Far as I can tell, there’s no federal regulation listing the threshold limit value (TLV) to Internet spam. If there was, I’m sure this site would be way overexposed. Each day I have to put on the respirator and gloves, grab the baggies and flush out junk spam from this site. If there were effective, enforceable regs against spam in this world, I decided that the perps at the San Francisco outfit bebo.com would be doing other things. Like selling real estate. Then I got Viagra spam from twosixtypress.com. Twosixtypress? In fact, the email for this stuff seemed to be from from my editor just a few doors down. I opened it up and, sure enough, it was hawking Viagra. I usually don’t talk about Viagra with my editor, so I figured something else must be going on. I opened the email and looked at the site: “intuitionthick.com.” That phrase fairly screamed ”China Spam” and when I went to Whois, sure enough, intuitionthick was a China operation. Seems this pill factory is named Shittongtong, and is operating out of Jianshi, China (look it up on Google Earth). There is an email listed as shitongtong(at)26.com. But don’t bother sending any email. It’s bogus. The phone number 86-0796-28850266 may be bogus as well. I know, it’s tempting to thing there’s four or five smart, twenty-something Chinese grad students trying to pull in serious yuan from Viagra-deprived American net surfers, but. . .what if Shitongtong is a legit company that’s been scammed by a pack of thugs in, say, Moldavia or Marie-El? Fact is, no one knows. I sure don’t. So every day, I clean out junk labeled bebo.com and glee.com and thenget back to working on exposure info where I know the client and the case and have a good idea of the facts. Nothing like the Internet these days.
Toys R Us has recalled more toys from China. The problem: lead. Back in August, Mattel recalled some of the popular Polly Pocket toys because of the same problem. In October the watchdog group Center for Environmental Health announced that lead-containing toys were being sold at places like Wal-mart, Kmart, Sears, KB Toys, Target, RC2 Corp., Michael’s Stores Inc., Toys-R-Us, Costco Wholesale Corp. and Kids II Inc. Strangely, the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s Nancy Nord recently opposed regulations to strengthen her agency, and Nancy Pelosi has called for her resignation.
A couple of months ago our local COMPUSA closed. During the closing, the company offered a number of products at a reduced rate. One of them was a gadget called a MIO Digiwalker 310–a hand-held GPS device. After noting a sign near the gadget warning NO RETURNS ALL SALES FINAL! I bought it. An hour later I found I could have paid a lot less on the Internet. Two days later the battery began to fail. So, I went to the website and found that the Mio was made in Taiwan and had no obvious numbers for U.S. repair sites. I clicked on “repair” and discovered that I had to have the product registered first. So I then went through the process. Here’s where it got interesting. Mio wanted a lot of information. . .date of birth, gender, highest degree awarded, marital status, and yearly income. And you couldn’t opt out. If you DIDN’T enter the info you simply couldn’t register their product. So, I did what I always do in situations like this. I entered information that was incorrect, but trackable. In other words, if I ever get spammed by outfits that seem to know my incorrect birth date, etc. I’ll know it came from Mio.
Unfortunately, people who rely on gadgets like this are in a bind. In order to get the bad ones repaired we have to go through the process of spilling our personal information. So to combat this kind of intrusive behavior, I recommend a list of fake information that can be spam-tracked. If you happen to learn that the company you provided the information used it against you, then you may want to consider your legal options.
Not long ago, the Department of Defense announced that they would detonate a 700-ton cache of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil at Area 16 of the Nevada Test Site. Dubbed Divine Strake, the test was to “determine the potential for future non-nuclear concepts.” The shot, expected to produce a dust cloud 10,000 feet tall, was scheduled for June of this year.
In May, after questions regarding their environmental impact statement came up, the feds decided to postpone the Divine Strake test indefinitely. Now, it seems “indefinitely” means “until September or thereabouts.” Apparently the Department of Defense believes it can come up with a proper EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) that addresses all the concerns (including mine, discussed earlier in this web log).
Now, while the mainstream press has remained characteristically quiet regarding the revival of the test, the activists are angry. In a Tom Dispatch letter, author Chip Ward pointed out that visitors to the nuclear test site are restricted from taking home chunks of NTS rock and that the same material that will likely be entrained into the air when Strake is detonated.
As part of their earlier sampling protocol the Defense Department took what are essentially radiation measurements somewhere near the Strake blast site. In an affadavit filed with the court, I and several other environmental professionals argued that it would be necessary to sample area to identify the specific radioisotopes in the soil that produced the radiation. Here is why:
So, in order to do a proper environmental impact assessment, the Department of Defense must identify the specfic radioisotopes in the soil–both quantitatively and quantitatively. In other words, they should determine not only what radioisotopes are in the soil at Area 16, but how much of each radioisotopes are there.
But that is only half of the assessment. Since these materials will be entrained in a 10,000-ft tall dust cloud—and since what goes up must come down, the feds must acknowledge that this material will potentially affect any site downwind–all the way to the Eastern seaboard. Nuclear debris clouds certainly made it to the East Coast in the 1950s, and the Strake cloud will make it that far as well.
Recently I heard rumors that the DOD scientists were planning to counter that the Strake fallout would not be detectable above background (ambient levels of radiation.) Of course, that brings up the second half of the EIS: the impact of the fallout on the target site (mostly, the rest of the United States.) Again, just assessing radiation levels won’t fulfill the requirments of a proper Environmental Impact Statement: they must identify the radiation-producing radioisotopes at the downwind sites as well. While there are some wonderful books on the subject (ahem), for accuracy and precision nothing beats actually taking samples in the potentially-affected areas. This would mean core samples taken at such sites where radioisotopes from earlier testing may have accumulated–namely soil at the bottom of lakes and ponds. Soil sampling for radioisotopes is an accepted protocol that has been used for years by government scientists.
Only until soil sampling in the downwind areas is completed and the samples analyzed, will we be able to properly assess the potential impact of the Strake shot on the rest of the United States.
But potential impact is only part of the story. Once the device is detonated, once the cloud is airborne and heading north and east, the DOD still has one additional requirement: monitoring of the path of the Strake dust cloud. Given the current state of the EPA radiation monitoring system, this may be a problem. The EPA monitoring apparatus consists of only 59 air radiation monitoring sites —a little more than half of what was available in the U.S. in the 1950s–located primarily in the northeastern U.S. Unfortunately, there are no monitoring stations in Wyoming, Montana or Nebraska—states that could be affected by higher amounts of radioactive debris. Two years ago, I had the opportunity to speak with some EPA technicians familiar with the system. They told me that the sites were staffed by volunteers who recorded the raw radiation data and then mailed the samples to the main EPA Laboratory in Montgomery, Alabama. Hopefully, that situation has changed since then.
Glasstone and Dolan, in their book The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, that a radioactive debris cloud can be completely scavanged (washed clean) by a rainstorm in about an hour . An encounter between the Strake debris cloud and even a small thunderstorm could result in a area of concentrated radioactivity on the ground below.
Any Environmental Impact Assessment should also include information and protocols regarding what should be done if such radioactive rainouts occur. For example, if a thunderstorm deposited significant amounts of NTS americium-241 on a farmer’s corn field, should he be allowed to bring the corn to market—or be compensated for the economic loss? If the rainout drops radioactive NTS material squarely onto a small town, should the residents be offered free medical tests and followups?
Tough questions, but ones the Strake EIS should address.
From pre-owned body parts. Worse, there’s currently few federal regulations protecting the consumer. This AP article, appearing on the MSNBC site, tells how you can protect yourself somewhat.
Story here. The suspect drugs are in a class called ACE inhibitors. Additionally, new research now suggests that the antidepressant Paxil may cause birth defects if taken during the first trimester.
There’s not much toxic or nuke exposure portrayed on television. The one’s that got it absolutely right–The Day After and Special Bulletin come to mind–are are usually so right that it scares everyone out of watching them. Which, sociologically speaking, is probably worth talking about—but some other time. This post is just going to set the stage a little bit, as it were.
Back in 1989 when I was in the then-USSR, officials there told me that The Day After was instrumental in forming Gorbachev’s position vis a vis the U.S. As for Special Bulletin, if you want to know what terrorists can really do with even a small nuke, this is your film. The writer and director should have been given emmys for this one.
Maybe they did get emmys, I forgot. Anyhow, Special Bulletin was written by Marshall Herskovitz, who seemed to have a knack for getting the emotions right in his screenplays. Among his other projects, 1976’s Family and 1987’s Thirtysomething. Special Bulletin was directed by Herskovitz’ pal Edward Zwick who had a hand in the aforementioned Herskovitz projects as well as the great 1990’s series “My So-Called Life.” It lasted one season. Like Special Bulletin, maybe a little too realistic.
Which is perhaps why the current scriptwriters add that little dose of unreality to the program so that viewers will know that it’s all well, make believe. Take that new CBS show scheduled for the fall lineup–Jericho. From the press release it’s about the citizens of a small Kansas town who witness an explosion that resembles a nuclear test and because of it’s remote location (the town, not the explosion) the citizens have difficulty figuring out what to do next. Sort of like Lost on the Great Plains. Or maybe not.
The fact is, I like CBS, mostly because Dan Rather and Fern Orenstein work there. But, as a guy who knows a mushroom cloud when I see one, the cloud in the promo needs serious work. It actually looks worse than the one in the really sensitive and too-cleverly-titled Desert Bloom, that old Jon Voight movie about coming-of-age and nuclear testing.
But back to Jericho: there’s the problem with the terrain—there are mountains visible on the horizon. I grew up in the Midwest and having spent a lot of time in Kansas I can assure you that Kansas is awesomely flat. In fact, it has actually been mathematically proven to be flatter than a pancake. I’ve been all across that state and I know of no place in KS where there are mountains as tall as are depicted in that promo. Colorado, yes. Southern California, suspiciously, yes. Kansas? No.
So, Fern–remember me? I was the guy sitting next to you on the plane to San Fran—you were wearing that black MGM tee shirt.
Place a call to CBS Television Marketing. Ask if the ”tweak” designer on that team has ever spent any time in the Midwest.
Jericho sounds like a great script, one of those shows that could turn out to be another Lost—but those mountains in that promo have got to go.
Well, that’s what the National Nuclear Security Administration rep said about the upcoming Divine Strake test. Glad he cleared that up. He also admitted that the explosion of 700 tons of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil would be equivalent to 593 tons of TNT. And that the dust cloud probably would not take the form of a mushroom cloud. But it could reach 10,000 altitude.
In an earlier post I noted that the feds (and Bechtel) had claimed Area 16 was free of radioactivity because no nuclear tests were detonated there. I suggested that since nuclear tests had taken place less than 10 miles from the center of Area 16 that contamination was a real possibility. Then, I listed a few nuclear tests that were implicated: Turk, Coulomb B, Kepler, Galileo, Shasta and Smoky. If you click on the links you will see that the Defense Nuclear Agency’s own maps–these from the Plumbbob series–clearly show contamination of the Nevada Test Site west of the detonation points. In many of the maps you will see the Nevada-California border. Note that in most of these maps North does not necessarily point toward the top of the page.
Okay. So suppose Area 16 was contaminated in 1957. That was almost 50 years ago. Would the ground still be radioactive after all these years?
The answer is yes. For example, the Hicks Table for shot Kepler, truncated version here, suggests that several radioisotopes—including cobalt-60, americium-241 and strontium-90 are still active after all these years.
And if these radioisotopes are in the soil at Area 16, they will likely be part of one very large dust cloud.
As a sometimes-litigation consultant, I have come to appreciate the work opposing counsels put into depositions and trial. If there is a shred of positive evidence to support their side of the case, they will polish it until is shines like a 5000-watt beacon. If there is a pinhole-sized irregularity in your conclusions they will turn it into the fatal flaw. That’s their job. What’s more, that’s good for you. And good for the case–because it helps the truth become real. The jury listens to both sides, decides whose side has the worst case, and votes for the other side. That is exactly the way it should be and that’s the way it is.
Except, apparently when the government is involved. The World Trade Centers fell in a cloud of dust—a toxic brew of asbestos, mercury (probably americium-241), PCBs and heaven-knows-what-else. Thousands of New Yorkers were exposed. And yet in the five year span since that event, the EPA has never bothered to determine the quantitative concentration of the cloud, i.e. in terms of milligrams per cubic meter–even though such metrics form the standard for many regulatory agencies such as OSHA, NIOSH and EPA. And even though people possibly have begun to die from that very exposure.
Instead, the EPA apparently grabbed a professorload of “exposure experts” who never seemed to answer phone calls OR be able to divide mass by volume (though this is something that guys in the litigation field do all the time.) Thus, no concentration value, no quantified exposure. No quantified exposure, no evidence. Reporters assigned to the hearings aren’t really good at math and science, but that’s okay. They get the big picture. And the big picture is, so it happens, painted by the EPA–who assures us there is some information that we really don’t actually need.
But that’s another post for another time.
But now, I’m seeing the same thing with Divine Strake the big ammonium nitrate and fuel oil explosion set for sometime in June at Area 16 at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. And the feds–albeit another branch–are doing it again.
Here are the facts: Seven hundred tons of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil will be detonated at Area 16 of the Nevada Test Site. The soil at Area 16 probably is loaded with radioactive elements such as cesium-137, strontium-90, plutonium and maybe even americium-241. How do I know this? Because the place was contaminated with above-ground nuclear tests such as those code-named Easy (1952), Turk (1955), Coulomb B(1957), Kepler and Smoky (1957)–and maybe others. The contamination countours were mapped and published in a government document called DASA-1251. You can see two of the maps here and here.
These tests were known to have produced long-lived radioactive elements. Thus, as any high school student would surmise, if these tests contaminated what is now Area 16, and if these same tests produced long-lived hot isotopes that are active for 50 years, then Area 16 is still hot.
The federal government claims that there are NO radioactive isotopes at the site because no atmospheric tests were detonated there.
What they are not saying is that Area 16 is a mere eight miles from the ground zeroes of many of the 1957 nuclear tests. Reporters were kept seven miles from ground zero so as to avoid contamination and exposure.
Eight miles is not a terribly great distance, considering that most of the aboveground tests occurring nearby produced debris clouds that reached 30,000 feet into the sky.
In response to inquiries about safety, I have been informed that the federal response has been, in effect: “We monitored both sides of a road in Area 16 and we found nothing exceeding background radiation.”
Anyone presenting that kind of lame excuse for evidence in a real civil courtroom would be devoured by opposing counsel. I can imagine the questions:
Actually the last one was an easy shot: the EPA has a monitoring network, but the last time I looked (2003) the sites only checked for gross beta and gamma and not alpha—and they mail the samples to the EPA Lab in Montgomery, Alabama—there were only 50 sites in the U.S.—and most were staffed by volunteers.
When I asked the EPA representative for an opportunity to interview one of the volunteers in the Iowa lab, she refused. So much for quality control.
This eventually led me to suggest to the Department of Homeland Security that a terrorist organization could detonate a 1 kg block of the alpha-emitter am-241 at 20,000 ft altitude over western Wyoming—contaminate thousands of square miles of U.S. soil—and completely escape detection by the EPA system. Another story, another post, another time.
Bottom line I: If the government “experts” played by the rules of even the most rural southern jurist, then the truth might surface a tad faster.
Bottom line II: I have nothing against the Defense Threat Nuclear Agency testing bunker busters at various sites around the United States. That sort of thing comes with the job classification; and they’re doing it, ultimately, to protect us, the American people. I have no quarrel with the good men and women of the Defense Threat Nuclear Agency.
What I do find offensive is if they try to avoid or suppress evidence that would shed light on the full known consequences of their actions—i.e. qualitative assurances where quantitative values are required. Or hand-waving (”Bechtel said it was fine.”) Specious arguments (”no above ground testing at Area 16–so it’s safe.”) No passing the buck to some subcontractor (protected by the Feres doctrine.) Stuff that would bring on scathing venom from even the most inexperienced trial lawyer if it were presented by his opposing counsel’s expert.
In other words, Divine Strake is the sort of thing that could impact real people in the real world—therefore it should be held to real world standards—and not some reporter who got his job on the environment beat because no one else wanted it.
In civil litigation the experts have to play fair and tell the truth, because if they don’t they will surely be called on it—and their client will have a greater chance of losing.
The very same criteria should apply to the feds and their faux nukes—even those–like this one–that are turbocharged with a barnload of fertilizer and fuel oil.
[powered by WordPress.]
jour·nal n. A personal record of occurrences, experiences, and reflections kept on a regular basis; a diary.
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « May | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 |
| 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 |
| 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 |
| 29 | 30 | 31 | ||||
95. If it's not physics, it's magic.
--G. Noss
44 queries. 0.286 seconds