Posts
Do
you need convincing that there are some loony people out there (in
positions of power)?
Oregon's
GOP Chair Wants to Sprinkle Nuclear Waste From Airplanes
16
August, 2013
After
months of in-fighting, the beleaguered Oregon Republican Party
elected a new chairman last weekend. His name is Art Robinson, and he
wants to sprinkle radioactive waste from airplanes to build up our
resistance to degenerative illnesses. Robinson, who unsuccessfully
ran for Congress against progressive Rep. Peter DeFazio in 2010 and
2012, took over after the previous chair resigned in advance of a
recall campaign over her alleged financial mismanagement.
Robinson,
who has a Ph.D. in chemistry, has marketed himself for the last three
decades as an expert on everything from nuclear fallout to AIDS to
climate science in the pages of a monthly newsletter, Access to
Energy, which he published from his compound in the small town of
Cave Junction. A quick glance at his writings, which were publicized
during his ill-fated challenges to DeFazio, suggest that whatever the
failings of the previous party leadership—Democrats now hold all
statewide elected offices and control both houses of the state
Legislature—Robinson brings with him a new set of challenges
entirely.
On
nuclear waste: "All we need do with nuclear waste is dilute it
to a low radiation level and sprinkle it over the ocean—or even
over America after hormesis is better understood and verified with
respect to more diseases." And: "If we could use it to
enhance our own drinking water here in Oregon, where background
radiation is low, it would hormetically enhance our resistance to
degenerative diseases. Alas, this would be against the law."
On
public schools: "Public education (tax-financed socialism) has
become the most widespread and devastating form of child abuse and
racism in the United States. Moreover, people who have been cut off
at the knees by public education are so mentally handicapped that
they cannot be responsible custodians of the energy technology base
or other advanced accomplishments of our civilization."
(Robinson, a home-schooling activist, sells a DIY curriculum for
$195.)
On
AIDS: "There is a possibility that the entire 'war' on HIV and
AIDS is in error. U.S. government AIDS programs are now receiving $6
billion per year and are based entirely upon the hypothesis that HIV
virus causes AIDS. Yet, the articles referenced above and numerous
additional publications by scientists who have become involved in
this controversy state that: attempts to cause AIDS experimentally
with HIV have completely failed; thousands of AIDS victims are
HIV-free; and HIV shows none of the classical characteristics of a
disease-producing organism. Moreover, AIDS is not a unique disease—it
is an increased susceptibility to many ordinary diseases presumably
as a result of depressed immune response. This depressed immunity can
result from many other factors including those especially prevalent
in the AIDS afflicted population—drug abuse and unhygienic exposure
to very large numbers of different disease vectors. Moreover, large
numbers of HIV carriers who are symptom-free are being treated by
powerful life-threatening drugs that kill people in ways very similar
to AIDS."
(His
conclusion on the AIDS epidemic: Homosexuality might be a natural
consequence of the gay lifestyle, and the federal government had
cooked the books "as an excuse for all sorts of social
engineering, especially in the public schools.")
On
climate change: "[T]here is substantial scientific evidence that
increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial
effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
On
diversity: The white-male imbalance at his alma mater, Cal Tech,
Robinson argued, was due to the fact that "its applicants are
weighted toward those who seek severe, difficult, total-immersion
training in science—an experience few women and blacks desire."
During
his campaigns, Robinson distanced himself from his past
writings—without overtly rejecting them. He conceded that the
nuclear waste proposal was "politically impossible" and a
"complicated scientific subject," and on the subject of
public education, admitted that "had I known I would ever run
for office, I'd have said it differently." In an interview with
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, he justified his AIDS theory by noting that
"15 years ago, the scientific debate was different than it is
today," before attempting to change the subject to taxes.
Still,
Robinson's questionable scientific theories could make him some
bipartisan allies; the deep-blue voters of Portland recently voted to
ban fluoride from the city's drinking water
See
also -
Access
to Energy Newsletter,
April 1, 1997: All we need do with nuclear waste is dilute it to a
low radiation level and sprinkle it over the ocean – or even over
America after hor-mesis is better understood and verified with
respect to more diseases.
Albany
Democratic-Herald,
July 15, 2010: Robinson wrote in 1997, when radioactive groundwater
was found beneath a decommissioned nuclear generating plant [...] “It
is unfortunate that this water under San Onofre is being wasted,”
Robinson wrote then. “If we could use it to enhance our own
drinking water here in Oregon where background radiation is low, it
would hormetically enhance our resistance to degenerative diseases.”
[...] This week, in response, Robinson wrote that he would have liked
to add radioactive isotopes to the foundation of his lab in rural
Josephine County. “Had I been able to do this, the risk of cancer
and other degenerative disease would have been lowered for those of
us who work in this building.”
can we sprinkle this stupid fuckwit over Fukushima instead?
ReplyDelete