I stopped myself on the whole Bush is as bad as Hitler thing, though.

But I left these off (there are more), because most of them are part of a larger picture, which is how the rich live off the poor. And there, really, the U.S. is not somehow uniquely repugnant either. It may be the biggest pig at the trough, but it is only one of many.

When complaining about the U.S., and there is a lot to complain about, sticking to some basic facts and perspectives is helpful in having a discussion.

But if it helps anyone - that America is the nation which seems to have fallen the farthest from its own self-proclaimed lofty ideals in the last 10 years, while in the eyes of many becoming a mockery of itself on what seems to be an unstoppable path to evil is certainly the sort of description I would wholeheartedly agree to, simply 'not most repugnant.' Most Americans seem really unaware how far America still has to fall before joining the true bottom ranks. They also seem unaware of how many mechanisms are already in place to make sure that stopping it is considered beyond practicality. Notice that the president can now declare a 'special event of national significance' anywhere in the U.S., for a tiny example (so much for peaceful assembly to petition for redress) - and while massive  wiretapping has been going on for years, it is only recently that the technology has allowed automation to work effectively enough - tied in with the huge amount of data stored, since Americans seem to have allowed databases to be filled over the last couple of decades of a style which a German planner facing numerous political goals in 1934 could only dream of. (Again, not a direct comparison - the German planner did have genealogical records which are still not normal in the U.S., for example - but in 1934, hardcore communists/Stalinists, various religious groups, and a number of militant unions/workers were still in fairly active opposition to the Nazis takeover, and were still considered a threat facing the new regime.) Having a tool to wield tends to be the first step in wielding it in the world of cause and effect - and notice I haven't said who or which political belief will wield it, only that it is hard to imagine it won't be. As an interesting side note - the recent demonstrations of people many seem to consider 'illegal' could be a fine way to test many aspects of a system designed to ensure that 100,000s of people could be placed in confinement (wonder how the camp construction is going? - bet Cheney knows who to call to find out, don't you?), since they are considered a threat to American society. And from most of what I have been reading, a majority of 'real' Americans would be pleased to see it happen, if only to defend America from a wave of unAmericanness, or something equally hard for me to understand. Yes, a certain mixture is starting to stir itself, and I doubt people are worried enough about what it means. Sort of like pointing out how databases being set up in the 1980s were a first step in people trading away privacy - these days, an entire system is in place to notice 'suspicious' transactions in the entire banking/retail network, and essentially no one can live without a credit card, it seems.

I don't live there now, but from here, what is stirring is a truly vile mixture of racism wrapped in righteousness about legality and respecting America. Almost as if after 40 years of being kept under a rock, a certain ugly creature has finally found the lever to pry itself back into the light, where many people seem entranced by its pure blackness, and wish it to grow larger and more devouring.

Maybe I am wrong, but a lot worries me about what is going on in the U.S.

But as noted, a few nukes getting legal field testing in Iran (wouldn't want to break any treaties and test them illegally here first, right?) would make this a more complicated discussion. But honestly, even after nuking a few Iranian targets, I still would argue North Korea is worse.

The Department of Energy has admitted that the DU stockpiles contain radioactive waste from nuclear reactor cores and that plutonium, americium and neptunium are present in DU. This is also evidenced by the presence of U-236 which could only have come from reactor cores. The presence of these transuranic elements complicates the picture somewhat, but the same analysis can be used to determine the effects that these elements have on the total radioactivity of DU. All that needs to be known are the percentage amounts of these elements in a 1 gram sample of DU.

S. F. Boulyga of the Research Center Juelich in Juelich Germany reported [Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectroscopy Vol. 16(11), 2001 (pp. 1283-1289) ] finding Pu-239, Pu-240 and Am-241 in a sample taken from a DU penetrator shell. He reported 1.7x10-9 gram (1.7 nanograms) of Am-241 and 3.1x10-5 gram (31 micrograms) of U-236 in a 1 gram DU sample. This is 10 times the amount of U-236 reported by DoD and used in the above calculations (Table 1b).

http://www.idust.net/Tutorial/DURadiation01.htm

Every trooper(Iraq/Afghanistan) should be tested for Onset Diabetes and
Sores that will not heal-first signs of Radiation Poisoning.
Also, Uranium as a simple heavy metal will bind to DNA
causing cell mutations.

James

The radiation is really a non-issue for DU.   The natural activity of potassium-40 in the body is around 100,000 picoCuries. The natural activity of uranium in the body is around 50 picoCuries, 2,000 times less.  You would need to increase the typical load of uranium in the body (about 100 micrograms) to about 200,000 micrograms, or 0.2 grams, just to equal the radioactivity that you already get from potassium.

Heavy metals of any stamp are bad news, but data from people like uranium miners, who have had exposure to alot of uranium compounds as dust, shows that radon is more significant than uranium for their work-related health problems.