My brother had an amusing dialogue with a girl from Greenpeace the other day. He answered the door, she tried to get him on board as a "Friend of Greenpeace" (in other words, give them money). He gave her a run for her money . . . poor girl . . .
Every point she made about how we need to make a stand to our provincial and federal politicians to consider better alternatives to energy and such like wind over nuclear. Y'know, like how we could fill Northern British Columbia (probably Canada's most mountainous, most heavily wooded province) with windmills. Or that nuclear power is not something we want to get into because of all the radiation.
Brother (who was loopy from just getting off work and a flu, mind you) asserted that he felt that nuclear energy was a viable, sustainable source of energy, that mining for Uranium was no more worse than mining for other minerals/substances, that radiation had its uses such as in radiation therapy and chemotherapy and whatnot . . . a claim that Greenpeace-girl refuted, saying that she didn't believe in chemo' being that there are "other natural ways to fight cancer like the raw meat diet".
The raw meat diet. Cures cancer. Really now?
So yeah, she left pretty soon after that . . . I'm just sad I missed the actual event and only heard about it later. Ah well . . . but really, I'd like to think we're past the age where fear of nuclear power scares people into doing things (or not doing things, as the case may be).
Reminded me of this commercial I saw for a water filter. It basically made the point that the water coming out of your kitchen sink faucet is the same water that fills your toilet.
"Oh god! We're drinking toilet water!!!"
Y'know . . . ignoring the fact that maybe toilet water is just a lot cleaner than we give it credit? Sure, we know what goes into the toilet and what grows along the inside of the toilet . . . but wouldn't you say the water itself is generally fairly clean so long the rest of your plumbing is?
Saw a commercial for a surface cleaner last night, similar idea. "The kitchen counter can have just as much bacteria on it as a toilet seat!" 'Cause apparently people's butt cheeks and upper thighs are incredibly dirty and we never wash our toilet seats! Yikes!
Example closer to home . . . the cop brother who owns a house recently humoured a couple vacuum cleaner salesmen. Invited them to the house so they could vacuum everything while he had a little note pad writing down stuff like their names, how long they've been working with the company, and any other random bits and pieces he deemed worthy of writing down. Every time they asked him about cleaning stuff he'd answer "I don't know,"; every time they asked if they could set up a filter in a closed off room he'd say "no,"; every time they asked him if he felt the air felt cleaner, he'd say "not really,". Classic hard-ass, those brothers of mine . . . explains a lot about me, eh?
Anyway, the living room part involved diagrams of dust mites blown up on paper with a "you don't want to breathe these in while you sleep, do you?" Brother apparently just kinda went ".....no, I don't." Really, what kind of weirdo is gonna answer yes to a question like that? Again, the scare tactics. "Oh god! I'm breathing in thousands of these eight-legged jawed monsters every night!!!"
Scare tactics are stupid. I don't ever want any of you to not be able to see these for what they are. I mean, I'm sure the water filter works great, that the surface cleaner cleans surfaces, and that those guys' vacuum cleaner did in fact vacuum carpets well enough. But c'mon . . . your toilet water may not be stored in the cleanest receptacle in the house, but it's not like it's raw sewage coming back up after every flush . . .
