Whew! Uranium and Your Credit Card Junk Mail June 9, 2005March 2, 2017 DEPLETED URANIUM Mark Wilson: ‘Leuren Moret’s allegations in the article you linked to are pretty overblown. Depleted Uranium is, by definition, not very radioactive at all, with a half-life of 4.5 billion years. The shorter the half life, the faster an isotope decays and thus the more radiation it emits. While DU is chemically toxic, I don’t know how you can say it is significantly more so than, say, lead, which is what we would be using to make munitions instead of DU. Kids shouldn’t be playing with either. Here‘s a page with both sides of the issue from the Federation of American Scientists.’ Eric Batson: ‘Read the full article in WikiPedia (which she refers to by the way) … Seems like the consensus (military and government critics both) is nowhere near her position.’ Ken Myers: ‘This article is full of wrong information. There is no evidence that the atomic scientists ever considered using depleted U for the Japanese bombs. Depleted U does not come out of gun barrels on fire, etc. Depleted U is used solely because it is very dense (heavy per unit of volume) because of its high atomic weight. Depleted means non-radioactive for heaven’s sake. This sort of hysterical talk is a reason this country will be late in moving from coal powered electrical generation to nuclear power as France has done (50%). Partly because our Atomic Energy Commission did such a poor job of supervising and inspecting and partly because the average American has a poor scientific background. For all his faults, Admiral Rickover ran a good nuclear program and there has not been one ship-borne nuclear ‘incident.’ Coal and gas however pollute the atmosphere and sometimes blow up. See China’s air (literally). [Signed] – A Rockefeller Republican who voted Democratic for the first time in the last election. My party has been hijacked by wealthy religious zealots who think they have a mission to save the world. In truth, 9-11 is turning us into a more divided and religious extreme country.’ Brad Hurley: ‘I wouldn’t put too much stock in Leuren Moret’s claim that depleted uranium in dust is going to boost world cancer rates. She notes that ‘in April of 2003, the World Health Organization said they expect global cancer rates to increase 50 percent by the year 2020.’ That’s true, but the leading causes of cancer they cite are tobacco and diet. Here‘s the press release from WHO. Moret goes on to say: ‘Infant mortality is going up again all over the world. This is an indicator of the level of radioactive pollution. When the U.S. and Russia signed the partial test ban treaty in 1963, the infant mortality rate started dropping again, which is normal. Now they are going up again. It’s the global pollution with this radiation.’ Well, as any scientist knows correlation doesn’t necessarily indicate causation. When I was a kid, I noticed that all the summer people left our lakeside community at the same time that the geese started heading south. Should I have concluded that the sound of the geese caused the summer people to leave? Or that the noise of the moving vans caused the geese to fly south? There are many factors that contribute to trends in infant mortality. I doubt that Moret has evidence to indicate that uranium dust has anything to do with infant mortality; I think it’s more that she’s trying to scare people into caring about her issue.’ Jeffrey Davis: ‘SPENT uranium is called ‘spent’ for a reason. It’s virtually inert. Yes, there’s some radiation, but there’s some background radiation everywhere.’ Kristine Friend: ‘Unfortunately the article on why cancer rates are rising is true. While one X-Ray has never hurt anyone, the cumulative effects of radiation have caused severe damage and even death to untold people. There is a very good book called “Clear Body, Clear Mind” which has written a good remedy for ridding the body of accumulated radiation. I have done the treatment as advised in the book and I feel about 10 years younger. By the way, the book was written by a religious philosopher called Hubbard, but the treatment (consisting only of vitamins and sauna) can be done with a partner on a self-help basis, using the book as a self-help manual.’ ☞ Hmmm. WINNING YOUR INDEPENDENCE FROM CREDIT CARD OFFERS Kate: ‘There is now a website for the ‘Credit Reporting Industry Opt-Out Prescreen’ service. I got my free credit reports that just became available in my region, and was appalled by the number of ‘soft’ inquiries I had. No wonder my mailbox is always filled with junk I need to shred! The Big Three’s websites all tell you that the soft hits don’t hurt your credit score, and try to convince you that most people like receiving pre-screened offers because it ‘allows them access to a wider variety of credit’ – they definitely don’t want to tell you how to get off the list. But it turns out you can now just go to optoutprescreen.com. I removed myself, my sister, and my parents from the lists in about 10 minutes. Much better than having to write each of the bureaus individually. ‘By the way — Texas won its own independence from Mexico, much like the United States won independence from Britain. Some of the fighters in Texas were from the United States, but you’ll recall that many of the fighters for the colonies were British-born, and others were French and Germans who just wanted to give the British a hard time. Mexico wasn’t all too happy about Texas’ independence, but then there are some Brits who still call for the return of ‘their colonies’.’
Any Enviro Docs Out There? June 8, 2005March 2, 2017 WHY CANCER RATES SEEM TO BE RISING Georgia Wong: ‘I hope this article is untrue.’ ☞ Me, too. Our readers will know.
Done Him Wvong June 7, 2005January 18, 2017 THE ALAMO Last week I linked to the audio of an interview with the author of Confessions of a Hitman. I do love our country, but think we err in assuming that everything we’ve done, do, and will do is something to be proud of. I mentioned, for example, the Alamo, which I think the average school kid thinks of as American heroics in some long-forgotten noble cause. But I suggested that – if memory serves – the cause was our stealing Texas from Mexico, and killing quite a few Mexican soldiers in the process. Randall: ‘Reasonable people can debate whether Texas was stolen or liberated. However, with the benefit of hindsight, it is now clear that the people who reside in Texas are better off under the US government than they would have been under the Mexican government.’ ☞ Perhaps we should liberate the rest of Mexico? Canada? THAT KENNAN QUOTE And as if that first link wasn’t subversive enough, it prompted one of you to recommend why-US.org, whence I took a George Kennan quote. Russil Wvong: ‘Arggggghhhh!!! I don’t think Orwell would have been surprised by this highly selective quotation of George Kennan. From what I can tell, it was stitched together by Noam Chomsky, the American linguist and anarchist, as evidence that US foreign policy since World War II has been driven by greed. But in fact Kennan was arguing that the US ought to leave Asia alone, not that it ought to oppress the rest of the world and steal its resources. (At the time, there was a debate going on about whether the US ought to continue propping up Chiang Kai-Shek; Kennan was opposed.) For a detailed discussion, click here. The irony in Chomsky’s quoting Kennan to criticize US foreign policy is that Kennan himself consistently argued for much greater moderation and restraint in US foreign policy. Indeed, Kennan does so even in the section of PPS/23 which Chomsky is quoting. For a detailed assessment of Kennan’s role in shaping US foreign policy during the early Cold War, see Wilson D. Miscamble’s book George F. Kennan and the Making of American Foreign Policy, 1947-1950, published in 1992.” ☞ Russil knows a great deal more about this than I do – indeed, when I Google “George Kennan” to learn more, the very first item that pops up is this post, by Russil Wvong! – and so it seems I have done George Kennan wrong. But that doesn’t automatically let us off the hook and make us the good guys in every action, overt and covert, we’ve ever taken. Or perhaps, as Stu argues below, I’m wrong. Stu Albertson: “You are seriously off the reservation with the conspiracy mumbo-jumbo that continues to seep into your blog. It does NOTHING to enhance your credibility to view everything through a prism of conspiracy where black is white and good is bad and every major decision or occurrence of the 20th Century is the work of dark nefarious whitemalecapitalist forces. Well, I’ve got news for you, pal, there is another half to your conspiracy and it involves people who follow an ideology responsible for more deaths than any conceivable historic machinery of butchery. It’s called communism. And it’s what overthrew most of those dictators you say we ‘supported.’ Well, the butchers that took over from those dictators ended up killing way many more people. My point is not to lecture you on history, it’s to tell you that when you even nod in the direction of these crazy lefties like the why-us types (with your innocuous comments like ‘interesting’) you lose many people who think you are even-handed.” ☞ I wish I could be as confident as Stu that our foreign policy has been consistently laudable.
And The Best News Of All Is That They Got A Tax Cut! June 6, 2005March 2, 2017 Just in case you missed the lead story on the front page of yesterday’s New York Times, it reads, in part: Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind By David Cay Johnston . . . The people at the top of America’s money pyramid have so prospered in recent years that they have pulled far ahead of the rest of the population . . . . . . Draw a line under the top 0.1 percent of income earners – the top one-thousandth. Above that line are about 145,000 taxpayers, each with at least $1.6 million in income and often much more. The average income for the top 0.1 percent was $3 million in 2002, the latest year for which averages are available. That number is two and a half times the $1.2 million, adjusted for inflation, that group reported in 1980. No other income group rose nearly as fast. The share of the nation’s income earned by those in this uppermost category has more than doubled since 1980, to 7.4 percent in 2002. The share of income earned by the rest of the top 10 percent rose far less, and the share earned by the bottom 90 percent fell. . . . ☞ Faced with this situation, the Republican leadership has made it its top priority to give the hyper-rich tax cuts. They cut the top rate on dividends by 62% . . . from a rate of 39.6% to just 15%. They have the top rate on estates falling from 55% to zero in a few years – and hope to keep it there. Meanwhile, as a nation we fall $2 billion further into debt each day – $700 billion a year (not the $400 billion that the White House claims and the press dutifully repeats) – and become increasingly dependent on the Chinese and Japanese. But at least we got Bin Laden.
Take the Red Pill June 2, 2005January 18, 2017 In response to the Comptroller General’s contention in yesterday‘s post that ‘No republic in the history of the world lasted more than 300 years,’ Jim Dienes writes in to say that ‘the Roman Republic lasted from 509BC to 27BC.’ And Bob Sakowski dates the Venitian Republic from 697-1797 – adding, however, that, even so, ‘[Walker’s] idea of where we are headed will likely come to pass and sooner rather than later, unfortunately.’ ☞ I’m more optimistic. I think we will right ourselves. But course correction doesn’t happen by itself. It takes thought and work. We need to turn our well-founded angst into well-funded action. (Support the DNC!) A LEFT-OF-CENTER BUT INTERESTING SITE We think of ourselves as the best country that ever was – I certainly do. And while we wince at what we did to the Indians (and did again and again and again), that was a long time ago. Likewise, slavery. Remember the Alamo? We remember the heroic part, but how many kids know the context? That we were in the midst of stealing Texas from Mexico? (My history on this is very hazy; if I have it materially wrong, I’ll be thrilled – just let me know.) But that was a long time ago, too. In more recent times, if Friday‘s Confessions of a Hitman audio clip is to be believed at all, our motives have not always been entirely pure either. And it is in taking off on that premise that Rick Stahlhut commends a site called why-US.org. Whence comes – among much else – this snippet: “We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3% of its population. … Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity….. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives…. We should cease to talk about vague and … unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.” -US State Department Policy Planning Study 23, formerly top secret, by George Kennan (et al), 1948 ‘The problem, as I see it,’ writes Rick, ‘is that our foreign policy, and our society/economy generally, are grounded in a bully-oriented, pragmatic foreign policy style which ‘works’ in state v. state conflicts, but is proving dysfunctional when dealing with ideologically or values-oriented state-less actors such as the ones we’re fighting now.’ ‘The site is obviously coming from a somewhat ‘left’ viewpoint,’ Rick concludes, ‘but I don’t find that particularly important. His facts and reasoning are generally good or at least interesting.’ Left, right or center, the only reason to read a site critical of our country is to make our country even better. But who among us does not want that? If you read why-US.org from the beginning – and if you follow the ‘red pills’ – you will take an interesting journey. To help you find time, I’ll keep tomorrow’s post short or non-existent.
Cry for Me, Argentina June 1, 2005January 18, 2017 But first . . . POWER YOUR HOME WITH YOUR PRIUS My apologies on the Prius link yesterday (now fixed). It is PriUPS.com. SAVE A LOVED ONE WITH QUICK ACTION Jeff Covey: ‘You were right yesterday: Time’s of the essence with a stroke. My partner had one two years ago. He went to put his arm around me one morning, and it flopped like a log and hit me in the head. When he got up to go to the bathroom, he was walking oddly. My first partner died of a heart attack, so that straight, uncontrollable left arm set off warning buzzers. I got him in the car and straight to the emergency room, where they found he’d had a small stroke from a blockage on the right side of his brain. They said if I’d waited an hour, there could have been irreversible damage. ☞ For more, Jeff says the American Stroke Association publishes a free bimonthly magazine full of useful information and stories written by stroke survivors. THE GOLDSTEIN BROS John Seiffer: ‘This reminds me of the story of the village idiot. He was so dumb if you offered him the choice of a nickel or a dime, he’d take the nickel because it was bigger. One day a man pulled him aside and said don’t you realize that the dime is worth more? Sure, he said, but if I took the dime they’d stop offering.’ ☞ And that reminds me of the fare on the Fire Island ferry, which is $6.50 one way or $12 roundtrip. The only way on or off the island (for all practical purposes) is the ferry. So why even sell one-way tickets? I think it’s so that everyone feels as if they got a bargain buying the round-trip. YOU’RE FIRED The Colorado legislature passed a bill to include sexual orientation in the list of bases (race, religion, etc.) on which an employee could not be fired. Friday, the Republican governor vetoed it. As reported in the Denver Post, he will, however, allow a hate crimes measure to become law (though he will not sign it) – prompting Colorado House Speaker Andrew Romanoff to suggest that the governor was sending a conflicted message to gays. ‘He seems to be saying that it’s OK to fire them but not to kill them.’ Compassionate conservatism is a nuanced thing. And now . . . CRY FOR ME, ARGENTINA As we go $700 billion deeper into debt each year, we are digging ourselves into an ever deeper hole. This comes from a Washington Post report of a meeting that featured Stuart Butler of the conservative Heritage Foundation; Isabel Sawhill of the liberal Brookings Institution, and Comptroller General David M. Walker. In part: With startling unanimity, they agreed that without some combination of big tax increases and major cuts in Medicare, Social Security and most other spending, the country will fall victim to the huge debt and soaring interest rates that collapsed Argentina’s economy and caused riots in its streets a few years ago. . . . The unity of the bespectacled presenters was impressive — and it made their conclusion all the more depressing. As Ron Haskins, a former Bush White House official and current Brookings scholar, said when introducing the thinkers: “If Heritage and Brookings agree on something, there must be something to it.” . . . Not surprisingly, the Heritage and Brookings crowds don’t agree on an exact solution to the budget problem, but they seem to accept that, as Sawhill put it, “you can’t do it with either spending or taxes. Eventually, you’re going to need a mix of the two.” Butler wants taxes, now at 17 percent of GDP, not to exceed 20 percent. Sawhill prefers 24 or 25 percent. But such haggling seems premature when both parties still deny the problem. “I don’t think we’re there yet,” Walker said. “The American people have to understand where we are and where we’re headed.” And where is that? “No republic in the history of the world lasted more than 300 years,” Walker said. “Eventually, the crunch comes.”
Crew, Lacrosse, and Your PriUPS May 31, 2005March 2, 2017 STROKE! STROKE! For the first half our lives, this is the sound we recall of the lightweight crew out on the Charles or the Schuylkill. But for the second half – which is the half your parents and grandparents are already in – it’s the sound you should be making to 911 immediately if it appears they have had one. And apparently, it’s not that hard to tell. Ask the person to smile, to raise his arms over his head, and to speak a simple sentence. If only half their face or arms appear to be working, or their sentence is unintelligible, get them to a hospital fast, because there’s a drug that, administered within three hours of the event, may limit the damage Snopes.com writes it all up here. And the best part? No mouth-to-mouth required! HE SHOOTS – HE SCORES! To see Dartmouth’s lacrosse goalie block a goal, grab the ball (puck? whatever) and run 100 yards to score a goal himself – the first goalie to do this in the NCAA Tournament in nearly three decades – click here. Even more remarkable, he’s . . . Jewish. (Well, OK, and gay. But Jewish!) Click here. THE ULTIMATE BACK-UP POWER SUPPLY: YOUR PRIUS! Richard Factor: ‘My Prius finally showed up in January. I’ve been busy creating this web site to discuss it. If you live in a house anywhere near this forecast major hurricane season, you might find it particularly interesting.’ ☞ You see, it is Richard’s idea to hook his Prius up to his house – the ultimate emergency generator (or, in computer parlance, UPS). Power is out, but the batteries in your Prius just go and go and go if you keep the engine running on gasoline. And without the incredible racket of a normal $3,000 generator. But even if you use your Prius for transport only, and not to keep your lettuce from wilting during blackouts, Richard finds some things to recommend it. From the FAQ page on his amusing site: Q: How about gas mileage? A: Pretty much as expected. If I drive very carefully and eschew any form of speeding I can average 50mpg. If I drive more or less normally, e.g., a little above the limit, and occasionally use the brakes, it’s more like 46mpg. My driving is mostly highway, and the car gets about twice the mileage of the little Audi A4 4WD wagon I drive when it snows. No complaints about gas mileage at all! Q: You do mostly highway driving – I’ve heard that there’s hardly any gas advantage for a hybrid in this case because you don’t take advantage of the regenerated energy A: A very underappreciated fact of gas usage is the effect of elevation. On anything but totally flat terrain, you use extra energy going uphill and I’ve found (from the energy display) that a lot is recovered going downhill. Even if I don’t brake, when I’m going downhill energy is flowing into the battery. My mileage going home (uphill) is much worse than driving downhill to work. With a non-hybrid, it still takes more energy to go uphill but none is returned in the opposite direction, although you do save because you’re coasting more. YOUR HYBRID BATTERY Allan Maylis: ‘My Honda dealer’s service manager tells me the battery pack warranty is not pro rata. If it fails, you get a new one free. The biggest problem is leaving the car for an extended period of time not driven. The self-discharge factor in the battery pack may cause it to fail. If the car is to be inactive, arrange to have it driven several miles at least twice a month.’
Love It Or Leave It May 27, 2005March 2, 2017 One hesitates; but in the end one cannot resist: Two beggars are sitting side by side on a street in Rome. One has a Cross in front of him, the other one, the Star of David. Many people go by and look at both beggars, but only put money into the hat of the beggar sitting behind the Cross. A priest comes by, stops and watches throngs of people giving money to the beggar behind the Cross, but none give to the beggar behind the Star of David. Finally, the priest goes over to the beggar behind the Star of David and says, “My poor fellow, don’t you understand? This is a Catholic country. People aren’t going to give you money if you sit there with a ‘Star of David’ in front of you, especially when you’re sitting beside a beggar who has a Cross. In fact, they would probably give to him just out of spite.” The beggar behind the ‘Star of David’ listens to the priest, turns to the beggar with the Cross and says: “So look who’s trying to teach the Goldstein brothers about marketing?” And now . . . MY COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG Frank: ‘After listening to this audio clip, I feel so sad for our country’s morality and my children’s future. Our country has become a curse for the world’s underclass.’ ☞ Ours is the greatest country that ever was. We are rightly proud of so many things. But anyone who has studied history knows we have never been perfect and often, far, far from it. It is not anti-American to try to see ourselves accurately and hold ourselves to a high standard. In fact, nothing could be more American. In that spirit, you may find the above-linked audio worth your time. You knew about slavery and about our treatment of the American Indian; you have your opinions about how grateful to us the Vietnamese should or should not be. But in this interview, John Perkins gives us even more to ponder. Could some of this be true?
Marty Is Breathing Again May 26, 2005March 25, 2012 Yesterday, Skip Sherrod doubted that a majority of Bush voters believed Iraq had a hand in attacking us on 9/11. Alan Atwood: ‘The PIPA study which illustrated just how misinformed Bush voters were in is still available here. Perhaps if Mr. Sherrod would read that study with an open mind, he might not be so dismissive. A large percentage of Bush voters apparently even to this day believe that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were directly involved with or somehow lent support to the terrorists that attacked us on 9-11.’ Matt Ball: ‘For the doubters, here is [another] link.’ Richard Yee kindly furnished this link to the summary of a Daily Show report that may help to explain why so many Bush voters got the impression they did. Some believe it doesn’t matter that so many were misled – that it’s a good thing we attacked Iraq and brought it the freedom we all hope it is at last on the brink of enjoying today. Still, there is still this: the way we went about it was disastrously misguided and mismanaged. The ultimate cost in lost life, limb, treasure, and good will is already far higher than it might have been. And we’re not done. Instead of freedom, there’s the real worry they will get civil war instead. And, going back to Friday and Monday’s posts . . . Marty P: ‘Palast’s piece and Moyers’s renewed my faith in America. What you call ‘stridency’ sounds to me like refreshing truth-telling and certainty from the left, which has been missing for waaaay too long. This, coupled with Howard Dean’s performance on Meet the Press Sunday, has me breathing again.’ Hey . . . I hope to have a thought or two about you money before long. It’s possible, anyway.
Of Quicken, Flypaper and Moyers May 25, 2005January 18, 2017 MORE NOSTALGIA SET TO MUSIC Remember flypaper? Click here. QUICKEN Charles Mathes: ‘I’ve been struggling with Quicken for years, but every time I use the program I still have pangs for MYM. Somehow in my memory your DOS program seems like it was not only simpler, more logical and friendlier to bookkeeping novices like me, but more powerful.’ ☞ Most of the credit for MYM goes to the unsung – first and foremost technical architect Jerry Rubin, and then a slew of really bright young college students and recent grads (who are probably grandfathers by now) like Spencer Martin and Jim Russell and Steve Wagar, Mike Starkey and just so many more. I was so fortunate to be part of that team. It was enormous fun, and I still use MYM DOS V12 all these years later. (If it works, why fix it?) SLOWEN Jeff Covey: ‘I’ve been a user and fan of gnucash for several years, but for those looking for a Quicken alternative that they can run on Windows, I just saw this review.’ MOYERS Mike Myler: ‘I may have to quit reading your column…I am getting too depressed and my blood pressure sky rockets when I see this stuff. I am a big fan of Moyers. You can just tell he is a good guy, integrity, etc. After you questioned the lack of outrage over the leaked British memo about our intelligence being ‘fixed around the policy’ to justify attacking Iraq, I noticed a few days later four or five paragraphs on page 17 in the Chicago Tribune that 90 House Democrats had sent a letter to the President wanting answers. I thought maybe something would happen, but nothing since. I have not seen anything on network news about it. This whole thing reads like a novel and I am afraid to see how it ends. I tell people about these things that are going on and they ask me ‘if it’s true why isn’t it being reported?’ I printed the Moyers speech and am going to show it to people but I know all I will get in response is ‘liberal press.” ☞ Speaking of novels, the scary thing about The Plot Against America (Philip Roth’s latest) is how easily one thing leads to another. The price of liberty, someone once said, is eternal vigilance. Skip Sherrod: ‘Your statement . . . But, people: there is something scary going on when, for example, a majority of those who voted for the winning party believe we were attacked by a country that in fact did not attack us. . . . offered without proof, set off my BS alarm big time. A calico cat also came to mind. My challenge to you would be to produce one republican who claims a specific country attacked us on 9/11 and not Al-Qaeda.’ ☞ The calico cat story is confirmed by the husband of the US Ambassador to the Netherlands at the time of the event. (Note that my post did not say Ashcroft believes calico cats are a sign of the devil; rather, that his advance team SAID he believes that . . . and was also worried about whether the sexually suggestive statue in the courtyard would need to be covered for his visit.) As for your ‘challenge’ – my challenge to you would be to explain why a majority of the people who voted for President Bush came to believe that Iraq played a significant role in 9/11. Seriously: why do you think that happened? (Polls show that as many as 70% Republican voters did believe that.) Matt Ball: ‘Please, don’t apologize for posting Palast! The ‘Right’ has very effectively shut down dissent – and even discussion – in this country. Michael Moore is a ‘traitor.’ Al Gore is ‘screamer’ who is ‘off his meds.’ Whoopi’s joke makes an event a ‘liberal hate fest.’ And the media parrot their lines. Meanwhile, the ‘Right’ depends on true screamers (Rush, Hannity, etc.). Where were the Bush voters’ voices then, begging for ‘moderation’ and ‘logic’?’