Media Truth facts only.
Facts only, not Woke poison.

Sullivan-County.com Homepage

by Lewis Loflin

On the web since 1998.

I live in Washington County, Virginia just outside Bristol. We may not have jobs but lots of great natural beauty. There is a difference between conservationist and environmentalist. See Common Sense Environmentalism in Southwest Virginia.

I was asked to submit ideas and not just complaints. Fair enough. See Needed Political Reforms Ending Poverty Southwest Virginia

There is nothing renewable about the billions of tons of non-renewable minerals and metals that are needed for wind and solar. Patrick Moore

Failing minority students Chicago Public Schools.
Click for larger image.

To quote,

The student body at the schools served by Chicago Public Schools is 11% White, 35.8% Black, 4.4% Asian or Asian/Pacific Islander, 46.7% Hispanic/Latino, 0.3% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.2% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. In addition, 1.7% of students are two or more races, and 0% have not specified their race or ethnicity.

No better example of how diversity and CRT racism destroy schools than in Chicago. The system is unrepairable and at 11% white.

Chicago Public Schools contains 649 schools and 341,382 students. The district’s minority enrollment is 90%.

That is 37,510 white students with 13,000 failing.

That is 122,000 black students with 105,000 failing.

That 159,000 Hispanics, with 119,000 failing.

Low-achieving native-born blacks are joined by millions of third-world peasants, migrants, immigrants, and illegal aliens. They do terrible in their home cultures and little better here.

Diversity destroys the system in two ways. Our racist education system lowers standards and rigs the system to accommodate students they discourage assimilating, preferring to waste time teaching racial and cultural hatred.

Though either a mass conspiracy of the education industrial complex or incompetence, teachers can't or won't teach these children. They prefer to cover up the problem or yell racism. Or divert off on gender identity extremism.

Lieutenant Governor of Virginia Winsome Earle-Sears who is black, admits 84% of black students are failing.

Someone else asks and it applies to Virginia as well, "How can 84% of Chicago Public Schools students graduate when only 26% of 11th graders are proficient in reading, math?"

Virginia is just as bad and I cover that. This section under construction 3/2/2023.

Recent:

News Shorts

What do liberal racists consider racism? To quote, "The idea that people should be on time (to work) to things is rooted in white supremacy, sexism, and homophobia."

Joe Manchin is a fascist and needs to be voted out. Joe Manchin attacks the First Amendment at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos:

"The problem we have is the open press system and basically all the platforms."

Definition of pseudo-religion as used on this website: a philosophy or non-theistic belief system(s) that carry the emotional force and outlook of a religion. Relying largely on emotion a "believer" displays narrow-mindedness and dogmatic thinking equal to the worse religious fundamentalist. They can be just as intolerant of dissent attacking opponents as deniers, etc. They wrap their "belief" in false authority, scientific jargon, government agencies, etc. "Belief" becomes interchangeable with "faith."

"Religion" to me is a system of thought, not a particular belief. See My Answer to a Secular Fundamentalist

There is nothing renewable about the billions of tons of non-renewable minerals and metals that are needed for wind and solar. -- Patrick Moore founder Greenpeace

See Exploring Jonah Goldberg's Book 'Liberal Fascism'

So what Goldberg called liberal fascism would be appropriately called today Modern Progressivism.

In 2022 the US Department of Justice and the FBI are taking on the characteristics of the East German Stasi. See 84% of Americans Fear the Government for Good Reason.

I'm not going into how most environmentalists are evil, they are not. But far too many extremists occupy government and academia. Their positions are incoherent and contradictory, even anti-human. And they hurt the environment.

See Ominous Parallels Environmentalism, Collectivism by Erich Veyhl.

One of the defining features of religion is that your beliefs are not troubled by facts, because they have nothing to do with facts. - Michael Crichton

I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious...

On the EPA:

What we need is a new organization much closer to the FDA. We need an organization that will be ruthless about acquiring verifiable results, that will fund identical research projects to more than one group, and that will make everybody in this field get honest fast...

The following pages updated 12/15/2022. Both are on Bristolblog.com.

Western Culture Built Modern Science
11,700 Years of Sudden Climate Change
On this site: we didn't get our science from Muslims or Africa.
Myth of Colonialism and Science
Why Muslims Can't Build a Lightbulb by Lewis Loflin

Environmentalism as Religion - Unwitting religiosity makes the environmental movement less effective. Posted August 14, 2020 by John A. Johnson, Ph.D., is a professor emeritus of psychology at Pennsylvania State University.

That suggestion was borne out yesterday when I listened to a podcast in which Michael Shermer interviewed environmentalist Michael Shellenberger. During the podcast, Shellenberger made a point that had occurred to me long ago: Environmentalism has become a substitute religion for many atheists, agnostics, and other non-religious. It allows us to be part of something larger than ourselves that gives our life meaning.

But then Shellenberger made a more specific claim that hit me like a bolt of lightning: Those most passionate environmentalists have, probably unwittingly, incorporated imagery from Christianity about the ancient past and the distant future. From Genesis, they have borrowed the myth of the Garden of Eden, when the world was in balance and harmony before humans began misbehaving.

These environmentalists idealize nature as a system of beauty, peace, and harmony that humans have only recently begun to destroy with technology. This mythical view ignores the devastation of the environment by indigenous peoples as well as the brutal conflicts within and between pre-human species.

Ref. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/cui-bono/202008/environmentalism-religion

Temperate climate Greenland 2 million years ago.
Click for a larger image.

When Mastodons Roamed Greenland

Climate growing colder over 2.5 million years.
Click for a larger image.

In a fantastic article in the journal Nature, scientists studying DNA fragments in northern Greenland were astonished that as recently as two million years ago, lush forests and mammals from temperate zones flourished in what is today a barren arctic desert.

But how can this be screamed the environmental spiritualists? Doesn't a warmer climate mean that the planet has become like Venus? Paid activists and crackpots like Bill McKibben, James Hansen, and this whole litany of environmental doomsayers know this isn't possible.

The earth and Nature are not divine; Gaia and other forms of spiritualism are religious myths.

The permafrost preserved DNA fragments from both plants and animals. We usually think of fossils in terms of bones or imprints in solidified mud. With modern DNA analysis with assistance from advanced computers, scientists were utterly stunned at the biological diversity in northern Greenland a few million years ago.

In addition,

During the region's warm period, when average temperatures were 20 to 34 degrees Fahrenheit (11 to 19 degrees Celsius) higher than today, the area was filled with an unusual array of plant and animal life, the researchers reported. The DNA fragments suggest a mix of Arctic plants, like birch trees and willow shrubs ... The DNA also showed traces of animals including geese, hares, reindeer and lemmings.

There is no evidence of mass extinctions during this time. The earth did just fine. To further quote,

One big surprise was finding DNA from the mastodon, an extinct species that looks like a mix between an elephant and a mammoth.

I knew from my studies of Earth science that the climate rapidly began to cool three million years ago. Arctic sea ice only appeared 2.5 million years ago. The global temperatures were warmer than today. Once again, this calls into question these hysterical predictions about CO2.

The reality is the earth has been in an ice age, with short interglacials for the past 2.5 million years. We presently are in another interglacial known as the Holocene. The Holocene began approximately 11,700 years ago. The previous interglacial, known as the Eemian warm period, lasted from 132,000 to 110,000 years ago. That was far warmer than today, and there's evidence of hippos, and other African animals living in Europe. German hippos!

England at this time had a climate more Mediterranean. To quote Lydia Smith 2/3/2014:

"Fossil evidence also suggests macque monkeys lived in London, notably in Essex, around three quarters of a million years ago. Hippopotamus also resided in the Thames."

Many environmental spiritualists with science degrees quickly attack these facts as unrelated to today. The approximately 2°F temperature increase since 1800 is cause for grave concern. This slight warming was, they claim, caused by human activity and thus is dangerous, because it is caused by humans. We must stop any further temperature increase, or else!

My response is, so what? Geological evidence based on real-world empirical data proves that a warmer climate relates to greater biological diversity. While I don't want to play down concerns over the continuing use of fossil fuels, which I would also like to see reduced, we must put aside unfounded hysteria and religious garbage.

The fact is many of the same activists wanting to end the use of fossil fuels oppose any practical, workable solution or alternative. To them, it is about social, political, and spiritual change. None of this has any place in science or public policy.

Ref. Nature 612, 384 (2022) doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04377-x

Ref. AP News, Oldest DNA reveals life in Greenland 2 million years ago by Maddie Burakoff, December 9, 2022.

Polar bear brown bear hybrid.

Polar bears according to some scientists evolved 600,000 years ago. They lived through 2-3 ice free interglacial periods far warmer than today and did just fine. Polar bears and brown bears interbreed and DNA from polar bears proves this isn't the first time.

Noting what is happening today is no different than in the early 20th Century be it droughts or floods.

Note all graphics and newspaper clippings open in new window.

See the graphic 30 Years Global cooling alarmism 1978 New York Times

See the graphic Severe global drought Times Daily Aug. 4, 1934

See the graphic Glaciers melting 1951 Muncie Evening Press.

See the graphic Arctic Ice to Vanish in 20 years New York Times in 1969.

See the graphic NOAA increase in rainfall 1910-2017

Facts on Hurricanes and Tornadoes

The climate doomsday preachers believe recent global warming, which has warmed two degrees Fahrenheit since 1800, will cause more powerful and deadly tornados.

But according to the NOAA Storm Prediction Center, of the top 25 most deadly tornadoes, all but one occurred before 1955.

Of the 25 worst tornadoes, only one has occurred since I was born in 1957. This hurricane occurred in May 2011 in Joplin, Missouri. Joplin ranked at number seven; 158 people lost their lives.

The worst hurricane in US history was the Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925. Nearly 700 people died in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. An additional 2000 people were injured, and 15,000 homes were destroyed.

If I recall my history books, this tornado cut a 219-mile-long swath; others claim ~170-mile-long swath.

There is no evidence that tornadoes today are more deadly than in the past. Today modern radar and weather warning systems reduce fatalities. Climate spiritualists claim recent tornadoes are more lethal anyway.

There is no proof, and they fall back on property damage. That could be true due to the much higher population density and massive increase in infrastructure and homes.

I am not arguing climate change isn't real. The computer models continue to fail and only hurt their cause. This hysteria also damages the reputation of science.

Ref. https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/killers.html

According to NOAA, precipitation from 1910 to 2017 has increased. This increase in precipitation should not have happened because climate spiritualists claim that global warming would cause more significant droughts.

Instead of relying on questionable computer models, let us examine known and proven science.

Based on actual historical data, 1930s droughts are the worst in America and the world. The 1950s were also bad.

As NOAA pointed out, increased temperature increases precipitation and rainfall. To quote,

"How is that (rain) tied to warming? The same way: a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor and an atmosphere with more water vapor can make more precipitation. And the warmer it gets, the higher the theoretical "Big Rain" events can get. That's playing out in the data, pretty much any way you look at it.

These two trends - wetter conditions overall, and bigger Big Rain... And that brings us back to hurricanes and tropical storms, or "tropical cyclones" for short. We've long known that generally speaking, warmer means more intense storms and more potential rainfall, but the latest piece of knowledge on tropical cyclones is that they appear to be slowing down, for reasons that aren't entirely clear."

All graphics and newspaper clippings will open new window.

See the graphic Severe drought conditions in California 1957.

See the graphic California record flooding 1938 LA Times.

See the graphic California floods 1950.

See the graphic California flooding 1955-56.

But what about all of the flooding in California in December 2022 and January 2023? Doesn't this prove that humans are causing floods and droughts? Not according to historical and scientific records.

The LA Times noted that the worst flooding in California was around 1938. This flooding followed a prolonged and devastating drought across most of the United States, including California, known today as the Dustbowl.

In addition, California had another severe drought from 1947 to 1950. In 1950 California again suffered severe flooding across much of the state, similar to today. In 1956 California suffered severe flooding again. Around 1959 through 60, California was once again dealing with drought.

This variable climate pattern is typical for California going back to records in 1862. There was so much flooding in California in 1862 large areas of the state were virtually uninhabitable.

See the graphic Massive Richmond Virginia flooding Hurricane Camille 1969 and Hurricane Agnes 1972.

Of the 25 most deadly hurricanes, only one has occurred in the last 51 years. That was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Climate spiritualists then claimed this was the beginning of a string of new and deadly hurricanes. This, as usual, proved unfounded. There was a nearly 12-year pause in significant storms.

Katrina is number three or six, depending on how we juggle the numbers. One thousand two hundred people are estimated to have died in Katrina.

The deadliest hurricane was the Galveston hurricane of 1900, which left 8,000 people dead. In 1972, Agnes left 122 dead, mainly in Virginia. Of the remaining 23, the most deadly storms occurred before 1950.

Many of the fatalities with Katrina were due to government failure, such as improper maintenance of dikes that caused massive flooding.

Also, widespread black crime and gang violence in New Orleans added to the death toll.

The usual claims of climate spiritualists that hurricanes are more deadly today than in the past are untrue based on the numbers.

Again, climate change is real and ongoing. The constant failure of computer models should force these climate doomsayers to stop the constant alarmism that is discrediting their cause. I am not concerned about a two-degree Fahrenheit temperature increase since 1800.

Ref. https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/articles/deadliest-us-hurricanes

To quote Patrick Moore co-founder of Greenpeace:

The collapse of world communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall during the 1980s added to the trend toward extremism. The Cold War was over and the peace movement was largely disbanded. The peace movement had been mainly Western-based and anti-American in its leanings. Many of its members moved into the environmental movement, bringing with them their neo-Marxist, far-left agendas. To a considerable extent the environmental movement was hijacked by political and social activists who learned to use green language to cloak agendas that had more to do with anticapitalism and antiglobalization than with science or ecology

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Southwest Virginia Job loses 2010-2020.

Introduction Local Issues

See Sullivan County, Tennessee Strip Bars Wars Update for 2002.

Nicewonder Property Fiasco in Bristol, Virginia I warned them.

I was asked to submit ideas and not just complaints. Fair enough. See Needed Political Reforms Ending Poverty Southwest Virginia

According to Zach Jackson, Virginia Tech Office of Economic Development, "The average full time worker in SWVA is paid $14,164/yr. less that the average full time worker in Virginia and $9,162/yr. less than the average full time worker in the United States."

The Chamber of Commerce is 2nd only to Jesus in this region. They vote millions in corporate welfare but begrudge a minimum wage worker $10 in food stamps.

The Woke Left today is the same obsessed with abstract cultural issues such as climate change (can't be controlled) while indifferent to the needless poverty and dislocation their ideology is causing. I revile both sides as they wage their culture war.

We will overcome all of this, but it will take time. Most Americans on both sides are not monsters. So let's have a conversation.

Besides my love of applied science and technology, that is the basis of this website.

Congratulations to our local politicians for spending 100s of millions in public money to create jobs! Southwest Virginia has a population of 313,499, a loss of about 29,000 since 2010. Perhaps over 40,000 since 2000.

I've documented for two decades the over-reliance of this region on government programs. Government grants and economic development funds totaling hundreds of millions are just gone.

To quote,

"Regional wages are not competitive with statewide and national wages. Turnover is high for low-wage jobs. SWVA residents disproportionately live in poverty; many workers cannot afford a basic standard of living."

I was asked to submit ideas and not just complaints. Fair enough. See Needed Political Reforms Ending Poverty Southwest Virginia

For one costly example see How Northrop Grumman Failed Russell County.

With growing inflation, costly climate nonsense, and the Federal Reserve threatening to destroy the labor market to control inflation, our community is in danger.

Below is an archive of material going back to 2000 in regards to local politics and the local economy. My view is simply business must be severed from government. Government serves citizens, not the Chamber of Commerce.

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Fig. 5 Urals temperature 500 years from bore holes.

Present Global Warming Began Circa 1800

To quote 11/21/22, The Virginian-Pilot story "New emissions cuts not part of historic UN climate deal."

The new (UN) pact does retain language to keep alive the global goal of limiting warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. The Egyptian presidency kept offering proposals that harkened back to language in the 2015 Paris accord that also mentioned a looser goal of 3.6 degrees. The world has already warmed 2 degrees since pre-industrial times.

Two degrees over 220 years is background noise.

Climate change is real and ongoing natural part of nature. It drove evolution, what is happening today started at the end of the Little Ice Age circa 1800-1850. Let's reduce waste and the use of fossil fuels for rational reasons.

Because we have severe cold and warm spells at differing times means little. In 2022 Europe is suffering through a drought the same as it did in 1920-21.

Another headline: "Dec 10, 2021 Historically frigid weather, tens of degrees below zero, has invaded northeast Russia, Scandinavia, Alaska and northern Canada in recent weeks."

Ref. www.washingtonpost.com.

This is illustrated in above. A series of borehole measurements in Russia allowed climatologists to reconstruct temperatures across Russia for the last 500 years.

This example is hysteresis, where climate change may take decades or centuries after the initial event to be measured. Or is a "slow motion" event taking many years. Scientists from the 1600s observed low sunspot activity, thus lower solar output.

About 1800 solar output increased, temperature increased in Russia by ~0.25 Deg. C from 1800-1900. It takes time to overcome changes in temperature, in this case cold oceans and ice cover slowed the process.

By 1900 to 2000 temperature increased another 0.75 Deg. C. Notice the many positive and negative spikes from 1800 to 2000. The overall average is positive.

Other factors can come into play. Many glaciers formed during the Little Ice Age were melting. This means less reflected sunlight. Soot and pollution from industry settling on ice and glaciers may have accelerated their melting. This is positive feedback.

But this kind of pollution can work both ways by reflecting sunlight.

The sun has grown brighter, perhaps since the 1800s. To quote NASA:

"Since the late 1970s, the amount of solar radiation the sun emits, during times of quiet sunspot activity, has increased by nearly 0.05 percent per decade, according to a NASA funded study. This trend is important because, if sustained over many decades, it could cause significant climate change. ... Historical records of solar activity indicate that solar radiation has been increasing since the late 19th century. If a trend, comparable to the one found in this study, persisted throughout the 20th century, it would have provided a significant component of the global warming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports to have occurred over the past 100 years."

Ref. https://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/solar_trend_change_climate.htm

This precisely tracks the borehole data from Russia. This trend is NOT a linear relationship.

Let me be clear: this DOES NOT explain all of the observed warmings. Note these kinds of observations, before the 1970s, were not available.

There has been warming for over 200 years. Ice has been melting, and the oceans have been warming. As they gradually warm overall temperatures will increase.

So-called greenhouse gases certainly play a part; how great we don't know. As the oceans warm CO2 will be out gassed and less absorbed in addition to burning fossil fuels..

Sunspot activity measurements in the modern sense go back to 1755. Sunspots run in 11-year cycles, but their duration and intensity vary.

Present cycle 25 began in 2019 and "will increase until a peak sometime between 2023 and 2025." This trend means the atmosphere will heat up again and expand, putting a drag on satellites.

I'm guessing it will get warmer minus some form of negative feedback, such as a major volcanic eruption. See Climate Change and Volcanoes.

For example the Mt. Pinatubo eruption (western Luzon, Philippines) on June 15, 1991, (VEI-6) was "the second-largest terrestrial eruption of the 20th century." Sulfur aerosols dropped global temperatures ~0.5 Deg. C (0.9 Deg. F) for at least two years. I think it buried Clark Air Base.

I'll do a subsection below how eruptions ~536 AD created the modern world later.

There should be a temperature rise by the sun pumping more energy into the system heralding a rise in global temperatures.. That happened in the late 1970s bringing down Skylab.

To quote,

The trouble was, the sun had other ideas. The very solar activity that Skylab had studied so fruitfully now turned against it. An unexpected rise in the number of CMEs and other radiation slamming into Earth heated our atmosphere so much that it expanded. This increased the drag on Skylab and began to pull it out of orbit faster than Nasa had reckoned.

"Skylab's orbit eventually decayed, and it disintegrated in the atmosphere on July 11, 1979, scattering debris across the Indian Ocean and Western Australia." WIKI.

Ref. The Guardian May 13, 2013. Skylab's 40th anniversary reminds us of the danger from space debris.

To further quote, "The first half of 2022 saw sunspot and solar flare activity on the sun increase significantly, including some of the most powerful flares seen in several years."

Ref. Sun's Upcoming Peak of Sunspot and Solar Flare Activity Could Set Records, Eric Mack August 5, 2022.

As I remember ice caps on Mars were shrinking at that time. NASA is quick to deny increased solar radiation is the cause.

Nowhere is religious garbage more proven than in Al Gore's book "Earth in the Balance." I own the book and have read it myself.

While published circa 1992, this cult integrates outright communism and racist social justice in 2022.

I challenge the reader to buy and read the book. See my webpage Dissecting Al Gore's Book Earth in the Balance.

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Home built Geiger counter project.

Electronics, Nuclear Reactors, Applied Science

The above banner is to my electronics projects website. My interest is applied science and technology. That is what I will cover moving forward.

In Southwest Virginia, there is a discussion of placing small modular nuclear reactors in the region. I have a section on Geiger counters and even built my own.

Virginia has one of the larger uranium reserves in the US. They have blocked mining it because of pollution concerns. I can't blame them. But we constantly offshore pollution in the name of climate change.

We need to replace most fossil fuels. We have the ability right now to replace all coal, natural gas, and bio-fuels today. Windmills and solar panels are a massive waste of resources, leaving millions of tons of toxic waste from manufacturing.

See Green Technology Highly Polluting, Environmentally Destructive (Off site)

I'll be exploring issues on nuclear reactors they could place in Southwest Virginia. I'll present the material in more layperson's terms. We have, I'd estimate, one million tons of potential nuclear fuel in storage we can use without creating more pollution mining it in developing countries.

The dangers of nuclear radiation are overblown. It occurs naturally in the environment, our blood is radioactive, and sites where nuclear testing and reactor meltdowns have become nature preserves. These areas are full of plants and animals.

Environmentalists oppose the only viable solution to reducing CO2 because CO2 has never been the issue. They want to remake society by promoting some Green Eden mythology or outright communism. Often a combination of both.

Too many consider any artificial substance dangerous to the natural world, so pristine nature is the intrinsic good. Some introduce spiritual and religious aspects into this. Some go as far as viewing humanity as evil, placing untouched nature above human welfare.

Artificial sources of radiation are no different than natural sources. The claim is any radiation exposure is deadly. This claim has been disproven.

It is provable because millions live in areas with high natural background radiation levels with no measurable ill effects. We are immune to low-level sources, natural or artificial.

I'm not going into how most environmentalists are evil. But far too many extremists occupy government and academia. Their positions are incoherent and contradictory, even anti-human. And they hurt the environment.

See Ominous Parallels Environmentalism, Collectivism by Erich Veyhl.

Let us explore real-world examples.

These links are on my electronics website.
My Geiger Counter Project
CD4047 Monostable Multivibrator Circuit
Geiger Counter and Radioactivity
Introduction to Geiger-Mueller Counters and Electronics
Getting Real About Radiation Myths and Hazards
Uranium Hype-Facts and Virginia Uranium
Uranium Basics and Isotopes
Climate Change and Volcanoes

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Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. Saratoga leaking oil, sinking at Bikini Atoll
Fig. 4 Aircraft Carrier USS Saratoga leaking oil, sinking at Bikini Atoll

Nuclear Graveyards Abound with Life

The hysteria over nuclear waste is unfounded. We can dispose of it safely. Fears over radiation are groundless. I'll explain why in the coming days. Bikini Atoll was the site of 23 massive nuclear blasts in the 1940s-50s. Google Earth shows these colossal bomb craters.

Massive fallout levels, thousands of tons of spilled oil from target ships, should have left the atoll and lagoon a dead zone. Sorry to disappoint; the experts got it wrong again. Life flourishes in the bomb craters and on land.

It is safe to live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No two-headed Japanese. How many died of radiation at Fukushima? One perhaps seven years later. How many died at Chernobyl? 50, according to the UN. Spare me failed computer models about future events. Chernobyl was the result of complete human stupidity.

I'm not playing down the radiation hazard at the reactor site. Note that Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus suffer massive pollution problems to add to possible radiation problems. Healthcare is poor in these countries, in addition to pollution. To attribute every illness or cancer in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus to Chernobyl is nonsense.

To quote News Week March 8, 2022:

Over the years, wildlife has returned to the exclusion zone, which due to a lack of human disturbance, has become a thriving ecosystem. Scientists have observed brown bears, wolves, lynx, bison, moose, foxes, and many more wild animals in the area.

Sorry, no two-headed bison or bears or horses. Nature is resilient and we should strive to live within it. Because we evolved in an environment that is naturally radioactive, including the potassium in our blood, we have immunity from low-level radiation.

To quote The Conversation.com:

33 years after the accident, the Chernobyl exclusion zone, which covers an area now in Ukraine and Belarus, is inhabited by brown bears, bison, wolves, lynxes, Przewalski horses, and more than 200 bird species, among other animals.

In March 2019, most of the main research groups working with Chernobyl wildlife met in Portsmouth, England. About 30 researchers from the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Belgium, Norway, Spain and Ukraine presented the latest results of our work. These studies included work on big mammals, nesting birds, amphibians, fish, bumblebees, earthworms, bacteria and leaf litter decomposition.

These studies showed that at present the area hosts great biodiversity. In addition, they confirmed the general lack of big negative effects of current radiation levels on the animal and plant populations living in Chernobyl. All the studied groups maintain stable and viable populations inside the exclusion zone.

They also note, "Tourism has flourished in Chernobyl, with more than 70,000 visitors in 2018."

Chernobyl, like Bikini Atoll, is a thriving nature preserve because of the lack of human activity.

Also see my page Bikini Atoll Recovery From Nuclear Blasts.

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Cancer rates by state including Nevada Nuclear Test site.
Click image for larger view.

What about humans and radiation?

OK, they say, plants and animals are not as sensitive to radiation as once believed. They can even thrive under low-level radiation, even if artificial. What about humans?

There is a mountain of empirical evidence that humans are immune to low-level radiation or there is no measurable increase in cancer rates.

They often present uranium miners as proof that radon and exposure to any radioactive material causes increased cancer rates.

Is it the uranium-radon, or is it the fact mining is an occupation has elevated health risks? Breathing toxic metal-laden dust in hard rock mining can lead to cancer or other lung problems.

Now let us observe workers in these blue-collar occupations, such as mining, are disproportionately heavy smokers. 2-3 packs a day is standard. My mother died from smoking. To quote one study:

We observed high rates of smoking (28.1%) and current use of any tobacco product (41.7%) in New Jersey quarry/mine workers, a subsector of the extraction industry. The prevalence of current cigarette smoking was consistent with that reported nationally among extraction and construction workers.

I grew up around coal miners who died from lung cancer and-or black lung. The same kind of damage comes from cotton and rock dust, etc.

Studies also show that diesel exhaust, smoke from wood stoves, campfires, etc., can cause lung cancer.

Let's throw in genetics. Thousands of things, both artificial and natural, can "potentially" cause cancer. Most simply don't or can't be proven.

Attributing everything to secondhand smoke, radon, or too many cookies is politics and propaganda.

Ref. Diesel Exhaust Exposure in Miners Linked to Lung Cancer July 25, 2012, by Victoria A. Fisher , M.P.H.

To quote part of the study:

For never smokers and light-to-moderate smokers, the risk of lung cancer death increased with more diesel exhaust exposure. Non-smokers with the highest level of diesel exposure were seven times more likely to die from lung cancer than non-smokers in the lowest exposure category. In contrast, among miners who were heavy smokers, the risk of lung cancer death decreased with increasing levels of exposure...Heavy smokers might be more likely to clear diesel exhaust particulate matter from their lung than non-smokers, a phenomenon that has been reported previously among coal miners who smoke.

This study could suggest standard diesel, and auto exhaust could cause lung cancer in non-smokers. At the same time, before we get hysterical, cancer rates, particularly lung cancer, are falling.

The Nevada Nuclear Test Site lies 65 miles NW of Los Vegas with 928 nuclear detonations. The last was in 1992.

The fallout fell in large parts of Nevada and Utah. We should expect large numbers of cancer cases. In 2020 we found the opposite, according to CDC data.

Nevada has lower cancer rates than Iowa, Delaware, and Oregon and nearly the same as Rhode Island. Nevada has lower rates than most of the country.

Utah has almost the lowest rate in the nation. How can this be, screams environmentalists?

Nevada's rate per 100,000 in 2005 was 191, but it went down to 144 in 2020. Utah is nearly unchanged. The highest cancer rate state in 2005 was Kentucky at 219.1.

By 2020 cancer death rates in nearly every state had dropped by double digits in 15 years. The highest cancer rate state in 2020 was again Kentucky at 177.3, followed by West Virginia at 177.

Things continue to get better, to the dismay of environmental activists. As I said before, technology and reason is the key to solving problems, not socialism, green religion, or hysteria.

If low-level radiation causes all of this cancer, explain Nevada and Utah. The answer is simple: humans are not sensitive to low-level radiation. Radiation levels, even from nuclear weapons, levels rapidly decay.

Don't go to the Nevada Test site and eat a hand full of dirt. But tours are available to the public. This tour includes the 1,280-foot diameter by 320-foot deep Sedan Crater. Yes, it is a big hole in the ground among many.

Tours are to resume in 2022 after being closed three years over Covid.

More tour information at https://www.nnss.gov/docs/fact_sheets/DOENV_1033.pdf.

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Blocking radiation

Radiation Basics They Should Teach in High School

I know people hate science but here is some anyway. Note that every time I do this I learn something new. Learning is a constant process.

There are three general types of radiation and all originate in the atom nucleus:

Alpha particles are heavy and slow, consisting of two protons and two neutrons. They have a positive charge. They are very ionizing and can cause cell damage.

A few sheets of paper can stop these particles. They are common in smoke detectors. They become helium 4, the helium you breathe in the atmosphere.

Beta particles are high-speed electrons with a negative charge. Very penetrating and can do a lot of damage.

Gamma rays are electromagnetic radiation similar to microwaves but far more penetrating. It takes a few inches of lead or several feet of earth to stop.

Cosmic rays are not electromagnetic radiation but charged particles or ions. They are thrown out by the sun or from across the universe. Ions are atoms stripped of electrons carrying a positive charge. There are also electrons.

These consists of protons, helium 3 nucleus (stellar helium two protons, one neutron) and small numbers electrons, iron ions, etc.

These have different energy levels and can affect biological cells and tissue differently. A healthy immune system is an excellent defense against low-level natural or artificial radiation.

Cosmic rays create a real danger for human space travel. The earth's magnetic (think northern lights) and the atmosphere shield us from these charged particles.

Note, "The sievert (Sv) is the International System of Units (SI) derived unit of dose equivalent radiation that takes into account the relative biological effectiveness of different forms of ionizing radiation."

Note : 1 REM = 0.01 Sv. = 10 mSv;
0.4 REM = 0.004 Sv or 4 mSv is the background radiation for 1 year in Idaho;
0.3 REM = 0.003 Sv or 3 mSv = 1 Mammogram;
5 REM = 50 mSv maximum occupational dose nuclear workers per year.
Ref. Idaho National Laboratory.

What are "official" safe levels according to www.world-nuclear.org? "In most countries the current maximum permissible dose to radiation workers is 20 mSv per year averaged over five years, with a maximum of 50 mSv in any one year."

According to reports, "Japanese government’s enforced 20 km exclusion zone around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is rated at 20 mSv per year."

To quote one source on Bikini Atoll, "In 1997, researchers found that the dose received from background radiation on the island was between 2.4 mSv/a—the same as natural background radiation." (There is still radioactive isotopes in the soil.)

How do "experts" determine safe radiation levels? Or cancer risk levels in general? It is called the Linear No-Threshold or LNT model. This model assumes a lifetime low dose is the same as a massive single, fatal dose.

We know "that high-level radiation could cause immediate physiological effects." But what of low-level doses, intermittent or even constant low-level doses over the years?

To quote, "The decision in the early 1950s was, for administrative simplicity, to assume that the harmful health effects of radiation decreased linearly with radiation dose, all the way down to zero health effect at zero radiation, with no radiation threshold below which we could say there was no significant hazard."

This is nonsense and has been proven so since the 1940s-50s. There are no lingering effects with Japanese nuclear survivors. No lingering problems with most people evacuated from Chernobyl. Ditto plant and animal life.

Studies of residents in regions of high natural radioactivity, including heavy exposure to radon, have shown no abnormal cancer rates, etc., even suggestions to the opposite.

The LNT model is nonsense and needs revision. It is not just radiation but numerous substances they claim "can" cause cancer. No level is ever considered safe.

For example, our blood contains radioactive Potassium 40. To quote, "According to various data, its content in the body of an adult person with body weight 70 kg ranges from 4,000 to 5,000 Bq." (One becquerel is the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second.)

That is 5,000 nuclear disintegrations per second. Your body emits gamma rays. In other words, gamma rays escaping your body could cause cancer in your baby when holding them.

The radioactive potassium in the banana one has for lunch can cause cancer! Flying across the Atlantic from America to Europe, exposure to cosmic rays can cause cancer! One silly calculation if every person on earth ate a brazil nut, one person would die of cancer from radiation.

Because natural uranium is in seawater, seawater can cause cancer! Others claim chlorinated drinking water "increased risk of colorectal cancers."

Total and utter nonsense. Explain how cancer deaths per 100,000 across the United States have fallen by double-digits.

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Other Radioactive Places to Visit

There are other radioactive places to visit different than artificial sites such as Bikini Atoll (yes, there are tours to dive shipwrecks), Chernobyl, and the Nevada Test Site.

Under construction.

Bristolblog.com is my other website. I'm a conservationist, I consider ecology a pseudo-religion. Some of the subjects covered:

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Mahsa Amini murdered by Islamic fundamentalists.

Critical Look at Islam and Religion

While many individual Muslims are fine people, its culture and religious precepts are barbaric as public policy. The culture of Saudi Arabia, etc., is unacceptable in a civilized nation.

I apply the same skepticism to other religions. The problem with Islam is the fusion of religion and politics. This fusion of Islam and state may not be true for individual Muslims - then I have no problems at all.

Because of immigrant and Muslim criminals and gangs Sweden suffers daily bombing attacks. So far there are claims of 18 bombings in 2023 as of 1/17/2023. Third-world immigration is death and destruction in advanced societies. To quote,

"In Stockholm county alone, 126 shootings were recorded in 2022, resulting in 28 deaths, as well as 31 attacks with explosives, which was up from 23 deaths as well as 25 attacks with explosives in 2021. Countrywide, Sweden saw 388 shootings resulting in 61 deaths and 90 attacks with explosives last year; the number of deaths was up by one-third over the previous year."

Source: www.politico.eu January 12, 2023.

Let me get several issues out of the way:

Islamophobia does not exist. Islamophobia is a manufactured term to attack critics of Islamic politics. The far-left tries to use Muslims to attack the system while grooming their children into sexual perversion.

Muslims in Dearborn, to their credit, put a stop to peddling sex in public schools.

To me, to be pious is not fundamentalism.

I classify all religious fundamentalism carried into politics as extremism.

Islam is not a race or even ethnicity any more than Christianity is a race or ethnicity. Many Muslims are as white as I am.

The Islamic faith is not monolithic. While the two main sects are Sunni (majority) and Shia, several smaller groups, such as the Ahmadis, also exist. The Ahmadis face terrible persecution from other Muslims.

Muslims are not victims, but Islam has exterminated every people and culture from North Africa to China. Millions were murdered or forcibly converted. Muslims today are not responsible for this, only what they do now.

Muslims in Africa sold non-Muslim blacks into slavery. Slavery was widespread in the Ottoman Empire. Two million whites were taken as slaves by Muslims.

Europeans and whites ended slavery in many cases going to war with Muslims to do it. To quote,

Paul Fregosi in his book Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries calls Islamic Jihad "the most unrecorded and disregarded major event of history. It has, in fact, been largely ignored," although it has been a fact of life in Europe, Asia and Africa for almost 1400 years.

As Fregosi says, "Western colonization of nearby Muslim lands lasted 130 years, from the 1830s to the 1960s. Muslim colonization of nearby European lands lasted 1300 years, from the 600s to the mid-1960s. Yet, strangely, it is the Muslims...who are the most bitter about colonialism and the humiliations to which they have been subjected; and it is the Europeans who harbor the shame and the guilt. It should be the other way around."

I consider Saudi Wahhabism (violent Sunni fundamentalist) and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (Sunni Marxist) as terrorist-hate groups.

That is for the same reasons I consider secular humanist BLM (racist, Marxist) and Antifa (racist, Marxist) terrorist-hate groups.

So I say this to my Muslim brothers and sisters: a critique of religion is a right. There is no right to demand pandering or special accommodations.

Free speech is a right, get over it.

Murdering Mother Hidden Face of Honor Killing
Making Fun of Islam is Not a Hate Crime
Deism Versus Islam An Overview by Lewis Loflin
Why Muslims Can't Build a Lightbulb by Lewis Loflin
Deist Examination of Islamic Trinity by Lewis Loflin
Chronology Early Islam Historical Perspective by Lewis Loflin
Mythical Golden Age of Islam
Koran Origins by Ibn Warraq
Mohammed the Man Islamic Ideology by Lewis Loflin

Most popular February 2023. Note the religious material is from a historical, cause and effect perspective.

Religious Articles Index
Origins Christianity

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