This is a 2001 presentation by the Army agency responsible for low level
radioactive waste materials

  http://www.containment.fsu.edu/cd/content/pdf/139.pdf

Dr. Raabe,
Thanks for noting the recently presented paper by Ron Kathren on Uranium
Toxicity. Ron is uniquely qualified to make a review of this sort.

You suggest that Ron's paper is "must reading" for DU alarmists. However,
essentially none of these alarmists are going to read this paper -- or if
they did by chance read it, their prejudices would blind them to accepting
any of the science presented on the subject of U toxicity.

What needs to be done is for sponsoring organizations and/or the HPS to get
Ron's paper out to nationally respected science writers [with a personal
contact with some, and a cover letter related to Ron's paper for other].
These science writers will, if they pick up the content and realize the
import of it, discuss his paper which will in turn reach hundreds of other
science writers and hundreds of thousands to millions of readers in the
general public. The scientific community needs to reach out in a way that
reaches a broad public readership on important scientific issues. The key
word is "OUTREACH".

I have had direct experience of just such an approach, demonstrating the
incredible reach of the weekly Washington based publication Science News.
Janet Raloff, a highly respected science writer with  Science News wrote a
news note regarding a paper I presented at an Annual Meeting of the HPS
about a national survey of Cs-137 in woodash from domestic woodstoves and
fireplaces.

Raloff wrote a very brief news note  [a dozen lines or so which she titled:
"Woodash --The Unregulated Radwaste"] about my just presented Cs-137 in
Woodash HPS paper.

This 12 line news note in Science News led to countless dozens of print
[front page newspaper articles, magazines], and radio reports about how
trivial radioactive waste streams from nuclear plants and hospitals with 200
pCi/kg or less of fission or activation products in some waste streams like
nuclear facility septic sludge, cloth wipes and clothing from hospitals,
etc. were being treated as radwaste, when woodash with 20,000 pCi/kg of
fission product Cs-137 from bomb test fallout [plus higher levels of Sr-90
generally] was being spread on fields as a fertilizer for organic gardening,
both in home use and on commercial organic farms [with woodash from
wood-fired power plants!

Raloff also enjoyed the subtitle to my paper on my national survey of Cs-137
in woodash paper which read:  "Woodburners, and Organic Farmers: Is it time
to kiss your ash goodbye?". This subtitle served as the proverbial "hook"
that the media could not resist in covering the story. My paper showed that
Cs-137 in woodash at 20,000 pCi/kg of ash led to doses over many years of
use as a fertilizer that were at very most about 1 mrem/year, a de minimus
level which even anti-nuclear publications like Organic Gardening felt
forced to write were levels of no concern, or face reproach and embarassment
for their having actively promoted use of woodash as a fertlilizer for many
decades [i.e.: it would be their "ox getting gored!"]

Other excellent nationally respected science writers include Larry Spohn of
the Albuquerque Tribune --but there are many dozens of science reporters who
should and could be approached about the important issues raised by Ron
Kathren's just-presented paper. This would likely lead to coverage of the U
issue that would "undermine", as it were, the unscientific and alarmist
attempts of many individuals and groups opposed to anything nuclear. The key
word is OUTREACH to the general and scientific media. The only question is
that if science writers do not pick up Ron's paper independently, how will
it get to them.

Stewart Farber, MS Public Health
Consulting Scientist

Farber Technical Services
1285 Wood Ave.
Bridgeport, CT 06604
[203] 441-8433 [office]
email: radproject@...

====================================
----- Original Message -----
From: "Otto Raabe" <ograabe@...>
To: <neildm@...>; <DUStory@yahoogroups.com>; <crispy_bird@...>;
<Mike.Brennan@...>; <radsafe@...>
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 4:59 PM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] The last word on DU


> July 11, 2007
>
> Ron Kathren's paper "Acute Toxicity of Uranium: "A Brief Review  with
> Special Reference to Man" delivered today at the annual meeting of the
> Health Physics Society in Portland, Oregon, (WAM-C.2) is must reading for
> all the DU alarmists.
>
> After almost 200 years of toxicological study, the best description is
> still the one given by Gmelin in 1824: "a feeble poison". Ron's review of
> the literature that includes human exposures to soluble forms of uranium
> reveals that "no human is known to have died from exposure to uranium."
> Also, the radioactivity of uranium is not relevant to toxicity unless it
> is at least 15% enriched in U-235.
>
> Otto
>
> Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
> Center for Health & the Environment
> University of California
> One Shields Avenue
> Davis, CA 95616
> E-Mail: ograabe@...
> Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140

Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
Center for Health & the Environment
University of California
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616
E-Mail: ograabe@...
Phone: (530) 752-7754   FAX: (530) 758-6140

From one of the articles in the series, quoting the wife of an American
tank gunner who had been in the Gulf War:

"Actually, whenever we had sex, I had a terrible burning sensation in my
vagina. It was like acid. Now we know that it was because his semen was
contaminated with heavy metal. But we knew nothing about that until we
happened to run into someone who was studying depleted uranium in 1994."

It then goes on to talk about how her health was destroyed by DU.

I have to admit that I have a great deal of difficulty believing that
her husband could have such high concentrations of heavy metal, or any
toxic material, in his body that detectable quantities could be
transferred to her via this pathway.  I acknowledge that there probably
haven't been many studies of this particular contamination pathway, but
still.

I also notice that while the article said that she had been tested by a
private lab that found DU in her urine, there was no mention of similar
results for her husband.  I find it hard to believe the author would
have left that out if it were available.

After reading a couple of the articles in this series, I have no
confidence that the author has any commitment to the truth.

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces@... [mailto:radsafe-bounces@...] On
Behalf Of Roger Helbig
Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 1:36 AM
To: dustory@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ RadSafe ] [DUStory] Hiroshima Newspaper Series Reappears

How many of you have read this series?  I am looking for much more
detailed commentary than I would be able to make.  Thank you.

Roger

The Christian Peacemaker Team member Wes's DU Blog site has this link to
the series

  "DISCOUNTED CASUALTIES" - GREAT HIROSHIMA NEWSPAPER SERIES ON DU
IMPACTS WORLDWIDE This entry was posted on 6/26/2007 6:35 PM and is
filed under Information.

"Discounted Casualties - the Human Cost of Depleted Uranium" is a
comprehensive and exhaustive journalism work by Akira Tashiro in the
Hiroshima Newspaper Chugoku Shimbun, published in 2000 yet timely -- a
reproduction of the initial page of the online series is below --


http://du-blog.wildclearing.com/2007/06/26/discounted-casualties--great-
hiroshima-newspaper-series-on-du-impacts-worldwide.aspx





Yahoo! Groups Links



_______________________________________________
You are currently subscribed to the RadSafe mailing list

Before posting a message to RadSafe be sure to have read and understood
the RadSafe rules. These can be found at:
http://radlab.nl/radsafe/radsaferules.html

For information on how to subscribe or unsubscribe and other settings
visit: http://radlab.nl/radsafe/

If it was on, I would not be having all the problems I
am today.

--- "Perrero, Daren" <Daren.Perrero@...>
wrote:

> John
>
> Looks like your spell checker was left on ... ;-)
>
> Daren
>
> The opinions expressed are mine, all mine.....
> I'm with the government, I'm here to help you.
> Daren Perrero
> daren.perrero(a)illinois.gov
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces@...
> [mailto:radsafe-bounces@...] On
> Behalf Of John Jacobus
> Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 10:04 AM
> To: Brennan, Mike (DOH); DUStory@yahoogroups.com;
> radsafe@...
> Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] [DUStory] Hiroshima
> Newspaper Series Reappears
>
> I suggest testing for vernial diseases first.
>
> --- "Brennan, Mike  (DOH)" <Mike.Brennan@...>
> wrote:
>
> > >From one of the articles in the series, quoting
> the
> > wife of an American
> > tank gunner who had been in the Gulf War:
> >
> > "Actually, whenever we had sex, I had a terrible
> burning sensation in
> > my vagina. It was like acid. Now we know that it
> was because his semen
>
> > was contaminated with heavy metal. But we knew
> nothing about that
> > until we happened to run into someone who was
> studying depleted
> > uranium in 1994."
> >
> > It then goes on to talk about how her health was
> destroyed by DU.
> >
> > I have to admit that I have a great deal of
> difficulty believing that
> > her husband could have such high concentrations of
> heavy metal, or any
>
> > toxic material, in his body that detectable
> quantities could be
> > transferred to her via this pathway.  I
> acknowledge that there
> > probably haven't been many studies of this
> particular contamination
> > pathway, but still.
> >
> > I also notice that while the article said that she
> had been tested by
> > a private lab that found DU in her urine, there
> was no mention of
> > similar results for her husband.  I find it hard
> to believe the author
>
> > would have left that out if it were available.
> >
> > After reading a couple of the articles in this
> series, I have no
> > confidence that the author has any commitment to
> the truth.
>


+++++++++++++++++++
“All men dream, but not equally. Some dream by night in the dusty recesses of
their minds and wake in the day to find it is vanity. But the dreamers of the
day are dangerous men for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it
possible.”
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird@...



________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Be a better Globetrotter. Get better travel answers from someone who knows.
Yahoo! Answers - Check it out.
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/?link=list&sid=396545469

John

Looks like your spell checker was left on ... ;-)

Daren

The opinions expressed are mine, all mine.....
I'm with the government, I'm here to help you.
Daren Perrero
daren.perrero(a)illinois.gov


-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces@... [mailto:radsafe-bounces@...] On
Behalf Of John Jacobus
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 10:04 AM
To: Brennan, Mike (DOH); DUStory@yahoogroups.com; radsafe@...
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] [DUStory] Hiroshima Newspaper Series Reappears

I suggest testing for vernial diseases first.

--- "Brennan, Mike  (DOH)" <Mike.Brennan@...>
wrote:

> >From one of the articles in the series, quoting the
> wife of an American
> tank gunner who had been in the Gulf War:
>
> "Actually, whenever we had sex, I had a terrible burning sensation in
> my vagina. It was like acid. Now we know that it was because his semen

> was contaminated with heavy metal. But we knew nothing about that
> until we happened to run into someone who was studying depleted
> uranium in 1994."
>
> It then goes on to talk about how her health was destroyed by DU.
>
> I have to admit that I have a great deal of difficulty believing that
> her husband could have such high concentrations of heavy metal, or any

> toxic material, in his body that detectable quantities could be
> transferred to her via this pathway.  I acknowledge that there
> probably haven't been many studies of this particular contamination
> pathway, but still.
>
> I also notice that while the article said that she had been tested by
> a private lab that found DU in her urine, there was no mention of
> similar results for her husband.  I find it hard to believe the author

> would have left that out if it were available.
>
> After reading a couple of the articles in this series, I have no
> confidence that the author has any commitment to the truth.

Roger,
Glad to see you making an effort to respond the
stories.

Nevertheless, the Chugoku Shimbun (
http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/profile_e/profile.html )
may be an example to the National Inquirer (
http://www.nationalenquirer.com/ ) in its publication
policy They seem to have only a few topics that they
print on, e.g., the atomic bombing of Japan.


--- Roger Helbig <rhelbig@...> wrote:

> How many of you have read this series?  I am looking
> for much more detailed commentary than I would be
> able to make.  Thank you.
>
> Roger
>
> The Christian Peacemaker Team member Wes's DU Blog
> site has this link to the series
>
>  "DISCOUNTED CASUALTIES" - GREAT HIROSHIMA NEWSPAPER
> SERIES ON DU IMPACTS WORLDWIDE
> This entry was posted on 6/26/2007 6:35 PM and is
> filed under Information.
>
> "Discounted Casualties - the Human Cost of Depleted
> Uranium" is a comprehensive and exhaustive
> journalism work by Akira Tashiro in the Hiroshima
> Newspaper Chugoku Shimbun, published in 2000 yet
> timely -- a reproduction of the initial page of the
> online series is below --
>
>
>
http://du-blog.wildclearing.com/2007/06/26/discounted-casualties--great-hiroshim\
a-newspaper-series-on-du-impacts-worldwide.aspx
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> You are currently subscribed to the RadSafe mailing
> list
>
> Before posting a message to RadSafe be sure to have
> read and understood the RadSafe rules. These can be
> found at: http://radlab.nl/radsafe/radsaferules.html
>
> For information on how to subscribe or unsubscribe
> and other settings visit: http://radlab.nl/radsafe/
>


+++++++++++++++++++
“All men dream, but not equally. Some dream by night in the dusty recesses of
their minds and wake in the day to find it is vanity. But the dreamers of the
day are dangerous men for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it
possible.”
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird@...



________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Expecting? Get great news right away with email Auto-Check.
Try the Yahoo! Mail Beta.
http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/mailbeta/newmail_tools.html

I suggest testing for venereal diseases first.

--- "Brennan, Mike  (DOH)" <Mike.Brennan@...>
wrote:

> >From one of the articles in the series, quoting the
> wife of an American
> tank gunner who had been in the Gulf War:
>
> "Actually, whenever we had sex, I had a terrible
> burning sensation in my
> vagina. It was like acid. Now we know that it was
> because his semen was
> contaminated with heavy metal. But we knew nothing
> about that until we
> happened to run into someone who was studying
> depleted uranium in 1994."
>
> It then goes on to talk about how her health was
> destroyed by DU.
>
> I have to admit that I have a great deal of
> difficulty believing that
> her husband could have such high concentrations of
> heavy metal, or any
> toxic material, in his body that detectable
> quantities could be
> transferred to her via this pathway.  I acknowledge
> that there probably
> haven't been many studies of this particular
> contamination pathway, but
> still.
>
> I also notice that while the article said that she
> had been tested by a
> private lab that found DU in her urine, there was no
> mention of similar
> results for her husband.  I find it hard to believe
> the author would
> have left that out if it were available.
>
> After reading a couple of the articles in this
> series, I have no
> confidence that the author has any commitment to the
> truth.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: radsafe-bounces@...
> [mailto:radsafe-bounces@...] On
> Behalf Of Roger Helbig
> Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2007 1:36 AM
> To: dustory@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [ RadSafe ] [DUStory] Hiroshima Newspaper
> Series Reappears
>

+++++++++++++++++++
“All men dream, but not equally. Some dream by night in the dusty recesses of
their minds and wake in the day to find it is vanity. But the dreamers of the
day are dangerous men for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it
possible.”
Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence

-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail:  crispy_bird@...



________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo!
FareChase.
http://farechase.yahoo.com/

How many of you have read this series?  I am looking for much more detailed
commentary than I would be able to make.  Thank you.

Roger

The Christian Peacemaker Team member Wes's DU Blog site has this link to the
series

  "DISCOUNTED CASUALTIES" - GREAT HIROSHIMA NEWSPAPER SERIES ON DU IMPACTS
WORLDWIDE
This entry was posted on 6/26/2007 6:35 PM and is filed under Information.

"Discounted Casualties - the Human Cost of Depleted Uranium" is a comprehensive
and exhaustive journalism work by Akira Tashiro in the Hiroshima Newspaper
Chugoku Shimbun, published in 2000 yet timely -- a reproduction of the initial
page of the online series is below --

 
http://du-blog.wildclearing.com/2007/06/26/discounted-casualties--great-hiroshim\
a-newspaper-series-on-du-impacts-worldwide.aspx

Thanks Peter, this is very interesting.  I know the British scientists
would have no reason to lie about this so that leaves the good ol' USA
and our experts, Rokke, Moret and Kyne as the liars.  Their tales then
spread over the internet by Nichols.

Sandy Lynn

Very interesting article until you get to Rokke and Moret,
both of whom are scientific charlatans who only got into
9/11 stuff because that's where the money was and of course
they had to tie in their real money king depleted uranium.
  Ask yourself, how much money do these two make off of
their science fiction peddled as science fact.  They both
have travelled around the world and been treated like
visiting royalty by Greens, anti-Nucs, Peace Activists,
etc, but they have no real message, only lie after lie
piled upon more lie after lie.  Rokke claims to have been
head of the Army's DU program; Rokke never quite is upfront
about being a Captain in the Army Reserve teaching school
for the Army in Alabama when he supposedly headed the DU
program.  Rokke claims a long and distinguished Army
career, sometimes 30 or 40 years and that he personally was
selected by General Schwartzkopf to clean up the DU mess
after Desert Storm.  First Lieutenant Douglas Lind Rokke,
US Army Reserve was activated for Desert Storm and did
serve in Saudi Arabia during the war and after the war did
visit as part of a team of mainly civilian experts a number
of sites where DU had been used to destroy tanks, both
Iraqi and so-called friendly fire, ours.  Rokke has claimed
that he and the team were sickened by exposure to DU and
that a number of team members died because of it.  None of
them got sick and none of them died.  If you want to learn
more about Rokke, go to the files section at
DUStory@yahoogroups.com.  Moret is not a distinguished
scientist.  She has a Bachelor's Degree in Geology and a
Masters Degree in Mideast Studies.  She has zero
qualifications to prognosticate about DU, but she makes a
lot of people believe that she does.  Ask any radiation
protection professional; the most knowledgeable often have
a PhD in Physics or Health Physics and the letters CHP
(Certifed Health Physicist) after their name, but all you
really need to do is go to your local community college and
talk to the Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Geology
professor to learn that Moret has even forgotten all the
little that her BS in Geology taught her.  Ask them about
whether DU can cause diabetes; Moret claims it has caused a
worldwide epidemic of diabetes; ask them if atomic testing
has caused SAT scores to drop or that it could have caused
an increase in autism.  Ask the parent of an autistic
child.  Then you will learn that Moret is a total fraud
just like Rokke and you think that they know what happened
on 9/11.  They don't, but they sure do convince people who
don't ask any critical questions that they do.

Roger Helbig
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/DUStory
the place to see Rokke's Military Records and PhD Thesis in
Education (no, it is not in Physics and no he is not a
Medical Doctor)

Moret also was no "staff scientist"; she may have been a
lab assistant or a gofer, but certainly was not a staff
scientist .. she was employed fairly fresh out of UC Davis
with her Geology BS degree, but how many freshly minted
college graduates do you know who have enough anything to
be a highly regarded "staff scientist"  Unfortunately, I
have yet to find anyone from Livermore or Berkeley labs
that knew Moret or who will say anything about what Moret
did.  It is however very unlikely that she was a
whistleblower, another one of her claims, because I knew
whistleblowers at Livermore and they never heard of her and
she never filed a whistleblowing appeal with the Department
of Labor which ajudicates such matters.  As contentious and
mouthy as Moret is, if she was ever a whistleblower, I
assure you that there would be a very fat appeal file and
it would be a public record.


On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:13:52 -0400
  "norgesen" <The box of 9/11

9/11 has so many boxes, and more all the time, those might
as well have been FedEx planes spilling Lament
Configurations all over Lower Manhattan.

One of the arguments that something other than Flight 77
struck the Pentagon is the report of elevated levels of
radiation downwind of the site following September 11. It
was first proposed by nuclear weapons professionals and the
former head of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project, who
allege the readings suggest that impacting object was a
DU-tipped missile.

"I'm not an explosives or crash site expert," says Leuren
Moret, former staff scientist at Livermore Nuclear Weapons
Laboratory, "but I am highly knowledgeable in causes and
effects related to nuclear radiation contamination. What
happened at the Pentagon is highly suspicious, leading me
to believe a missile with a depleted uranium warhead may
have been used."> wrote:


Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Outside the Box
Jeff Wells



Can you please crawl out your window?
Use your arms and legs it won't ruin you - Bob Dylan

Though it's hard to think outside the box, once you do, you
may need to think outside that box as well.

The box of Gerry Irwin

On February 28, 1959, Private First Class Gerry Irwin was
en route from Nampa, Idaho back to Fort Bliss, Texas, where
he served as a Nike missile technician. Late that evening,
as he turning southeast on Route 14 around Cedar City,
Utah, the sky was illuminated by a brilliant object
crossing the sky in front of him. He pulled to the side of
the road, got out of his car and watched it disappear
behind a nearby ridge. Irwin thought he had witnessed an
aircraft in trouble. Writing "Stop" on the side of his car
with shoe polish he left a note attached to the steering
wheel: "Have gone to investigate possible plane crash.
Please call law enforcement officers."

On March 2, Irwin awoke in Cedar City Hospital, with no
idea of what had happened to him or how he had got there.
He had been unconscious since he was found, only an hour
and a half after leaving his car, occasionally mumbling
about a "jacket on the bush." His temperature and
respiration were normal; it was simply as though Irwin were
asleep and couldn't be woken. At last when he did, he felt
fine, though his first words upon sitting up in bed were,
"Were there any survivors?"

Irwin was informed he had been found alone, jacketless, and
there was no sign of a crash. He was diagnosed with
"hysteria" and flown to Fort Bliss, where he was placed
under medical observation for four days, after which he
returned to active duty but with his security clearance
revoked. Several days later he fainted, though quickly
recovered, and did again a few days later in El Paso, and
was taken to hospital. Early the next morning he woke up
and again said, "Were there any survivors?" He could not
believe it was March 16; he thought it was still February
28.

Once more he returned to base, this time in psychiatric
care for a month. He was discharged April 17, with test
results showing "normal," but the next day gave in to an
uncontrollable impulse to depart the base without leave,
and caught a bus in El Paso for Cedar City, from where he
walked to the spot of his sighting, left the road and went
straight to a branch upon which his jacket still hung. And
something was on his jacket. A pencil was stuck in a
buttonhole, and a piece of paper was wound tightly around
it. Irwin took the paper and burned it, and then seemingly
snapped out of his entrancement. He had difficulty finding
the road again, and not knowing what he was doing there,
turned himself in to the local sheriff, who told him the
story of his earlier episode.

Back at Fort Bliss he again underwent psychiatric
examination, with identical results. Upon being released
from camp hospital, he failed to report for duty August 1.
He hasn't been seen since.

Irwin's story has been called "one of the strangest, most
baffling cases in UFO folklore," but I disagree. Not only
have I read stranger, I don't think this is even a UFO
story.

Every UFOlogical account I've read of Irwin's case treats
the military backstory to it as incidental. But Irwin was a
missile technician on the base which, post-war and and Cold
War, was a hub for Paperclip scientists, including Werner
Von Braun, who integrated Nazi innovations into US military
technologies. (Here's a class picture of Fort Bliss's
German rocket team, which initially was restricted to base
without military escort.) And we know, as well as rocketry,
the Nazi scientists also brought to American proving
grounds their advanced work in mind control.

Irwin "snapped out of it" after burning the paper, as
though releasing himself from a hypnotic suggestion that
had driven him to return to Cedar City (where, for what
it's worth, alleged mind control survivor "Mauri" claims
began her abuse by a privileged cult of Satanic Nazis). The
only tenuous UFO connection is Irwin's claim to have seen a
bright object transversing the sky, though it looked to him
no stranger than an aircraft in trouble. And given the
tricks his mind was playing, or the tricks someone was
playing on his mind, perhaps we shouldn't assume there was
anything to see at all. There were no other witnesses, and
no evidence of a landing.

Was Irwin the unwitting subject of an experiment in mind
control? Could be. Even though I'm persuaded of a
UFOlogical reality that transcends hoaxes and cover
stories, I think the confluence of military research and
psychological trauma in the Irwin case are far more
suggestive of a fairly sinister and secretive human agency.
UFO researchers are probably guilty of confirmation bias by
counting this story as legitimately one of theirs, and it
may be hard to let it go, but I think the Irwin episode
more likely belongs to a different, though often parallel,
narrative.

The box of Fatima

Fatima is an interesting set of nested puzzle boxes that
naturally predates any attempt to incorporate it into a
military mind control narrative. But what is it?

To the Roman Catholic faithful it represents a Marian
miracle. Skeptics, outside that box, regard it as mass
hysteria. Joe Nickel, Senior Research Fellow of CSICOP,
says of Fatima's dramatic "Miracle of the Sun" that "the
effects were surely optical ones. For example, because one
cannot focus on an object so bright, the eyes may dart back
and forth, thus creating, by the effect of image and
after-image, the appearance that the sun is 'dancing,' or
the eyes may attempt to focus, retreat, again attempt, and
so on, thereby giving the illusion that the sun was
'pulsating.'"

CSICOP's rational box will not allow for a third
interpretation, which I considered two years ago in this
post, and that I think makes better sense of the evidence
by being honestly strange enough to account for it.

The "sun," which appeared out of a small cloud and had the
appearance of a dull silvery disc, descended in "slow
zigzags," according to Father Alves Vieira, quoted in
Basiago and Thompson's Heavenly Lights. The object, which
unlike the sun could be looked at without discomfort, moved
in the rhythm "of a dry leaf that falls from trees in
Autumn." Vieira could not know that he was also describing
a maneuver which would become common to UFO sightings
before the mid-1970s. For instance, on September 19, 1952,
an RAF squadron observed a silver disk in the sky above one
of their fighters. In a report submitted by Flight
Lieutenant John Kilburn, he described it beginning to
descend, "swinging in a pendular motion similar to a
falling sycamore leaf" before accelerating into the west at
"unbelievable" speed. (Curiously, the bizarre entities of
the "Hopkinsville incident" were said to float gently to
the ground in a falling leaf fashion after being shot, to
no other effect, by members of the terrified Sutton
family.)

The box of 9/11

9/11 has so many boxes, and more all the time, those might
as well have been FedEx planes spilling Lament
Configurations all over Lower Manhattan.

One of the arguments that something other than Flight 77
struck the Pentagon is the report of elevated levels of
radiation downwind of the site following September 11. It
was first proposed by nuclear weapons professionals and the
former head of the Pentagon's depleted uranium project, who
allege the readings suggest that impacting object was a
DU-tipped missile.

"I'm not an explosives or crash site expert," says Leuren
Moret, former staff scientist at Livermore Nuclear Weapons
Laboratory, "but I am highly knowledgeable in causes and
effects related to nuclear radiation contamination. What
happened at the Pentagon is highly suspicious, leading me
to believe a missile with a depleted uranium warhead may
have been used."

And to missile proponents, that's good enough to confirm a
missile. After pulling themselves free of the Official Box,
they think they're in the clear. But freethinkers, as much
as anyone, need to ask themselves whether their thoughts
are their their own, or if they find themselves in yet
another box.

The crash of El Al Flight 1862 into an Amsterdam apartment
block created a similarly toxic site, when its secret
cargo, containing the equivalent of 270 kilograms of sarin
gas and at least 800 kilograms of depleted uranium was
disgorged. Thousands of rescue and recovery workers
experienced health complaints, including symptoms of
radiation sickness. Yet no one, in my reading, has used
this as an argument that a cruise missile struck the
building.

So what accounts for the elevated radiation readings at the
Pentagon? Well, perhaps Flight 77 departed Washington
bearing something that wasn't supposed to be there.
Commercial aircraft, even passenger aircraft, have been
co-opted by military to serve as mules before. Or perhaps
the Pentagon wall which was struck - the only wall which
had just then been reconditioned to better withstand
terrorist attack - actually incorporated the extremely hard
and dense metal in its composition. Either could be
possible, and other explanations as well, which are more
likely than the boxed-in assumption of a DU-tipped missile.
(An assumption, as we've noted, that is championed by
veterans of military intelligence. And if that doesn't make
you at least wary that the hypothesis may serve another
purpose than the truth, what is it going to take?)

Then there's the "fat Osama" video. It could be, maybe, he
wasn't that fat after all. Perhaps the discrepancy in his
appearance is accounted for by a failure to correct the
aspect ratio of PAL to NTSC video conversion. If so,
perhaps "fat Osama" has been a box for us all along, to
keep us from considering the implications of the video's
content and the circumstances of its creation. Bryan Sacks
makes an interesting case here why "the true backstory of
the tape's creation may provide smoking-gun evidence of US
foreknowledge and complicity in the 9/11 attack." If so,
then while we've been clucking over the obvious artifice of
"fat Osama," we've missed its point, which was its purpose
all along. And if so, and we're too enamored of fat Osama
to ever let him go, then we'll keep on missing it, too.

So what's my point?

Critical thinking isn't instinctual. We shouldn't presume,
in our disdain of the official story (whatever story that
may be, and however official), that we've reached the truth
once we stand with it's official opposition, because we may
be either boxing ourselves in with rigid either/or
thinking, or be boxed in by the authorities who mean to
control both thesis and antithesis.

We should know that some boxes feel like home. They're
meant to feel that way.


http://rigint.blogspot.com/2007/03/outside-box.html

Given the prominent posting of the news article about the "yellowcake" in a can
on AmericanDUST and other anti-DU websites, these replies should be quite
enlightening to those who actually learn from reading as opposed to only read
what agrees with their idea of how the world actually works according to them.

Contrast what Professor Rahman said about yellowcake to what someone like Leuren
Moret, supposed scientist, Douglas Rokke, supposed career soldier or Chris Busby
another supposed scientist would say about depleted uranium.  Unlike DU,
yellowcake still contains the fissionable uranium isotopes that decay by
emitting neutrons and gamma radiation.  "Yellowcake, also known as uranium
oxide, is far from being a weapons-grade material, said Talat Rahman, chairman
of the physics
department at the University of Central Florida. She said it did not pose a
serious threat in small quantities"

This thread is from radsafe -- The International Radiation Protection (Health
Physics) Mailing List  http://radlab.nl/radsafe/

----- Original Message -----

Jerry et al

K-40 is one of the isotopes always seen in whole body counting, and I used
it to insure may counter was working properly. If the peack at 1.46 MeV was
not present, the counter was assumed to be not working correctly.

John
.
----- Original Message -----
Illinois Institute of Technology
LAT Article: Florida pawnshop's
radioactivesurprise("Yellow cake")

Reminds me of an experiment that I did in a class that I taught a few
years ago.

We ashed 100 pounds (45 kg) of bananas to isolate the potassium. Did  the
store clerk every give us a dirty look when we were checking out.  I think
that she thought we were a bit disjointed.

Anyway, we isolated 200 g of potassium from the 45 kg of bananas so  about
24 mg was K-40.

We counted it with a low energy Ge detector, low efficiency but could
observe a peak.

The students really liked that experiment. You need to be careful  with
those "hot" bananas.

Jeff

On Mar 12, 2007, at 11:44 AM, Al (DOH) wrote:

It's a good thing they don't know what I've got buried around my  office;
"deadly" red fiesta ware, several "nuclear" autonite crystals, about
three dozen "dangerous" lantern mantles, a "life threatening" radium
dial clock and a compass, a can of "horrifying" salt substitute.  When I
go out to do training, and take along my props, I'm a walking nuclear
nightmare. I might even take a "hot" banana for my lunch.

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces@... [mailto:radsafe-bounces@...]
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2007 9:15 AM
To: radsafe; know_nukes@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ RadSafe ] LAT Article: Florida pawnshop's radioactive
surprise("Yellow cake")

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na- uranium12mar12,1
,2145801.story?coll=la-news-a_section

Florida pawnshop's radioactive surprise

A small amount of yellowcake uranium is discovered among rocks from an
estate sale.

By Stephen Hudak
Orlando Sentinel
March 12, 2007

BELLEVIEW, FLA. - Every blue moon or so, collectibles dealer and
  pawnshop owner Frank Cafaro stumbles upon a buried gem among an  estate's
  junk and tchotchkes.

  His latest find was so alarming he called firefighters.

"We were in the warehouse and we pulled out this box of rocks from an
estate sale," Cafaro said.   "Everything was individually labeled. Amethyst.
Topaz.
Uranium. The guy I'm working with says, 'What's that last one?  Uranium?
I think that's illegal.' "

Within an hour, Gold Mine Pawn was swarming last week with about three
dozen emergency workers, including Geiger-counter-waving members of a
hazardous materials team and the Marion County Sheriff's Office  domestic
security task force.

They focused on a container the size of a soup can.
Labeled with radioactive markings, the container protected a vial that
held about an ounce of yellowcake uranium, a processed mineral  that, in
larger quantities, could be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors or
enriched for weapons.

In 2003, President Bush justified the decision to invade Iraq, in  part,
on a now-discredited intelligence report that claimed former Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein had tried to buy tons of yellowcake,  presumably
to manufacture weapons of mass destruction.

"It was kind of scary when I heard how terrible this stuff was,"  Cafaro
said.

The mineral, which Cafaro traced to an estate sale in Miami about 10
years ago, was turned over to the Florida Department of Health for
disposal.

Yellowcake, also known as uranium oxide, is far from being a
weapons-grade material, said Talat Rahman, chairman of the physics
department at the University of Central Florida. She said it did not
pose a serious threat in small quantities.

"Yellowcake by itself is not dangerous," Rahman said.
"It has to be processed to be converted into something dangerous."

Sharon Gogerty, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement, said small amounts of yellowcake were reported to the
agency "on a regular basis" and were not considered especially
dangerous.

+++++++++
"We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or
omniscient - that we are only 6 percent of the world's population;  that
we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind;  that we
cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity; and therefore  there
cannot be an American solution to every world problem."
-- John F. Kennedy

  -- John
Certified Health Physicist

A test recently used by the UK government's Independent Depleted Uranium Oversight Board to detect exposure to UK troops by depleted uranium (DU) during the 1991 Gulf Conflict was developed by a team led by a University of Leicester geologist.

Randall Parrish, Professor of Isotope Geology, developed the test with Postdoctoral Fellow Dr Axel Gerdes, who now works at the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and his colleague Matt Horstwood at the British Geological Survey, using advanced mass spectrometry.

Prof Parrish's team has tested more than 350 individuals as part of the programme, with the result that none so far tested had any demonstrable DU exposure resulting from their participation in the 1991 Gulf Conflict, though the extent of actual initial exposure of tested individuals to DU is unknown.

(story continues here on the Science Daily site... )

Here is a link to the published abstract:

Peter Dearman
www.DUBBS.info 

ver the past few decades, the American public has become increasingly wary of nuclear power because of concern about radiation releases from normal plant operations, plant accidents, and nuclear waste. Except for Chernobyl and other nuclear accidents, releases have been found to be almost undetectable in comparison with natural background radiation. Another concern has been the cost of producing electricity at nuclear plants. It has increased largely for two reasons: compliance with stringent government regulations that restrict releases of radioactive substances from nuclear facilities into the environment and construction delays as a result of public opposition.

Partly because of these concerns about radioactivity and the cost of containing it, the American public and electric utilities have preferred coal combustion as a power source. Today 52% of the capacity for generating electricity in the United States is fueled by coal, compared with 14.8% for nuclear energy. Although there are economic justifications for this preference, it is surprising for two reasons. First, coal combustion produces carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are suspected to cause climatic warming, and it is a source of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, which are harmful to human health and may be largely responsible for acid rain. Second, although not as well known, releases from coal combustion contain naturally occurring radioactive materials--mainly, uranium and thorium.

Former ORNL researchers J. P. McBride, R. E. Moore, J. P. Witherspoon, and R. E. Blanco made this point in their article "Radiological Impact of Airborne Effluents of Coal and Nuclear Plants" in the December 8, 1978, issue of Science magazine. They concluded that Americans living near coal-fired power plants are exposed to higher radiation doses than those living near nuclear power plants that meet government regulations. This ironic situation remains true today and is addressed in this article.

The fact that coal-fired power plants throughout the world are the major sources of radioactive materials released to the environment has several implications. It suggests that coal combustion is more hazardous to health than nuclear power and that it adds to the background radiation burden even more than does nuclear power. It also suggests that if radiation emissions from coal plants were regulated, their capital and operating costs would increase, making coal-fired power less economically competitive.

Finally, radioactive elements released in coal ash and exhaust produced by coal combustion contain fissionable fuels and much larger quantities of fertile materials that can be bred into fuels by absorption of neutrons, including those generated in the air by bombardment of oxygen, nitrogen, and other nuclei with cosmic rays; such fissionable and fertile materials can be recovered from coal ash using known technologies. These nuclear materials have growing value to private concerns and governments that may want to market them for fueling nuclear power plants. However, they are also available to those interested in accumulating material for nuclear weapons. A solution to this potential problem may be to encourage electric utilities to process coal ash and use new trapping technologies on coal combustion exhaust to isolate and collect valuable metals, such as iron and aluminum, and available nuclear fuels.

Makeup of Coal and Ash

Coal is one of the most impure of fuels. Its impurities range from trace quantities of many metals, including uranium and thorium, to much larger quantities of aluminum and iron to still larger quantities of impurities such as sulfur. Products of coal combustion include the oxides of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur; carcinogenic and mutagenic substances; and recoverable minerals of commercial value, including nuclear fuels naturally occurring in coal.

Coal ash is composed primarily of oxides of silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, magnesium, titanium, sodium, potassium, arsenic, mercury, and sulfur plus small quantities of uranium and thorium. Fly ash is primarily composed of non-combustible silicon compounds (glass) melted during combustion. Tiny glass spheres form the bulk of the fly ash.

Since the 1960s particulate precipitators have been used by U.S. coal-fired power plants to retain significant amounts of fly ash rather than letting it escape to the atmosphere. When functioning properly, these precipitators are approximately 99.5% efficient. Utilities also collect furnace ash, cinders, and slag, which are kept in cinder piles or deposited in ash ponds on coal-plant sites along with the captured fly ash.

Trace quantities of uranium in coal range from less than 1 part per million (ppm) in some samples to around 10 ppm in others. Generally, the amount of thorium contained in coal is about 2.5 times greater than the amount of uranium. For a large number of coal samples, according to Environmental Protection Agency figures released in 1984, average values of uranium and thorium content have been determined to be 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively. Using these values along with reported consumption and projected consumption of coal by utilities provides a means of calculating the amounts of potentially recoverable breedable and fissionable elements (see sidebar). The concentration of fissionable uranium-235 (the current fuel for nuclear power plants) has been established to be 0.71% of uranium content.

Uranium and Thorium in Coal and Coal Ash

As population increases worldwide, coal combustion continues to be the dominant fuel source for electricity. Fossil fuels' share has decreased from 76.5% in 1970 to 66.3% in 1990, while nuclear energy's share in the worldwide electricity pie has climbed from 1.6% in 1970 to 17.4% in 1990. Although U.S. population growth is slower than worldwide growth, per capita consumption of energy in this country is among the world's highest. To meet the growing demand for electricity, the U.S. utility industry has continually expanded generating capacity. Thirty years ago, nuclear power appeared to be a viable replacement for fossil power, but today it represents less than 15% of U.S. generating capacity. However, as a result of low public support during recent decades and a reduction in the rate of expected power demand, no increase in nuclear power generation is expected in the foreseeable future. As current nuclear power plants age, many plants may be retired during the first quarter of the 21st century, although some may have their operation extended through license renewal. As a result, many nuclear plants are likely to be replaced with coal-fired plants unless it is considered feasible to replace them with fuel sources such as natural gas and solar energy.

As the world's population increases, the demands for all resources, particularly fuel for electricity, is expected to increase. To meet the demand for electric power, the world population is expected to rely increasingly on combustion of fossil fuels, primarily coal. The world has about 1500 years of known coal resources at the current use rate. The graph above shows the growth in U.S. and world coal combustion for the 50 years preceding 1988, along with projections beyond the year 2040. Using the concentration of uranium and thorium indicated above, the graph below illustrates the historical release quantities of these elements and the releases that can be expected during the first half of the next century, given the predicted growth trends. Using these data, both U.S. and worldwide fissionable uranium-235 and fertile nuclear material releases from coal combustion can be calculated.

Because existing coal-fired power plants vary in size and electrical output, to calculate the annual coal consumption of these facilities, assume that the typical plant has an electrical output of 1000 megawatts. Existing coal-fired plants of this capacity annually burn about 4 million tons of coal each year. Further, considering that in 1982 about 616 million short tons (2000 pounds per ton) of coal was burned in the United States (from 833 million short tons mined, or 74%), the number of typical coal-fired plants necessary to consume this quantity of coal is 154.

Using these data, the releases of radioactive materials per typical plant can be calculated for any year. For the year 1982, assuming coal contains uranium and thorium concentrations of 1.3 ppm and 3.2 ppm, respectively, each typical plant released 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of uranium-235) and 12.8 tons of thorium that year. Total U.S. releases in 1982 (from 154 typical plants) amounted to 801 tons of uranium (containing 11,371 pounds of uranium-235) and 1971 tons of thorium. These figures account for only 74% of releases from combustion of coal from all sources. Releases in 1982 from worldwide combustion of 2800 million tons of coal totaled 3640 tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of uranium-235) and 8960 tons of thorium.

Based on the predicted combustion of 2516 million tons of coal in the United States and 12,580 million tons worldwide during the year 2040, cumulative releases for the 100 years of coal combustion following 1937 are predicted to be:

U.S. release (from combustion of 111,716 million tons):

Uranium: 145,230 tons (containing 1031 tons of uranium-235)

Thorium: 357,491 tons

Worldwide release (from combustion of 637,409 million tons):

Uranium: 828,632 tons (containing 5883 tons of uranium-235)

Thorium: 2,039,709 tons

The main sources of radiation released from coal combustion include not only uranium and thorium but also daughter products produced by the decay of these isotopes, such as radium, radon, polonium, bismuth, and lead. Although not a decay product, naturally occurring radioactive potassium-40 is also a significant contributor.

According to the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP), the average radioactivity per short ton of coal is 17,100 millicuries/4,000,000 tons, or 0.00427 millicuries/ton. This figure can be used to calculate the average expected radioactivity release from coal combustion. For 1982 the total release of radioactivity from 154 typical coal plants in the United States was, therefore, 2,630,230 millicuries.

Thus, by combining U.S. coal combustion from 1937 (440 million tons) through 1987 (661 million tons) with an estimated total in the year 2040 (2516 million tons), the total expected U.S. radioactivity release to the environment by 2040 can be determined. That total comes from the expected combustion of 111,716 million tons of coal with the release of 477,027,320 millicuries in the United States. Global releases of radioactivity from the predicted combustion of 637,409 million tons of coal would be 2,721,736,430 millicuries.

For comparison, according to NCRP Reports No. 92 and No. 95, population exposure from operation of 1000-MWe nuclear and coal-fired power plants amounts to 490 person-rem/year for coal plants and 4.8 person-rem/year for nuclear plants. Thus, the population effective dose equivalent from coal plants is 100 times that from nuclear plants. For the complete nuclear fuel cycle, from mining to reactor operation to waste disposal, the radiation dose is cited as 136 person-rem/year; the equivalent dose for coal use, from mining to power plant operation to waste disposal, is not listed in this report and is probably unknown.

During combustion, the volume of coal is reduced by over 85%, which increases the concentration of the metals originally in the coal. Although significant quantities of ash are retained by precipitators, heavy metals such as uranium tend to concentrate on the tiny glass spheres that make up the bulk of fly ash. This uranium is released to the atmosphere with the escaping fly ash, at about 1.0% of the original amount, according to NCRP data. The retained ash is enriched in uranium several times over the original uranium concentration in the coal because the uranium, and thorium, content is not decreased as the volume of coal is reduced.

All studies of potential health hazards associated with the release of radioactive elements from coal combustion conclude that the perturbation of natural background dose levels is almost negligible. However, because the half-lives of radioactive potassium-40, uranium, and thorium are practically infinite in terms of human lifetimes, the accumulation of these species in the biosphere is directly proportional to the length of time that a quantity of coal is burned.

Although trace quantities of radioactive heavy metals are not nearly as likely to produce adverse health effects as the vast array of chemical by-products from coal combustion, the accumulated quantities of these isotopes over 150 or 250 years could pose a significant future ecological burden and potentially produce adverse health effects, especially if they are locally accumulated. Because coal is predicted to be the primary energy source for electric power production in the foreseeable future, the potential impact of long-term accumulation of by-products in the biosphere should be considered.

Energy Content: Coal vs Nuclear

An average value for the thermal energy of coal is approximately 6150 kilowatt-hours(kWh)/ton. Thus, the expected cumulative thermal energy release from U.S. coal combustion over this period totals about 6.87 x 10E14 kilowatt-hours. The thermal energy released in nuclear fission produces about 2 x 10E9 kWh/ton. Consequently, the thermal energy from fission of uranium-235 released in coal combustion amounts to 2.1 x 10E12 kWh. If uranium-238 is bred to plutonium-239, using these data and assuming a "use factor" of 10%, the thermal energy from fission of this isotope alone constitutes about 2.9 x 10E14 kWh, or about half the anticipated energy of all the utility coal burned in this country through the year 2040. If the thorium-232 is bred to uranium-233 and fissioned with a similar "use factor", the thermal energy capacity of this isotope is approximately 7.2 x 10E14 kWh, or 105% of the thermal energy released from U.S. coal combustion for a century. Assuming 10% usage, the total of the thermal energy capacities from each of these three fissionable isotopes is about 10.1 x 10E14 kWh, 1.5 times more than the total from coal. World combustion of coal has the same ratio, similarly indicating that coal combustion wastes more energy than it produces.

Consequently, the energy content of nuclear fuel released in coal combustion is more than that of the coal consumed! Clearly, coal-fired power plants are not only generating electricity but are also releasing nuclear fuels whose commercial value for electricity production by nuclear power plants is over $7 trillion, more than the U.S. national debt. This figure is based on current nuclear utility fuel costs of 7 mils per kWh, which is about half the cost for coal. Consequently, significant quantities of nuclear materials are being treated as coal waste, which might become the cleanup nightmare of the future, and their value is hardly recognized at all.

How does the amount of nuclear material released by coal combustion compare to the amount consumed as fuel by the U.S. nuclear power industry? According to 1982 figures, 111 American nuclear plants consumed about 540 tons of nuclear fuel, generating almost 1.1 x 10E12 kWh of electricity. During the same year, about 801 tons of uranium alone were released from American coal-fired plants. Add 1971 tons of thorium, and the release of nuclear components from coal combustion far exceeds the entire U.S. consumption of nuclear fuels. The same conclusion applies for worldwide nuclear fuel and coal combustion.

Another unrecognized problem is the gradual production of plutonium-239 through the exposure of uranium-238 in coal waste to neutrons from the air. These neutrons are produced primarily by bombardment of oxygen and nitrogen nuclei in the atmosphere by cosmic rays and from spontaneous fission of natural isotopes in soil. Because plutonium-239 is reportedly toxic in minute quantities, this process, however slow, is potentially worrisome. The radiotoxicity of plutonium-239 is 3.4 x 10E11 times that of uranium-238. Consequently, for 801 tons of uranium released in 1982, only 2.2 milligrams of plutonium-239 bred by natural processes, if those processes exist, is necessary to double the radiotoxicity estimated to be released into the biosphere that year. Only 0.075 times that amount in plutonium-240 doubles the radiotoxicity. Natural processes to produce both plutonium-239 and plutonium-240 appear to exist.

Conclusions

For the 100 years following 1937, U.S. and world use of coal as a heat source for electric power generation will result in the distribution of a variety of radioactive elements into the environment. This prospect raises several questions about the risks and benefits of coal combustion, the leading source of electricity production.

First, the potential health effects of released naturally occurring radioactive elements are a long-term issue that has not been fully addressed. Even with improved efficiency in retaining stack emissions, the removal of coal from its shielding overburden in the earth and subsequent combustion releases large quantities of radioactive materials to the surface of the earth. The emissions by coal-fired power plants of greenhouse gases, a vast array of chemical by-products, and naturally occurring radioactive elements make coal much less desirable as an energy source than is generally accepted.

Second, coal ash is rich in minerals, including large quantities of aluminum and iron. These and other products of commercial value have not been exploited.

Third, large quantities of uranium and thorium and other radioactive species in coal ash are not being treated as radioactive waste. These products emit low-level radiation, but because of regulatory differences, coal-fired power plants are allowed to release quantities of radioactive material that would provoke enormous public outcry if such amounts were released from nuclear facilities. Nuclear waste products from coal combustion are allowed to be dispersed throughout the biosphere in an unregulated manner. Collected nuclear wastes that accumulate on electric utility sites are not protected from weathering, thus exposing people to increasing quantities of radioactive isotopes through air and water movement and the food chain.

Fourth, by collecting the uranium residue from coal combustion, significant quantities of fissionable material can be accumulated. In a few year's time, the recovery of the uranium-235 released by coal combustion from a typical utility anywhere in the world could provide the equivalent of several World War II-type uranium-fueled weapons. Consequently, fissionable nuclear fuel is available to any country that either buys coal from outside sources or has its own reserves. The material is potentially employable as weapon fuel by any organization so inclined. Although technically complex, purification and enrichment technologies can provide high-purity, weapons-grade uranium-235. Fortunately, even though the technology is well known, the enrichment of uranium is an expensive and time-consuming process.

Because electric utilities are not high-profile facilities, collection and processing of coal ash for recovery of minerals, including uranium for weapons or reactor fuel, can proceed without attracting outside attention, concern, or intervention. Any country with coal-fired plants could collect combustion by-products and amass sufficient nuclear weapons material to build up a very powerful arsenal, if it has or develops the technology to do so. Of far greater potential are the much larger quantities of thorium-232 and uranium-238 from coal combustion that can be used to breed fissionable isotopes. Chemical separation and purification of uranium-233 from thorium and plutonium-239 from uranium require far less effort than enrichment of isotopes. Only small fractions of these fertile elements in coal combustion residue are needed for clandestine breeding of fissionable fuels and weapons material by those nations that have nuclear reactor technology and the inclination to carry out this difficult task.

Fifth, the fact that large quantities of uranium and thorium are released from coal-fired plants without restriction raises a paradoxical question. Considering that the U.S. nuclear power industry has been required to invest in expensive measures to greatly reduce releases of radioactivity from nuclear fuel and fission products to the environment, should coal-fired power plants be allowed to do so without constraints?

This question has significant economic repercussions. Today nuclear power plants are not as economical to construct as coal-fired plants, largely because of the high cost of complying with regulations to restrict emissions of radioactivity. If coal-fired power plants were regulated in a similar manner, the added cost of handling nuclear waste from coal combustion would be significant and would, perhaps, make it difficult for coal-burning plants to compete economically with nuclear power.

Because of increasing public concern about nuclear power and radioactivity in the environment, reduction of releases of nuclear materials from all sources has become a national priority known as "as low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA). If increased regulation of nuclear power plants is demanded, can we expect a significant redirection of national policy so that radioactive emissions from coal combustion are also regulated?

Although adverse health effects from increased natural background radioactivity may seem unlikely for the near term, long-term accumulation of radioactive materials from continued worldwide combustion of coal could pose serious health hazards. Because coal combustion is projected to increase throughout the world during the next century, the increasing accumulation of coal combustion by-products, including radioactive components, should be discussed in the formulation of energy policy and plans for future energy use.

One potential solution is improved technology for trapping the exhaust (gaseous emissions up the stack) from coal combustion. If and when such technology is developed, electric utilities may then be able both to recover useful elements, such as nuclear fuels, iron, and aluminum, and to trap greenhouse gas emissions. Encouraging utilities to enter mineral markets that have been previously unavailable may or may not be desirable, but doing so appears to have the potential of expanding their economic base, thus offsetting some portion of their operating costs, which ultimately could reduce consumer costs for electricity.

Both the benefits and hazards of coal combustion are more far-reaching than are generally recognized. Technologies exist to remove, store, and generate energy from the radioactive isotopes released to the environment by coal combustion. When considering the nuclear consequences of coal combustion, policymakers should look at the data and recognize that the amount of uranium-235 alone dispersed by coal combustion is the equivalent of dozens of nuclear reactor fuel loadings. They should also recognize that the nuclear fuel potential of the fertile isotopes of thorium-232 and uranium-238, which can be converted in reactors to fissionable elements by breeding, yields a virtually unlimited source of nuclear energy that is frequently overlooked as a natural resource.

In short, naturally occurring radioactive species released by coal combustion are accumulating in the environment along with minerals such as mercury, arsenic, silicon, calcium, chlorine, and lead, sodium, as well as metals such as aluminum, iron, lead, magnesium, titanium, boron, chromium, and others that are continually dispersed in millions of tons of coal combustion by-products. The potential benefits and threats of these released materials will someday be of such significance that they should not now be ignored.--Alex Gabbard of the Metals and Ceramics Division

References and Suggested Reading

J. F. Ahearne, "The Future of Nuclear Power," American Scientist, Jan.-Feb 1993: 24-35.

E. Brown and R. B. Firestone, Table of Radioactive Isotopes, Wiley Interscience, 1986.

J. O. Corbett, "The Radiation Dose From Coal Burning: A Review of Pathways and Data," Radiation Protection Dosimetry, 4 (1): 5-19.

R. R. Judkins and W. Fulkerson, "The Dilemma of Fossil Fuel Use and Global Climate Change," Energy & Fuels, 7 (1993) 14-22.

National Council on Radiation Protection, Public Radiation Exposure From Nuclear Power Generation in the U.S., Report No. 92, 1987, 72-112.

National Council on Radiation Protection, Exposure of the Population in the United States and Canada from Natural Background Radiation, Report No. 94, 1987, 90-128.

National Council on Radiation Protection, Radiation Exposure of the U.S. Population from Consumer Products and Miscellaneous Sources, Report No. 95, 1987, 32-36 and 62-64.

Serge A. Korff, "Fast Cosmic Ray Neutrons in the Atmosphere," Proceedings of International Conference on Cosmic Rays, Volume 5: High Energy Interactions, Jaipur, December 1963.

C. B. A. McCusker, "Extensive Air Shower Studies in Australia," Proceedings of International Conference on Cosmic Rays, Volume 4: Extensive Air Showers, Jaipur, December 1963.

T. L. Thoem, et al., Coal Fired Power Plant Trace Element Study, Volume 1: A Three Station Comparison, Radian Corp. for USEPA, Sept. 1975.

W. Torrey, "Coal Ash Utilization: Fly Ash, Bottom Ash and Slag," Pollution Technology Review, 48 (1978) 136.

Where to?

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I appreciate your interest in learning more about Miraki
and Rokke.  Both are most likely con artists.  Rokke has
made a number of claims about his own military service and
involvement with depleted uranium that are not true.  This
group was established to post files about Rokke, eventually
Miraki and other prominent members of the anti-DU crusade.
  Have you examined any of the files in the files section.
  Rokke, for example, claims to have been appointed by
General Schwartzkopf to clean up the DU mess after the Gulf
War.  Col Day's memo mentions First Lieutenant Rokke, US
Army Reserve, on page 2.  You will note that Rokke is
considered rather green.  Rokke also claims on one of the
tapes on youtube that he is a 40% disabled combat veteran.
  He may have somehow conned the VA out of disability, but
if you review his military records posted in the files
section you will see that he is not a combat veteran.  I
know that he spent the Gulf War far from the sound of guns
in Riyadh. You will also see that Doctor Rokke is a PhD in
Education and you can see parts of his PhD thesis, enough
to learn that it has nothing to do with DU whatsoever.

Roger Helbig

PS .. I prefer to deal with real people, people with names,
not with just an e-mail address.  I use my name because I
stand behind what I say.  DU has absolutely nothing to do
with my actual job and I never had anything to do with DU
in the military.  I did learn about radioactive fallout if
the unthinkable "nuclear war" had ever happened and I have
enough knowledge to see through the science fiction
presented by Rokke, Moret, Nichols (who is just their
mouthpiece), Parker, Jenks (who has probably milked DU for
all it is worth), Busby etc.  Eventually, I expect to have
a full report on each of these phonies and DUStory is where
these reports will be posted.




On Sun, 04 Feb 2007 21:13:21 -0000
  "fifteen155" <fifteen155@...> wrote:
Hello,

I am interested in the Depleted Uranium weapons issue.

A lot of the information comes from Doug Rokke and Dr
Miraki. I am not
entirely sure that they are trustworthy, so if you have any
information I would be grateful.

Thanks.

Hello,

I am interested in the Depleted Uranium weapons issue.

A lot of the information comes from Doug Rokke and Dr Miraki. I am not
entirely sure that they are trustworthy, so if you have any
information I would be grateful.

Thanks.

My how the science fiction spreads.  Where was the
uranium mined and smelted for use as gun barrels in
the 1870s and how did they prevent these gun barrels
from attaining critical mass and self-sustaining
reaction?

Just because some brainless activist, and yes, Karen,
law degree and all, that is what you are when you get
on this topic, says something does not make it true.

Upsilidiot here claims that shaped charge equals
uranium .. he really has not done much research on
shaped charges. Perhaps the optimum is uranium, but it
is also the most costly and presents the most
problems.  How many shaped charges have been licensed
by the NRC?  Their records are quite open.  So,
challenge, find out the answer and post it in such a
fashion that any independent researcher can confirm
your findings.

PS .. how many of you have been influenced by Douglas
Lind Rokke?  He has some most interesting fiction on
youtube.  He claims, for example, to be a disabled
combat vet, disabled due to exposure to DU.  He did
not serve in combat; he sat the Gulf War out in Riyadh
far from the sound of guns.  He may have conned the VA
out of disability pay, but since he never was active
Army that is somewhat unlikely.  Rokke's military
records are displayed in the files section of
DUStory@yahoogroups.com; his PhD thesis in Education,
not DU nor Physics, is also posted in the files
section at DUStory@yahoogroups.com; Lieutenant Rokke
is also discussed in a 2 page memo that is also posted
there.  The Memo to Groves will be dissected into the
four component documents that it has been forged from
when those actual documents are obtained.  Other
falsities of the anti-DU crusade will similarly be
exposed.

--- upsilquitch <upsilquitch@...> wrote:

> " The Army's need for depleted uranium for
> structural and mechanical
> application began in 1958 in connection with a
> special-purpose
> ammunition development program."
>
> 20 mm armor piercing rounds
> shaped charges
> artillery
> mines
> spotter rounds
>
> .... according to the 1971 Ad Hoc Panel on DU, NMAB.
>
> But first internal ballistic use of U was gun
> barrels in 1870's.
>
>
>
>
>
> [Brought to you by HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK]
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>




________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Want to start your own business?
Learn how on Yahoo! Small Business.
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/r-index

Hi Roger here is a few of the sites I found regarding Polonium.  I was
hoping you could look through them and let us know which has more
truthful facts.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/polonium.htm

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/radiation/isotopes/polonium/index.asp

http://periodic.lanl.gov/elements/84.html

http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=10094

Sandy Lynn

Hi Roger & Group,

I had never heard of  Polonium-210 before this article.  Not being a
scientist is most likely the reason why!  I'm going to do a bit more
research and see if I can enlighten myself a little more.  I will post
my findings incase there are others here like me.

I hope it's ok Roger to post this in other groups, I'm sure there are
many out there that would like to know the truth about what is going on
out there in the scientific world.

Sandy Lynn

Polonium is deadly; it is also an alpha particle emitter .. note that the alpha
particles are stopped by a plastic bag, a sheet of paper or the outer layer of
dead skin .. the difference between Polonium-210 and Uranium-238 (Depleted
Uranium) is that the half-life of Polonium-210 is 138 days and in 10 half lives,
about 3 years, all of it has decayed to Lead and the half-life of Uranium-238 is
4.5 billion years which means that the Earth probably will have ceased to exist
before 10 half lives have caused all of it to decay to Lead.  That means that
Polonium-210 is very energetic and if you read the article, you will see that
this energy causes small fragments of the Polonium-210 to fly away and if left
in an open jar it will contaminate a room.  Uranium-238 is about as lazy (as
opposed to energetic) as there is for a substance that is radioactive.  That is
why it really does not go anywhere, and that there really is no cloud of U-238
dust.   Read and learn, don't succumb to a lot of hype - it is not benign and it
is not a war crime either and it is far closer to benign than war crime.  If you
are really interested in radiation safety, subscribe to RADSAFE, read their
archives .. that's where I began to meet the real experts and learned that Doug
Rokke was really nothing more than a bag of wind.

Roger Helbig

To: <radsafe@...>
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 10:01 AM
Subject: [ RadSafe ] Polonium-210's quiet trail of death


http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-polonium1jan01,1,5516887,full.story?c\
oll=la-news-science
   Polonium-210's quiet trail of death  The radioactive substance had killed long
before the unsolved poisoning of a former Russian spy.
By Karen Kaplan and Thomas H. Maugh II
Times Staff Writers

January 1, 2007

The poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko in November caused by the
radioactive isotope polonium-210 sparked a sharp interest in the exotic
material, but the onetime Russian spy was not the first to swallow the lethal
element.

At the height of World War II, in an isolated medical ward at the University of
Rochester in New York, Dr. Robert M. Fink gave water laced with polonium-210 to
a terminal cancer patient and injected four others with the isotope. None of the
five apparently died from the minute doses, though one succumbed to his cancer
six days later.

The ethically dubious experiment, prompted by concern for the safety of workers
in the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, yielded the first solid
information about the isotope's health effects on humans.

It also underscores the mystery and intrigue that have marked the history of the
element since it was discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie a century ago. The
isotope has left a distinctive trail of deaths, most of them a consequence of
ignorance.

Although scientists suspected polonium-210 was dangerous, they failed to
appreciate how easily it could spread - escaping laboratory confinement like a
genie from a bottle and spreading its lethal radiation on faint currents of air.

Engineers have struggled to find a use for the isotope, incorporating it for a
time in spark plugs, nuclear warhead triggers and spacecraft power supplies. It
plays a small role today as an antistatic agent for printing presses.

Assassins may have finally hit on its most effective use.

"The scientific community is intrigued" by Litvinenko's slaying, said radiation
biologist David A. Dooley, who studied exposure levels in workers who produced
polonium for the Manhattan Project. "It's pretty clever they came up with this."

In many ways, polonium-210 is an ideal poison for espionage - deadly, and
undetectable until it's too late.

A dose of the white powder smaller than a grain of salt could have been dropped
into Litvinenko's drink at the Millennium Hotel's Pine Bar in London without
altering the taste, according to chemist John Emsley of Cambridge University.

Within minutes of ingestion, the energetic particles shooting off the
polonium-210 molecules began killing the cells lining Litvinenko's
gastrointestinal tract. As the cells sloughed off, they caused nausea, severe
internal bleeding and enormous pain.

"It was as if his internal organs received a severe sunburn and peeled," said
Peter Zimmerman, a physicist at King's College London.

Pound for pound, polonium-210 is at least a million times more toxic than
hydrogen cyanide, the poison used to execute prisoners in gas chambers,
according to medical toxicology books. Radiation safety experts calculate that a
single gram of polonium could kill 50 million people and sicken another 50
million.

But it is extremely hard to get. About 100 grams - or 3 1/2 ounces - are
produced each year, primarily by Russia.

It is also elusive. Whereas most radioactive elements emit gamma rays, which
register on radiation detectors, polonium-210 instead emits alpha particles.

"There was no way that forensic scientists could detect it" until it had done
its damage, Emsley said.

Unlike other radioactive elements, polonium-210 is relatively safe to transport.
Highly lethal gamma rays pass through most substances, but alpha particles -
each composed of two protons and two neutrons - can be blocked by a sheet of
paper or the thin layer of dead cells on the surface of the skin.

To kill, polonium must be inhaled or ingested so that it is in direct contact
with healthy tissue.

"I could put it in a tiny Ziploc bag, and I would be fine," said Dooley,
president and chief executive of MJW Corp., a consulting firm in Amherst, N.Y.,
that specializes in radiological and health physics services.

But that doesn't mean it's easy to handle. Polonium-210 is a determined escape
artist.

The energy produced as it naturally disintegrates is so great that "small
chunks, perhaps a few hundred atoms in size, are blasted out of the surface and
then drift around the room," Zimmerman said.

"It would tend to creep around the lab," Dooley said. "If you had polonium in an
open jar and you left it overnight, the next thing you knew, it would be all
over the lab. It would jump on a dust particle and end up on lab benches and
floors and things."

Since identifying polonium-210 as the poison that killed Litvinenko,
investigators have found traces of it in hotel rooms, airplanes, embassy rooms
and other sites in the U.S. and Europe visited by Andrei Lugovoy, a former KGB
bodyguard who is considered a potential suspect in the case. Lugovoy has said he
is being set up by persons unknown.

Polonium-210 is found in very low concentrations in Earth's crust. It makes its
way into plants, food and water, and occurs in trace amounts in tobacco smoke.
Most people's bodies contain about one-millionth the level of a toxic dose, said
Vilma Hunt, who studied the health effects of polonium-210 at the Harvard School
of Public Health.

Of polonium's 25 isotopes, polonium-210 is the most stable. After 138 days, half
of it decays into a nonradioactive isotope of lead. It takes 10 half-lives -
about three years - for all of it to be converted into lead.

In the process, it emits a significant amount of heat. A 1-gram lump will reach
more than 500 degrees Fahrenheit.

The first polonium death occurred in 1927.

The victim was Nobus Yamada, a Japanese researcher in Marie Curie's lab in
France. In 1924, he worked with Curie's daughter Irene Joliot-Curie to prepare
polonium sources. After returning home the next year, Yamada fell ill.

"There was a poisoning from the emanations," he wrote Irene, according to Susan
Quinn, author of "Marie Curie: A Life."

Marie and Pierre Curie discovered polonium while they were searching for the
cause of excess radiation in a uranium-rich ore called pitchblende. In 1898,
they traced the radiation to a substance that they dubbed radium F. When Marie
Curie determined that it was a unique element, she named it polonium to bring
attention to the plight of her homeland, Poland, which had been partitioned
among Russia, Prussia and Austria.

The Curies' daughter Irene also fell victim to the isotope. She died of leukemia
in 1956, 10 years after a sealed capsule of polonium-210 was accidentally broken
in her laboratory at the Radium Institute in Paris.

About the same time, scientists developing Israel's nuclear program were exposed
to its lethal effects.

The first signs of contamination were the traces of radiation on the laboratory
desk of Israeli physicist Dror Sadeh. He had taken what he thought were adequate
precautions against the hyperactive element.

But those precautions weren't enough. Radiation was discovered "in my private
home, and on my hands too and on everything that I touched," he wrote in his
diary.

Within a month, one student who worked in Sadeh's lab at the Weizmann Institute
of Science in Rehovot, Israel, was dead from leukemia. The lab's supervisor died
a few years later - contaminated by polonium-210 as well, Sadeh suspected.

As a product, polonium-210 has been mediocre at best.

Its first use was in automobile spark plugs. The alpha particles emitted during
its decay helped produce a stronger spark, claimed a 1929 patent issued to J.H.
Dillon of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.

The company began marketing the plugs in 1940, but their benefits were never
proved.

Polonium-210 played a key role in World War II. Manhattan Project engineers
alloyed the isotope with beryllium and used it to produce the neutrons that
triggered the atomic bomb's chain reaction.

Because of polonium's short half-life, the nuclear triggers lost their
effectiveness in two years and had to be continually replaced. By the 1970s,
engineers abandoned it in favor of the hydrogen isotope tritium, with a
half-life of 12.3 years.

Polonium was considered as a power source for U.S. satellites, but its short
half-life again limited its utility, and plutonium was used instead. The
Soviets, however, did employ polonium to keep their Lunokhod moon rovers running
in the 1970s.

Engineers finally found a viable use for it in printing plants and textile
mills, capitalizing on its electron-grabbing ability to neutralize the static
electricity generated by moving sheets of paper or fabric. Typically, a small
amount of the radioactive material is embedded in a gold foil that is placed
near the sources of static electricity.

It is also used in photo labs, embedded in the bristles of cleaning brushes to
counter the static electricity that causes dust to cling to pictures.

Polonium-210 could theoretically be extracted from either the foil or the
brushes in a quantity sufficient to poison someone, Emsley said, but it would
require a sophisticated knowledge of chemistry and a well-equipped laboratory.

Most of the research about polonium-210's health effects stemmed from concerns
for the safety of the 2,000 workers who produced the isotope for the U.S.
nuclear arsenal.

To test its effects, doctors recruited terminal cancer patients who were willing
to participate in radiation experiments in 1944, according to reports prepared
later by the Department of Energy.

Fink and his colleagues determined that most of the polonium went into the
gastrointestinal tract and was eliminated in feces. It also collected in the
spleen, kidneys and liver.

---------------------------------
   karen.kaplan@...

thomas.maugh@...

  __________________________________________________
Before posting a message to RadSafe be sure to have read and understood the
RadSafe rules. These can be found at: http://radlab.nl/radsafe/radsaferules.html

For information on how to subscribe or unsubscribe and other settings visit:
http://radlab.nl/radsafe/

Ralph Whitley Sr, so-called Veteran of One, whatever that means; I have a
request in for his DD-214 and other records even mentions DU in a letter of
condolence about President Ford; this guy seems real sick, but he is
carpetbombing the net with an incessant barrage of anti-DU materials.

Roger
----- Original Message -----
Subject: Even in Honoring Pres Ford, He Uses DU

Shortcut to:
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=107731;title=A
PFN

http://cseserv.engr.scu.edu/StudentWebPages/IPesic/ResearchPaper.htm

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the DUStory
group.

   File        : /Rokke - Thesis 1992 Vita.pdf
   Uploaded by : madcolonel <rhelbig@...>
   Description : Doug Rokke in his own words - career through 1992

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DUStory/files/Rokke%20-%20Thesis%201992%20Vita.pdf

To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit:
http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files

Regards,

madcolonel <rhelbig@...>

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/06/03/13/nathan.htm

Thanks Sandy

UnegaUnutsiGule@... wrote:
> Mark Twain....(cool aka)
>
> I've been to your site.  It and speaking with Roger is what crossed me
> over from the Nichols/Moret/Rokke cult to this side.  In one on one
> emails with them I learned they were totally nuts.
>
> Rogers words and facts are much easier to believe.
>
> I think you should place your site in the groups files (on the
> yahoogroups site) so it can be referred to any time by any member.  That
> way members would be able to access it for reference when posting in
> other groups.
>
> By the way it's nice to make your acquaintance Mr Twain!
>
> Sandy Lynn
>
> DUStory-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>

--
Robert Holloway

Nevada Technical Associates, Inc.
P.O. Box 90748
Henderson,  NV 89009
Phone (702-564-2798)
email: robert.holloway@...
www.ntanet.net

Mark Twain....(cool aka)

I've been to your site.  It and speaking with Roger is what crossed me
over from the Nichols/Moret/Rokke cult to this side.  In one on one
emails with them I learned they were totally nuts.

Rogers words and facts are much easier to believe.

I think you should place your site in the groups files (on the
yahoogroups site) so it can be referred to any time by any member.  That
way members would be able to access it for reference when posting in
other groups.

By the way it's nice to make your acquaintance Mr Twain!

Sandy Lynn

DUStory-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Looks like I may be the first one to post to this new group.  I would
like to call everyone's attention to my website on the subject of
depleted uranium. The URL is:http://www.ntanet.net/traprock.html

At the website you will find a great deal of information about such
characters is Doug Rokke and Leuren Moret.