GOP and Taxes: The Aha Moment
Republicans don’t increase taxes on the wealthy during an economic downturn—it will exacerbate the problem. Republicans don’t increase taxes on the wealthy during a recession—it will slow recovery. Republicans don’t increase taxes on the wealthy during a depression—it drains scarce capital needed to rebuild the economy. Republicans don’t increase taxes on the wealthy during an economic recovery because it inhibits economic growth. Republicans don’t increase taxes on the wealthy during boom times because it discourages increased investment.
Oh, now I get it. Republicans don’t tax the wealthy!
Paul G. Jaehnert
Vadnais Heights, Minn.
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Can’t Stand Mild Abandon
Another week, another depressing, humor-challenged inclusion by E.J. Pettinger.
Seriously, do any of your readers actually find this stuff amusing, much less funny? Does one need to be a member of some exclusive club to appreciate the oh-so-precious humor? Humor that is as mysterious and ultimately inscrutable as Donald Trump’s hair. There can be no good reason to subject any of your fair readers to either of those horrors, week after week. You’ve replaced the truly funny and politically insightful This Modern World with the cringingly bad scribblings of someone who appears to have a degenerative social disorder. Which would be fine if the result was actually funny. Which it isn’t.
Whatever the reason that led you to subject us to this tripe, please… spare us further pain. A blank page would be preferable.
Bruce Seifried
Williamsburg
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Nuclear Power Safe
What I am taking away from Fukushima so far is that nuclear power is surprisingly safe, that the nuclear power industry is careful, and that none of that makes it into the public mind. I don’t see the emergency going “exponential.” Instead I see reactors that were shut down successfully by automated systems, with cooling systems (wiped out by a tsunami nearly three times higher than the plants were designed for) being gradually being brought back on line to bring them to “cold shutdown.” Granted that this required a writeoff of the reactors by injecting seawater.
I see the industry reacting to 100 millisievert exposures with care, sending workers to the hospital for observation. For comparison, 100 millisieverts is the maximum exposure under normal conditions, beyond which increased cancer rates become statistically significant; 250 millisieverts is the exposure authorized during this crisis by Japan’s government; 170 millisieverts is the dose workers received that were standing in radioactive water (many mistakes were made there, from not testing the water to not training the contractors to pay attention to their dosimeters); 500 millisieverts is the dose the World Health Organization considers acceptable for emergency situations; 1,000 millisieverts is the dose at which radiation sickness can begin to occur.
I see design “lessons learned” as well, from the need to vent steam (which created much of the radiological release as well as the torus breach) to designing for much larger tsunamis when situated on the coast. Overall, I think reactors need to be designed for larger natural disasters; old reactors that don’t incorporate the last 40 years of design research need to be re-evaluated.
Thorsten Behrens
via email
Correction: Last week the Sierra Grille was misidentified as the Sienna Grille in the sidebar to our article, “Following the Signs.” We regret the error.
