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LESSER MINERALS DISSED
The Age’s Traceeee Hutchison, in her dippiest column since she was smoked, boldly rejects uranium:
No other mineral is connected to the most destructive weapon ever built. It needs to stay in the ground.
No other mineral? That’ll be news to to the A-bomb’s builders.
Tim, looks like Traceeee has a bit of a problem spelling, too:
The banner was long enough to span the stage of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl and emblazoned in big yellow letters on it were the words “STOP THE DROP”.
Posted by Villeurbanne on 2007 03 30 at 01:48 PM • permalinkNope, I’m the idiot. Sidney is the name of the guy, not the city. Traceeee can spell, I got it wrong.
Posted by Villeurbanne on 2007 03 30 at 01:50 PM • permalinkShe doesn’t know much about destructive weapons, either. Nobody uses Uranium for weapons anymore. (aside from third-world newbies to the whole A-bomb thing…if it weren’t so useful for peaceful purposes I could almost agree with her for that reason alone.) Plutonium is so much more efficient and is used for the trigger on fusion bombs. We should ban deuterium and tritium instead. Hell, just ban water in general to be safe.
Or lead. we should leave all the lead in the ground because more people have died from being shot with lead bullets than ever even got sick from those scary uranium bombs.
I wonder if these people ever give a thought to all the good things we do with nuclear tech? Every modern hospital I know of has a ‘nuclear medicine’ department. I have personal reasons to be very grateful for X-ray machines. (my right hand is in a cast as I type this) But no, they don’t think. They just ‘feel’.
As Polonium advised Laertes, “to thine own elements be true.”
Posted by charles austin on 2007 03 30 at 03:12 PM • permalinkElementary, my dear Traceeee. (And I guess it’s obvious that Traceeee writes for a paper and not for a periodical, either, eh?)
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 03 30 at 03:20 PM • permalinkDoesn’t the Age have an editor, or fact checker, or something? This kind of ignorance discredits the entire newspaper.
Posted by Bruce Rheinstein on 2007 03 30 at 03:32 PM • permalinkOk, depleted uranim rouds for anti-tank use. Somehow I don’t think that’s what she had in mind, though.
Don’t be so sure. She’s probably sure that DU bombs have coated Iraq in a thin layer of highly radioactive dust.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 03 30 at 03:44 PM • permalinkI say, “Down with the pencils of death!” We should bury all pencils in a landfill and put up signs warning future generations to steer clear.
They Might Be Gians, “Pencil Rain”:
The possible dream
Finale of seem
The moment that some call eternal that some call insane
Now helmets on each head awaiting the first lead
The pageant is named the pencil rainThe infantry stands
And holds out its hands
The marshal’s binoculars focus and skyward they train
They’re searching the yonder blue
They look out for number two
The heraldry of the pencil rainAnd now hear the roar that none can ignore
The thunderous clatter of splintering wood and lives that are claimed
And none who have witnessed all
Can think of a nobler cause than perishing in the pencil rain
The pencil rain
The pencil rain
The pencil rainPosted by Rob Crawford on 2007 03 30 at 03:47 PM • permalinkAs far as I can tell, she’s making the dimwit assertion that alternative energy sources should consist of hamsters running in wheels.
Surely not! What would PETA say?
From what I’ve been able to discern from the various ravings of the far left the only power source approved for use by humans is human muscle power. None of them come right out and say that of course, but if you work your way down the list that’s the only one nobody complains about.Coal: Don’t be silly
Oil: Even sillier than coal
Hydro: Nope, we have to preserve those snail darters.
Wind: What? And ruin my views??? Think of the poor birds!
Nukes: Evil.
Solar: Ok, I guess, so long as you don’t take up precious desert land to produce it in meaningful quantities.Don’t even think about abusing those poor oxen by making them work for you.
Best I can figure the far left is advocating by ommission for universal slavery. Of course anyone who understands communisum already knows that.
I think we could use Traceeeeeee‘s head as a substitute material for DU projecticles; her head is clearly the denser material.
The only challenge is actually mining and shaping her noggin; that might take a technological breakthrough to achieve. But then her head would actually be useful for once.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 03 30 at 03:58 PM • permalinkTraceee is a regular on Jon Faine’s Conversation Hour (774AM).
Other regulars are Michael Gurr, Marieke Hardy, Terry Lane and Jill Singer - detect a pattern? I digress.
Tracee apparently is finishing a book and Jon, amazed at her diligence - what with her Saturday column and other commitments - asked how does she fit it all in? (so to speak).
Well Traceee lets us all into her little secret. She sets aside Wednesday for thought. Wednesday, as she put it, is her “thinking day”.
Isn’t that interesting?Wednesday, as she put it, is her “thinking day”.
It shows.
Posted by rick mcginnis on 2007 03 30 at 04:48 PM • permalinkWhilst not necessarily accepting that “wings” are a useful organising principle for political argument, this is easily my favourite G. Orwell quote:
“What sickens me about left-wing people, especially the intellectuals, is their utter ignorance of the way things actually happen.”
(Letter to Jack Commons, 1938 from “An Age Like This. Collected Essays” etc)Posted by ooh honey honey on 2007 03 30 at 05:54 PM • permalinkThat TNT metal also needs to stay in the ground, along with all the petroleum and dead people.
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 03 30 at 05:55 PM • permalinkIt’s clear from Traceee’s description of ANSTO as Australia’s top nuclear research and lobby group that she doesn’t know what they do.
For example, there’s close to a 100 per cent chance that during her lifetime she will have a medical scan using materials produced by ANSTO.
There is also a good chance that somewhere in her office is a radioactive silicon chip in a computer that was bombarded with neutrons at Lucas Heights - maybe the one in front of her. She probably doesn’t know that the structural soundness of the next aeroplane she boards or road she travels on was checked with a radioactive source produced at Lucas Heights.
When she bites into a piece of fruit, she probably doesn’t know that it was protected from fruit fly by little soldiers that were irradiated at ANSTO so that they shoot blanks. She also probably doesn’t know that the smoke detector in her room contains a radioactive power source.
All courtesy of an evil radioactive minerals including uranium.
It is also apparent that Traceee didn’t manage to get past Caldicott’s front cover, so there may be hope for her yet.
Better stop talking about what Traceee doesn’t know before it gets out of hand…
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 30 at 06:04 PM • permalinkFurther disturbing news from the World Health Organisation:
On average, approximately 90 µg (micrograms) of uranium exists in the human body from normal intakes of water, food and air. About 66% is found in the skeleton, 16% in the liver, 8% in the kidneys and 10% in other tissues.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 30 at 06:12 PM • permalinkTraceee talks about the shadow of the Three Mile Island incident which killed and injured - nobody.
By comparison, this is how the coal industry stacks up.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 30 at 06:23 PM • permalinkThree Mile Island also had fewer fatalities than the Somerset windmill disaster
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 30 at 06:28 PM • permalink#26 & #37 Thank you, folks. Just wanted to show that the hamster running in its wheel that runs my brain isn’t quite dead yet. (But I don’t know what Traceee’s is up to. One kilometre per day, I would imagine.) P.S. Heh, egg_, depleted cranium.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 03 30 at 06:46 PM • permalinkActually, some modern nuclear weapons do extensively use uranium. A modern multistage nuclear device uses a plutonium primary to trigger the fusion secondary, sure. But the excess neutrons from the fusion stage can then be used to trigger fast fission in a U-238 tertiary.
Posted by Warmongering Lunatic on 2007 03 30 at 06:50 PM • permalink...boy-men with warmongering tendencies…
Why didn’t Traceee just go all the way?I never cease to be amazed at the immaturity of her writings. She writes of that concert 24 years ago like a teenager writing about seeing her absolutely bestest pop singer. To have such a simplistic outlook on complex issues is a probably cute in a 14 year old but not in a middle-aged woman like Traceee.
Things need to be pondered on from all angles. For instance, on this Earth Hour Day, we need to ask if the cost of organising and promoting the event expended more greenhouse gases than the stunt is likely to save. Electronic billboards, brochures, the environmental impact of green dyed SMH (can tell you it needed a brighter light to read), all those candles* and the carbon expended getting people to travel to their otherwise empty workplaces just to turn off the lights for an hour.
* Candles are the most inefficient lighting imaginable - they are all heat and very little light. Their manufacture requires a lot of energy per lumen to melt and form the candlestick and more energy again to get them to physically get them to where they are going to be used. Lighting and letting them burn emits greenhouse gases directly into the atmosphere. Candles are great of a romantic and soft light but no substitute for a light bulb if you want to save the planet.
#
Ban Radon, I say.
OH wait, you can’t
el cid—sure we can. All you have to do is box it up in lots of concrete, and…
oh.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 03 30 at 08:39 PM • permalink“Remember that great rock concert we went to zillions of years ago when we were young and hopeful?”
Translation: “Remember when we thought we were the center of the universe? Let’s keep on thinking that!”
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 03 30 at 08:57 PM • permalinkThe Edwardians made their A-Bombs from wicker and linen.
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2007 03 30 at 09:03 PM • permalinkDippiest column since being smoked and hit on by a blackfella? That’s some claim, Tim. But it turns out you’re probably going easy on her.
Luckily, this bint is as influential as a pig at a Hong Kong BBQ stall. The truth is that Australia will probably double its uranium sales for 07 year-on-year, and that growth in nuclear power will continue in the short to medium term. In my neck of the woods (greater China), nuclear power stations will pop up like mushrooms over the next decade. And not before time. I’m more than happy there’s a nuclear power station at Daya Bay (about 5km outside of Hong Kong’s territorial frontier with China and less than 60km as the crow flies from my apartment). In fact, I wish there were about ten reactors there, then I wouldn’t be choking in so much pollution resulting from the burning of high-sulphur coal.
But why should Traceeee worry about people in China? She is after all just another self-centred middle class wanker who thinks the rest of the world is like inner-city Sydney. Let’s hear it for coal mining in China, you stupid bitch.
BTW: I wonder if she’s got any Chinese in her…?
#62. Observer
#55 You’re missing the crucial point - candles are not made from fossil fuels.
Actually, unless you’re using an old fasiondd tallow wax (made from rendering animal fat) or really expensive bees wax, or possibly spermaceti which is made from the head oil of sperm whales….you’re probably using Paraffin wax.
egg_ wrote:
#8
Tracee’s depleted cranium is denser than depleted uranium, impervious I’m afraid.Neutronium is like that.
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2007 03 30 at 10:07 PM • permalink#55, Great!! Doesn’t this mean all those hippy-dippy Gaia-loving New Agers gotta give up those godawful candles that seem to burn full time and smell like crap? Or else admit to being complicit in the Rape of Mother Gaia?
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 03 30 at 10:09 PM • permalink#61, Hanyu,
In fact, I wish there were about ten reactors there, then I wouldn’t be choking in so much pollution resulting from the burning of high-sulphur coal.
But why should Traceeee worry about people in China? She is after all just another self-centred middle class wanker who thinks the rest of the world is like inner-city Sydney. Let’s hear it for coal mining in China, you stupid bitch.
Ditto
Wednesday, as she put it, is her “thinking day”.
Clearly she reserves Tuesday as her “writing the column day”.Posted by Harry Buttle on 2007 03 30 at 10:28 PM • permalinkA thought occurs: if promoting Earth Hour Day and suchlike events just cause more greenhouse gas emissions than a normal day would—poster printing, carbon from burning wood and candles, the greater demand for petroleum by-products in the form of paraffin wax (thanks, fclark)—then maybe Traceeeee and her fellow ilk will look at the figures, shriek, and demand yet more Earth Hour Days to combat the mysterious rise in carbon emissions. So they’ll hold more events, and emissions will continue to rise proportionally, which will give rise to yet more Earth Hour Days. Speaking of hamsters running in wheels . . .
The way I see it, this could be more fun than feeding Michael Moore a tofu burger. *adopts carny barker voice* Which prominent leftist will clue in first? Which pandering columnist will prefer to implode rather than be proven wrong? All bets taken!
Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2007 03 30 at 10:38 PM • permalinkLets see, if Wednesday is her ‘thinking’ day, how does she ever remember this each week? Maybe, each Wed night, she leaves a post-it note on her fridge, “Remember to think next Wednesday!”
Now, if someone could grab the post-it note and throw it in the bin, we could avoid reading drivel like this in the future.
Posted by dover_beach on 2007 03 30 at 11:18 PM • permalinkAs well as producing CO2 and sulphur dioxide, another aspect of coal-fired power stations is that they produce large quantities of fly ash (typically say, 200,000 tonnes per year), containing metals, such as arsenic, cadmium and mercury, organic carcinogens and mutagens as well as naturally-occurring radioactive substances - such as uranium.
In other words, coal fired power stations spew out radioactive substances all over the joint, while nuclear reactors don’t - or certainly not in any where the same quantity.
So anyone who is truly concerned about the radioactive boogeyman is better off living next to a nuclear reactor rather than a coal fired power station.
However, living near a coal-fired power station is probably better than living near a wind farm, with the ever present risk of someone falling from one and killing themselves.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 03 30 at 11:37 PM • permalink#65
Great!! Doesn’t this mean all those hippy-dippy Gaia-loving New Agers gotta give up those godawful candles that seem to burn full time and smell like crap? Or else admit to being complicit in the Rape of Mother Gaia?
Hippy-dippy Gaia-loving New Agers are the rapists who defend their actions by saying “she wanted it”.#78 She’s the very model of a modern, major screw up? BTW, I thought that Wednesday was the hamster’s day off? Oh. I guess it is.
Posted by andycanuck on 2007 03 31 at 08:47 AM • permalinkLets see, if Wednesday is her ‘thinking’ day, how does she ever remember this each week? Maybe, each Wed night, she leaves a post-it note on her fridge, “Remember to think next Wednesday!”
Now, if someone could grab the post-it note and throw it in the bin, we could avoid reading drivel like this in the future.
Sadly, that would only work if any actual thinking went into her blather, which is clearly not the case.
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Only uranium is used. Okkkkaaayy.
I think she’s getting brain damage from inhaling ink fumes.
Elizabeth
Imperial Keeper