1 comments about The Politics and Technology of Nuclear Proliferation.

1. When I first bought this book I figured that the only relevant material would be the science since the political side is almost ten years old, but I found that the politics was still relevant. In the end I found the entire book to be very informative and reader friendly, two things that I place a great value in for all books.
   
   I am not a nuclear physicist by any means, but I found the science to still be accessible. I only have a basic understanding of the physics and chemistry involved but the author doesn't go too in depth into the science in main text, but does add some appendixes for those who are much more versed than I in the scientific aspects. I think even for those who do not have a deep understanding of the processes you will still find the science elucidating.
   
   The technical aspects were very informative. The author goes into great detail about the materials required for the various separation processes. He talks about the different requirements for chemical, gaseous-diffusion and other separation methods, and then he goes on to talk about the benefits and drawbacks of each method for a developing nation attempting to develop the technology for nuclear weapons such as the difficulty of purchasing the materials needed for laser diffusion to the problems of hiding large facilities in other methods. With evolution of the NPT and other treaties in affect it has become increasingly difficult for developing nations to purchase materials that are used for the development of military use nuclear technology. The problem occurs with the dual use materials which are materials that are used for both peaceful and military purposes.
   
   The political side of the book was one of the biggest surprises for me. I expected much of the information to be out of date, and so my reading would be for more of a historical look at the pre-Sept. 11 world. What I found was that the problem of proliferation remains pretty much the same, as does the methods for combating proliferation. One of the main points I took from the book is the need for more international cooperation. The problem of proliferation is really just a problem of security no different really than a nation with conventional weapons superiority and a neighbor looking for parity. A big problem is that as long as any nation has these weapons there will be other nations that consider it to be of profound national security interest to counter a possible nuclear threat. Without a robust international organization with actual power to enforce rules and regulations on all parties there will be nations who will seek this technology.
   
   The author talks about ways in which the U.S. could protect itself from a possible attack, but I found these suggestions to be impractical. I think it is an impossibility to close off our borders whether land or sea from any attack. We have too much shipping and trade with our neighbors to the North and South for us to be able to ever become completely safe. The cost of inspecting all that shipping alone would be more than the country would be willing to bear, and that is even after Sept. 11. I think the author was correct when he suggests we spend more money and energy on intelligence. This is where the author seemed prescient.
   
   All in all I found this book to be very good. Some of the science was over my head, but I still greatly enhanced my understanding of nuclear technologies. Any one looking for a good look into nuclear proliferation would be well served to start right here.

5 comments about Ministry of Lies: The Truth Behind "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews".

1. It is truly a pity to see with what weak arguments this work is attacked. Since when must one attend a speech before rectifying bigoted distortions distributed on paper?



2. I think that it is worthwhile to refute hate speech. And this book does a good job of that.
   
   As the author says, "the Jews have had it better than the Blacks in America, in no small part because of the historical advantage derived from the biological accident of white skin." Well, lighter skin. However, "if the Nation of Islam - in junior partnership with white racist antisemites - does somehow transform the U. S. into a country where Black-Jewish cooperation towards goals of minority rights and social justice becomes impossible," Jews and Blacks will both suffer.
   
   The author says that "those who lie to us about the past foreclose our chance to shape the future."
   
   There are numerous untruths in "The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews." Brackman exposes many of them in this book. The untruths include claims that Jews "dominated" the slave trade in Medieval Europe, Africa, Latin America, and New England. In fact, Jews played a minor role in all these locations, while Arabs seem to have been the biggest slave traders in Africa. "According to the African historian J. E. Inikori, Arab slavers between the years 650 and 1900 drained Black Africa of 14.4 million people - more than most estimates of slave exports to the Americas during the 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade."
   
   What about Southern Jews? Yes, there were some Southern Jewish slaveowners. In 1830, there were about 225,000 Southern families who owned slaves, including 322 Jewish families. About 59,000 of the families owned twenty or more slaves, including 23 Jewish ones. About 11,000 of the families owned fifty or more slaves including 4 Jewish ones. By the way, the author points out that some "persons of color" owned slaves too. These colored slaveowners "outnumbered the Jewish ones by fifteen to one."
   
   I want all humans to be happy and prosperous, not poor and miserable. And I think we'll have a better chance of that if we value truth, justice, and human rights. This book is to be praised for taking a step in that direction. I recommend it.



3. I suspect, (and I am Man enough to say that I could be wrong) from the material presented here, that there is a huge degree of fallacy contained within the pages of this book. Let me point out a few things:
   1)It was stated that (European)Jewish slavers enslaved only pagan white slaves, and that Jewish slavers ceased to be involved in 1000A.D., 500 years before slaveships started carting off enslaved Africans out of Africa. Yes, there were some Africans who sold out their own African Brothers and Sisters, in service to their White Massa. Yes, there have been cases of white-on-white violence and enslavement, but if European Jews ceased to be involved in the slave trade, and if they were not involved in the TransAtlantic Slave Trade,and if European Jewish slave traders had no part whatsoever in enslaving Black people, as this book states, THEN HOW DID A LOT OF BLACK PEOPLE all over the African Diaspora END UP WITH EUROPEAN JEWISH LAST NAMES such as WALKER, WINKLER, TURNER, COLEMAN, KAUFMAN, AND CONE? Malcolm X (and other Black and SOME White Historians) was not lying when he talked about how European slavemasters forced their names, particularly THEIR LAST NAMES, on African people, to signify their status as property of their WHITE slavemasters. Therefore, the purpose of the X is to signify the UNKNOWN AFRICAN NAME that Black people originally had before being enslaved.
   2)There is a lot of emphasis on the Arabs enslaving Africans, and I've seen a lot of white people and IGNORANT Black people say, "Why do you Black Muslims claim the religion of your Arab Slavemasters? Don't you know that Arabs were enslaving Africans before the TransAtlantic Slave Trade?!!!" First of all, yes, there were, and still are some Arabs that are and were enslaving Black people. And there were some cases where some Africans had other Africans in bondage. However, this is NO COMPARISON WHATSOEVER to, and DOES NOT NEGATE OR DIMINISH the slavery that EUROPEANS unleashed on AFRICANS, ASIANS, INDIGENOUS PEOPLES, OCEANIC PEOPLES, and SEVERAL OTHER PEOPLES OF COLOR. Why?
   1)It was the EUROPEAN who developed and practiced CHATTEL SLAVERY, which is designed to reduce the enslaved to a subhuman state by nearly killing the slave - a state less than a dog. Howard Zinn even states this very same thing in A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
   2)And before anybody says, "Well,there were Free Black people who enslaved Black people, or Indians who enslaved Black people brutally in places such as Louisiana", let me say this: YOU CANNOT have Non-whites enslaving other Non-whites without first having WHITES ENSLAVING NON-WHITES.
   3)In the book, THE HISTORY OF SLAVERY, by Susanne Everett, she shows how GREEKS AND ROMANS were enslaving African peoples LONG BEFORE the Arabs even thought about it. The Arabs did not come into Africa until the 7th Century A.D. The Greeks came into Africa roughly around the 8th Century B.C., then the Romans came in roughly around the 3rd-2nd Century B.C. Obviously this would have been SEVERAL HUNDRED YEARS (roughly around 1400-1500 some odd years) before the Arabs even touched African soil. Therefore, it is MATHEMATICALLY and TRUTHFULLY impossible and assinine to state, "well the Arabs were enslaving Blacks before the Europeans". Also:
   a)on pg.15, Susanne Everett states:
   
   It is an uncomfortable fact that the Greeks. . .
   were UTTERLY DEPENDENT on slavery. THE ABOLITION
   OF SLAVERY IN GREECE WOULD HAVE DISRUPTED THE
   WHOLE FABRIC OF ITS SOCIETY. From the 6th century
   B.C. in ATHENS and other
   GREEK CITIES, slavery effectively replaced
   other forms of dependent labor. For the Greeks
   of the classical period (480-338 B.C.) it was
   UNTHINKABLE THAT SOCIETY SHOULD BE ORGANIZED IN
   ANY OTHER WAY. Plato's REPUBLIC was firmly based
   ON SLAVE LABOR, although he drew the line, in war,
   at enslaving his fellow Greeks - he advised
   soldiers to 'keep their hands off one another
   and turn their energies AGAINST FOREIGNERS'.
   
   b)On page 17, there is a picture of a Roman slave
   market, with 8 slaves. One of the slaves is a
   BLACK WOMAN; the other slaves are Whites of
   different ages, and genders.
   
   c)On page 12, there is an excerpt from THE ODDYSEY,
   dealing with slavery, and a caption which states
   that,"Slaves in Ancient Greece . . .were none the
   less the absolute CHATTELS of their masters. . ."
   
   d)On page 25 is a picture of a statue of a Nubian/
   Kemetan slave that was a house slave in a Greek
   house. The caption reads, "The Household Slaves
   Of Ancient Greece". A caption reads that the
   statue is of, "a black slave boy probably bought
   FROM THE UPPER NILE", and that he is leaning
   against an amphora, a Grecian vase.
   4)In the documentary, "A Great and Mighty Walk", The late great Dr. John Henrick Clarke talks about how the Ancient Africans were asking the Arabs to get their Greek and Roman slave masters off their backs. He says (and this is nearly an exact quote), "They (the Arabs) did get their European slavemasters off the Africans' backs - but the Arabs also REPLACED them on the African's backs". He goes on to show and discuss how the Arabs introduced Africans to Allah and the enslavement that they brought along with that.
   
   5)Michael Bradley, a white historian, talks about the Hyksos, a EURASIAN predecessor of White Jews, who invaded Kemet in the 15th Century B.C. and enslaved several of the Kemetan people (who by the way, WERE BLACK AFRICANS). He speaks of the hypocrisy of how the Exodus story has been taught to have us thinking that White Jews were enslaved in Egypt, when it was actually the other way around - the Hyksos, predecessors of White Jews, unleashed a brutal enslavement on the Black Kemetans, for roughly 400 some years (Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm............), until they were driven out by the Black Pharaoh Ahmose I. By the way, this would have been some 1500 years BEFORE the year 1000 A.D., when European Jewish slavers "ceased to be involved" in the slave trade, as this author would have people to believe.
   6)Before anyone yells out reverse racism or rants about this being "Anti-Semitic", let me quote Roman historian TACITUS who wrote this in the 1ST CENTURY (Hmmmmm. . .Who else lived in the 1st Century?Hint: he was hung on a cross):
   
   "Many say that the Jews come from ETHIOPIA."
   
   7)Dr. Yosef Ben-Jochannon talks about the original Jews who were and STILL ARE of AFRICAN ORIGIN, in WE, THE BLACK JEWS.
   
   I don't agree with everything Farrakhan says, but he does speak a lot of truths that ameriKKKa refuses to deal with. I also doubt that the author of THIS BOOK has studied Farrakhan or the Nation of Islam with any serious depth to effectively critique what the N.O.I. has said, shown, and proved. I also doubt that he met with Tony Martin to discuss what Tony Martin published, either; or if he did, he probably had a MONOLOG instead of a DIALOGUE with Tony Martin. I also doubt that he has studied the ORIGINAL origins of the Jewish people, as I have stated in points 6 and 7, above. And I SERIOUSLY doubt that what I stated above, could be refuted, which in closing, would render Harold Brackman's book faulty. Find out for yourself.



4. Obviously the author of the following quote is a .........?
   "demonstrates that you don't have to be a white Christian to be a dangerous racist spreading lies and promoting genocide---he's actually the only non-white non-Christian that I know of who is doing so in this country"



5. Harold Brackman's work here brings several questions for a reader to deal with. What is/was the motive for even writing a refutation to the Nation of Islam's book? In analyizing the references and cross-referencing said references with the NOI book, it becomes apparent that Harold Brackman's sources are extremely faulty, outright distortions, with degrees of hyperbole mixed in.
   
   The main question a studious reader must ask is, what is it about the jewish people, both past and currently, incites so much examination? This examination includes the scisms within jewish culture, how jewish people conduct commerce, the defense of the nation/state of israel to name few. Harold Brackman's work, we come to find out has been paid for by his jewish employers. That fact alone is cause for some skepticism as to the acurracy of his sources and his motives for writing the book. Corrolatively, one has to ask a similar question regarding the NOI research department in writing their book.
   Since the jewish people's motives seemed to get attacked by various groups and individuals, it would be intelligent to answer the question, what precisely is anti-semitism, and is being jewish a racial category separate from the acrual religion of judiasm? Harold Brackman's work would have gone alot further in establishing a dialogue if the above questions had of been placed in his discussion, and answered cogently by jewish person's. Lastly, for the reader who is looking for a validation of vitrol against the NOI, Harold Brackman provides this activity. This work is not unbiased. As a reader of this work, I continually asked the question, is there a definition of racism clearly gleaned from this work or not. The answer was no! It would be much more sensible if jewish leaders convened an intelligent forum or conference, and addressed the NOI work to the public. If jewish leaders would do this, then this work might be taken a bit more seriously than simply a BLACK male scholar being used as a pawn in a very trecherous game.This book is not work it's purchase price!!

2 comments about 101 Solved Nuclear Engineering Problems.

1. Well, the questions that are given are reasonably good. The answers are OK although they generally don't give much detail. They cover a wide variety of topics, but 101 questions just gives a few in each area. Having gone through the Navy's nuclear power program, I would not have found this book a good supplement for studying the material. This is an OK book, but quite frankly, not worth the price. For the price I'd expect more like 1001 questions. I wouldn't pay alot for it, so try to find it used. Unfortunately, it may the best of its kind out there, as I have not seen any other problem-answer books for nuclear engineering.



2. This guide completes its mission just as stated: "These are the subjects tested on the nuclear engineering PE exam, so working through the problems provides excellent exam preparation". The questions are very good and each subject area is covered in sufficient quantity and quality to "knock the rust off" as one prepares for the PE examination. The author recognized a need and addressed very well.
   Having retired from the Navy's Nuclear power program, there is little outside of the Navy supplied reference material to assist in the operation of Naval reactors. This book does provide invaluable experience for the naval operator when working problems using civilian units and terms in preparation for the PE examination

2 comments about Essentials of Radiation Biology and Protection.

1. While main concepts of Radiation Biology are well-presented, the book also offers short well-written reviews of related biology (i.e. how cell functions overview in a few pages).
   
   I am giving this book 4 stars because the author seems to be a little excessive with abbreviations and the editor(s) not too careful with spelling, which always makes me wonder if the numbers are correct. However, I'd say with a mistake per 10 pages this is not so bad.
   
   I am not a radiation biologist and never intend to become one. For me these hundred-some pages provided sufficient info to maintain a professional conversation on the subject which was my initial intent.



2. Very simple and to the point. If in the diagnostic radiology field (student or not), worth adding to library. But why the four star, you may ask? It is expensive and has no fundamental/introductory information on ionizing radiation and as a result makes the book "a text book that cannot stand on its own"

No comments about The Thermal-Hydraulics of a Boiling Water Nuclear Reactor.

2 comments about Scattering Theory: The Quantum Theory of Nonrelativistic Collisions (Dover Books on Engineering).

1. Ad the title says, the book covers non-relativistic scattering theory. It covers the expected topics of partial wave expansions, Born approximation, single and multi-channel scattering. I used this book when I was learning scattering theory during graduate school at U. of Colorado. It is a good introduction to scattering theory. My only reservation is that the book is general. People looking for scattering theory book specific to say, nuclear physics, might be better off with McCarthy's book (old one) or Feshbach's.



2. Scattering theory is a notoriously difficult area in quantum mechanics. After looking several classics, I borrowed a copy of this book, then out of print, and found immediately it was at the right level. The exposition is always to the point, never overloaded with side issues or minor details, yet very clear and precise, a pleasure to read. It leaves the nice feeling of understanding exactly everything the author explains.
   So I immediately photocopied the book, and I am very pleased of it being back in print thanks to Dover, and got already a new copy.
   Despite the book being over 30 years old, the presentation is still fresh, the hallmark of a classic. The only complain, is that me too would like more topics, and the coverage of some important progress, which is apparently available only in mathematical physics text, pretty hard for the average physicist. But this calls for a second volume, nothing to be changed on the present one.

No comments about Radioactive Waste Management.

2 comments about Shouldering Risks: The Culture of Control in the Nuclear Power Industry.

1. I read this book in an effort to better understand the civilian nuclear industry (which I have worked in since 1986). Having held various technical and management positions in the US Navy nuclear program and civilian nuclear industry, my experience is broad enough to conclude that Constance Perin has done her homework. She brings a cultural anthropologist's view to the management of risk at nuclear power stations, which are often run by and for technocrats, so her perspective is refreshing. She takes a balanced approach and appears to have no personal agenda regarding nuclear power. Much of what she says rings true, although I found her writing style to be stilted and distracting. I do not recommend SHOULDERING RISKS for anyone looking for a casual read, but it is worth the effort for those seeking to learn more about humans perceive and manage risks in complex, high-stakes environments.



2. This is profoundly important work on the culture of safety, written from an anthropologists perspective which deconstructs the meaning of people in nuclear power plants who see extreme risk around them all the time and have created devices to identify threats and respond, sometimes more appropriately than others. I highly recommend this boo.

No comments about The Radiance of France: Nuclear Power and National Identity after World War II (Inside Technology).

No comments about One World or None: A Report to the Public on the Full Meaning of the Atomic Bomb.