ON OMNISCIENT JUDGES AND TWIN BROTHERS

Galileo: "A potential Chernobyl in the sky' wailed Ralph Nader; "Would render large areas of Florida uninhabitable," declared AIDS and cancer protector Jeremy Rifkin; and Jean-Michel Cousteau envisioned "plutonium-powered spaceships to flee a plutonium-ravished Earth."

At press time, a judge has turned down the Luddites' suit to scratch the Galileo mission; so the Green stormtroopers will over-rule the court as they overrule the ballot box and will attempt to sabotage the launch with hooliganism and trespass. And what if the judge had ruled otherwise? That would have been the end of it. If they win, you lose; if they lose, you lose again.

The suit and the stormtroopers are backed by the Christic Institute, one of the vilest organizations among the professional saboteurs. They have now been twice fined, even in the anything-goes US judicial system, for filing frivolous suits, with an additional fine imposed on their totalitarianism-loving attorney W. Kunstler. This fazes them not at all, for these haters of capitalism have all the capital in the world. The previous time they were fined was in a suit filed against Gen. John Singlaub, one of the heroes of our time. One of their millionaire sugar daddies, A. Anagnos, bailed them out and Singlaub continues to be in financial straits as intended by the Christics. You can hit back at these lice by contributing to the World Freedom Foundation, 108-A S. Columbus St., Arlington, VA 22314, which helps Singlaub defend freedom where the US government is too chicken-hearted to breathe.

Now to another suit: US District Judge S. Arthur Spiegel ap-proved a $78 million settlement by which the DoE will compensate people living near or working for the Fernald nuclear weapons (uranium fuel) plant two years up to Dec. 18,1984, when "news of massive pollution leaks began to surface." (Note that the news began to surface; the radioactive pollution by uranium itself is no worse than by a coal-fired plant [AtE Aug 89 and correction Sep 89]). The settlement compensates only for decreased proper-ty values or mental anxiety; the "victims" are still free to ask for more of your money by blaming other illnesses on Fernald. Two corporations in danger of having to pay for the cleanup balked, but the Hon. Spiegel assured them they could always sue the DoE, which has plenty more of your money for more such suits and damages. The whole episode is a prime example of how the judi-cial and executive branches of the government are subservient to the unchecked and unbalanced media branch.

Judge Spiegel made no effort to ascertain whether Fernald was the only source of uranium in the area or whether coal-fired plants do not put a comparable or greater amount of uranium into the environment. He knows all about uranium, and should he need his appendix removed, I hope he will have it done by an equally erudite judge.

But Spiegel is not just ignorant of health physics (which is no discredit to a judge); he is also not much of a lawyer. Although I cannot quote the precedent exactly, I distinctly remember a case reported in Time in the early 70s (in Florida, if memory serves); a criminal was convicted on the basis of eye witnesses' testimony. But the appeals court reversed the conviction because there was no proof the witnesses had not mistaken the man for his twin brother (of unknown whereabouts at the time).

Two uranium atoms, emitted by a coal-fired plant and a fuel-fabricating plant, respectively, can be distinguished from each other only by their positions and velocities; they are incomparably less distinguishable than two twin brothers.