A tale of two F-4 Phantom pilots: A hero named Sully versus a sullied reputation

January 17th, 2009

Dear Readers,

The "miracle on the Hudson" earlier this week forced me to think about a traumatic event that occurred just over three years ago, when another ex-F4 pilot used his skill and training for another purpose. An evil purpose: Attempted murder-suicide.

WAS it the event that triggered Gonzo-gate and helped destroy the Bush Administration? The event everyone is looking for but no one can find? Since the Bush Administration destroys information with alarming regularity, we may never be told the truth.

So here once more is a fresh recounting of the events of November 25th, 2005, about 8:35 pm, when Randall Harold "Duke" Cunningham, who was then the United States Congressman from my district, attempted to commit suicide. First, Cunningham tried to flip his car in a lone accident. When that failed, he tried to smash the car he was driving head-on at high speed into the car I was driving, a Honda Passport.

The full story of how I avoided him is available online in an animation I created in 2007, shortly after surviving another harrowing experience -- bladder cancer. I figured I better lay it down for historic purposes while I'm still here.

I recognized Cunningham as the assailant three days after his attack, when he appeared on television to resign from Congress. Then, I realized that my wife and I were not only the victims of a vicious and unconscionable attack, but that the aftermath was a clear case of "celebrity justice" of the worst sort, for it was combined with additional special privileges for high government officials.

When U.S. Airways Flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River -- the first time a commercial jet had successfully ditched in any body of water -- another F4 pilot showed what Cunningham's training could have been used for. Like Sully, Cunningham was also an F4 pilot -- the last ace there will ever be, with five "kills" in Vietnam. He probably trained Sully.

As Cunningham attacked us, in his mind he must have been back in combat, attempting to get one more kill. Out of bullets in his warped fantasy, he was going to ram us. My wife and I were objects, enemies, non-humans, inconsequential. We still are to him, and to the legal system which protects him.

The letter shown below was sent to Mr. Cunningham at Tucson State Penitentiary in Arizona, where he currently resides on unrelated charges. Copies were also sent to the DoJ and to the judge who sentenced Mr. Cunningham in the other cases., and to the District Attorney. I don't expect any answers, but nor do I expect to be sued for libel or charged with filing false police reports, making false statements, etc.. This is what really happened.

I don't think the sheriffs who helped Cunningham that night could keep their stories straight to the Internal Affairs office, especially if the Federal agent I'm sure was involved told even half the truth to his employers, in the hope of leniency for himself. Of course, that assumes that, behind the scenes, the DoJ actually DID investigate this affair at least a little -- before people started getting pulled from the case -- especially Carol Lam, who is in some part culpable for what happened.

Lam was the U. S. Attorney who made the government's deal with Cunningham, in the days before his suicide / murder attempt. So the Bush Administration wanted to get her out of office, to keep the matter quiet. To cover the firing of one U.S. Attorney without any apparent reason, they tried firing a slew of U. S. Attorneys. The Bush Administration had problems with other attorneys and liked the idea of a mass-firing, but everyone seems to agree that it was Lam who was most targeted, and I believe her role in what you are about to read is the real reason.

For more information, please visit my web site and click on "Seven Seconds in San Marcos."

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman, Carlsbad, California USA (images added 2025)

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To:
Randall Harold "Duke" Cunningham
Federal Prisoner Registration # 94405-198
USP TUCSON
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 24550
TUCSON, AZ 85734

January 17th, 2009

Mr. Cunningham,

Earlier this week in New York, Chesney B." Sully" Sullenberger III showed what an F-4 Phantom pilot can do. What they can use their training and experience for. It could have been you receiving those accolades.

Not only did he ditch the Airbus A-320 aircraft successfully in the Hudson River after a flock of birds knocked out both engines, but afterwards, he and the other four crew members helped get all the passengers off the plane. Then Sully walked up and down the plane again -- twice -- to be sure everyone really was off.

You, on the other hand, used all your skill and training as a fighter pilot to try to crash your Chevy Tracker head-on in a Kamikaze-style attack into the Honda Passport I was driving on the night of November 25th, 2005, on Mission Road in San Marcos, California. And then you drove off into the darkness. Then, you colluded with the San Marcos sheriffs, who undoubtedly helped you abandon your car -- and probably even gave you a ride home after your attempted murder-suicide! Astounding! But that's how bad things had gotten in the Bush years.

After I successfully foiled your evil plan, you still hit -- with hostile intent -- the back of my car. A flick of your wrist AWAY from me at that final moment would have avoided an accident entirely. But you, consciously and deliberately, chose to hit my car, with me and my wife in it -- a very dangerous move, even if it isn't as dangerous as a head-on collision.

Three days later you resigned from office, confessed to other crimes, and pretended to the public that you were a changed man, now cooperating with police. But you did NOT cooperate with ALL the investigations! You did not cooperate with ANY of mine.

As we passed just inches apart, my wife didn't think to look at who was trying to kill her and me that night. I, however, looked. When you resigned from Congress the following Monday, I recognized you as our assailant from the prior Friday evening.

Not long ago, I heard that you hope to be pardoned by George Bush. Perhaps, in one of his last acts as President, he WILL pardon you.

I hope not, because I only feel reasonably safe from you while you are in jail.

But it's not just me. Others would also be in danger. So, if the state lets you out of jail for ANY reason, including simply that you've done your time, I'll immediately charge the state with endangering the public. And I'll have a very strong case. You think you're some kind of special person, who can get away with murder, or at the very least, attempted murder. I don't blame you for thinking that, based on what actually happened. But nevertheless, the danger such thoughts cause for the rest of us citizens is real. I've experienced your recklessness AND your anger -- and your arrogance.

You are NOT a responsible person. Who will you kill next time you feel like committing suicide for any reason? Or will you hunt ME down when you get out of jail, or help others to do so, in order to silence the only witness who saw your face (except those in law enforcement)?

If anything happens to me, every one of my friends and family will already suspect you or the police involved in helping you that night.

You'll never be like Sully, but every day, you have the chance to redeem yourself -- to tell the truth about what you did that night. Then, the psychiatrists could be held accountable, because they negligently helped you when you should already have been in jail, instead of in Congress and driving around San Marcos knowing you're supposed to resign soon.

I know that the deal had already been made with Carol Lam. My father, Howard S. Hoffman, a World War Two combat veteran and experimental psychologist (who has since passed on) suggested the Google search which revealed that information. You were given the Thanksgiving holiday week to put your affairs in order and write your resignation speech.

Instead, you used that time to decide that suicide was a better option, and went out the night after Thanksgiving by yourself, and tried to flip your Chevy Tracker -- basically a later-model "Suzuki Samurai" (which you apparently borrowed from a friend) in a lone accident. Undoubtedly, you knew at the time that those types of cars were famous for rolling over in accidents. I saw your last attempt to flip it, but heard from witnesses immediately after the accident that you had been driving extremely dangerously just beforehand. You may have been drunk, as they thought, but you weren't so drunk you didn't know you were trying to flip your own car.

But it wasn't working. What you didn't know was that the designers and engineers of the Chevy Tracker / Suzuki Samurai had worked very hard to solve the rollover problem. As you surely know from your pilot days, a little tweak here and there to the balance or configuration of a plane, car, bike or motorcycle can greatly effect the handling characteristics.

When you couldn't flip your Chevy Tracker, you did the next-best-thing (in your mind): You aimed for my wife and me in our Honda Passport, which was just a pair of headlights to you at that distance, more than two football fields away. After your last attempt to flip your car, you saw my headlights and aimed right at them.

I had already alerted Sharon (my wife) to your crazy driving. I immediately nudged her shoulder and pointed straight ahead and said, "LOOK AT THIS GUY!!" The alarm in my voice could not have been mistaken. I had seen you almost spill your own blood on the street, and you were right in front of us -- already in our lane, but aimed towards your proper lanes. At that moment, I had a good profile view of your vehicle.

You immediately straightened out your car -- in MY LANE! And I could see you were accelerating -- the two lights were separating, and getting bigger and brighter, too. A friend had a Suzuki Sumurai, so I knew the comparative handling characteristics of our two vehicles, which were this:

Your's could turn tighter, accelerate faster, and brake in less distance. You had all the advantages.

So how did I win?

It wasn't easy. First, I turned to the right. I exaggerated the motion, because when you went crazy in front of me I had immediately braked to a much slower speed -- around twenty miles per hour. When you started coming straight at me, I turned to the next lane over to my right, and tried to give you my original lane, since you seemed to want it for some reason, and were coming fast and furious. I thought you were being chased by cops. Boy was I off about that!

You didn't want my lane, you wanted ME. You immediately moved into my rightmost lane too -- two lanes from your closest legal lane! When it was clear that you were doing this, I moved back over to my original lane -- again at relatively slow speed, but with greatly exaggerated motions so that you could clearly see what I was doing. You continued to accelerate.

When you saw me move back to my original lane, you followed immediately and exactly -- I could not shake you. Your precision was absolute.

I straightened out in my original lane because that seemed the best way to let you know exactly where I would be, so you could decide how best to get around me. Part of me still HOPED -- despite several moves which PROVED the contrary -- that you were NOT REALLY trying to have a head-on collision.

But you were. We were still about a football field away, and your speed was already over 30 miles per hour, and you were still coming right at us, no matter where I went. That meant you'd be going at highway speeds when we collided. Every clue screamed out that this wasn't a game.

At that point, I could "hope" no longer. I turned to prayer, instead. "Oh, Jesus." I said. I didn't know what else to do. You were coming at us, and there was no way to turn away. Every time I tried, you followed immediately and precisely. If I kept trying, it was obvious to all -- you, me, and my wife, in the seat next to me -- what would happen: Three people were about to die. For no reason -- it wasn't going to be an accident, though you were obviously hoping it would look like one. It would be murder and suicide.

But it turned out that waiting, doing nothing, was actually the right thing to do! By God's grace, I had recently learned exactly how to handle a case like this, from a trained driving instructor who just happened to have a relative who had been through something very much like what you were doing.

It took more than a year to remember where I learned it, but just before talking to the "CLERB" (the powerless and toothless citizen's review board for the San Diego Sheriff's Department), it came to me: It was a local (Carlsbad) driving instructor's video shown on public access cable television! And here's what you MUST do: Wait, and let the other driver (in this case, YOU) gain speed.

That was the right thing to do, and I just sort of found myself doing it. Lucky me. Lucky you. Lucky Sharon.

I slowed down even more, to give you even more time to gain speed before you got to my car. Than, I accelerated directly at you without turning at all, so that you could not know until I began my turn, which side I would turn to. When I turned, I turned to my left -- normally, your side. I figured: You weren't using that side, and weren't planning to. Because this was no game.

With our speed differences, my car would have more maneuverability than yours would, and I could evade you even if you followed my turn -- but only if I waited long enough, and then accelerated fast enough, and turned tight enough to avoid you. And got lucky, too.

As expected, when you saw me suddenly turn at the last moment -- after we both had been going straight at each other for about three seconds and you had been chasing my lights for about six seconds -- you turned towards me, and continued to try to have a high-speed, head-on, FATAL collision.

In the end, I thought we would pass each other by inches, but instead, you purposefully and angrily hit the back end of my car -- a very dangerous move for both of us -- and it almost flipped your car when you did it. Then you sped off, and the cops helped you get home.

You STILL have the chance to tell your side. If you don't, you will never know what could have been. If they let you out on the streets, I will wonder if you are trying to contact your friend who owned the Chevy Tracker, to check on your story for that night. Or the cops who helped you. Or the psychiatrists who knew you were having "suicidal ideations" as one put it, but didn't take away your keys or do anything to protect the public.

For your continued arrogance and uncooperativeness in this matter, I recommend you stay in jail as long as possible. Being eligible for parole, or even completing your sentence, should NOT be a reason to let you out on the streets again. You remain a threat to society.

Sincerely,

Ace Hoffman
Sharon Hoffman
Carlsbad, California USA (images added 2025)

---

Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, California USA
Author, The Code Killers:
An Expose of the Nuclear Industry
Free download: acehoffman.org
Blog: acehoffman.blogspot.com
YouTube: youtube.com/user/AceHoffman
Email: ace [at] acehoffman.org
Founder & Owner, The Animated Software Company

---

Now we know the real reason the "powers that be" let Obama win...

January 13th, 2009

Dear Readers,

Now we know the real reason the "powers that be" let Obama win: He's vehemently pro-nuclear.

Obama's nominee for Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu, is utterly pro-nuclear. And in sworn testimony today before the Senate energy committee, Chu proved that you can win a Nobel Prize and yet still not know enough to get by productively in today's world. The guy needs an education in dozens of nuclear issues, and his confirmation -- almost certain -- will be a calamity for honest energy decisions in America. Or for any hope of productive change in our society. Yeah, it's that important. Energy is a huge chunk of our economy and the secretive cabals that control it -- Dick Cheney's infamous energy policy meetings being only the tip of the iceberg -- need to be exposed, and brought down. Corporations like AREVA. People like Steven Chu.

If nothing else, Dr. Chu proved today that you can win a Nobel prize in physics and not know much about radioactive waste. Supposedly, his current studies concern "biological systems at the single-molecule level" (according to Wikipedia). Clearly, though, damage to populations from radiation has escaped his attention (even though it all starts at the atomic and molecular level). Perhaps it's too statistical for him, or too abstract, or too real, or too complicated, or too simplistic, or whatever. One way or another, he overlooked it.

So for more than an hour he promoted "recycling" of nuclear waste, which is actually still known as "reprocessing" among most people, including a number of the Senators at the hearing. Apparently the new term is "recycling" because it sounds more eco-friendly, and was portrayed that way by Chu and by various Senators.

But whatever you call it, reprocessing nuclear fuel ISN'T eco-friendly. However it took Chu more than an hour of promoting it before he admitted that he doesn't actually know much about it. He did, however, admit it -- in sworn testimony!

Then he went back to promoting nuclear fuel "recycling."

France was cited as a bastion of successful recycling. What France actually does with its nuclear waste, and the waste from probably more than a dozen other countries (I don't have the exact number; it's hard to obtain, but is surely in that range), is grind up, chop up, and then melt down, burn up, or chemically dissolve the highly poisonous spent fuel rods. However, each gram of spent fuel contains over 500 DIFFERENT radioactive isotopes, representing the ENTIRE spectrum of known elements!

What is called a "success" in France is really just isolating the plutonium and uranium from these other elements, and then isolating specific isotopes of those two elements (and perhaps thorium). All this creates large amounts of chemical pollution, at a huge cost, and with the concomitant loss of vast quantities of radionuclides into the environment, Noble gases, for instance, are simply released to the environment. their quantities are barely even estimated. Many other elements such as Strontium-90, Cesium-137, Iodine-131 -- France releases them all into the environment in order to accomplish "recycling." It's not clean. It's not safe. The industry lies at every step so as not to annoy the public -- and has plenty of help from the government in the form of covert operations against legitimate activist groups and official cover-ups of wrong-doing, leaks, etc.. Is this what we want in America?

Chu apparently doesn't know any of this, but he's all for it anyway.

But that's not the silliest thing about Chu's performance today before the Senate committee. Surely the silliest thing about his ambitious nuclear plans is that he believes that nuclear spent fuel rods can be safely stored somewhere. Obviously, he means "on-site" in something -- some container -- NOT Yucca Mountain.

Not that he opposes Yucca Mountain. He wants it to keep crawling forward. There is no Yucca Mountain, by the way. One activist today told me she thought it was already being filled with waste. It isn't.

Another citizen witnessed, first-hand, what is called "safe" by Dr. Chu:

"Are they building another reactor at San Onofre?!?" he asked me this morning, after a recent fishing trip brought him close to the local nuclear reactor. "No, that's the spent fuel storage facility you saw. Soon it will be the #1 terrorist target in Southern California. If a small group of terrorists pierce that casing and light the spent fuel rods that will be stored there on fire, or if anything else causes them to burst, we'll be dead within minutes (we live about 12 miles away) and SoCal will be ruined forever. And one millionth of a gram will kill you many times over."

"They were as big as a cruise ship! It had to be seven stories tall! Is it going to be all steel?"

"No, it will have a lot of concrete around the steel. But not enough."

Those "dry casks" have other problems, too, which Dr. Chu conveniently doesn't acknowledge. There have been corruption issues with the design, the construction, and the implementation of NUMEROUS INSTALLATIONS of dry casks.

The security staffs protecting these spent fuel installations fall asleep on the job. This has been reported in -- yep -- NUMEROUS INSTALLATIONS in the past. And even if they're fully awake, there aren't enough guards at any one plant to overcome a concerted attack.

There never could be enough guards, because a concerted attack will STILL come from the air. It will be swift, it will be over in seconds, and it will be devastating. There is no defense planned, and Dr. Chu doesn't care. To him, these casks are safe -- despite the dangers from earthquakes and tsunamis (not to mention asteroids, improper construction, and a thousand other possible FATAL -- to 500,000 people or more -- FLAWS of spent fuel storage.

The operating nuclear power plants are an even greater threat -- in terms of probability of an accident -- than the spent fuel. But in terms of how many citizens could die from an accident? That's a toss-up. Short-lived radionuclides would be released in a reactor accident -- seal the windows and doors carefully with duct tape, don't use up your oxygen too fast, eat canned food and drink bottled water for a few weeks and you'll be fine, unless whatever exposure you do get (and you're sure to get some) results in a cancer later, or heart disease, or inflammation, deformed children, or a thousand other ailments. If you're outside or otherwise unprotected at the time of the accident, you will die a horrible death, wherein your cells are broken down by the radiation which gets inside your lungs, your gut, and is absorbed through your skin. Certain organs in your body are targeted by some radionuclides, other organs, by other isotopes. Either way, it's often very painful, it can last a long time, it is usually accompanied by an agonizing and unquenchable thirst, and it will happen to perhaps half a million Southern Californians if we don't close the plants and properly secure the waste. Such deaths -- known as "acute radiation poisoning" -- will occur as much as 500 miles downwind, and in broad swaths in every direction. You will not know where to run: The poison is odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Roads will be crowded, or crowded with the dead. Or both.

Support Dr. Chu, and you support this fate. Chu's policies are deadly. They are irrational. They will be expensive to implement, expensive to undo, and a million times MORE expensive if -- and when -- they fail.

And no, Yucca Mountain is not the solution. And yet, there is no known better solution! In fact, the Yucca Mountain team was allowed to suggest anything they thought was a better idea, other than simply choosing some other site and basically doing the same thing there instead of at Yucca Mountain.

I do not have a solution. But I assure you, neither does Dr. Chu. The difference is, he's probably going to be confirmed as head of the most notorious promoter of nuclear power on the planet, the U. S. Department of Energy -- and I'm one citizen out of nearly seven billion. And I DO have a solution to the GROWING problem of nuclear waste -- STOP MAKING MORE.

Nearly every Senator asked about renewable energy solutions or "clean coal" which invariably meant "carbon sequestration." And Dr. Chu always had an answer for these -- he was all for biomass, and all for ethanol from sugar, and all for wind and solar, etc.

But don't be fooled! This man will continue the death-train of nuclear poisons -- created, released, ignored.

Dr. Steven Chu should not be confirmed, but he surely will be. Republicans love him. Democrats love him. The status quo loves him, because the status qua is to keep the 104 operating nuclear plants in America open -- until an American meltdown shuts them. Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), who has a degree in "Industrial Management" and wants "300" nuclear power plants in America, loves Chu. Senator Corker and others want to help Chu find more and more ways for the federal government to finance so-called "private industry" to restart the nearly-catatonic (thank goodness -- but it ain't dead, by any means) "Nuclear Renaissance." They want nukes in THEIR state. Big money loves Chu. And everyone at our corrupt National Laboratories loves Chu too, of course.

And worst of all, with all Chu's talk of renewables, environmentalists who don't know any better will probably love him, too.

I think the Obama Administration's great secret has finally been revealed: They're no different. They won't stop using Depleted Uranium munitions in war. They won't shut the nuclear power plants. They won't solve the nuclear waste problem (because that is a physical impossibility, as ANY physicist worth his degree knows, and 60+ billion dollars and 60+ years put into finding a solution should prove it "prima facie" to everyone else), and they won't do anything to stop the criminal backroom deals that have allowed the nuclear industry to keep moving forward, despite the deaths it causes.

I do not believe Dr. Chu believes everything he said today. Maybe I just don't think you can be that dumb and still win a Nobel Prize. Maybe I think his occasional rapid blinking and other mannerisms suggest blatant dishonesty. But either way, I am convinced Dr. Chu lied under oath. Well, we're used to that, after the Bush Administration.

Come next Tuesday, when Obama is sworn in, it will be Business As Usual in America. And don't expect any kind of national health care to pay for your illness when you get cancer!

It should be noted that it was surely not an accident that the biggest media event of the confirmation hearings -- Hillary Clinton's day in the sunshine -- was the same day as Chu's all-important Energy Committee hearing. This kept the press off the nuclear issue, so people wouldn't hear the bad news.

Expect more Davis-Besse near-disasters, more Three Mile Island nearer-disasters, and a few Chernobyls (real full-blown nuclear disasters) in America during, or some time after, the Obama Administration. Don't bother being surprised when it happens.

Radioactive death for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans, is as inevitable as sunshine and rain now. Chu is a shoe-in for Energy Secretary. Our fate is sealed.

Sincerely,
Ace Hoffman
Author,
The Code Killers: An Expose of Nuclear Crimes Large and Small, High And Low, Far and Wide
www.acehoffman.org

----------------------------------------------

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers: An Expose
Carlsbad, CA

www.acehoffman.org
Email: ace@acehoffman.org
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California Attorneys object to Yucca Mountain while tacitly embracing SONWGS and Diablo Cyn -- go figure... (RESEND)

December 31st, 2008 (RESEND with corrected "ignoble seven" information)

by Ace Hoffman

Attorneys for the state of California have filed a 400-page document with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, describing two dozen serious flaws with the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository plan. These follow on the heels of Nevada's own 229-count objection.

I'm sure I could come up with hundreds of serious flaws, too, and so can you. The Yucca Mountain plan stinks, no doubt about it.

Nevertheless, both of these states' complaints are half-measures at best, and in the case of California (where the author's lives), the absurdity of the attorneys' claims in the face of their own actions -- or rather, LACK OF ACTION -- against California's operating nukes is, to say the least, baffling. To say they seem to have blinders on isn't nearly good enough. They seem to have erected a lead shield to protect themselves from grasping -- and then acting on -- the facts. Our nuclear power plants need to be closed -- not tomorrow, but immediately. Yesterday would have been better, but today will have to do. Waiting until tomorrow could be tragic, and in any case, will add additional costs to the problems these plants will leave us, no matter when -- or why -- we close them.

But somehow, despite California's many objections to Yucca Mountain, those same attorneys for the state evidently cannot see that creating additional radioactive waste on a daily basis with no solution in sight is foolhardy at best.

Such myopia should be called what it REALLY is: Criminal Negligence.

The root reason the waste problem isn't solved is technical. Since radioactive emissions are strong enough to destroy ANY container (1) , the "technical" problem will NEVER be solved. New alloys, new crystal structures, microbes that eat radioactive waste, vitrification -- all worthless (2). Rocketing the waste into space, subduction zones in the sea, deep holes -- won't work either (3).

Every day, there is more waste, more radioactive pollution, such as tritium, which is killing our citizens, and more of the "ignoble seven" whose daughter products include noble gases, which are freely released by nuclear power plants in copious quantities (4).

These attorneys seem to have missed the elephant thrashing about in the livingroom. The plants need to be closed NOW. They are old, corroded, embrittled, dilapidated and their employees have repeatedly abdicated their responsibilities, from proper training (5) to doing their fire rounds (6), to numerous problems with top management, and so on.

Every day the plants run, they increase the total risk, the total cost, the immediate risk, and the immediate cost -- costs in terms of health effects around the plants, and delayed costs from accidents or just from fuel storage. Even if we stop making nuclear waste, every movement of the fuel entails enormous risk. And there will be tens of thousands of shipments from all around the country.

A really safe transport of nuclear waste is impossible and any transportation is a big production. Consider all the bridges that have to be strengthened, the potholes that have to be filled, the roads that have to be blocked off as the caravan passes, the staggering number of caravans that will be needed. Each shipping container will hold "only" about 15 tons of spent fuel. With more than 2,500 tons -- 5,000,000 pounds -- of waste (of which any millionth of a gram will poison you fatally) already created in California alone, it will take decades to do anything with the waste. But what? And how? And where? Lawyers don't know, because scientists don't know.

Each trip is a terrorist's best friend and a sane person's worst nightmare. The lawyers seem to have grasped that, at least somewhat.

But what are we left with? Does anyone in California remember Bande Ache? I don't think so, because years afterwards, our nuclear waste is still piled along the coast, and those people charged with protecting it either have no idea it's their responsibility, or have abdicated that responsibility utterly.

Does the San Clemente fire department think it is equipped to deal with tsunami-busted dry casks, a permanent evacuation of thousands of square miles, mass deaths, and a meltdown or two to go with it -- or Genpatsu-Shinsai (the same thing, but starting with an earthquake instead of a tsunami)? If so, they are sadly mistaken.

The utility spokespeople tell the public, the press, and even the NRC that dry casks are safe, knowing that they (the plant employees) are safe from investigation for lying (7). The NRC will barely study the plans at all, won't inspect the casks before use (hardly, anyway), and won't study the actual construction work records whatsoever. So the utilities all say their casks are safe, but any fool who ever studied engineering (or explosives) for more than a day can tell you that's just wrong. In reality, no dry cask is safe -- not one. And nearly every site's casks are different, for no apparent reason. Why are Diablo Canyon's spent fuel rods stacked vertically, and San Onofre's horizontally? Whim? Real estate issues? Earthquake issues?

And there is every reason to fear each ADDITIONAL dry cask. Complacency is a common cause of accidents.

The storage casks are designed to do one thing well (and I doubt they can even do that), which is to sit in one place for up to 100 years, or 20 years -- depends on who you ask (and who you believe).

The proposed shipping casks aren't designed to take ANY significant stress. The fire retention standards are way too low (as proven in the Baltimore train tunnel fire), the load-drop or crush protection is equally inadequate (as proven in the Minnesota bridge collapse, et al).

Splitting the atom is very, very costly.

In fact, the only reason anyone would keep these plants open is because "experts" from places like LLNL are brought in every so often to tell the Energy Commission these plants are safe. These experts are not vetted -- their opinions are not presented in public (they are given in private to, say, Governor Schwarzenegger, or to individuals on the California Energy Commission).

Such experts, of course, now form the heart of the upcoming Obama administration's energy policy.

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers: An Expose
www.acehoffman.org

(1) For a chart of energy levels, see page 9 of my book The Code Killers.
(2) There are seven long-lived fission daughter products which are sure to cause problems (along with THEIR daughters). See page 18 of The Code Killers for a list of "the ignoble seven."
(3) The Yucca Mtn team was charged with finding any other solution they thought was better. They were NOT limited to thinking about Yucca Mountain. These other choices were eliminated for various reasons, mainly unpredictability (for space-based disposal, reliability was especially a problem, but then, so was money, technical issues, the record of failure, etc. etc.).
(4) See the glossary of The Code Killers for various isotopes, such as Cerium-144 and others, that are manufactured and sometimes (if not always) released by nuclear power plants in large quantities. The "ignoble seven" are: Technetium-99, Tin-126, Selenium-79, Zirconium-93, Cesium-135, Palladium-107, and Iodine-129. All have half-lives > 200,000 years.
(5) After dropping a crane in 2001, San Onofre had to completely retrain virtually everyone in the place who had any chance of ever being involved in a lift. I heard (from a plant worker) that it cost them about 4,000,000 dollars, including all the new strapping, I-beams, hooks, etc. they also had to buy after they dropped a rented crane.
(6) A recent news item reported that for four years, such records were falsified. Numerous other incidents, including threats by armed ex-employees, nearby airplane crashes, etc. etc. should also serve as a warning to all.
(7) "Statements made by the public affairs officer of a NRC licensee are not regulated activities. Therefore, the veracity of such statements will not be investigated by the NRC." Letter to the author from the NRC, received March 30th, 2002.

===============================================================

At 03:26 PM 12/29/2008 -0500, Janette Sherman <toxdoc.js@verizon.net> wrote:

>Begin forwarded message:
>
>>From: MoJo <mollypj@yahoo.com>
>>Date: December 29, 2008 3:00:52 PM EST
>>To: HD-Global <hd-g@hopedance.net>
>>Subject: [NukeNet] California Says Yucca Poses Threat to People, Resources
>>
>>NukeNet Anti-Nuclear Network (nukenet@energyjustice.net)
>>
>>
>>http://www.energycentral.com/centers/news/daily/article.cfm?aid=11717362
>>
>>California Says Yucca Poses Threat to People, Resources
>>
>>Dec 25 - Las Vegas Review - Journal California is urging federal regulators to turn down the Energy Department's bid to build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, charging analysts did not fully study how the plan would affect Death Valley groundwater and the state's transportation networks.
>>
>>"Proceeding with the project in the manner described by DOE poses a threat to the people, natural resources and environment of California," attorneys said at the outset of a 400-page document filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
>>
>>The commission "may not approve DOE's license application unless DOE provides an adequate environmental analysis that analyzes threats to California and how to mitigate them," said the lawyers from the state's Energy Commission and its Department of Justice.
>>
>>California's objections were made available on Monday, several days after Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto announced Nevada was submitting 229 repository challenges to the NRC on a variety of technical grounds.
>>
>>There is significance to California raising similar issues before the NRC, according to Joe Strolin, planning division administrator for the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
>>"Anytime you have California in the mix it lends a gravitas to an issue," Strolin said Tuesday.
>>
>>"They are always considered a 600-pound gorilla in the room," Strolin said. "Having them weigh in makes a statement that this is an important issue and not just a Nevada issue. That there are other states, and big states, that have concerns as well."
>>
>>DOE spokesman Allen Benson said the department was reviewing the contentions and would respond to them within 50 days, as set in NRC regulations.
>>
>>California attorneys identified 24 issues it wants the NRC to consider as it weighs the safety of the repository plan and decides whether to issue DOE a construction license.
>>Many of California's contentions charge the government failed to adequately analyze the transportation impacts from hundreds of radioactive waste shipments that would originate at reactors in the state as well as shipments through California from other states.
>>
>>"DOE has not conducted sufficient analysis or provided sufficient evidence that such shipments will be conducted in the safest manner," according to the state's complaint.
>>Attorneys said DOE took care to fully analyze transportation risks in Nevada "yet it illogically did not do this analysis for the likely transportation routes in the rest of the country, and specifically not in California."
>>
>>The state's complaint further said DOE has failed to analyze how waste at California reactors could be packaged safely for shipping.
>>
>>California has four operating reactors, two at Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo, and two at San Onofre, about halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. Three other reactors - at San Onofre, the Humboldt Bay station in Eureka and the Rancho Seco plant south of Sacramento are no longer operating but spent fuel is stored there and is awaiting removal.
>>
>>Collectively, the reactors have generated 2,510 tons of spent nuclear fuel, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
>>
>>Other California contentions charge that more analysis is needed to determine how a buildup of contaminants expected to leak from the Yucca site over time would affect aquifers that feed springs in Death Valley.
>>
>>"Recent scientific work done by the County of Inyo indicates that contaminants entering the carbonate aquifer from the repository could migrate to the springs in Death Valley relatively quickly," attorneys said.
>>
>>"These springs are the only source of water for the park workers and the approximately 1.25 million annual visitors to Death Valley National Park," attorneys said.
>>
>>Contact Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.
>>
>>(c) 2008 Las Vegas Review - Journal. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
>>A service of YellowBrix, Inc.
>>
>>
>>"No degree of prosperity could justify the accumulation of large amounts of highly toxic substances which nobody knows how to make safe and which remain an incalculable danger to the whole of creation for historical or even geological ages. To do such a thing is a transgression against life itself, a transgression infinitely more serious than any crime perpetrated by man. The idea that a civilization could sustain itself on such a transgression is an ethical, spiritual, and metaphysical monstrosity. It means conducting the economical affairs of man as if people did not matter at all." -- E. F. Schumacher �Small is Beautiful�
>>
>>Molly P Johnson
>>Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility www.a4nr.org
>>H.O.M.E. (Healing Ourselves & Mother Earth) www.h-o-m-e.org
>>Grandmothers for Peace www.grandmothersforepeace.org
>>
>>
>>
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================================================================

Ace Hoffman
Author, The Code Killers: An Expose
Carlsbad, CA
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