Rad Storm Rising- a land of radioactive sausage, poisoned onions, and bald children (Russia)

[jpak]

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1990/12/rad-storm-rising/6380/

<snip>

The Soviet Union has declassified information about ten accidents at nuclear power stations that occurred from 1964 to 1985. Several of the mishaps led to fatalities and to significant emissions of radioactivity.

• On February 6, 1974, a ruptured cooling loop in a Leningrad nuclear power station spilled "highly radioactive water" into the environment. Three people were killed.

• In October of 1975 one and a half million curies of "highly radioactive radionuclides" were emitted into the environment through a vent pipe, owing to a metal flaw in the core of the same Leningrad reactor. Sweden and Finland both queried the Soviet government about heightened levels of radiation detected in their countries.

• In 1977 half the fuel assemblies in the core of the Beloyarsk nuclear reactor melted. The Soviet account does not explain what caused this accident, but it notes that repairs took about a year, "during which personnel of the station were over-irradiated."

<much much more>

[pretzel4gore]

1. nuke bombs necessitated nuke power

The USSR was in a bind. In order to COMPETE with west. which was richer and more powerful, it need to develop nuclear weapons, and that meant nuclear power planets. The west literally FORCED a society barely emerging from 3rd world status to build and maintain systems it could not EVER afford. It's interesting that the early Soviet success in its space program immediately set up a 'race' when even a child could see that the USSR was NO MATCH for 1st world west- they lined up for lettuce! But the bastards in pigmedia act like there was a 'race', as if the USSR was stupid, power maddened stupid! The USSR LOST the equivilent of its entire 1934 GNP in WW2! Yet within 20 years of WINNING WW2 FOR US, over fascism, they were in a race WITH US for the fukkin moon!
nation, yall bin had!

[Beam Me Up]

2. Deception is the rule, not the exception. It is how we are ruled. n/t

[pretzel4gore]

4. so true...

the game is so fixed, the pig cannot lose, unless he chooses to. But mister pig's problem is that there is no opposition to the craziest bs the HateRight mob dreams up, and it's a losers' scenerio. Mister Pig WINS by losing (see Barack Obama) and LOSES by winning (see sarah palin, or george bush junyer etc)...and, unfortunately, the 'best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity!' as Che Guevera once noticed! Thus, in order to save themselves, the rat stooge GOP rightwing MUST sabatoge itself, and ....them Teepartee Gun people are winners if the term 'winner' ever fit anyone!
lol!
I almost feel sorry for the vile rightwing thugs. Now with nuke power blowing up in their fecefaces (another embarassment; worse then last years BP oil mess!) all their lies are sounding kinda ...dishonest
go bush! hahaha
(why build nuke bombs in 1st place? when USA began building nukes, against Einsteins's advice, btw, WW2 was already won, and ...the USSR was our ally, and desperately in NEED of our friendship- which FDR indeed promised them at Yalta- having lost 25 million people and almost its entire economy destroyed beating the nazis! But, nudge wink, we terrorised the USSR into building its own nukes, which it did by 1949! Mister Pig SHAT HISSELF...lol, but we cleaned up the mess and, well today we have a big problem, and the USSR is long dead)

[bhikkhu]

3. Probably its nothing, but I was just wondering...

if the accumulation of nuclear accidents, chemical pollution and other toxic incidents, might have had some impact on the declining population and productivity of russia over the last 20 years or so.

It would be an interesting argument to make, if it could be made...the health of our own population isn't looking so good lately either.