He Can’t Pronounce Nuclear, But…

President Bush opined yesterday that the solution to “greenhouse gases” is more nuclear plants. George W. Bush, the great intellect who refuses to read newspapers, who refuses to talk to anyone who disagrees with him, and who has always categorically denied the fact of global warming, now says the biggest factor contributing to global warming, greenhouse gases, can be stopped if we build more nuclear plants. The president made a trip to Limerick, PA Wednesday to deliver a speech while standing in front of the town’s twin nuclear cooling towers to promote the energy bill he just signed into law. He said, “Let's quit the debate about whether greenhouse gases are caused by mankind or by natural causes; let's just focus on technologies that deal with the issue…nuclear power will help us deal with the issue of greenhouse gases." Happy idiot that he is, George W. Bush now believes he has solved the global warming problem while at the same time solving his plummeting approval rating problem. And he returned to Washington, DC to solve his other problems in the same way: The Iraq war problem is not a problem, but if it becomes a problem the president will sign a law saying it’s illegal to view it as a problem. There are no illegal immigrants in the US and if there were, which there are not, they are not a problem because the president will sign a law making it illegal to say illegal immigrants are illegal. Corruption in politics and big business is not a problem, but if it were, George W. Bush would pass a law that changes the definition of corruption from “dishonest exploitation of power for personal gain” to “God-ordained entitlement of political and business leaders”. And the illegal wiretapping problem has already been solved because the Prez says illegal wiretapping is legal wiretapping. But back to the now-solved global warming problem: Because the president is so incredibly stupid and will say anything his speechwriters tell him to say, he is ignoring major facts about nuclear power plants. The processes involved in uranium mining produce great quantities of greenhouse gases. And the building and decommissioning (that is, when the power plant owner decides to cease operations permanently) of power stations also produce significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to being very costly. The building of a nuclear power station takes at least five years. The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have given nuclear power a very bad rep in people’s minds. And getting rid of the nuclear waste produced by nuclear power plants has never been solved. Nuclear waste is dangerous for thousands of years. But the president’s top reason for building more nuclear power plants is a mind-bender. Bush said, “For the sake of economic security and national security, the United States of America must aggressively move forward with the construction of nuclear power plants." I certainly hope someone in the White House press corps asks President Mush-for-Brains to explain that one off-the-cuff. But I am betting if he’s asked how nuclear power plants will ensure national security, he will say he can’t get into that because it’s classified information having to do with national security.