On the radio, this morning, at a campaign rally, I heard McCain say this:

"You know, the other night in the debate with Senator Obama, I said his eloquence is admirable, but pay attention to his words. We talk about offshore drilling and he said he would quote, consider, offshore drilling. We talked about nuclear power, well it has to be safe, environment, blah, blah, blah."

At the sound of the blah blah blah, his audience errupted in enormous laughter and applause...

Apparently, the Republican activists on hand for the speech found "blah, blah, blah" to be absolutely hilarious. Where is the humour in this? What is their level of awareness?

My father worked on the propulsion engine for the first Polaris missile. Later, he set up the first nuclear weapons depot for the Atlantic submarine fleet. I worked on the North Anna nuclear power plant, back in the early 70's, actually manufacturing the high quality concrete required by the continuous reactor pour. 20 years later I was part of a team of Systems Analysts that electronically re-engineered the process for obtaining a license to possess nuclear materials, for the Nuclear Regulatory Agency.

Last time I flew to San Francisco, I sat next to one of the world's pre-eminent authorities on the effects of radiation on human health. He was a consultant to NIH who had lived and studied the population of Hiroshima for 20  years. At that time I worked for a major healthcare media company, and we had a long talk about radiation and health issues. So, throughout my life, I have been exposed to issues regarding radiation and public safety.

Bottom Line: Radioactive materials are poison. They stay in the environment for a long time. If you inhale a particle of Plutonium, and 20 years from now, develop lung cancer, and your remains are cremated--the radioactive particle of Plutonium goes up in smoke, is assimilated into the atmosphere, and will perhaps take up residence in some other poor soul, and so on and so forth,  for the next 24,100 years. That is the half life of Plutonium. Pluto was the Lord of the Underworld. Apt name.

There is mine in the Congo called Shinkolobwe. It has been such a security problem for the Govt of the Congo that they have been attempting, in vain to seek help from the US, British, or French, to take over the mine, which has been closed to Uranium production for many years. It is one of the richest sources of Uranium in the world. This is where the Uranium came from that ended up as Plutonium in the air over Hiroshima and Nagasake. The locals, back in the day, used to smear the yellow clay on their bodies and attack their enemies by night, glowing in the dark. They were not a long-lived tribe. Today, valuable deposits of cobalt are intermingled with the Uranium, attracting the locals to come and mine the cobalt by hand, a certain death sentence 20 years down the road. Cobalt is very expensive, these days.

The security lifecycle on radioactive materials begins at birth, and must be sustainable until their death, which varies from compound to compound, but is longer than human recorded history, in the case of Plutonium. What if you came into this world and discovered your ancestors had been stacking up Plutonium waste for the past 24,000 years? How big a security force would be needed to control the waste? What about earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, and asteroids from outer space?

Yes, there have been breakthroughs in terms of sealing up nuclear materials in durable glass casings. This would prevent problem of ground water contamination or perhaps earthquake. But a determined terrorist could still crack open the glass canisters, given sufficient force. And absolute security must stay with nuclear materials at every stage of their journey and resting place from cradle to grave and beyond, for 24,000 years.

My whole point is this: the security requirements for the lifecycle of nuclear materials are very high. Frankly, they don't come any higher. Obama wants these safeguards to be carefully scrutinized.

Apparently, McCain does not believe in 'Safety First'. And if he can mutter blah, blah, blah in contempt, when someone raises the issue of public safety, then what does he believe in?

And what is the nonsense that his supporters believe in?

Is it possible, before we take Plutonium to the Altar, to have some nuclear wedding counseling before the fact? Because a nuclear wedding, in terms of human scale, is forever and ever, amen.