Bart's Nuclear Power Class

  
Below is a piece that inspired me after watching a google video about the roots of christianity. This is a first draft. Input is welcome. Expect Changes!

 In 326 BC Alexander the Great invaded India but failed to take the entire subcontinent. Upon his return, he brought back with him what has become the myth of the Cyclops.  The word Cyclops actually means the inventor of the calendar.  This ancient calendar is known as the Zodiac today.

India is the home of the Zodiac, or the ancient world's calendar. It can be traced from its origins in India to countries and cultures across the ancient world.  The original source for the Cyclops giant with an eye in the middle of his head, according to Godfrey Higgins is actually a twist of the Hindu tradition of painting a red dot on the forehead.

The Zodiac calendar is made up of a series of star based images that is broken down into the twelve constellations that rotate across the sky at night. It is also broken down by the four seasons, the solstices and equinoxs.  Ancient cultures also were aware of a much larger calendar cycle called the Procession of the Equinox.

The Procession of the equinox is caused by the earth's tilt that causes our seasons. This tilt creates a 2156 year cycle that moves us through the 12 constellation based ages. We are currently living in is the age of Pisces which started upon the supposed birth of Jesus Christ.  The next age, will be the age of Aquarius. All those little fish you see on the back of cars of christians don't know it, but that is the symbol for the age of Pisces, the current processional age we are living in.

The Christos myth has actually been around for thousands of years prior to the so-called Christian culture that started 2,000 years ago. As Egyptologists have uncovered the ancient culture of Egypt and learned to read its language, they have discovered all the exact same religous trappings we relate to Jesus were also found with the original Egyptian sun god Horus going back to 3,000 BC. Horus was also supposedly born on December 25th to a virgin mother (Isis) and sought by 3 wise men (kings). Horus also had Twelve disciples, was crucified and then resurrected.

What's interesting is that these exact same symbols can also be found in the mythological characters (Gods) like Greece's Attis and Dionysus, India's Krishna, Persia's Mithra and many other lesser known ancient myths.

What our scientifically enlightened society is not telling us is that Jesus, (the Sun of God) the above other characters, and Horus (the Sun God) are all personifications of important astrological events.

The death of the sun comes on Dec. 22 each year where the sun stops moving south for 3 days, halting its motion while in the constellation known as the Southern Cross (The Sun died on a cross!). For three days the sun doesn't move. On Dec. 25th the sun reverses its direction announcing the rebirth of the annual cycle that ended on December 22nd, the winter solstice, shortest day of the year. The crucifixion and resurrection are pagan rituals personified each year in the sky with the focus on Sirius the brightest star. On December 24th, the three wise men or kings were actually three stars that align with Sirius to point exactly to where the Sun would rise on the horizon on December 25th.

In another one of the most prominent aspects of the Horus and Christos myth, we all know about the 12 disciples. In the Zodiac, there are 12 constellations that tell us the position of the seasons. Are these not the personifications of original constellations?  What is probably the most dramatic aspect of Christianity's symbol based cult is the fact that the center of the traditional Zodiac, when extracted, turns out to be the christian symbol of the cross inside a halo!



You can go see the other chapters of the movie called Zeitgeist, a dramatic presentation of the above information. The rest of the movie focusses on the 9-11 controversy. Not embroiling this conversation in that issue, it is of importance to stay focussed on the dramatic implications of christianity and its pagan origins.

Today, hundreds of millions of people have become captured with the idea that the bible is the written word of God. Yet, scolatistic works show that there were at least 7 different version of the original book of Genesis, including one written by a woman. Most of english readers have only read version of the bible commonly known as the King James version that was commissioned by King James in 1604.

The culture that the scholars who translated the original Greek bible lived in was a time best be described as the tail end of the pre-industrial dark ages. The prior century where the protestant reformation, ongoing inquisitions and the Catholic Pope's refusal of King Henry the VIII's request for a divorce from his wife Catherine, resulted in the formation of the Church of England. The Puritans were in full scale rebellion when the first english translation was finished in 1611. Christiandom had been yoked to the royal courts of Europe not as some blessed era of religious bliss, but but was at the end of an era of inquisitions, witch burnings that can be described as one of the most brutal, repressive era's in world history.

Yet, with its publication, a new apocryphal chapter was added nor originally part of the Greek bible called Revelations. To this day, that book which was a dream vendetta focussed on the revenge of the Roman emperor, Nero, has been used to terrify millions of humans into prostrating themselves in mortal fear of their soul. For the last two centuries in the U.S., people have been convinced that the world would end and the true believers would be raptured into heaven with Jesus' return.
The christian religion represents one of the most repressive psychological eras to have ever existed in human history. It's reliance on a simplistic notion of dualistic ethics where larger forces are organized into good or bad, right or wrong still have sway over most of humanity in what has become known as the dominator culture. The monetized consumer society of the west today has started to fail, leaving most of the planet's people's still caught in a dangerous mystification from the past.

The King James bible was and is a product of a repressive, imperial culture whose true intentions were to control its subjects using tactics of fear. Today, as the end of the world predictions, which have been growing in their shrillness since the late 1970's have been flopping around looking for a devil to focuss the believer's fears.
Armageddon lovers were crying out against the Soviet Union, but with its collapse the United Nations then took the lead as the new antichrist. Bush and his Axis of Evil speech has unleashed a new devil in the form of Muslims. We all know that Jews believe that the world will end when the muslim's holy mosque on Temple Mount is torn down and the Solomon's temple is rebuilt!

Let's hearken back to the good old days of Abraham the first patriarch of the Jews.

Abe was a herder of sheep who just happened to wander west into a culture called Sumeria that was at the time dealing with a new religious revolution known as monotheism. Abe, we know all about how cultured wandering sheep herders are, just likely ran into a Zoroastrian who was promoting their dualistic one god ideas in an alley of Baghdad on their way to spending time in Egypt around the time of Ramses. Boy does Baghdad have bad Karma!

Today, what is left of the Zoroatrian religion can be found in India where its ancestors fled in 650 after the Muslims took over the middle east. I suggest that you go visit a Parsan familiy in India, they have a striking resemblance to Jewish people!  Maybe more than a couple of beers took place between Abe in that back alley!

Yet, for anyone who wanders around the world today, like Gypsies or traveling herders or any tribal community, they picked up rather unique values and then developed a mechanism for remembering those traditions. Today, it isn't very hard to do an online search and find jews who claim to be able to trace their ancestry back to Solomon or Abraham.  In Japan and China the emperor used to claim a direct ancestry with god! Isn't it kind of sad that a "Jewish" tribe would have its family history be transcribed from a Greek version by King James to help imperial Britain maintain order over its newly formed protestant church? Aren't we still waiting for the original Jewish version to come out?

For those who have not been ensnared in Revelation's and its end of the world scenario, it is easy to laugh and shrug off the archaic mystification of the religious right.  Yet, today with almost half of this country's citizen's actually believing the Revelations prophecy, we are facing the fact that the president of the United States may or may not actually believe this as well. The idea that someone who might want to use his power to conciously or subconciously bring Armageddon into reality represents the very essence of exactly what this country's nuclear arsonal has the potential to do.

Whether or not Bush really is a true believer or not isn't what is most relevant in the first few years of the 21st century. With even the History channel promoting the Mayan calendar's end on December 21st 2012, there can be no doubt that human culture, with all of its real problems, it also faces the potential of a real collapse. The idea that western civilization and all of its economic, political and military power, could actually collapse might be hip to some, but for most, the idea represents a frightening scenario. The growing instability of our civiliation is one of the reasons why so many have been reaching out to religions for answers. Aren't we all watching in fear of the military industrial complex and its interest in shredding the last of what little remains of our constitutional democracy.

Could it be the reason why Americans work harder than most of their other fellow humans around the world?  Aren't we still caught up in the largest economic trap on the planet that has done more to dismantle traditional social relationships that used to sustain us? This culture like no other since imperial Rome has bred its citizens to compete against each other. The winner, loser mentality, which is just an extension of the simplistic duality cult of religion, can be seen everywhere.

What will it take to dismantle the monetized psycho-religious modeling that is being used to economically enslave people in the USA today?  Many watched the Matrix movies, looking for some kind of symbolic answer to the growing human crisis around us. It gave us nothing but a mirror within a mirror looking back at what? We all wanted to be in Neo's shoes as Morpheus awoke him to the Zionist battle against the computer generated machine driven Matrix.

There will be no symbolic answer. Isn't it about time to break up the christian mythos? Whether or not there is any kind of spiritual relevance to our existance or not, the real problem is how we have allowed the weak to be caught up in the idea that some one will come and save them.

For anyone who actually believes this and is really freed from the myth, it can and will be one of the most important events in opening up their lives. For most people who need a deeper relationship to the world around them, spirituality can and does continue after freeing oneself from the rule oriented religious structures.  

Believing in a spiritual dimension to our humanity is not necessarily a bad thing unless its being used to manipulate people into doing things that are contrary to their own best interests.  Ethical behavior should not be related to what a bunch of monks over four hundred years ago thought about authority, whether or not it was devine or just as most of us can see historically to be imperial in nature and function.  

Today, we are no longer willing to keep women barefoot and pregnant. So why are we willing to let a bunch of religious charlatans prey upon the weak or uninformed?

Isn't it about time that we start flooding the Internet with the facts about Christianities mythological roots? Freeing people from the cultural Matrix of religious slavery won't be easy, but it is probably one of the most humane and spiritually valuable projects we could ever do for our fellow humans!

ALERT! 

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CEC Nuclear Workshops reveals strategic flaws in Nuclear Power Industry plans

June 28th 2007

The California Energy Commission (CEC) has just completed a two day workshop on the potential future of nuclear power in Californa.  The CEC Nuclear Power workshop was part of the Integrated Energy Policy Report Committee (IEPR) ongoing energy review for the state.

The hearings are in addition to the CEC's report: Nuclear Power in California: Status Report 2007
The workshops which were webcast by the CEC included extensive power point Presentations.

For anyone wanting to review an extensive array of arguments both for and against nuclear power in California and the U.S. here's one of the most authoritative resources you will find!

One of the most enlightening presentations was made by Joe Turnage of Constellation Energy, the parent of Unistar Nuclear. Constellation Energy is currently talking with the Fresno Chamber of Commerce and a Fresno a business group with plans to construct a nuclear power facility in California. Constellation is a $15 billion business operation that has recently partnered with the French company Areva as well as Bechtel. The partnership with Areva was initiated after passage of the republican led 2005 Energy Act.  That act gave the U.S. industry the financial resources and incentive to launch a nationwide campaign to finance and build a new generation of nuclear reactors. 

In Mr. Turnage's presentation before the CEC, he laid out the six primary issues that were needed for the nuclear industry to proceed:

1. New Rulemakings that would streamline the costs and time it takes to license new reactors;

2. Federal and State financing beyond the blanket loan guarantees that the 2005 Energy gave utilities;

3. Continued promotion of nuclear power with the public. Current numbers show opinion is nearly split nationwide; Claims were made that nuclear support was strongest in communities where reactors currently reside and make up huge tax benefits;

4. New labor training and education programs would need to be put in place in creating the qualified work force to design and construct the new reactors;

5. Infrastructure problems include a lack of the necessary manufacturing base in the U.S. to produce some of the critical parts that would be required in the new "standardized" reactor designs;

6. Fuel Cycle solutions, primarily the Yucca Mt. repository in Nevada, but certainly not limited to Yucca alone.

It was acknowledged that the recent CFR report in April as well as a study published in the Congressional Quarterly in mid June indicated that the new push for nuclear has serious problems.

This new "nuclear pushers" will eventually have to admit that nuclear isn't "The Solution" for global warming being trumpeted by the industry. It is very clear that the public must become far better informed than it currently is so that it understands that much of the global warming problem isn't an electricity problem, but is also related to industrial and transportation issues that also have sweeping implications for the way the U.S. and the rest of the world is conducting itself.

If the Bush led nuclear push is successful, it would be just barely keep the industry from becoming even less of the current energy mix than it currently is. 

The serious concerns over a new nuclear cold war, which is directly linked to such political actions against Iran and other perceived enemies like Russia has made the world highly distrustful of U.S. foreign policy and particular the Bush Administration. Proliferation issues in the proposed new generation of reactors have already made the Bush administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership a less than positive option, with congress cutting funding Bush wanted by nearly 80% for next year. The Bush administration has been sending DOE secretary Bodman around the world to promote the GNEP, offering financial incentives as well as technology partnerships with all of the major nuclear construction firms in the world.

In a dramatic claim, industry proponents made the claim that dry cask storage options being implemented at reactors sites in California have become the de facto solution for high level waste, and thus open the current 1976 moratorium on more construction of reactors.  The Fresno group, after failing to garner support in April to get a bill passed by the state to overturn the 1976 moratorium is clearly looking at both legal and possibly a statewide initiative drive to reverse the current block.  Pacific Gas & Electric Co. made a similar attempt in 1983 before the U.S. Supreme Court but failed. There are clear concerns that  the now conservative court may be willing to rehear the issue.

The attempts to build new reactors in California is clearly unpopular at this time and will remain so across the state due to the seismic issues that led to the 25 year long battle over construction, licensing and financing of the Diablo Canyon facility near San Luis Obispo. Recent attempts to relicense the reactor has run into a new campaign by opponents, including a Supreme Court victory earlier this year, forcing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to include concerns over terrorist attacks, which has been purposely ignored by the NRC. California's operating reactors are currently situated along the coast to take advantage of the Pacific Ocean, for the billion gallons a day required to cool each reactor. The state's major nuclear utilities have been hit with severe legal claims over lies and contamination to pelagic life near the reactors in the past.

In 2003, there was an intense heat wave and drought in France that led to the death of over 14,800 people.  During the crisis the French government was forced to shutdown or reduce power to 17 of the country's nuclear power facilities, dramatically increasing the crisis, in terms of keeping the public properly supplied with electricity and the necessary cooling that could have come from fans or air conditioning.

The city of Fresno's attempt to place a reactor along the state's Peripheral Canal, claiming that it could find and utilize one million gallons of wastewater to cool the reactors does not take into account the impacts of future drought conditions. Situating a billion gallon a day water vampire along the most important north-south water supply could be a recipe for disaster as water supplies continue to become a growing development issue.

Industry spokes people had to acknowledge that the billions of dollars the republican congress handed out in 2005 in tax breaks, loan guarantees, insurance caps, and direct subsidies was not enough. They were also forced into what, for most veterans of the nuclear debate,  is the classic upward trend of costs. The construction costs of a Finnish EPR reactor which is the preferred Areva reactor design has jumped nearly 25% since 2005. With the costs of steel and concrete going up, the costs of such large base load facilities could very well become overwhelming once one of the these huge projects starts as was seen when California embarked on building a new bridge in San Francisco or with Bechtel's underground construction project in Boston.

Several states who have already committed to constructing new reactors have already passed legislation known as Construction Work in Progress, which guarantees that ratepayers cover a substantial portion of the construction costs of the new facility, whatever those costs may be. The utility industry has already been given a streamlined legal process by the 1992 Energy Policy Act. This is clearly not enough, as they are demanding even further concessions from the government over restricting any kind of public concerns. 

With most of the corporate media behind the current push, there will be no "Big Picture" of what these new economic realities that face ratepayers nationwide. No debate, long winded discussion taking more than a few minutes of prime time debate.  Even the stars of the corporate media that have been setup as the "antinuclear" side, NRDC have come out with concerns about the unfairness of how federal monies are being skewed towards the nuclear option, not to mention the above mentioned proliferation issue with Bush's GNEP push.

In conclusion, there will be new attempts to extract even larger economic resources from both federal and state lawmakers to make nuclear power palatable to the giant banking and construction companies that are now seeing the potential to make billions in profits from the nuclear agenda.  The CEC workshop laid out the battles that will come.  It will be up to activists and the environmental community to educate the public and the coming federal and state lawmakers about what is coming and why we shouldn't let an industry who wants to take another crack at the publics' pocketbook should be allowed to create an even bigger disaster than they did last time. Let us not forget that Forbes Magazine called the nuclear industry the largest financial disaster in U.S. history in February 1984.

Lastly, it is critical that the public be told of the utility industry's own plans to dramatically increase the amount of energy efficiency that can come from new technology and education.  In January many utility executives initiated a plan to promote energy efficiency. Let's hear more about this!

Below is the list of participants in the workshop.

Panel 1: "Current Status of Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage and Disposal Programs and Implications for California"

Moderator: Robert B. Weisenmiller (MRW)
Ward Sproat (U.S. DOE), Allison Macfarlane (George Mason University and MIT), Bob Loux (State of
Nevada), Alan Hanson (AREVA), and Bob Halstead (State of Nevada)

Panel 2: "Current Status of Federal Reprocessing Program and Implications for California"
Moderator: Steve McClary (MRW)
Invited Speakers: Tim Frazier (U.S. Department of Energy), Richard Garwin (IBM Fellow Emeritus), Per Peterson (University of California), Frank von Hippel (Princeton University), and Charles Ferguson (Council on Foreign Relations)

Panel 3: "Operational Issues for California's Operating Nuclear Power Plants"
Moderator: Steve McClary (MRW)
Invited Speakers: Kevin Crowley (The National Academies), To Be Determined (Nuclear Regulatory Commission), Steve Olea (Arizona Corporation Commission), Jack Keenan (Pacific Gas & Electric), Gary Schooyan (Southern California Edison), David Lochbaum (Union of Concerned Scientists), and Rochelle Becker (Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility)

Panel 4: "Environmental, Safety, and economic Implications of Nuclear Power"
Moderator: Robert B. Weisenmiller (MRW)
Invited Speakers: Richard Cheston (U.S. General Accountability Office), Vasilis Fthenakis (Brookhaven National Lab), Mary Quillian (Nuclear Energy Institute), Jim Harding (Harding Consulting), Joe
Turnage (Constellation Energy), and Thomas Cochran (Natural Resources Defense Council)

Rocky Mountain News - 

Senators seek Flats inquiry Salazar among 15 who want probe of compensation gap 
By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News June 5, 2007
Fifteen U.S. senators, including Colorado's Ken Salazar, called Monday for a congressional hearing into why sick nuclear weapons workers are facing delays and other problems in getting federal compensation. Also Monday, another group of senators sent a letter to two federal departments that run the aid program, complaining that the departments have underfunded it. This has caused "unacceptable" delays in compensating "Cold War heroes" who helped build the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal, the letter said.

The Energy Net » 2007 »

Study: Why GNEP can’t jump to the future Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 Why GNEP can’t jump to the future Contact: Denise Hughes Denise@creative-connectors.com 917-549-2621 Institute for Policy Studies Why GNEP can’t jump to the future New study highlights flaws in President’s nuclear proposal WASHINGTON D.C.—April 23rd 2007 — Congress is now considering whether to approve or zero out the $405 million that President Bush is proposing to spend in fiscal year 2008 on the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP)—a program aimed at rendering plutonium inert in nuclear weapons but still useful in nuclear power plants. Nuclear experts at the National Academy of Sciences have long questioned the practicability of the technologies GNEP plans to employ. Currently, the Government Accounting Office is now reviewing the program. This, however, leaves legislators with an information gap as they struggle to decide whether to fully fund the plan, eliminate it altogether, or redirect some of its funding to the many successful energy programs whose budgets President Bush is proposing to gut in FY 2008. In particular, major questions have been raised about the magnitude and costs of radioactive wastes stemming from the GNEP program.

Just how affordable is nuclear power?

Just how affordable is nuclear power?

Massively expensive at $1.8 billion, the ongoing restart of Browns Ferry Unit 1 still appears to be a good financial investment for TVA and its ratepayers. New reactors, however, may be a different story.

CFR: Report, nuke reality don’t mesh Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 United Press International - Energy - Analysis Analysis: Report, nuke reality don’t mesh - Energy - Analysis Published: April 23, 2007 at 6:55 PM By BEN LANDO UPI Energy Correspondent WASHINGTON April 23 (UPI) — A new report by the Council on Foreign Relations makes broad characterizations about humanity as a whole and those who want to increase the amount of nuclear energy for electricity generation, purportedly as a way to halt and reverse global climate change.”According to a prevailing belief, humanity confronts two stark risks: catastrophes caused by climate change and annihilation by nuclear war,” begins the report, “Nuclear Energy at a Crossroads,” released last week. The climate-change issue has momentum; U.S. media, the White House and Congress all talk it up regularly. But the CFR report says proponents “advocate a major expansion of nuclear energy” that “oversells the contribution nuclear energy can make to reduce global warming and strengthen energy security while downplaying the dangers associated with this energy source.”

Atomic War Vet, last of a dying breed

Andy Hawkinson served on Eniwetok in the '50s Andy Hawkinson is the last of a dying breed. He is one of the last of an estimated 400,000 American soldiers who took part in atomic bomb testing during World War II and throughout the Cold War up to 1992. Some say they were used as guinea pigs in these bomb tests by the Department of Defense. Worse, they weren't told what medical problems they would probably have until they started experiencing serious medical difficulties years later.

 

Employees exposed to Santa Susana toxics look for compensation : Simi Valley : Ventura County Star

Employees exposed to Santa Susana toxics look for compensation Lab workers struggle for care By Teresa Rochester (Contact) Sunday, May 27, 2007 
Former Santa Susana Field Laboratory worker Bonnie Klea has battled bladder cancer and bureaucracy. The former secretary beat the cancer. But she's still fighting a bureaucracy that has denied her and others federal compensation for workers sickened by chemical or radiation exposure at Cold War-era facilities throughout the country. In her latest round, Klea is drafting a petition

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Alerts: Boycott Paul Newman

 
deseretnews.com | Feds urged to expand fallout compensation

Feds urged to expand fallout compensationBy Joe BaumanDeseret Morning News A congressman from Utah and one from Idaho have taken the first step that may result in expansion of federal fallout compensation. Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, have written to the House Judiciary Committee, requesting a hearing on possible expansion of coverage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. The measure was amended in July 2000, but they believe it may not be adequate in light of recent scientific studies.