Oh yes, Larry and Graham, and we all trust the government to look out for our best interests, don't we?

Since the government institution in this case had my dad as a part of it for some years, I suggest you watch where you sling your mud! ;-)

Lines like that are a cheap shot. If you *really* don't trust the government to do anything in your best interests, either dedicate your life to cross-checking every damn thing they do, go and join the government yourself to inject some honesty, or bugger off and live as a hermit on a desert island somewhere. Politicians are people like anyone else - some are good, some are incompetent and some are devious weasels. People are like that, regardless of career. You want to avoid that problem, move yourself to somewhere where there's no people.

Re the long half-lives, the longest-lived with any serious volume is plutonium. Fast-breeder reactors would make a nice dent in that, but public reaction (the "nuclear=bad" equation from people who don't understand it) generally prevents any government doing much about it.

Graham.