Friday, May 2, 2003

Define W.O.M.D. 2 QUOTES TODAY "There are only two things a child will share willingly - communicable diseases & his mother's age." - - Dr. Benjamin Spock (Born May 2nd, 1919) "I don't know what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." - - Albert Einstein MAY 2nd IN HISTORY: 1968 - - Despite murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., his Poor Peoples' March on Washington, D.C. begins, led by successor Ralph Abernathy. 3,000 erect Resurrection City, a tent city on the Mall until May 17th. RHINO HERE: Follow along with me on a few points: - Everyone knows nuclear radiation kills. Right? Right. - Trouble is that once being irradiated, it may take years before the resulting lethal disease shows itself, and by then, it's too late to know what the cause of the sickness was. -Everyone knows that anything built by a human is fallible. Right? right. - So the people and corporations who participate in the nuclear fuel cycle know that they won't be able to contain 100% of the radioactivity, cause hey, it's humans building it & humans inspecting it & humans repairing it etc etc - So they know a certain number of people will be exposed to the radiation that gets out of the cycle & they know those people will eventually contract cancers & die. Right? right. - But no one will know, or at least, be able to prove, what killed those people. SO WHAT WE HAVE HERE IS PREMEDITATED (they know it will happen) RANDOM (they don't know who will be the victims) MASS MURDER (lots of people gonna die) So given that, everyone please raise your hand if you think it's a good idea for the folks at NASA to shoot their rockets into space with nukes in them. Wanna know more about this Dr. Strangelove bushit? Read today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE AND FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT, AND ACTIONS AGAINST, NUKES IN SPACE, GO TO: http://www.space4peace.org/ If you haven't had the chance to hear Dennis Kucinich speak in person, and you get the chance, Rhino urges you, go see and hear him. Here's a brief statement he put out this week. KUCINICH: "They're Both Wrong" A debate has recently erupted between rival Democratic campaigns, with one candidate quoted as saying "We won't always have the strongest military," and a rival campaign responding that the candidate had implied he "would compromise or tolerate an erosion of America's military supremacy." Tonight, Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich, the ranking Democrat on the Government Reform subcommittee that monitors the Pentagon, issued the following statement: "They're both wrong. The U.S. military is the strongest in the world by far, and will remain so. But Democrats cannot lead the nation without being strong enough to confront the bloat and waste in the Pentagon budget." ..."Our military budget is almost as big as that of all other countries combined. While we have unchallenged superiority in military strength, we also have more people without healthcare than any other advanced industrial country -- and Democrats must be bold enough to say the two issues are linked." ..."I don't agree with other Democrats that we can continue to increase military spending, and still deliver on our domestic agenda for middle class and working Americans. We can't. That's voodoo budgeting." "In this campaign, I plan to make a major issue of hometown security -- healthcare, jobs and education for all -- and misspent Pentagon dollars, even as other Democratic candidates join President Bush in pressing for still more exorbitant military budgets." KUCINICH ON NUCLEAR SAFETY http://www.kucinich.us/issues/issue_nuclearsafety.htm KUCINICH ON NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION http://www.kucinich.us/issues/issue_nuclearnp.htm Rhino wonders how many Americans realize that any of those 4 jetliners that crashed on 9/11/01 could have easily crashed into the Indian Point Nuke Plant. 2 of them went right by it. What would the Eastern Seaboard look like now if that had happened? Are the nuke plants in the U.S. any more protected now than they were then? Rhino asks what does Homeland security really consist of? Making my 80 year old hearing aid wearing mother in law take her shoes off at the airport, or shutting down nuke & chemical plants close to large populations? Fire Shuts Down NY Indian Point Nuclear Plant Reuters, 4/29/03 NEW YORK (Reuters) - Both units at Entergy Nuclear's 1,978 megawatt (MW) Indian Point nuclear plant in New York were shut by early Tuesday, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in its power reactor status report. The company told the NRC in an events report the 951 MW unit 2 automatically tripped ``possibly due to the loss of output breakers'' at about 4:45 p.m. EDT time on Monday, while the company manually tripped the 1,027 MW unit 3 due to a fire in the high pressure turbine at about 3:13 a.m. Tuesday morning. The company said the fire in unit 3 was at a height 53 feet in the turbine building and lasted about 47 minutes. No additional information was available on what damage the fire might have caused. Unit 2 was operating at full power when it tripped and unit 3 was operating at 60 percent of capacity when it was shut. The Indian Point station is located 24 miles north of New York City. http://rense.com/general37/nuckle.htm What can Rhino possibly add to this one. I'll just hip you that if you haven't read any of Rummy's poetry, you're missing the true essence of the man. (SEE RUMMY POETRY LINK BELOW) Rummy's North Korea Connection - What did Donald Rumsfeld know about ABB's deal to build nuclear reactors there? And why won't he talk about it? FORTUNE, 4/28/03, From the May. 12, 2003 Issue Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rarely keeps his opinions to himself. He tends not to compromise with his enemies. And he clearly disdains the communist regime in North Korea. So it's surprising that there is no clear public record of his views on the controversial 1994 deal in which the U.S. agreed to provide North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for Pyongyang ending its nuclear weapons program. What's even more surprising about Rumsfeld's silence is that he sat on the board of the company that won a $200 million contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. http://www.fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,447429-1,00.html RUMMIE'S POETRY (No, not Rumi, Rummy) IS POSTED AT: http://slate.msn.com/id/2081042/ What world leader could take the shrub gang seriously when they tell them they have no right to develop, test and use nuke weapons? And when did this phrase, "Weapon OF Mass Destruction" (WOMD) come about? It's as specific as the word "drug". On the one hand, "drugs are bad", "drugs kill", "the war on drugs must prevail"... but then there's "drug stores" in every neighborhood, and drugs save lives every day, and millions of Americans don't go crazy cause they take their medications. In the same way, Rhino ponders, "what is a WOMD?" The nuclear fuel cycle is a WOMD! For that matter, hunger and poverty kill more people every day than any terrorist incident ever did, so hunger and poverty must surely be WOMD's! Kennedy warns on nuclear tests The Guardian , 4/30/03 Senator Edward Kennedy yesterday warned that the Bush administration was preparing to restart the testing of nuclear weapons so it could develop a new generation of bunker-busting bombs and tactical "mini-nukes", potentially triggering a new arms race. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,946260,00.html 8:09:18 AM    comment

RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE - Prometheus: Lighting NASA's Nuclear Fire Prometheus: Lighting NASA's Nuclear Fire By Leonard David, Senior Space Writer, Space.com, 4/23/03 The following excerpt is from the end of the article. TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE, GO TO: Prometheus ...Rockets lobbed off Earth carrying nuclear reactors on space science pilgrimages is not embraced by everybody. On May 3, a protest of "NASA Plutonium launches and warfare in space" is slated outside the gates of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Organized by the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space of Gainesville, Florida, the group wants to call attention to White House intentions to spend nearly $3 billion in the next five years to expand NASA's nuclear space program. Moreover, they argue that any military-run space laser project to control space requires onboard nuclear reactors too. Also falling under the group's crosshairs are the soon-to-be-launched Mars Exploration Rovers. Each robot is equipped with Radioactive Heater Units (RHUs) to help machinery survive super-cold Martian nights. In their view, not only are they a danger if they careen back to Earth due to a launch failure. Even if the robots succeed they'll be planting a loathsome nuclear seed on Mars. "The Mars Rovers will explore the surface of the red planet doing soil identification that NASA hopes will ultimately lead to manned colonies on Mars to mine for uranium, cobalt, magnesium and water. NASA has said that the eventual mining colonies would be powered with nuclear reactors. When the day comes that space mining is profitable NASA intends to turn operations over to the aerospace industry," warns the protest group in a recent news release. "RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com) Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged. SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT: http://www.rhinosblog.info RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG) http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES) Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html All copyrights belong to original publisher. 7:27:24 AM    comment

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