Awright, I need a poem to justify this- lemme think.
OK, got it, here;
Little Miss Muffet sat in some MUF
Boom! She burned her buns and her muffins
The End.
==========================================
DO YOU KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT MUF?
Do you feel that you are well-informed enough
to make a wise decision for whom to vote?
What constitutes being "well-informed"? Do you
know who is the Prime Minister of Canada?
What is the capital of Kentucky?
Too often, we mistakenly try to measure knowledge as if
it were a Trivial Pursuit game. A head stuffed with
meaningless and irrelevant facts, however accurate,
is not likely to constitute wisdom about our world.
Does the term "MUF" mean anything to you?
If it does, you are probably in a minority.
Try asking your friends, family, coworkers,
or random strangers that you meet, whether the term means
anything to them. Much of the time, you will probably draw
blank stares.
If the term "MUF" means nothing to you, then you are seriously
deficient in understanding of the world around you - of the
relevant facts that *really* matter- and could not at present
make an informed decision for whom to vote.
The term MUF means "Material Unaccounted For", as in plutonium
that is missing, that could be used to make nuclear weapons.
It is also now called ID, "inventory difference" (no difference
in meaning).
Next Question: How much MUF, exactly, is there, at present time,
in this world? Any? A little? Enough to make a bomb or two?
Controls and safeguards are very, very tight, aren't they?
Answer: There is *already* enough MUF to make at least
hundreds, or potentially even thousands, of nuclear weapons.
Of course, MUF is politicized question, just like "global warming".
MUF simply isn't generating anywhere near the amount of media "buzz"
that global warming is currently generating. In the political landscape
of the last few decades, MUF has probably not received as much
media coverage as "Monica Lewinsky" and "OJ Simpson".
As to how much MUF exists, it depends whom you ask-
an anti-nuclear group, or environmentalists,
or a government agency that is eager to defend its record and
to make sure that the public remains happy and supportive.
However, amid the noise and bickering, a clear picture emerges-
we are not talking about a few potential weapons, but
a great many potential weapons. The danger exists already,
as of today, not simply "maybe", sometime in the future.
Next Question: Hundreds or thousands of weapons
in the hands of whom, exactly?
Answer: Wouldn't it be nice to know? When something is
"unaccounted for", it might be an innocent accounting error,
or it might be your worst nightmare. By definition, you cannot know.
That is why we need to tread so lightly and tiptoe through
the mine-field of our world so carefully.
Next Question: when there is enough MUF to make numerous
nuclear weapons, do you *really* think that "gay marriage"
is a more serious issue than a preemptive war and a thinly veiled
grab for disappearing cheap oil, when this policy is dangerously
inflaming sentiments in other parts of the globe, and is
likely to provoke retaliation in kind?
Yes, that is a leading question, but fairly so. The question
answers itself, for nearly anyone who cares to admit the truth.
People who are infuriated with the mentality of the last election
are called "Chicken Littles" and worse, for having a vision
that is slightly apocalyptic, at the outcome. So we are told, we
are just dramatizing, just being "sore losers". "The Empire
always goes on", said one female newscaster.
Maybe the Empire *doesn't* always go on. This is not the
season, in the history of mankind, to be pushing our luck
with such determination. Not for the sake of an oil-grab.
Our mud-wrestling-match style of politics and our soft-peddled
national bigotry is representing the pure decadence of a country
that is playing with some serious fire, far more than what it
seems to realize.
We do not need leaders who think that Jesus is going to protect
them against their own recklessness.
A drunken teenager can go on a wild car-race at 90 miles
an hour and still manage to come home, safe and sound,
much of the time. That does not mean that the horrible
vision of him as a burning, mutilated corpse in a twisted
pile of burning scrap-metal, was ever an incorrect vision,
no matter what the actual outcome.
Sometimes, the after-effects of a bad decision are not
felt for decades. Sometimes, the cause-and-effect are
so far removed in time, that most people cannot even
perceive the connection. Sometimes, the avoidance of
of a catastrophe is at best by the grace of sheer luck,
not a product of wise policy.
Tom Keske
================================================
2. Nuclear Safeguards
... between what is believed to be present from the accounts and what is
found to be present by stock-taking is referred to as
Material Unaccounted For, or MUF. ...
http://www.magma.ca/~jalrober/Chapter12f.htm
=================================================
http://www.ased.org/artman/publish/article_572.shtml
The time has come to face the plain truth. The nuclear
proliferation danger is real - everywhere.
Huge quantities of enriched uranium and weapons-grade
plutonium routinely pass through civilian nuclear facilities
the world over. Plutonium, only 5 to 8 kilos of which is
enough to make a Nagasaki-type bomb, is traded in amounts
such as tonnes between Japan and Europe alone.
There are large quantities of MUF ("material unaccounted-for")
in the world's reprocessing facilities. The IAEA admits this.
There are willing proliferators too in the former Soviet Union
in the shape of hundreds of unemployed nuclear scientists
===================================================
14. NucNews - November 24, 2003
... work; deadline still end of 2004. Chernobyl fallout still ...
the problem as MUF (material unaccounted for), and found ...
years and secretly reprocessed plutonium, useable in weapons. ...
http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2003nn/0311nn/031124nn.htm
================================================
2. September 14, 2004 To: Commissioner Loyola de Palacio Re ...
... Inventory of the COGEMA-Cadarache plant in France found an
unacceptable amount of Material Unaccounted For (MUF) on the
plutonium materials. ...
http://eu.greenpeace.org/downloads/energy/LetterToCommission...
=======================================================
http://www.tridentploughshares.org/hb3/part10.php
8. WISE NC; NCI: SHUT DOWN TOKAI AFTER MUF
In every reprocessing plant there is some discrepancy in the Pu inventory.
This is called Material Unaccounted For or MUF.
http://www.laka.org/~wise/412/4085.html
Every system for keeping track of inventories includes a category
that amounts to a margin of error. The US plutonium accounts are
no exception. Up to 1978, it was called 'material unaccounted for'
(MUF); after 1978, it was changed to 'inventory difference' (ID).
The meaning, however, remained the same: MUF/ID is the difference
between what the record keeping system says is in the inventory
and what a physical count shows is actually there.
The First Fifty Years reported that the MUF/ID for US plutonium
accounts averaged about 2.5 percent. It claimed that improved
practices lowered the MUF/ID to only about 0.8 percent in later
decades. Yet even an MUF/ID of 0.8 percent applied to the enormous
American plutonium inventory would leave some 890 kg in the
'uncontrolled' fringe, enough to build 180 nuclear weapons -
more than enough to destroy any nation on earth.
And we have not even considered the inventories of plutonium held by
Russia, where there is reason to believe that records of nuclear
materials are far less accurate. At least as recently as 1996,
Russia still did not have accurate records of the quantity,
distribution and status of nuclear materials at many of the 1500-2000
specific nuclear areas throughout the former Soviet Union.
Being in the 'uncontrolled fringe' does not mean that the plutonium is
lying around unprotected in some school yard or parking lot.
It means that that much plutonium could have been taken from the
stockpile without the record keeping system ever showing that
it had disappeared.
===============================================
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=181&start=200
Pakistan Nuclear Proliferation - 11 Feb 2004
Huge quantities of enriched uranium and
weapons-grade plutonium routinely pass through civilian nuclear
facilities the world over. Plutonium, only 5 to 8 kilos of which is
enough to make a Nagasaki-type bomb, is traded in amounts such as
tonnes between Japan and Europe alone. There are large quantities of
MUF ("material unaccounted-for") in the world's reprocessing
facilities. The IAEA admits this. There are willing proliferators too
in the former Soviet Union in the shape of hundreds of unemployed
nuclear scientists.
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