NEW YORK, Oct. 23, 2007
White House May Halt Anti-Radiation Pills
The Skinny: Plan Born Of Terror Fears Scrapped To Boost Confidence In Nuclear Power
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The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which isn't sure that taking anti-radiation pills is really the best way to prevent thyroid cancer in the event of a terrorist attack on a nuclear reactor, was put in charge of the government's pill distribution program in July. (AP / CBS)
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Review some of the worst accidents in the history of nuclear power, see how the body responds to radiation exposure and find out if there's a nuclear plant near you.
Is the White House admitting that global warming is scarier than terrorism?
That seems to be the message behind USA Today's report that the Bush administration may scrap a plan to give anti-radiation pills to millions of people, five years after Congress ordered that the tablets be made available to anyone living within 20 miles of a nuclear reactor.
Congress issued the order based on fears that terrorists could attack a nuclear plant. The once-a-day pills protect the thyroid against ingested radioactive iodine by saturating it with harmless potassium iodide, thus guarding against thyroid cancer following radioactive exposure.
Back when the White House was focused on conjuring images of mushroom clouds to sell the Iraq war, it called potassium iodide pills crucial to preventing thyroid cancer. But now that it's looking like we might actually need all those nuclear reactors - plus a whole lot more of them - to power the country, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is arguing against distributing the pills.
"According to the NRC, the pills may not be the most effective way to prevent cancer and could undermine confidence in the U.S. nuclear plants," the paper reports.
In a sign of where he stands now, President Bush stripped the Health and Human Services of responsibility for the program and turned it over to the NRC in July.
The American Thyroid Association is furious. "If you entrust our kids' health to nuclear engineers instead of doctors," said Peter Crame, a former lawyer with the NRC and thyroid cancer advocate, "you are inviting disaster."
Phone Companies Seeking Immunity Donated To Senator
This morning's installment of Not Illegal But Still Totally Depressing Behavior In Washington comes courtesy of the New York Times.
The paper reports that executives at the two biggest phone companies contributed more than $42,000 to Sen. John Rockefeller IV, D-W.Va., this year while seeking his support for legal immunity for business participating in the National Security Agency eavesdropping.
The contributions come from "a Who's Who of executives" at AT&T and Verizon, starting with the chief executives and including at least 50 executives and lawyers, according to campaign finance reports.
Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, emerged last week as the most important supporter of immunity in devising a compromise plan with Senate Republicans and the Bush administration, the paper reports.
A measure approved by the committee on Thursday would add restrictions on the eavesdropping and extent retroactive immunity to carriers that participated in it. The companies face big lawsuits from customers who say their privacy was violated when the telecoms helped the government snoop on them without warrants.
Rockefeller denies that the sudden surge in telecom contributions swayed his opinion. One of his supporters backs him up by pointing out the obvious: the guy's name is John D. Rockefeller IV.
"That these phone companies are going to focus their lobbying efforts where their business interests are is no revelation," said Matt Bennett, vice president for Third Way, a moderate Democraticy policy group that has supported immunity for phone carriers. "That's the standard Washington way of doing business. But you're not going to buy a Rockefeller."
Incoming!
The search continued yesterday for one of two pieces of luggage that vanished on Sunday after a cargo door on an airplane apparently opened in flight, the
Shortly after a plane took off from Chicago's Midway Airport, its controls indicated an air pressure problem, according to a spokeswoman for Atlantic Southeast Airlines, which operated the Delta flight to Atlanta.
The plane circled back and landed. None of the 70 passengers were injured, but the ground crew found a cargo door open. The Federal Aviation Administration said it was investigating the case.
A breakthrough happened on Monday when an employee at a railroad switching yard less than a mile from the airport found one of the missing pieces, a garment bag, on the ground.
The Times, at least, couldn't find anybody who'd ever heard of luggage falling out of a flying plane before. The airline spokeswoman said the airline was thankful that "no one has been hurt during this very rare incident."
But how can she be sure? The second bag, the Times reports, remains at large.
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See all 75 CommentsBe far more interesting to watch the reaction, too.
Please - recommending a good book is a little different than electing a president.
In my view, celebrities should stick to entertainment.
(A PLAY ACTOR)! IF SHE HAD ABILITY TO BE IN POLITICS SHE WOULD NOT BE ON TV TALK SHOW! GRANTED SHE HAS MADE THE MONEY BUT BEFORE YOU TAKE HER POLITICAL ADVICE CONSULT FORREST GUMP!
I agree! Because there are people who are obsessed with celebrity and can''t think for themselves, I think the celebrities should keep who they are voting for to themselves.
I wonder what would happen if ALL celebrity ceased to exist? Geez, I think the world would collapse. What would people do? Some wouldn''t be able to function, I think.
Well, in the U.S. anyways. Canada isn''t AS obsessed or addicted to celebrity. :) Vancouver is supposed to be "Hollywood North" but I don''t see the obsession or media frenzy that goes on down there.
Anyone listening to what the candidates have to offer on resolving issues is ridiculous.
Ordinarily, I wouldn''t see a problem with it but when you have millions of people who follow her BLINDLY, WITHOUT THOUGHT, I find it completely irresponsible.
You want people to vote for someone because they have watched and listened to that person, to see what they are about and if they are capable of running the country. Now hopefully, the majority of people will use COMMON SENSE but I wouldn''t hold my breath because from reading alot of the comments on this website over the past months, I haven''t seen too many that have any.
Yes, there are other celebrities that back different candidates but none have a following like Oprah, where the fans would follow her blindly into the pits of hell without question. Of course not everyone is that stupid but some most definitely are, they will do whatever she says, no questions asked. And no I am not saying that Oprah would ask that of her fans.:)
The United States has a huge problem right now and they need to be EXTRA CAREFUL about who they vote in next time and maybe Obama isn''t the greatest choice. Let me put it this way, I don''t think there is room for any mistakes, this time around. People need to be THINKING very hard about their decision.
Okay now, you are just plain and simply an IDIOT.
Why Don''t You Know Ron Paul?
The corporate media will not give Ron Paul any Exposure. Because, NBC is owned by GE. GE is one of the world''s largest war-makers. They make things that go boom. They make $Billions on war. A Ron Paul administration would be bad for business. CNN is owned by AOL. Majority share holder is Saudi Royal Talal who is also partners with GHWBush in The Carlyle Group. Another major warmaker. And on and on. You get the picture. This is why they are doing a Media Blackout on him. Because they don''t WANT YOU TO KNOW THE TRUTH!
Who is Ron Paul?
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/about
** Ron Paul Won The GOP Debate Lastnight!
Who Owns The Media: http://www.mediaowners.com
RESTORE YOUR LIBERTY & FREEDOM
SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT RON PAUL 2008!
He Will:
** Stop Iraq War Immediately
** Eliminate IRS
** Eliminate Federal Reserve
** Eliminate Government Wasteful Spending
** Restore America''s Work Force & Values
** Restore America''s Freedom!
GET UP AND GET ACTIVE TODAY!!!
Paul Is America''s Last Hope!
Join The ReVoLuTiOn In Your City Stand Up America:
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I''ll vote for Dr Phil and that weirdo who loves to handle body parts, what''s his name, Mehmet OZ!!
LOL
Okra''s populist rantings and ********* diet tips keep middle-aged women glued to their TV sets...all well and good for Tubbo''s paycheck, but let''s not get too stupid about this.
She''s an entertainer - a BLACK entertainer - who doesn''t realize that SuperBlack Barry Obama jumped the gun by about 10 years and should have waited for his chance. HE BLEW IT - and she risks blowing what little hold she has on her own community by backing his failed, flawed candidacy.
But nobody really cares about her OR him.
He doesn''t have a fiddler''s chance in HELL.
Posted by JackSteen1 at 06:33 PM : Oct 22, 2007
Hmm, me thinks the LADY doth protest too much. Little JackSteen1, pray tell, who does have a chance?
'' ... if mortal suffering seems to evolve toward eternal ecstacsy, then eternal ecstasy prevails, except: survival of less fit hints that less fit killets must occupy 99 plus % of space time to survive, but that''s only from a mortal suffering perspective ... ''
'' ... big business is capable of employing full time staffs devoted to visiting sick beds in order to afford them market share and public awareness; however, a small specialist company would also be capable of paying entitys small and large to provide such staffs temporarily or long term ... ''
'' ... ideally, each folk would visit 33 sick beds each day, but: because that is not likely, averages might be 1.3 billion sick beds visited per day for 43 million to 1.3 billion dollars, with 40 million folk makeing such visits and 1.2 million of those answering lots of questions for 1.3 million to 40 million of the dollars ... ''
'' ... traditional corporate vanagement should be replaced by 3-d realtime journals of traveling journalists paid to keep hundreds or thousands or tens thousands of small companys informed ... ''
'' ... war rapes babies, u.s. spends more on domestic war than most countrys together spend globally on war ... ''
'' ... u.s. farmers were taught to make folk pay for lunch and nearly all u.s. farms were forclosed on or sold to avoid forclosure ... ''
'' ... u.s. business refused to feed starving africans and south americans and asians for the 3rd world had no money, yet taught them to speak english and play capitalist to exploit cheap labor / goods markets .. nations gladly gave up their languages and religions and cultures so not to starve to death and thanked the u.s. for shipping each dollar and operation overseas, and for even picking up the tab to do so ... ''
'' ... most folk most time dance get well feed world songs rallied round hundreds millions sick beds drifting tens millions spore bloom weed dragon trail fickle first aid lunch farm cottage studio trail crossing yseedsberry trail groups (33 sick beds @ 33 villages of 300 for 3.3 cents to $1.00 in swapped tips per sick bed / village) ... and still find time 20 mins per night for hike naked dance dressed get sick tax world porno ... ''
'' ... of course you have options, you have the option to invest all your money and votes in baby raping warfare ... ''
'' ... not a god lording over other gods, not a unwilling unwilling victim in eternal hell, not some flicket in oblivion: eternal storyboards swimming drifting infinite oceans of eternal storyboards ... ''
'' ... maybe edible algae and mushroom knick knack artwork could store and possibly even lever or multiply water molecules and microbes ... maybe since we can turn acorns into atomic stars, we can turn acorns into atomic stomachs and forego all the consumption anyways ... ''
**********
The illegal immigration problem is that almost any form of citizenship proof can be forged. Maybe everyone should be required to put his or her fingerprint on his or her ID or drivers'' license, so that the print can be compared with the DMV records - and if there''s a match, the person is legal; if there is no match, the person is illegal. Hey, this is also a way to make every American carry a photo ID with his or her print on it!
That''s the only way I know of to make sure that the documents that are presented are true and accurate and legitimate.
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