there may be “some good” in keeping a dying and helpless person alive, but when does it become neglect to pursue our own ideal at the expense of the suffering of others? Its not clear to me. Its too easy for us to take a hard stance and avoid all the difficult fine lines. At least, thats the way I see it.

On a separate note, I felt this documentary was pretty trashy. The people who made it should be ashamed that they haven’t made a case for the very thing they condemn. At best they drew attention to a problem for someone more organized to report about.

This is the only time all the atoms forming those children have joined to create a concious being. I know it is not what most of us would consider a life worth living but if we kill them to take away the pain we are also taking away any possibility of them ever feeling the slightest spark of happiness.

How much pain is the dullest spark of happiness worth? You can’t decide that for someone else because your value of happiness is different (in this case much lower) than theirs.

Once they die they won’t even be able to feel the boredom of nothingness.

Oh and as i live in a seismically inactive region, and provided you process it through standard disposal procedures and place it in a suitable containment structure you are more than welcome to bury nuclear waste in my backyard. However there are specially designed sights which are far more secure from the point of view of preventing undesirables from digging up my back yard and getting their hands on nuclear waste which could be used to create a dirty bomb (not an atomic bomb as this can not be created from nuclear waste).

While her cause is undoubtedly right (helping sick children get access to medical treatment and assistance they cannot afford) it appears from this film that she is more interested in taking the slant that radiation contamination is directly responsible for all the health defects that are shown here, rather than documenting the factual truth. Coverall statements she makes such as all radiation is dangerous is incorrect as we are constantly exposed to both naturally occurring radiation from sun and may other sources such as underlying geological formations. In addition to this other statistical statements are highly suspect, at one point the documentary compares child mortality rates in Belarus (i think it was Belarus anyway), to the rest of Europe with the outcome being that they are higher in the rest of Europe. Western Europe is one of the wealthiest regions in the world with extremely well developed education systems, health care and social services which all contribute to lower infant mortality rates. Compairing a less developed nations infant mortality rate with the rest of Europe in this context is meaningless. There is no doubt in my mind that the the accident in Chernobyl has affected infant mortality rates to some degree, but this documentary can give us no insight to what this degree may be, as it did not compare infant mortality rates with another nations which has similar levels of education, social services and health care.

The saddest think about documentaries like this is that they are so well and cleverly done that people blindly follow their message and so become anti-nuclear. This delays the developement and investment in nuclear technologies due to governments pandering to their ill informed electorates wishes regarding energy policy, a highly complex topic that requires an army of the best informed economists, engineers, scientists and environmentalists to devise correctly.

The reason that this is so sad is that every day we delay in progressing with nuclear technologies, we increase our dependence on fossil fuels and resulting CO2 emissions. Renewables (non nuclear renewable that is) simpy can not supply the engery we require now and into the future while also leaving enough land for food production for our rapidly growing population. The only way renewables will meet our energy demands now and in the future is if we convert every square kilometer of available land to renewable energy and food production, which would result in a collapse support ecosystems and leave us up you know what creek anyway. Rising global temperatures in future years will result increased crop failures and famines in the already stressed Sub Saharan Affrica and result in the loss of millions if not billions of lives (children staving to death is a far more horrific situation then suffering of thyroid cancer patients. Some prominent independent scientists believe we have already reached a point where warming of the planet (largely in part to our past emissions of green house gasses) will reduce the planets population to a more sustainable 2 billion from its current 7 billion in the future.

Anyway, I will leave it at that. But in closing I guess what I am trying to say in a roundabout way is that when discussing issues such as this, do not believe everything that you hear or read (including this post). Go find information for yourself, research both sides of the story for the actual facts, and any of the facts that are presented with an emotional, heart string pulling side severing are probably stated from a biased point of view.

While her cause is undoubtedly right, helping sick children get access to medical treatment they cannot afford, it appears from this film that she is more interested in taking the slant that radiation contamination is directly responsible for all the health defects that are shown here, rather than documenting the factual truth. Statements she makes such as all radiation is dangersous

Nuclear power has killed less than 5,000 people… total… since the beginning of nuclear power.

4,-000 of those people are attributed to Chernobyl…where the Russians used a tin roof as a “containment facility”.

Burning coal kills 10,000 people EVERY YEAR.

Nuclear power supplies about 30% of our power in the U.S. In France it’s 70%. That’s SIGNIFICANT.

There is no safer, cleaner major form of energy available to us. It’s just SCARY when things go really bad…so people fear it. Meanwhile they continue to live in smog-ridden cities.

We aren’t the smartest animals in the universe.

Nuclear power has killed less than 5,000 people… total… since the beginning of nuclear power.

4,-000 of those people are attributed to Chernobyl…where the Russians used a tin roof as a “containment facility”.

Burning coal kills 10,000 people EVERY YEAR.

Nuclear power supplies about 30% of our power in the U.S. In France it’s 70%. That’s SIGNIFICANT.

There is no safer, cleaner major form of energy available to us. It’s just SCARY when things go really bad…so people fear it. Meanwhile they continue to live in smog-ridden cities.

We aren’t the smartest animals in the universe.

Google: Thorium pebble bed reactor. It cannot melt down. Impossible. Inherently safe.

Nuclear power is also excellent as a renewable energy source because breeder reactors can breed more fuel.

We haven’t found a safer, more renewable SIGNIFICANT energy source than nuclear power. Sure, it can be dangerous if you operate like the soviets…but it doesn’t have to be.

next we have come a far way in our nuclear advancements and i mean far japan problem was really a big problem because they were using plutonium when they shouldnt have been the only reason chernobyl was so devastating was the graphite spread the material and contaminates over a greater area not that it wasnt bad to begin with.. it was a full melt down.. but we sould really be more careful where they are built.. and we should be using this time to be looking for other means like cold fusion.. fission is way to dangerous given the variables of outside interference

i have a project for you… in small scale dump a liter of marbles on the floor then pick them up with bbq tongs and rationalize a bigger scall to the power of a billion.. and that is still a small scale of how hard it is to make the bad go back right..

hope this helped you a lil take care and have a family filled christmas :)