The Golden Oldies of Nuclear Terrorism

Wow, God! Look at this!

The e-newsletter HS Today (HS="homeland security") reported on May 21 that as late as last year, "the NRC was unable to assess the adequacy of security at the nation’s 104 commercial nuclear power plants at 65 facilities in 31 states."

See, the HS Today editor is all hot around the collar about security because, at a nuclear power plant in southern Sweden, two contract workers were arrested "on suspicion of planning sabotage after a bag one was carrying was found to have traces of an explosive known to be used by terrorists…."

I don't know why the poor HS Today editor is letting the Sweden event get to him. I mean, it's not like he's Swedish or anything.

That man needs to acquire some perspective. And so I've taken the trouble of drawing up for him a reassuring list I call…

The Golden Oldies of Nuclear Terrorism
If We Survived These Plots, We'll Survive 'Em All, Probably

• In 1969 a dynamite bomb was discovered near the University of Illinois, Urbana nuclear research reactor.
  
• In 1970, a pipe bomb was found at the Point Beach 1 nuclear power plant near Two Creeks, Wisconsin.
  
• In Nov. 1971, an arsonist lit the Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant at Buchanan, New York.
  
• Also in 1971 someone tampered dangerously with valves and switches at valves and switches at Commonwealth Edison’s Zion Nuclear Station near Chicago.
  
• Someone severed cables and clogged helium filters at the Ft. St. Vrain nuclear plant in Colorado.
  
• And once, back in the 70s, an intruder at our own Vermont Yankee an intruder entered the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant and wounded a night security guard before escaping.
  
• In 1977, in Columbia, Oregon, The Environmental Assault Unit of the New World Liberation Front exploded a bomb at Portland General Electric Company's Trojan nuclear power plant.
  

And so on for another 31 years. Actually, Lord, as far back as 1976 the NRC declared that there had already been more than 100 bomb threats against nuclear sites in America. I wonder how many have accrued to-date?

Do you think this list will get the HS Today editor to calm down? 'Cause his nerves are making me nervous.

Thanks, Lord.

Fake-Rob