FREE Kindle eBook: “An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats”

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book_cvr3D_sm_pngMany of you have either read the original online version (which is no longer available) or downloaded the pre-publication PDF version of An Insider’s View of Rocky Flats: Urban Myths Debunked. And special thanks to a sizable number of you who have purchased the Paperback version of the book from Amazon.

My original purpose in writing An Insider’s View… was to provide an accurate biographical account of the Rocky Flats story to as broad an audience as possible.

Consistent with that objective, I’m now offering the Kindle version of the An Insider’s View… FREE for 3 days beginning March 6, 2015. I encourage you to take advantage of this FREE ebook offer even if you purchased the paperback or downloaded the pre-publication PDF book from the RockyFlatsFacts.com website. That’s because – unlike the paperback and PDF which are text-only documents – the Kindle ebook contains the added bonus of over 2 dozen full-color (unclassified) photos that I think you’ll find memorable including one of burning plutonium (in a glovebox!) and two photos of plutonium ingots.

Don’t be put off if you don’t already own a Kindle reader: you don’t need one. You can download an entirely FREE Kindle ebook reader app to your PC, Mac, or mobile device by clicking here. (Clicking link will take you to Kindle reader app installer webpage.) Trust me, it is easy and it works just fine.

I do have a couple of requests to go along with this free Kindle ebook offer. First, I know that I’ve only a small fraction of email addresses for people interested in Rocky Flats news and information. Please forward this message to anyone you think might want to get the FREE An Insider’s View Kindle ebook with its cool photos. And if you enjoy the Kindle ebook version of An Insider’s View, please consider writing a short review of the ebook at Amazon.com.

Yes, A Second FREE Kindle eBook…

FIM_3D_Cover_341pxMy second request is that you take a look at my two more recent fiction books. I published these as collaborative efforts with my grandchildren who served as “Creative Staff and Illustrators.” The first book in the series is Angry Pigs Organized Against Gerbils: The Farmer Island War, and the more recent sequel is Farmer Island Magic.

To entice you further, I’m offering the Kindle ebook version of Farmer Island Magic FREE for the 3-day period beginning March 6, 2015. Of course, I’m hoping that you will eventually consider purchasing one or both of these books in paperback.

And once again, if you read one of my Farmer Island books and enjoy it, please consider writing a short review on Amazon.com and/or refer the book(s) to a friend, relative, or colleague.

Build a Better Apple

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better-appleNon-browning GMO potatoes may be beaten to your local store by non-browning apples. Many outlets carry news of the USDA’s approval of Arctic Apples® for commercial use. They’ll be marketed as Arctic Grannies and Arctic Goldens.

Okanagan Specialty Fruits Inc. has inserted a non-bruising trait into the apples using gene silencing and precision breeding – they’ve created a GMO apple that won’t brown after being cut. No more dropping each slice in a bowl of lemon-scented water as you prepare pie filling; now you can pre-slice apples for your lunchbox; and no more sulfites on pre-sliced apples at the salad bar. Well, I guess it will depend on the price and the taste, but we’ll have a chance to find out in 2017.

Some folks are outraged. For example, “the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), which petitioned the USDA to deny approval, said the genetic changes that prevent browning could be harmful to human health, and pesticide levels on the apples could be excessive.” Note the “could” and “could” – there’s no proof. I’m sure OCA would say “yet.”

OCA’s opposition strikes me as self-defeating. Surely people who prefer organic will be more motivated than ever to buy their produce. As various articles point out, the USDA only evaluated the apples’ impact on agriculture, not on humans. “The Food and Drug Administration, which has no mandatory review process for genetically engineered foods, is looking at the new apples through a voluntary consultation with Okanagan.” The company is confident since the “apples have undergone ‘rigorous review’ and are ‘likely the most tested apples on the planet.’”

The Arctic Apple® takes GMOs to a new place. Not life saving like microbes that manufacture insulin, not nutritional like Golden Rice, not enhancing profits like Roundup resistant soybeans. Just convenient, just nice-to-have. (Well – okay – less bruising will probably help with profits, too. But – raising apples is a business and all business is about money.) Will consumers buy it? I, for one, will give it a try. I plan to buy one, eat half of it, and leave the rest, sliced, on my counter for hours.

We’ve posted about GMOs before.

War, Progress, and a Challenge for America

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worth of warWikipedia identifies Benjamin Ginsberg as a libertarian political scientist, professor at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of twenty books. I read his new book, The Worth of War, because I hate the thesis: “Although war is terrible and brutal, history shows that it has been a great driver of human progress.”

No, I thought. War is a terrible destroyer. But there’s more.

“War selects for and promotes certain features of societies that are generally held to represent progress. These include rationality, technological and economic development, and liberal forms of government.”

“Preparation for war often spurs on economic development.”

This is a short book – 175 pages in the body of my Epub version, mostly focused on Europe and America since the 17th century.

Ginsberg uses some terms idiosyncratically. He is fond of “ensorcelled”, which I think is a neat word. But his odd use of “Lamarckian” to mean lessons learned and taught to the next generation may befuddle biologists.

There is much discussion of military techniques and organization – does it really matter if brigades are divided into regiments commanded by colonels, further subdivided into…

But I did learn some interesting tidbits. Between WWI and WWII the US had color coded war plans – ranging from War Plan Black for Germany to War Plan Crimson for Canada; that Rome preferred its legionaries to be at least 5′ 10″ tall; and that modern training techniques have resulted in 90% of soldiers firing their guns in battle versus 15% in WWII.

Via the “curriculum of war” winners learn rationality and develop skills in planning, organizing, and engineering that “spillover” beyond the military. Errors in judgment can be corrected, but countries committed to magical thinking disregard facts and become losers.

Ginsberg presents examples from ancient Greece and Rome [1],China, the European Crusades, Aztecs, and the Soviet Union, but Nazis receive considerable analysis.

The bizarre Nazis ideology of racism led them to believe “mongrel” Americans could pose no military threat, that Slavic peoples were “subhumans,” and that Jews should be exterminated. They diverted war materiel to exterminating the Jews and turned Slavs who initially welcomed them as liberators from Stalin into enemies. The Nazi rejection of “Jewish science” and Jewish professionals created an “enormous transfer of intellectual capital” to their enemies. Thus their adherence to ideology led to their defeat. Continue reading →

Cut to the Chase

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The Phrase Finder has its usual detailed explanation that the current meaning is “Get to the point—leaving out unnecessary preamble.” The first use of the term was a script direction from a Hollywood director in 1929 to move the plot literally, “Cut to the case.” It was used by Helen Deutsch in an article about screen writing ran in 1944 that advised, “When in doubt, cut to the chase.” Evolution to the current meaning is exhibited by a piece in The Berkshire Evening Eagle in 1947 that announced, “Let’s cut to the chase. There will be no tax relief this year.”

The explanation ends with the entertaining observation that most “…films aimed at a young male audience involve plot devices that allow for car/boat/spacecraft chases. There is usually a token love interest before everything in sight ends up in pieces.”    

Rocky Flats Controlled Burn Delayed

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There was a commentary posted a couple of weeks ago about the proposal to perform a controlled burn in an area of the wildlife refuge in the vicinity of the closed Rocky Flats Plant. Activists who have developed a career of protesting anything about the Plant that produced nuclear weapons parts, including plutonium parts, have done their usual fine job of exaggeration risks to the point the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced the burn will be postponed. The article by Bruce Finely of the Denver Post announcing the decision also manages to repeat the inflammatory statement that Rocky Flats “…became an environmental disaster.”

The agency managing the refuge said they “…still favor the long-planned 701 acre burn—based on science—as the best way to convert Rocky Flats into a healthy wildlife refuge and protect a massive new housing development in the area.” However, they bowed to ominous warnings and said, “…we have heard concerns from the public and we want to take time to further engage in dialogue on these issues.” The burn has been issued the necessary permits, including one from the Colorado Department of Health and Environment. All agency reports had pointed out that the burn would not present a safety problem. The levels of plutonium in the area the burn was proposed are virtually the same as levels throughout the Front Range that have existed since the era of atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.

An official of the Fish and Wildlife explains, “…we have heard concerns from the public and we want to engage in further dialogue on these issues…As good neighbors, we want to assure the public that safety is our absolute priority.”

I mentioned in my previous commentary that I didn’t care much about the decision about the burn. I was wrong. I find myself discouraged. Once again public opinion and the actions of government agencies have been manipulated by inflammatory and inaccurate comments that succeeded in creating unwarranted fear. Science and reason are once again losing to fear mongering.

I have a prediction. There will be sampling and analysis of smoke from the burn if it is eventually approved and performed. It will be ominously reported that plutonium was found in the smoke. It won’t be mentioned that there would be equivalent amounts of plutonium found in smoke from a grass fire near Grand Junction, Limon, or anywhere in the world.

Does an Objective Universe Exist?

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Grand DesignThe Grand Design is a physics book that leads from antiquity to today, when a group of overlapping models called M-theory may be the unified theory of everything – though not as easy to write down as E=mc^2. “If the theory is confirmed by observation, it will be the successful conclusion of a search going back more than 3,000 years. We will have found the grand design.”

Stephen Hawking is, of course, a famous professor of mathematics and physics. His co-author Leonard Mlodinow is also a theoretical physicist who has written for Star Trek: The Next Generation. This happy combination produced a book that is casual in tone, with helpful diagrams and nerdy cartoons. I don’t think Mlodinow is the sole source of the book’s approach, since Hawking has appeared in many popular TV shows, including recently on The Big Bang where his sense of self-deprecating humor is evident.

The history of physics is well known and you may wonder if yet another book will add to public understanding. Remember that Richard Feynman once wrote “nobody understands quantum mechanics.” This is because quantum effects are beyond most of our daily experiences. I know intuitively that if I drop a glass it will fall and that if I leave something in a locked room it will be there when I return because of my experience. But cosmic relativity and infinitesimal quantum actions seem unfathomable. Repeated exposure to physics helps and this book, in particular, I enjoyed. Continue reading →