Better a Shield than a Sword is Edward Teller's new book ($19.95, hdbd., 257pp., Free Press [Macmillan], 1987). I still have 50 pages to read, but can't wait another month to recommend this wonderful book to everybody. The title refers to the SDI, but that is only a part of the collection of reminiscences and essays on such diverse subjects as Einstein's letter to Roosevelt, a moon laboratory proposal, and Chernobyl. It is packed with new and exciting infor-mation, filled with humor, and is gripping like a detective story. Compared with his previous books, there is also much more about Teller the man, his actions, opinions and beliefs: the monstrous rightwing extremist painted by the media machine comes through as a gentle liberal without quotation marks. The "liberals" with quota-tion marks are too bigoted and dumb to read this book, of course. Serves them right; they don't deserve the pleasure.
And a second book which is must reading for every subscriber. Prof. John Fremlin's Power Production: What are the Risks? (326 pp., paperback, Oxford Univ. Press, 2nd ed., 1987). Written for the layman and eminently readable, this is probably the most com-plete book on the subject (virtually a reference book), reaching the inescapable conclusion that nuclear power is far safer than fossil fuels
¾even for the case of terrorism and sabotage. (The specifically British points, such as the Magnox reactor, will not at all be boring for the American reader.) Fremlin is a (retired) professor of radiology at the Univ. of Birmingham, England, and every paragraph in the book displays not only his vast knowledge, but also his eloquence and unusually developed common sense. I most emphatically recommend this book to every reader¾and also to the timid incompetents of the US nuclear industry who evade the nuclear/fossil comparison as meticulously as Jane Fonda, and think they can reach a population brainwashed into nuclear phobia by moronic advertisements about diversifying energy sources. (To be available from Oxford U.P., 200 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016; has not yet arrived at this writing.)Why Washington is ALWAYS wrong by Y.J. Lubkin ($10, ppbd., 108pp., Ben Franklin Industries, 3431 Chaneyville Rd., Owings, MD 20736,1978): Yes, I support Austrian economics, but I am tired of the rehashers who think they can explain Hayek better than Hayek. This book is different: it is funny, intelligent, quan-titative but not difficult, and has new things to say.
"The Alaskan key to US energy security," Backgr. 596, $2.50, Heritage Fndtn., 214 Mass. Ave. N.E., Washington, DC 20002.
R.J. Myers, "What oil crisis?" Amer. Spect., June 87; see also debate between Leutze and Myers in Sept. 87 issue (pp.51-52).
The Aug. 87 issue of The Freeman is particularly good: Jane Orient, "One complaint per customer, please" (on bureaucratized medicine), M.D. Barger, "Free-market mail is on the horizon," J.F. Amador, "Take back the environment", and more. FEE, Irvington o.H., NY 10533 (free; contributions welcome).
The Faith Healers by J. Randi ($18.95, Prometheus Books, 700 E.Amherst St., Buffalo, NY 14215), to be published in September, is by the professional magician who exposed Uri Geller's fraudulent spoon-bending by ESP and "psycho-energetics" [AtE Jan 76]. Since then, Geller has performed for incurable suckers, such as Neville Shultz in Geneva.
P.J. Denning, "Computer models of AIDS epidemiology" (Amer. Scientist, Jul/Aug 87) is meant for computer experts, but reveals the great uncertainties about incubation time ("appears to run between 5 and 10 years") and other critical parameters of the disease that, unlike radioactivity, is being pooh-poohed by the media.
"I know that the principal northern papers reach the enemy regularly & . . . that by this means the enemy can defeat us to the end of time. . .
"The consequence [of catering to the press] is & has been that officers instead of keeping the Executive Branch advised of all movements, events, or circumstances that would enable it to act advisedly & with vigor, communicate with the public direct through the Press... Officers find it easier to attain rank, renown, fame, and notoriety by the cheap process of newspapers."
GEN. WILLIAM T. SHERMAN
Letter from Camp Vicksburg, 17 Feb. 1863
(among newly published letters, American Heritage, Jul/Aug 1987)
"Generals who can write always make me nervous. . . [I hope] the current crop of press bashers don't read all of these letters."
BEN BRADLEE
Editor, The Washington Post, Spring 1987
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Vol. 15, No. 1
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Issues Issue/No.: Vol. 15, No. 1 Date: November 30, 2004 02:04 PM Title: Hypocrite's dilemma
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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