In response to the Dec. 19 editorial, "Look at reviving nuclear-power industry":

Nuclear energy is not the way to go.

Nuclear power plants are a disaster waiting to happen. A look at the record around the world is enough to bring us back to reality.

Accidents have released raditation in Britain, multiple times in Russia, multiple times in Japan, and in the United States.

Many of these accidents have been directly responsible for death or illness. This doesn't include the dozen or so accidents where plant workers have been injured or killed.

New plants are accidents waiting to happen through human error, mechanical error, lack of maintenance due to national economic downturn or intentional cost cutting to maintain a profitable plant, a direct attack on a plant, unexpected earthquakes which are overdue in many parts of the country, or materials fatigue, to name a few.

There are many alternatives to increased power production. Drive less. Consume less. Turn home heating and air conditioning down. Build homes designed for maximum solar gain and summer cooling. Create energy efficient, local industry.

Incidentally, the paper owes a correction. Contrary to the editorial, there was radiation released into both the air and river water.

Eric B. Miller, Philomath

Editor's note: According to a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission fact sheet on the Three Mile Island accident, radiation was released from an auxiliary building at the plant. The Gazette-Times regrets the error.

Bush administration arrogance disturbing

The Bush administration's refusal to engage meaningfully at the recent climate summit in Bali, followed by its refusal to allow Oregon and 16 other states to establish effective carbon-emission standards, is like a crowded lifeboat sinking in a threatening sea.

While nearly everyone frantically bails water out of the boat, the fattest person on board refuses to help, noting that others are not bailing fast enough, and fearing that he might lose weight.

The science is unequivocal that the consequences of global warming are upon us and are worsening, that humans are causing the warming and that only concerted action can lessen the impacts.

I doubt that our children and grandchildren will forgive the arrogant inaction of the United States, which accounts for about 5 percent of the Earth's population and about 25 percent of the world's carbon emissions.

Mark Hixon, Corvallis

Suggestions for wild Christian stories

Now that their frontman is in the White House, the fundamentalists are flexing their muscle.

There is a strong anti-Christian bias, they clamor. To appease this very legitimate concern, I now offer some suggestions.

How about a TV series based on the popular George Burns movies, "Oh God" (He is a, oh my, sitcom-pilot).

Next, to counter the film adaptions of Philip Pullman's insidious books, we will ask Mel Gibson to direct "The Golden Compassion of the Christ."

Finally, as an antidote to the erroneous messages sent out by the hugely popular J.K. Rowling books, with their tales of magic and sorcery and improbable feats performed by young wizards, we'll find someone to write a pair of religious books wherein two people get punished for eating an apple given by a snake, where one hero gets swallowed by a really big fish and lives to tell about it. Another hero plays a musical instrument very loud and walls come tumbling down.

In another story, a Dumbledore-type guy goes up this big mountain and comes down with a couple of stone tablets he claims were given to him by a supreme power.

In one more story, a Voldemort-type guy is tempting a Harry Potter-type wizard in the desert.

Anyway, you get the idea.

What is it, you say? These preposterous books already exist?

Oh, well - I am running out of suggestions.

Thank God they are showing "The Nutcracker" on TV.

Leo de Vogel, Corvallis

Gun debate goes to cheap shots, again

Gordon Shadle's modest proposal ("Armed citizens can help protect us," Dec. 20) is fine - if applied impartially: "People who create gun-free zones should be held personally accountable for the consequences of their decision. When the next massacre happens, those who imposed the zone should be held liable for failure to protect from a foreseeable event."

OK. And for each gun murder outside a gun-free zone, opponents of such a zone should be held liable for failure to protect from that foreseeable event.

Actuaries for the plaintiff's bar will bet that against Mr. Shadle's foreseeable any day. (I'll take a piece of that class-action - and retire.) Let's see who gets sued most for "enabling mass-murder" (what a cheap shot). See you in court.

"The killing fields called gun-free zones" - another breathtaking language abuse. As we sling it around, let's at least do the numbers: Ask the Brits how their (gun-free) "killing fields" compare to our (very gun-abundant) "killing fields."

"Carry"-law advocates say police protect inadequately - so we're all to be deputized. Yet when we propose to do the deputizing (screen, train and license "responsible citizens" - and exclude others), the gun lobby howls Second Amendment infringement. (Hint: If we tolerate any laws regarding guns - we do - we've already infringed on that sacred unfettered right. We're just debating where the line is.)

I'll stand with the "carry" advocates when they stand for meaningful, enforceable gun control that prevents those carry laws from taking us back to the wild, wild West.

Chris Coffin, Corvallis