With regard to cell phones, we already live in such a radiated world their small amount doesn't matter at all.
I don't have one, but there must be hundreds of millions in service all the time. I've heard no reasonable report of any problem.
We live in radiation and are probably immune to harm from it. In fact, as I said to Keith, it's likely that our continuous exposure to low level radiation is good for us. Not higher amounts such as radon gas, but normal small amounts are probably inconsequential.
In another area, there is much as 10,000 times as much natural pesticide in the food we eat as we might get from our application of pesticides. But we are used to them, so they don't harm us.
(Actually, scientists increased this natural pesticide in potatoes and came up with a miracle - a completely pest-free potato. Only problem was that if you ate it, you would die. Well, back to the drawing board,)
I bought a VW Golf and then a VW Rabbit because they offered a two-year bumper-to-bumper warranty. I changed to Toyota because they offered a 3 year bumper to bumper.
Nothing much has gone wrong with either. Not even a light bulb needed replacement with the first, though the rubber engine mounts were replaced after 8 years. I replaced an inside light with the second, and now after 7 years the passenger side window doesn't shut properly. (It was made in America.)
Foe many years I depreciated my car over three years and bought a new one - a good legal swindle if I ever met one. I liked my Toyotas so much I've kept them.
When Japanese imports began to arrive, Toyota would earn $100 on each car. Detroit would make $1,200 a car. (They still made more money on parts and repairs than they did by selling the car.)
This helped them to jump the Detroit imposed tariffs against them. Once in their quality kept them selling.
Consumer Reports publishes histories of car models going back a few years. Consistently, Toyota shows the best repair record. It is the make most bought by Americans over the last few years.
How about that. You can have a Japanese car - or a cheap American one!
Ray wrote:
If it is like it was when I owned a Honda and then a Ford and then a Plymouth. American service sucks. But American cars are as good as any and better than a lot. My Honda was fast but it was the superior service organization that kept the car running on the road. Like a good socialist organization, they planned the obsolesence and replaced things whether they needed them or not. Such an organized replacement kept a smooth system in the automobile that didn't have the problem with the overall performance system having to adjust to completely new parts. Central planning does work if you so choose. But it was the initial Japanese governmental supports both as tariffs and as subsidies that made the Honda cheap enough for us to afford the new system and get used to a continual maintainence schedule.
Once I got the Ford, the maintainence was terrible and new parts destroyed old and stimulated destruction of the system as a whole. But my father-in-law who was a mechanic, loved the Ford. I got rid of that car quickly. I had to be a mechanic to know how to deal with it. The Plymouth had decent but not great service and the same problem with parts destroying each other since they weren't centrally organized either. I would compare the Japanese companies to the old Bell Laboratories. Some bad problems with monopolies but lots of good technological stuff and I had to shoot their telephone and throw them away before they would be defective. Today's phones are like chewing gum. Messy and easily ruined. You can forget about cell phones.
Now cell phones are a place where I worry about radiation. Know anything about that Harry?
REH
**************************************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of Social Science of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 Tel: (818) 352-4141 -- Fax: (818) 353-2242 http://home.attbi.com/~haledward ****************************************************
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