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  1. Xref: sparky sci.environment:12887 sci.energy:5621
  2. Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy
  3. Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU!CSD-NewsHost!jmc
  4. From: jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy)
  5. Subject: Re: Notch another one up for the Greennazis
  6. In-Reply-To: dpe@inel.gov's message of 19 Nov 92 21:00:54 GMT
  7. Message-ID: <JMC.92Nov19215037@SAIL.Stanford.EDU>
  8. Sender: news@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU
  9. Reply-To: jmc@cs.Stanford.EDU
  10. Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University
  11. References: <1992Nov17.184444.29099@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <28409@castle.ed.ac.uk>
  12.     <1992Nov19.145341.5393@inel.gov> <1992Nov19.182350.20893@vexcel.com>
  13.     <1992Nov19.210054.13062@inel.gov>
  14. Date: 19 Nov 92 21:50:37
  15. Lines: 18
  16.  
  17. Physics Prof. Bernard Cohen of Pittsburgh University and Chairman of the
  18. Health Physics Society once offered to eat a gram of plutonium oxide
  19. and to breathe a liter of plutonium oxide particles that would stay
  20. suspended in air for one minute.  He estimated that the reduction of
  21. his life expectancy would be equivalent to taking a six month sabbatical
  22. in Denver Colorado, which has more cosmic radiation than Pittsburgh
  23. because of its 5,000 foot altitude.
  24.  
  25. Note that he said plutonium oxide.  Were the plutonium methylated,
  26. he would expect to get heavy metal poisoning.
  27.  
  28. Needless to say, the U.S. Government was unlikely to be sporting
  29. enough to supply the plutonium oxide.
  30. --
  31. John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
  32. *
  33. He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
  34.  
  35.