When it comes to Khrushchev it is wise to remember that while he successfully softened the cruelty and despotism of his own government, that doesn’t make him a good man. He helped to execute many of the people standing in his way on his path to power just like much of the rest of the Soviet politburo. He thought nothing of destroying other nations and crushing their citizenry under the heels of Russian hegemon, nor did his successors.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day and this is one of the moments that Khrushchev correctly identifies the primary tool of Stalin’s despotism: The Personality Cult.
This style of populist demagoguery combined with myth making surrounding one often otherwise incompetent person as the ultimate leader despite their glaring personal weaknesses was instrumental to the rise and rulership of Mussolini, Adolph Hitler, Franco Francisco, Mao, Stalin, the entire Kim family regime, Papa Doc, Vladimir Putin, Idi Amin, Mugabe and just about every other so called “strong man” aspiring authoritarian in the modern era.
They are characteristically bad leaders because their goal is self empowerment and with little regard to responsible governance. Their regimes seek power and supplying excesses for “the leader” and his immediate cronies but they could care less for the lives of the common man.
I may disagree with Biden on a lot of things but I agree with him on one point.
This century’s definitive struggle will be a continuation of the struggle between Democracy and Authoritarianism just like it was for our forefathers.
So when you hear one person being advertised as the cure to all distress with claims of superior genes and near superhuman levels of every positive attribute, you better believe that person is your enemy.
This is a dramatization of the events surrounding the arrest and trial of Beria but you get the gist of it. Say what you will about the opportunistic nature of Nikita Khrushchev but Lavrentiy Beria was a thoroughbred monster. Long after his death, Beria’s personal estate became the Tunisian Embassy. The bodies of dozens of young girls were found buried on the premises during renovations. According to his personal guard he would offer roses to girls after he snatched them off the streets and raped them. The ones that turned down the roses were strangled to death.
The Cold War rift between the USSR and China and the tragedy of Mao’s incompetence. Certainly both nations held incompetent leadership, but in their ambition they shifted the burden for their failures onto their own people quietly while externalizing the blame to everyone else.
This is important to understand how both the USSR and how the People’s Republic of China still hold all other nations as adversaries. Their hunger for expansionism and resentment against the rest of the world for not falling down on their knees to embrace them as our knew god-kings has been on display from the beginning.
Russia and China both see themselves as the rightful rulers of the world for a multitude of cultural reasons that are on display here. These countries may have slightly different governments but the cultural and political motivations for expansionist doctrine in their leadership is virtually identical sans hardline communist rhetoric.
One of the water systems up here (the one that supplies water to the rural school my kids went to), had to shut down and install a filter system (at the school) because of natural uranium levels in the water.
But that water in the ground, or diluted by surface water, wasn’t hurting anyone.
Go re-read what I responded to. He was referring to naturally mined U, not underground, as opposed to weaponized U. And like I said 10mg is enough to hazardize a cubic meter. There are 5,000 mgs in one teaspoon.
Most likely the levels in your water were still low enough to be safe, because the EPA MCL is only 30 micrograms/L. Also, even at level above that (which is rare) it’s still so small that practically all will be eliminated through normal endocrine processes.
At higher unsafe levels, it will begin to form lower GI deposits, which is Bad.
Right but also much lower risk than exposure to the metal itself, because water dilutes radionuclide emanation.
Here’s why:
30 micrograms per liter triggers the EPA action, not the level of radiation, because 10 mg / cubic meter (the hazardous material threshold) = 10,000 micrograms / 1,000 liters = 10 micrograms per liter.
So water is actually permitted to exceed the IDHL (hazmat materials limit) 300% before the feds show up.
I’m every bit as smart at looking shit up on Wikipedia as you are.
I’m also smart enough to know the specific circumstances of the water supply to my kids (former) grade school, including the geology/mineralogy that produced it, and the mitigation measures taken.
Since everybody already knows who you are because Frost stocks you in 2010 and you more recently why don’t you just go ahead and post your resume and all you’re published papers with links please prove your expertise
