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This is what I know;

The worst exposure was 16 millirems of radiation. 6 millirems is a chest Xray. The normal exposure over 365 days or one yr for employees at any nuclear power plant is 2000 millirems.

Now, PA has 20 Nuclear Power Plants, all of them leaking tritium w/o licensees and getting away with it. All of them are subject to about the same leaks during repairs. Unit 2 has been shut down at TMI and is regulated through a dummie fedral corp that Excelon has that leases it to oversee the "management of regulating the already damaged unit' which is fancy for legal papers that make it legal to continue practice of work at TMI.

The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11
by John Farmer
Riverhead Books (division of Penguin), New York, 2009

In recent public opinion surveys, roughly half the country believes the official account of what occurred on 9/11/2001 to be substantially true, and half is skeptical. Apparently John Farmer, the man who penned the official 9-11 Commission Report in 2003, is in the latter group. Farmer has written a book as paradoxical as the Government testimony which he picks to pieces: He details one incident after another, meticulously documenting the lies that high government officials told in testimony before his commission. But even after leaving our mouths agape at the mendacity and deception of the Administration (the word ‘perjury’ appears nowhere in the book), he reports unskeptically other parts of the story for which this same Administration was the only source, as if he has no choice but to believe them.

U.S. government hypocrisy has grown so pervasive over the last decades that it provokes yawns and glazed looks. Senators denounce government interference in health care while partaking in their own top of the line government health insurance that they designed – at taxpayer expense. Secretary of State Clinton demanded Pakistani leaders remove terrorists from their streets while self-proclaimed anti-Castro terrorists parade down Miami’s thoroughfares – as freedom fighters, of course.

Duplicity in language coincides with stupidity of policy. In Afghanistan (which costs a million dollars per year per soldier to keep Hamid Karzai in the president business), U.S. and NATO troops pursue a vague anti-terror mission in which they have caused immense death and destruction -- with few or no results. “Send more troops to fight for the Karzai government,” scream John McCain and his ilk, while Karzai vies for a place in the Guinness Book of Records for corruption. He retains legitimacy among those who benefit directly from his theft – and the U.S. government.

As I slog through the debate, no, the debacle on Universal Health Care; As I watch while fellow Americans water down, no, piss on this most noble notion of our nation's history, my emotions evolve from shock, to sadness, to trying (without success) to tune out.

While the damned wars may be justified, however wrongly, with some misguided and misinformed altruism, there is nothing to misconstrue as moral ground in opposing Universal Health Care.

Good people can be fooled into supporting wars. Happens all the time. But people who oppose Universal Health Care just plain suck. They're usually the ones who happen to have healthcare for themselves and their families. But as their jobs disappear - and with it their insurance - they change their tune right quick.

Most opponents cite government incompetence or high cost as reasons to deny health care to all Americans. But beneath the cost and controversy lies an incontrovertable truth:

More Americans would remain alive in a United States with Universal Health Care.

Less Americans would die.

The year 2009 is definitely Presidential year; Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th, and first African American President of the United States, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir is appointed as the new Prime Minister of Iceland, becoming the world's first openly lesbian head of government. Morgan Tsvangirai is sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Zimbabwe following the power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe, the President of Guinea-Bissau, João Bernardo Vieira, is assassinated during an armed attack on his residence in Bissau.

Also, in 2009, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Al-Bashir is the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the ICC since its establishment in 2002. The President of Madagascar, Marc Ravalomanana, is overthrown in a coup d'état, following a month of rallies in Antananarivo. The military appoints opposition leader Andry Rajoelina as the new president of Madagascar. Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces.

Yet another "perfectly safe" release at Three Mile Island has irradiated yet another puff of hype about alleged "green" support for new reactors.

The two are inseparable.

In 1979, when TMI's brand new Unit Two melted, stack monitors and other critical safeguards crashed in tandem. Nobody knows how much radiation escaped, where it went or who it harmed. Cancers, leukemia, stillbirths, malformations, asthma, sterility, skin lesions and other radiation-related diseases erupted throughout central Pennsylvania. Some 2400 families sued, but never got a full public hearing in federal court.

Unit Two had operated just three months when it melted. By a 3-1 margin, three central Pennsylvania counties then voted that TMI-One, which opened in 1974, stay shut. But Ronald Reagan tore down that wall.

This week TMI's owners were forced to evacuate 150 workers when radioactive dust "unexpectedly blew out of a pipe being cut by workers." Exelon was "trying to determine exactly how and why it happened."

Colonel Muammar al-Gathafi lives in a really big air-conditioned tent with cushy rugs and incredible chandeliers. How do I know? I visited the tent on the 40th anniversary of the Libyan revolution, when a 27-year-old al-Gathafi overthrew the Libya government, Che Guavera-style (his hero).

The controversial Libyan leader, who helped train and fund insurgent groups all over the world, now wants to compete in the marketplace of ideas -- and he and his supporters think his Green Book may offer a new perspective. One Green Book idea: every citizen is entitled to one mortgage-free house, or tent. That's the way it is for 5.5 million Libyan citizens.

Following al-Gathafi's recent trip to the United States, where he spoke for an hour and a half at the United Nations -- questioning the assassinations of Kennedy and King -- former U.S. Congresswoman organized a delegation to visit Libya and attend the First International Conference of the Green Book Supporters Society.

On October 28 the State Department sent its Asst. Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, Tom Shannon to Honduras with the purpose of “urging opposing political sides in Honduras to be more flexible.” As result of this pressure by our government, a questionable accord was agreed to between the Coup forces and President Zelaya. Both President Zelaya and the people of Honduras had hoped that this agreement would result in his reinstatement within a short period of time. Yet this agreement was pending on a vote of approval by the Honduran Congress and on a judicial ruling by the Supreme Court. Neither nor Congress or Supreme Court acted and while President Zelaya waited Michelleti was already calling for a new government of so called “Unity and Reconciliation.” This new government without the inclusion of President Zelaya would only serve to legitimize the coup. The National Resistance Front and President Zelaya have therefore called this sham of an agreement “dead.” President Zelaya said, “There is no point in deceiving Hondurans.”

IN PRAISE OF INDECENCY: THE LEADING INVESTIGATIVE SATIRIST SOUNDS OFF ON HYPOCRISY, CENSORSHIP AND FREE EXPRESSION

WHO’S TO SAY WHAT’S OBSCENE? : POLTICS, CULTURE AND COMEDY IN AMERICA TODAY

CONFESSIONS OF A RAVING, UNCONFINED NUT: MISADVENTURES IN THE COUNTERCULTURE

It’s time our national government at last enshrines its most critical artistic need, that of “Satirist-Laureate.” The first nod must go to the man who has pioneered the idiom in modern America---Paul Krassner.

Since the days of Lenny Bruce, Krassner (a good friend, but no relation) has been poking brilliant fun at every sacred horse’s ass in American politics and culture.

He also remains our cutting edge critic on censorship and its pornographic twin. His two recent books slash to the core of the utter hypocrisy of the government sticking its nose in what we read and write, think and smoke.

The Columbus Free Press spoke with Zoe Beavers of Climate Ground Zero on Saturday Nov 22, as two concerned citizens, Dea Goblirsch and Nick Martin, locked down to a drill rig on Coal River Mountain’s Bee Tree mountaintop removal site, effectively stopping blasting. There will be a national day of action on Dec 7 in Charleston, WV to stop mountain top removal mining.

Zoe Beavers : We’ll they’ve started blasting on Coal River Mountain in order to build a road so they can start their mountain top removal (on Coal River Mountain). They’ve actually started blasting close to the impoundment that holds 9 billion gallons of toxic sludge. They’ve started 200 feet from the edge of the impoundment to do this blasting for the road. There are a couple of folks there-Dea and Nick-- and they’ve locked themselves down to the drill rig to halt the blasting. Dea is actually locked down in the cab of the drill rig and Nick is locked down to the cage on the outside of it.

Columbus Free Press: This is going on right now as we speak ?

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