EUNICE, N.M. - Like many others in this former boomtown, Mayor James Brown knows more about isotopes, centrifuges and uranium-235 than your average college student.
Brown's recent crash course in nuclear physics was a prerequisite: Many of his constituents are counting on the jobs and economic trickle-down that are being promised if a $1.3 billion uranium enrichment plant that would make fuel for nuclear power plants comes to town.
Critics say the proposed National Enrichment Facility could pollute the environment, guzzle scarce water and leave this oil-producing town with tons of radioactive waste and nowhere to put it.
But the mayor warns that without the plant, Eunice faces extinction.
How is this different from the Mayor of Auschwitz saying, "Well, without the camp, our economy would die."? Obviously, there is a difference in that Auschwitz was expressly built to kill Jews and other unwanteds, but the intent of establishing the 'installation' has little to do with the economy of the nearby town. The mayor's reaction is a non-sequitur as it fails to address the essential issue of the effect (or future effect) of the installation on humanity in general.