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Tuesday, September 23, 2003 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"President Bush is asking Congress for $80 billion dollars to re-build Iraq. And when you make out that check, remember there are two L's in Halliburton."
- - David Letterman ("Late Show," 9/8/03)
KNOW YOUR HISTORY - SEPTEMBER 23rd
1950 -- The U.S. Congress overrides President Truman's veto & passes the McCarran Internal Security Act, requiring registration of members of groups the Attorney General determines to be Communist fronts, & establishing of emergency concentration camps. Truman called the act "the greatest danger to freedom of speech, press & assembly since the Alien & Sedition Laws of 1798."
McCarran Act
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
TV TIP:
The next presidential debate will air this Thursday from New York City, televised live on CNBC 4-6pm Eastern (re-aired on MSNBC at 9pm Eastern).
RHINO HERE:
Fresh back from the premiere of our new documentary, "A SEAT AT THE TABLE; Struggling For American Indian Religious Freedom" at the Amnesty International Film Festival in Salt Lake City. Nice pre-screening event at The Indian Center in Salt Lake. A great turnout at the screening & intelligent Q & A session afterwards. The most rewarding for me was that the audience was half Indian people who all seemed to feel that the program spoke for them.
http://www.dreamcatchers.org/aseatatthetable
Some of my friends tell me that they have a hard time reading my blog because they say I'm so negative. That the stories I post are almost always bummers & they'd rather have me highlight more feel good topics. I've given this some thought & have come to a few conclusions:
1) Maybe they don't read through my comments enough to get the doses of lightness I offer.
2) Maybe they don't catch my weekend blogs when I purposefully try to lighten things up.
3) and maybe my blog isn't for everyone.
I do know that in times like these, there better be enough citizens looking at the cold hard facts & reaching out to do something about them, even if it's just encouraging our half asleep brothers & sisters to register & vote & maybe even write a few letters to their representatives.
Today's topic is once again not a pretty one, but one that if enough Americans were aware of, we might be able to send the shrub gang packing next year. It has to do with the U.S. government's legacy of exposing citizens to radiation & not helping them after they get sick. It also deals with the very current issue of the effects of depleted uranium (DU) in Iraq. Sorry, no Rhino giggles today.
U.S. Refuses to Compensate all Victims of A-bomb Work
Gannett News Service , Tucson Citizen, 9/15/03
WASHINGTON - Scores of private factories that helped make the nation's first atomic bombs stayed polluted for decades. And thousands of people who later worked in them were exposed to radiation and toxins without knowing it, government records show. The government is refusing to compensate workers who say they have illnesses from the latent contamination. It says only those who had jobs while the weapons work was going on are eligible for money... ...The findings add a new chapter to the nuclear weapons program's legacy of health and environmental damage....
IT'S ALL AT:
U.S. refuses to compensate victims
Today's RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE comes from the Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS). The story is one Rhino hasn't seen on any of the tri-letter cheerleading news networks, but it's one every American who "supports the troops" ought to know about. Unfortunately, many of the victims of this story will not know the extent of their damage for years to come and if the U.S. Government continues its M.O., (as detailed in the article above) they'll get little or no help from those responsible.
The Inter Press Service News Agency the world's leading provider of information on global issues. It's backed by a network of journalists in more than 100 countries. Its clients include more than 3,000 media organizations and tens of thousands of civil society groups, academics, and other users. IPS focuses on events affecting the economic, social and political development of peoples and nations.
8:02:21 AM 
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IRAQ: Experts Warn of Radioactive Battlefields
by Katherine Stapp, Interpress Service News Agency
NEW YORK, Sep 12 (IPS) - Concerns are growing about the presence of depleted uranium and other toxins in Iraq following a rash of illnesses among U.S. troops and the discovery by a reporter that radiation levels in parts of Baghdad are extremely elevated.
So far, according to figures obtained by the 'Washington Post', more than 6,000 soldiers have been pulled out of Iraq for medical reasons since the start of the war. About 1,400 of them were injured in combat or non-combat incidents, such as vehicle accidents, meaning the majority were evacuated for various physical or psychological illnesses. No further breakdown has been released. In July, the U.S. Army announced that two soldiers had died of severe pneumonia and more than 100 were hospitalized for the illness. The deaths are still being investigated.
While experts discount a single cause for these illnesses, some remain concerned that neither the troops stationed in Iraq nor the civilian population is being adequately protected from toxic residues left over from the war. These fears were heightened when a correspondent for the 'Christian Science Monitor' took a Geiger counter to parts of Baghdad that had been subjected to heavy shelling by U.S. troops. He found radiation levels 1,000 to 1,900 times higher than normal in residential areas where children were playing nearby.
One explanation is the presence of depleted uranium (DU), the trace element left over when uranium is enriched and the most radioactive types have been removed for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. DU munitions vaporize on contact, dispersing particles over wide areas, where they settle as dust that can be inhaled or ingested. The Pentagon has portrayed DU munitions as indispensable in giving U.S. soldiers an edge on the battlefield. The high density of DU shells allows them to punch through walls and armored vehicles. But some see a more cynical reason for their popularity: the United States is the largest generator of DU in the world, with a stockpile of 700,000 tons and growing. Since the supply is controlled by the Department of Energy, it is readily available and free of charge. Transforming DU into weaponry has the added advantage of easing the DOE's burden to safely store the spent nuclear fuel...
ALL THE DETAILS AT:
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=20109
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All copyrights belong to original publisher.
6:38:11 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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