Tornado in a
Junkyard: The Relentless Myth of Darwinism
James Perloff,
Refuge Books, 1999
If you think the "Theory of Evolution" is "proven," or even consistently corroborated by the empirical evidence, this book will "blow your mind," guaranteed. Get it and read it, now. Any questions?
The Health
Hazards of Not Going Nuclear
Petr Beckmann, Golem Press,
1976
This is the classic book on nuclear power. It should be mandatory reading for anyone who thinks that nuclear power is more dangerous than the alternatives. Unfortunately, that's just about everybody.
Petr Beckmann was a Professor of Electrical Engineering and a physicist who defected from Czechoslovakia in 1963 and took a position at the University of Colorado. In this amazing book he demonstrates beyond any doubt that most of what the general public "knows" about the safety and environmental impact of nuclear power are absurd myths perpetrated by environmental extremists and the mass media.
Take nuclear waste disposal for example. We hear that it is an "unsolved" problem. I've even heard that it is "unsolvable." Never mind that the rest of the world (other than the U.S.) is going increasingly nuclear and solving the waste disposal problem just fine. Beckmann:
1.8 billion years before Alfven fantasized about `poisoning the entire globe' and Barry Commoner invoked images of a `nuclear priesthood watching over wastes for thousands of years,' there was a natural reactor in operation in what is now the Republic of Gabon in Africa. Water pockets in a uranium deposit acted as neutron traps, and at least four, perhaps as many as six, `reactor zones,' (30 ft by 30 ft by 10 ft thick) went critical 1.8 billion years ago, producing an average of 20 kW thermal power for about half a million years.
... An international scientific conference, organized by the International Atomic Energy Commission, was held in Gabon in June 1975, and among the facts it firmly established were these:
There had been 12,000 lbs of fission products, and 4,000 lbs of plutonium (virtually all decayed now). All of these have remained completely in place.
Imagine that. All that nuclear "waste," sat completely untreated in the middle of water pockets for millions of years, and it didn't go anywhere.
Twenty years ago we had the technology to convert nuclear waste into a solid, water-impermeable glass form, encase it in stainless-steel-lined concrete containers, and put it 2000 feet below the ground where water hasn't flowed for hundreds of thousands of years. And that is supposedly not safe enough! No, we need a "nuclear priesthood" to watch over it! Wake up, folks! This is one of the most preposterous lies ever told.
In the meantime, coal-fired power in the U.S. alone generates some 15 tons of waste every second, 90% of which goes into the atmosphere and kills an estimated 10,000 people per year. (That happens to be roughly the rate at which American troops died in the Viet Nam War!) And the ash is hauled away from a large plant at the rate of about two 100-ton railroad hoppers every 2 minutes during peak periods. The land required to dispose the ash from 2 weeks of coal burning is about the same as for 10,000 years worth of nuclear waste! But this certainly is not to suggest that coal-fired power is bad, only that nuclear power is incomparably cleaner.
The
Myth of Male Power
Warren Farrell, Berkeley, 1993
This amazing book will demolish most of what you "know" about male/female politics and power relationships. (Psst: Don't tell my wife about this!)
Escape From
Einstein
Ronald R. Hatch, Kneat, 1992
If you think that Einstein's Theory of Relativity is essentially indisputable, and you are interested in the nature of physical reality, you should check out this book. Ron Hatch is a recognized world-class expert in satellite-based navigation, GPS (Global Positioning System) in particular. I know because I have worked in that field and I worked briefly with him. Believe me, he is no crank.
He disputes both the Special and General Theories of Relativity, and I believe he does so effectively. This book is not easy reading by any stretch. In fact, most is beyond my level, but the part I can understand is very convincing and fascinating.
More Guns,
Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws
John
R. Lott, Jr., U. of Chicago Press, 1998
This book demolishes the myth that gun control laws aimed at law-abiding citizens reduce violent crime. In fact, it demonstrates meticulously that increased access to guns for law abiding citizens significantly reduces violent crime rates. If you find that surprising, then you need to read this book, because it shouldn't be surprising at all. It should be common sense. Lott:
Using cross-sectional time-series data for U.S. Counties from 1977 to 1992, we find that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. If those states which did not have right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1570 murders; 4177 rapes; and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided yearly.
According to this study, strict handgun control laws are therefore not just useless but counterproductive. They may also violate the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, of course, but who cares about any amendment beyond the first anymore?