'The most difficult thing a person can do inside or outside the military is to think. Lieutenant Watada is causing Americans to think. His stand has forced Americans to think about this war. All Americas have a responsibility to think and to act.' Zoltan Grossman, Evergreen State College faculty member, speaking at the Citizen's Hearing on the Legality of US Actions in Iraq (click here).
Retired Army Colonel Ann Wright - "...We must ensure that members of the US military are not put in the position of being ordered to carry out crimes against humanity and illegal war. "
...the topic of tomorrow night's "It's Wednesday Night" is New Age Bigotry, a completely different discussion than entered here.
And for your 'casual' reading in the meantime, June 15, 2008 / Volume 42 / Issue 12 (click title to entry). Thank you. This JOURNAL is by the editors of Chemical Abstracts. It is the same JOURNAL that foretold the potential lack of Biologicals in Iraq in the year 2002. Nearly an entire year before the illegal and immoral invasion into Iraq. You might ask how Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld 'missed' that one? They didn't. The monies for the research were garnered from the USA Defense Department. The article is immediately below. It looks fairly benign to any criticism of the Iraq invasion actually. It speaks to the issue of 'good news' in regard to the quick degradation of VX Gas/Liquid. The 'other' message within the context of that scientific article is that 'Chemical/Biological Warfare Agents' EASILY degrade when in contact with concrete. Concrete is a carbon based mixture. Humans are carbon based. How does this 'relate' to the reality of Iraq and its possession of Chemical and Biological Weapons before the invasion?Put on your 'critical thinking' hat/cap, whichever is your pleasure. Ready?
This is a tribute to the USA "Brain Trust" and its future among young Americans.
The ludicrous nature of the Iraq Invasion is probably obvious to most anyone reading this right now, but, for those Ultra Conservatives that only see the world through Republican Colored Glasses, it has to be spelled out. So here we go.
A is for Apple, I suppose.
B is for Bargain Basement Government.C is for Chemical Weapon Syndrome.D is for Down Right Stupid.The article came out in the November 15, 2002 edition of the American Chemical Society's journal, Environmental Science and Technology. That is just to begin with. It also appeared in December 2002 in the journal Nature, which reviews significant research and publishes it according to topic and subscriber interest. The 'topic' is about detecting the traces 'on concrete' of the very toxic chemical agent called VX. The researchers utilized 'VX Liquid' and not VX Gas as they wanted to be able to place VX in a controlled situation and find the residual as it degraded to test their Ion Mass Spectometer.The spectrometer worked without a hitch, what the researchers didn't expect was for the VX to degrade within hours of exposure to concrete. They were anticipating far longer degradation timelines, more like days and perhaps a week and why their 'recordings' were to take place every 12 hours rather than every hour, every minute or every second. The slow degradation of VX Liquid didn't occur. What did occur was a complete breakdown of this chemical agent as soon as it was exposed to concrete. Concrete is a carbon based substance. Concrete is made of sand. Sand is found EVERYWHERE in Iraq. Sand and concrete are especially found in the area where the United Nations had authorized 'seals' to store all the weapons agents of the Saddam Hussein government.At this point in the reasoning is where it is difficult for Republicans to move past their own political prejudices as they have so many. Those political prejudices are more like a religion than the actual Christianity they claim to cling to, but, for a Republican to actually 'critically think,' is like sacrilege. Republicans like to ridicule Democrats by stating when people actually critique Republican reasoning it is simply "Magical Thinking (click here)." Magical thinking has its place, but, mostly in novels like J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (click here) or the policies that lead the USA into war in Iraq by screaming about WMD (click here), hence this response. Most if not ALL of the Bush/Cheney policies are indeed Magical Thinking empowered by enforced Propaganda of the FCC. The Bush/Cheney/Rove FCC isn't interested in 'Quality Control' so much as 'Control' over the media. But to contextualize the Republican Magical Thinking, the Neocon War Chant is similar to that of the Captain of the Star Ship Enterprise, "Make it so."But, to move past that as it is another discussion, and back to the article below, at the time of the publication of this article there was hot debate at the United Nations regarding Bush's assertion about WMD and the Iraq Inventories and Saddam's inability to produce accurate records. To begin, Iraq is a third world nation. It was in March of 2003 and it continues to be. There is going to be inaccurate record keeping and the 'idea' that any WMD inventories were accurate at all by the government there was indeed Magical Thinking. The United Nations had been involved in Iraq for more than a decade then and it was they that had the correct inventories and NOT Saddam's dictatorial government. Sending UN Inspectors back to Iraq was a huge step for the United Nations and it was for the purpose to dispel Bush's Magical Thinking and provide complete inventories of any violation of UN Resolutions. Well, that in Republican mandates, was never supposed to 'end the discussion' regarding an invasion into Iraq, is was supposed to be a catalyst to it when the Republican Spin Machine went to work on it, hence the Rove Dynasty of Nasty Image Making. Political Gossip if you will.
The article below evidenced the 'doubt' that most people opposing the invasion believed. It wasn't Magical Thinking that lead to the making of Fahrenheit 911, it was sound and solid speculation based in facts that manifested from evidence like this.
The article clearly indicates a 'surprise' finding by the scientists involved. It occurred long before the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld invasion into Iraq and the results of scientific investigation like this was known to the USA Defense Department long before its publication and in excess of this one article. If this article was published there is much more in the 'classified' section of the military that was never published and still yet to be known to the public.
The article clearly indicates as soon as VX Liquid was exposed to a 'carbon surface' such as concrete it literally disintegrated in a matter of hours. Realizing that brings to the surface of any argument regarding WMD, the viability of it as a weapon at all, as well the 'stability' of these substances outside the laboratory to even exist. We know these biologicals are stable enough for the time needed in any attack evidenced by use during WW I and II and returning GIs with issues such as noted with Mustard Gas exposure and domestic terrorist attacks such as the Subway Sarin Incident (click here), but, to actually claim a war should be started on 'doubtful' inventories of a third world nation is hideous and down right stupid.
But, the Republican Political Gossip Machine to support vast government spending to favor cronies that support these 'enablers' of Magical Thinking, was working and exerting irrational fears about a country already disarmed.
The attacks of September 11, 2001 allowed a lot of irrational fears among the American people. Included in those fears were that of WMD as a weapon to kill those that were least able to defend themselves.
Where this mess began was the spread of anthrax in the daily delivaries of the US Mail Service and successful contamination of Postal Workers (click here). I might point out the investigation into those 'exposures' never provided any results to 'solve the crime' so much as to prevent it from happening again. The perpetrators, even today, are in question, while quite possibly 'classified,' considering the last of the anthrax samples resulted to be a very sophisticated form of 'weapon grade' anthrax. That reality leads to a lot of questions regarding 'protection' of research stocks of the USA government and whom indeed might have access under this administration. But, that is still another discussion.
Where the Republican Political Gossip Machine is successful is in a 'Cult-ure of Fear' where people seek to do silly things, like wrapping their homes in plastic to prevent attacks of WMD by unknown terrorists. To illustrate the use of Magical Thinking by the Bush/Cheney administration, their Homeland Security Secretary, Tom Ridge, was RECOMMENDING to the American Public to 'Duct Tape' their homes.
Talk about stupid and the chance these same people could be back in the same capacity under a 'repeat' Republican administration is out of the question.
The 'real' potentials of Homeland Security, by the way, has yet to be realized. The only Secretaries that have existed are Republican cronies to spending, ather than people actually able to make a difference in the nation's internal defense structures. THE EXAMPLE illustrating same is the denial of monies to major cities of budget funds, instead, 'spreading the wealth' among cronies in distant and small cities where most of the recruits for the Iraq War are obtained. By spending Homeland Security monies in these towns it bolstered the reason to send more recruits regardless of the lack of reason to do so. It continued to validate the reasons for people of those towns to remain patriotic in the face of evidence elsewhere. Nationalism at its worse. When it comes to spending Homeland Security monies for the purpose of National Defense it is best done through a 'legislated formula' based in sound LOGIC so those funds can no longer be politically spent.
But, this article was touted by me at the time of its publication as a reason to cause 'pause' to the irrational language and provisions of the Bush/Cheney/Powell rants to war. It provided a solid reason for Saddam to say there were no more inventories of chemical or biological weapons even if his 'administrative' records didn't indicate it. This article provided PROOF that indeed in a third world country, where storage of such weapons would be primiative, there was plenty of reason for the United Nations Security Council to reject Bush's demands for invasion. And indeed the UN Security Council never got a chance to make their votes in rejection of Bush's War. George Walker Bush moved his military against the established Saddam government a full day before the final vote of the UN Security Council which would have recommended the UN Inspectors continue their work. There was approximately three more weeks needed by the WMD weapons inspectors at that time and about six more months needed by the nuclear weapons experts. Bush and Cheney had their own 'timeline for cronies' and the UN wasn't cooperating so they decided to autonomously and against 'US Rule of Law' to launch the destabilizing, illegal and immoral event of The Iraq Invasion.
So, to simply end this venture into 'rationality' and why this article is recognized for evidence to dispute the Bush/Cheney/Rove Culture of Fear to the lead up of the invasion, there is a lot remaining to be 'known' to the American people within the disasterous administration of the past eight years. That is still another prime reason to stop the Republican domination of the USA government which has existed now for over three decades. We need a change in DC and one with enough 'guts' to take on the task of revealing the unthinkable, re-establishing trust in government without the fear of believing we are safe as a nation and among friends again internationally.
Environ. Sci. Technol., 36 (22), 4790 -4794, 2002. 10.1021/es025754n S0013-936X(02)05754-1 Web Release Date: September 27, 2002 Copyright © 2002 American Chemical Society
Hydrolysis of VX on Concrete: Rate of Degradation by Direct Surface Interrogation Using an Ion Trap Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer (click here)
Gary S. Groenewold,* John M. Williams, Anthony D. Appelhans, Garold L. Gresham, John E. Olson, Mark T. Jeffery, and Brad Rowland
Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho 83415-2208, Battelle Dugway Operations, West Desert Test Center, Dugway Proving Ground, Dugway, Utah 84022, and West Desert Test Center, Dugway Proving Ground, Dugway, Utah 84022
Received for review April 26, 2002
Revised manuscript received July 29, 2002
Accepted August 28, 2002
Abstract:
The nerve agent VX (O-ethyl S-2-diisopropylaminoethyl methylphosphonothiolate) is lethal at very low levels of exposure, which can occur by dermal contact with contaminated surfaces. Hence, behavior of VX in contact with common urban or industrial surfaces is a subject of acute interest. In the present study, VX was found to undergo complete degradation when in contact with concrete surfaces. The degradation was directly interrogated at submonolayer concentrations by periodically performing secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) analyses after exposure of the concrete to VX. The abundance of the [VX + H]+ ion in the SIMS spectra was observed to decrease in an exponential fashion, consistent with first-order or pseudo-first-order behavior. This phenomenon enabled the rate constant to be determined at 0.005 min-1 at 25 C, which corresponds to a half-life of about 3 h on the concrete surface. The decrease in [VX + H]+ was accompanied by an increase in the abundance of the principal degradation product diisopropylaminoethanethiol (DESH), which arises by cleavage of the P-S bond. Degradation to form DESH is accompanied by the formation of ethyl methylphosphonic acid, which is observable only in the negative ion spectrum. A second degradation product was also implicated, which corresponded to a diisopropylvinylamine isomer (perhaps N,N-diisopropyl aziridinium) that arose via cleavage of the S-C bond. No evidence was observed for the formation of the toxic S-2-diisopropylaminoethyl methylphosphonothioic acid. The degradation rate constants were measured at four different temperatures (24-50 C), which resulted in a linear Arrhenius relationship and an activation energy of 52 kJ mol-1. This value agrees with previous values observed for VX hydrolysis in alkaline solutions, which suggests that the degradation of submonolayer VX is dominated by alkaline hydrolysis within the adventitious water film on the concrete surface.
Hello?
Environ. Sci. Technol., 36 (10), 2122 -2129, 2002. 10.1021/es010963d S0013-936X(01)00963-4 Web Release Date: April 9, 2002 Copyright © 2002 American Chemical Society
High-Value Renewable Energy from Prairie Grasses (click here)
S. B. McLaughlin,* D. G. de la Torre Ugarte, C. T. Garten, Jr., L. R. Lynd, M. A. Sanderson, V. R. Tolbert, and D. D. Wolf
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831, Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire 03755, USDA-ARS, Curtin Road, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061
Received for review May 9, 2001
Revised manuscript received February 18, 2002
Accepted February 26, 2002
Abstract:
Projected economic benefits of renewable energy derived from a native prairie grass, switchgrass, include nonmarket values that can reduce net fuel costs to near zero. At a farm gate price of $44.00/dry Mg, an agricultural sector model predicts higher profits for switchgrass than conventional crops on 16.9 million hectares (ha). Benefits would include an annual increase of $6 billion in net farm returns, a $1.86 billion reduction in government subsidies, and displacement of 44-159 Tg/year (1 Tg = 1012 g) of greenhouse gas emissions. Incorporating these values into the pricing structure for switchgrass bioenergy could accelerate commercialization and provide net benefits to the U.S. economy.
Environ. Sci. Technol., 36 (10), 2130 -2137, 2002. 10.1021/es011272k S0013-936X(01)01272-X Web Release Date: April 5, 2002 Copyright © 2002 American Chemical Society
Promoting Pollution Prevention through Community-Industry Dialogues: The Good Neighbor Model in Minnesota (click here)
Barbara Scott Murdock and Ken Sexton*
Center for Environment and Health Policy, Division of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, MMC 807 UMHC, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
Received for review September 10, 2001
Revised manuscript received February 19, 2002
Accepted February 21, 2002
Abstract:
This article examines five attempts by communities to promote pollution prevention through direct negotiations with local manufacturing plants. These projects were Good Neighbor Dialogues spearheaded by Citizens for a Better Environment-Minnesota, an environmental advocacy organization. Three community-company partnerships (a container plant, a foundry, and a cabinet manufacturer) were successful and two (a munitions plant and a petroleum refinery) were not. Successful dialogues all shared certain characteristics: the company was open to negotiating with the community; there was an effective "champion" within the company; a skilled, independent facilitator served as moderator; community participants received independent technical assistance; and both the company and community understood the value of cooperative environmental decision making. Results suggest that Good Neighbor Dialogues can, under the right settings and circumstances, be an effective mechanism for building social capital by fostering greater understanding and trust between companies and communities. They offer the prospect of community-company partnerships that promote pollution prevention and other environmental improvements, while at the same time reinforcing and amplifying traditional pollution control strategies.
The article below shows a comprehensive look at the impacts of oil extraction of Alaska North Shore crude. Extraction, run off and spills don't occur in a vacuum, they occur in full appreciation of sunlight and UV exposure. This article exposes the lethal effects on the ocean environments where fisheries exist, of the combination of sunlight (UV) and oil. Each element ALONE shows little impact, however, together they are fatal to the very bottom of the food chain in Alaskan waters.
It is easy for the oil industry to 'hide their tracks' in relation to oil extraction and the environmental contamination and degradation that occurs, especially with high deterioration rates in 'extreme climates' of oil infrastructure, IF allowed to only provide proof of oil contamination in a 'vacuum' rather than the 'reality' of its impacts in the presence of sunlight. No one can stop the sun from rising and setting, nor would that be a good idea.
Environ. Sci. Technol., 36 (18), 3953 -3959, 2002. 10.1021/es020685y S0013-936X(02)00685-5 Web Release Date: August 17, 2002 Copyright © 2002 American Chemical Society
Photoenhanced Toxicity of Weathered Alaska North Slope Crude Oil to the Calanoid Copepods Calanus marshallae and Metridia okhotensis (click here)
Switgard Duesterloh
Juneau Center, School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 11120 Glacier Highway, Juneau, Alaska 99801
Jeffrey W. Short*
National Marine Fisheries Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Auke Bay Laboratory, 11305 Glacier Highway, Juneau, Alaska 99801-8626
Mace G. Barron
P.E.A.K. Research, 1134 Avon Lane, Longmont, Colorado 80501
Received for review April 10, 2002
Revised manuscript received July 10, 2002
Accepted July 11, 2002
Abstract:
This study investigated the synergistic toxicity of aqueous polyaromatic compounds (PAC) dissolved from crude oil and ultraviolet radiation (UV) in natural sunlight to the calanoid copepods Calanus marshallae and Metridia okhotensis. These copepods were first exposed to low doses (~2 g of total PAC/L) of the water-soluble fraction of weathered Alaska North Slope crude oil for 24 h and subsequently to low or high levels of natural sunlight. Responses included mortality, impairment of swimming ability, and discoloration of lipid sacs. There was 80-100% mortality and morbidity of C. marshallae exposed to UV and oil as compared to less than 10% effect in oil-only or UV-only treatments. In M. okhotensis, 100% mortality occurred in the UV and oil treatment, 43% mortality and 27% morbidity in the UV-only treatment, and less than 5% effect in the oil-only treatment. Bioaccumulation factors were ~8000 for C. marshallae and ~2000 for M. okhotensis. The interaction of the effect of PAC and UV radiation was highly significant (P <>.
