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When Paul Zimmerman writes in his new book about the Rio Puerco and the Four Corners, he calls out the names of the cancers and gives voice to the poisoned places and streams. Zimmerman is not just writing empty words. Zimmerman writes of the national sacrifice area that the mainstream media and the spin doctors would have everyone forget, where the corners of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado meet, in his new book, A Primer in the Art of Deception: The Cult of Nuclearists, Uranium Weapons and Fraudulent Science. "A report in 1972 by the National Academy of Science suggested that the Four Corners area be designated a 'national sacrifice area," he writes.

An author who crisscrossed the planet tracing the history of uranium says Utah plays a central role in the story. Utahns shared in the early benefits and paid a huge price in the end: it's a reversal of fortune documented in a new book called "Uranium." Recreationists in southeastern Utah generally don't realize many of their roads and trails were laid down by uranium prospectors in the 1950s. "Probably no state in the country has had more of an experience with uranium than Utah," author Tom Zoellner said. Zoellner has traced the uranium story all around the world. His book "Uranium" gives Utah a key role, for good or ill. "This was home of the last true mineral rush in the American West, and it was infused with kind of these Utopian ideas, and kind of a strong sense of patriotism, and also a strong profit motive," he said.

Can the theories of peace address current global conflicts and counter terrorism? Can we use the lessons of peace to counter nuclear proliferation? What is realistic pacifism? It is fitting that in a year celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the peace symbol, veteran scholar and peace activist David Cortright offers a definitive history of the human striving for peace and an analysis of its religious and intellectual roots. This balanced and highly readable volume also explores the underlying principles of peace--nonviolence, democracy, social justice, and human rights--all placed within a framework of "realistic pacifism." Peace brings the story up-to-date by examining opposition to the Iraq War and responses to the so-called "war on terror." This is history with a modern twist, set in the context of current debates about 'the responsibility to protect, Darfur, nuclear proliferation, and conflict transformation. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls PEACE, "A hopeful but realistic book that deserves to be read and studied widely." Bishop Desmond Tutu calls it "an exploration of the essential principles and practical means of preventing war and resolving conflict without violence." Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.M.C., calls PEACE "A crowning achievement."

The just-published Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town is a book about a community, tragedy and governmental malfeasance. Written by Kelly McMasters, who teaches writing at Columbia University and grew up in Shirley, it has broad significance. It's the story of how Walter Shirley, a Brooklynite who trained at the Camp Upton in Suffolk County during World War I later built a community named for him south of the Army camp and how, after World War II, the federal government turned Camp Upton into Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL).

Editor's note: This is the first installment of Daniel Ellsberg's personal memoir of the nuclear era, "The American Doomsday Machine." The online book will recount highlights of his six years of research and consulting for the Departments of Defense and State and the White House on issues of nuclear command and control, nuclear war planning and nuclear crises. It further draws on 34 subsequent years of research and activism largely on nuclear policy, which followed the intervening 11 years of his preoccupation with the Vietnam War. Subsequent installments also will appear on Truthdig. The author is a senior fellow of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. American Planning for a Hundred Holocausts One day in the spring of 1961, soon after my 30th birthday, I was shown how our world would end. Not the Earth, not-so far as I knew then-all humanity or life, but the destruction of most cities and people in the Northern Hemisphere.

Chernobyl. Three Mile Island. Yucca Mountain. When faced with covering the complex and frequently disputed issues of the nuclear age, a reporter knows there is nothing simple about preparing an accurate, balanced, objective, and responsible story about the benefits and risks of radiation and radioactivity. Writers and editors (not to mention libaries, activists, government regulators, and the nuclear industry itself) now have a guide to help them report on these issues: The Reporter's Handbook on Nuclear Materials, Energy, and Waste Management by Michael R. Greenberg, Bernadette M. West, Karen W. Lowrie, and Henry J. Mayer recently published by Vanderbilt University Press). An essential reference, this book presents scientifically accurate and accessible overviews of twenty-four of the most important issues in the nuclear realm, including health effects, nuclear medicine, transport of nuclear materials, spent fuel, nuclear weapons, and global warming. Each "brief" is based on interviews with named scientists, engineers, or administrators in a nuclear specialty, and each has been reviewed by a team of independent experts.

Each year, the administration releases its federal-spending blueprint - usually in a series of phone book-sized tomes that must surely weigh eight to 10 pounds. And of course, the first thing most of us look for is what programs are slated for big gains - or excisions. Well, team Obama made looking for the big cuts a little easier this year. This morning it issued a 120-page volume: "Terminations, Reductions, and Savings: Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2010." Barack Obama entered office with the nation facing a record $1.3 trillion budget deficit for the current year. "Just as families across the country are tightening their belts and making hard choices so must Washington," the new budget document says. The 121 programs that it recommends should die or diminish substantially could save taxpayers $17 billion. First, there are the terminations: more than five dozen in all. Among them:

In a historic speech in Prague recently, President Obama proposed concrete steps to move toward "a world without nuclear weapons," including a test ban, an end to the production of fissile materials and a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russians. This effort to build a safer world is most welcome: The six-decade-long history of nuclear weapons and nuclear power includes a frightening number of fiascoes still shrouded in secrecy. ad_icon As two new books illustrate, there is much to mine in this atomic tale: stories as big and dramatic as mushroom clouds, events that lend themselves easily to superlatives. When mistakes are made with nuclear reactors and warheads, the consequences are often scary indeed.

Three men were caught with 5 kg of "regulated and prescribed material" Uranium-238 on the city's outskirts Tuesday. They are suspected to have got the radioactive material, also known as depleted uranium, from an imported scrap consignment belonging to a Navi Mumbai company. They were booked under sections of the Atomic Energy Act by the Panvel police. Nuclear experts say that Uranium-238 is a "protected material" with only special and regulated agencies allowed to possess and transport it.

Three men were caught with 5 kg of "regulated and prescribed material" Uranium-238 on the city's outskirts Tuesday. They are suspected to have got the radioactive material, also known as depleted uranium, from an imported scrap consignment belonging to a Navi Mumbai company. They were booked under sections of the Atomic Energy Act by the Panvel police. Nuclear experts say that Uranium-238 is a "protected material" with only special and regulated agencies allowed to possess and transport it.

Let's assume for a moment, despite the recently revealed book-cooking and data-dumping, that the anthropogenic global-warming crowd is on to something. If we're really going to cook within 20 years, we better do more than commit economic suicide at the upcoming Copenhagen speechfest. Instead, let's use the threat of imminent roastage to institute a full-throttle, all-hands-on-deck, no-holds-barred campaign to develop new sources of energy. "The equivalent of war," to borrow a phrase from a former president. And let's see how many of those currently finger-wagging over our production of greenhouse gasses are willing to go along. The following are a few of the steps which will be required - if we're serious.

Let's assume for a moment, despite the recently revealed book-cooking and data-dumping, that the anthropogenic global-warming crowd is on to something. If we're really going to cook within 20 years, we better do more than commit economic suicide at the upcoming Copenhagen speechfest. Instead, let's use the threat of imminent roastage to institute a full-throttle, all-hands-on-deck, no-holds-barred campaign to develop new sources of energy. "The equivalent of war," to borrow a phrase from a former president. And let's see how many of those currently finger-wagging over our production of greenhouse gasses are willing to go along. The following are a few of the steps which will be required - if we're serious.

Some books are written to be read, others to be put in a cannon and blasted at the seat of power. Two such blasts have just crossed my desk, from academics on either side of the Atlantic. Both are on the same subject, the consequence of the irrational fear of radiation.

Some books are written to be read, others to be put in a cannon and blasted at the seat of power. Two such blasts have just crossed my desk, from academics on either side of the Atlantic. Both are on the same subject, the consequence of the irrational fear of radiation.

"The atomic bombs that ended World War II killed - by some estimates - more than 200,000 people. In the decades since 1945, there has been a revisionist debate over the decision to drop the bombs. Did the U.S. decide to bomb in order to avoid a land invasion that might have killed millions of Americans and Japanese? Or did it drop the bomb to avoid the Soviet army coming in and sharing the spoils of conquering Japan? Were the prospects of a land invasion even more destructive than the opening of the nuclear age? "

"In The Iron Heel, Jack London used a narrative from the future to present the dystopian and utopian possibilities that existed in his time. Everyone Can be a Hero, a new independently published book for older children and teenagers, uses a similar device. It is set in England in 2040 in a world blighted by a nuclear accident and running low on resources. While warning of the dangers of Britain's nuclear energy generation and waste processing industries it also explores the possibilities of a society built by the people themselves, including renewable energy. It has a lot about growing organic food in cities - even referencing Cuba."

The Government's stake in Urenco, which owns nuclear fuel plants in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, will be sold off to help to repay the country's escalating debt mountain, the Prime Minister will announce today. Gordon Brown will also announce plans to sell off the Dartford Crossing, the Channel Tunnel and the Tote and will signal that he is restarting the privatisation of the Student Loan book, which was shelved in March because of poor market conditions.

The Government's stake in Urenco, which owns nuclear fuel plants in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands, will be sold off to help to repay the country's escalating debt mountain, the Prime Minister will announce today. Gordon Brown will also announce plans to sell off the Dartford Crossing, the Channel Tunnel and the Tote and will signal that he is restarting the privatisation of the Student Loan book, which was shelved in March because of poor market conditions.

"A government official who released a book on May 20 criticizing the government's response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster has been asked to leave his post. Sources say that Shigeaki Koga, 55, attached to the secretariat of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), was asked by Kazuo Matsunaga, a high-ranking METI official, whether he could resign on July 15. Koga is said to have held off on responding, saying the request was "too sudden." Koga has also pushed for changes to the country's energy policy, such as a separation of electric power generation and transmission fiercely opposed by power companies, and criticized the Democratic Party of Japan's (DPJ) reforms to the civil service."

"Areva SA, the French nuclear-reactor builder, took a new provision for cost overruns at a plant it's building in Finland, leaving the door open for more charges as the project is still 2 1/2 years away from completion. The company said yesterday it will book a charge of about 400 million euros ($491 million) in the first half as Finnish customer Teollisuuden Voima Oyj said this month the OL3 plant will start nuclear operations at the end of 2012 rather than by a previous June 2012 deadline. Areva "has now installed the reactor pressure vessel and continues work on piping, but history suggests further delays are very likely," Alex Barnett, an analyst at Jefferies International Ltd., who recommends buying Areva investment certificates, said in a research note today. The new charge takes total provisions for cost overruns to about 2.7 billion euros for the first-of-its-kind project, which Areva pledged in 2005 to build for 3 billion euros and complete in 2009."

"NEW DOCUMENT REVEALS GOV'T PLANS TO * Abandon promised science and "ignition and gain" at Livermore Lab NIF mega-laser * Jack up funding for nuclear weapon "life extensions" beyond what the facts justify, and * Escalate bomb budgets through 2030 despite lip service to Obama disarmament goals LIVERMORE -- The Fiscal Year 2011 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (colloquially known as the "Green Book"), obtained recently by Tri-Valley CAREs, reveals that the U.S. Dept. of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) foments internal plans significantly at variance with the agency's public pronouncements and the Nation's disarmament goals. "The document demonstrates that the NNSA will reach deeper and deeper into the taxpayers' pockets in the coming decades, even as it jettisons scientific objectives and delivers less," charged Marylia Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs, the Livermore-based nuclear weapons watchdog organization. " What the plan reveals about the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is shocking." (See attached analysis for details.)"

A new nuclear weapons report by a panel of scientists and two new books by weapons scientists show just how deeply the nuclear genie still haunts the scientific heirs of the Manhattan Project. "Scientists have always felt a special responsibility for nuclear weapons, the one weapon they have created of such import," says physicist John Browne, a former head of Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory. Now, amid pressing economic and wartime worries, nuclear weapons are poised once again to enter public debate, fueled by warnings from Congress and a campaign pledge by President-elect Barack Obama to support the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The treaty, which bans nuclear weapon test explosions, has been ratified by 143 nations, but not the United States.

For the last week, home for Brenda Pickney and her family has been a nondescript hotel room close to the Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport. Getting laundry done and sorting out evening meals is difficult, she says. Her 10-year-old son Kelvin misses his toys and books. The Pickneys are one of about 35 Tallevast families who took Lockheed Martin's offer to move into hotels while the company demolishes two buildings at a former plant that used the metal beryllium to make parts for nuclear warheads.