According to a study published earlier this year, German
scientists have found that cotton clothing containing high
levels of dioxins may be a significant source of both human
exposure and environmental contamination. The use of the
organochlorine pentachlorophenol (PCP) during the transport
of cotton may be a primary source of the dioxins. The
scientists feel that textile contamination accounts for the
presence of dioxins and furans in domestic sewage sludge, dry
cleaning residues and household dust, and also explains how
certain dioxins not found in the food supply accumulate in
humans.
...
Scientists also found that when RcleanS t-shirts were washed
with contaminated ones, 7% of the dioxin and furan content
was transferred to the clean shirts and 16% washed out into
the sewage system. The researchers measured dioxin levels in
household laundry runoff and estimated that they contributed
between 27-94% of total dioxin and furan inputs to a local
sewage treatment plant that handles primarily domestic
sewage. Shower and bath water was also found to contain
dioxins of textile origin washed from the skin, adding to
contamination of the runoff.
...
most treated cloth comes
countries where there are fewer restrictions on the use of
PCP...

Ever notice that everything you're wearing was made in China?

Dioxins from PCP Treated Cotton.

OOOOps, not Ad Astra, where did I get that idea? THESE guys....

Let's Weaponize Space

This is an old article, but with a lot of in-depth information that keeps it relevant. It's also in reply to Rattle, (see thread RE: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Nasa to go nuclear)
but I want to put this link up big in lights.
If everone involved were honestly trying to use nuclear material in a safe way for astere scientific purposes, maybe they would succeed. Unfortunately, the actual people in charge of the process care mostly about the short term bottom line, and/or long term strategic objectives. In fact, coming up next -- a link to Ad Astra, a very pro-nukes in space organization. These guys love nukes! Nukes are hot!
I am sorry these guys run the show. I love space exploration, and wish the research would go ahead in a conscientious direction, not this quick and dirty way that seems to be more about developing space based nuclear-powered weapons.

AlterNet: U.S. Launching Lethal Plutonium Into Space

Nanochick wrote:
] hehehehe

THAT'S pretty fucking funny.

RE: pilots_01

Feb. 6, 2003, 2230 hrs, PST, (FTW) - A story is sweeping the world tonight and it says a great deal about those who are forcing the world into a war it does not want. The famed dossier presented by British Prime Minister Tony Blair to his Parliament was plagiarized from two articles and a September 2002 research paper submitted by a graduate student. Worse, the Iraq described by the graduate student is not the Iraq of 2003 but the Iraq of 1991. So glaring was the theft of intellectual property that the official British document even cut and pasted whole verbatim segments of the research paper, including grammatical errors, and presented the findings as the result of intense work by British intelligence services.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell both praised and quoted that same British report in his presentation at the United Nations yesterday.

Britain's Intelligence Dossier on Iraq was Plagiarized from a Grad Student

Decius wrote:
] Rattle wrote:
] ] ] President Bush is set to endorse using nuclear power to
] ] ] explore Mars and open up the outer Solar System.
]
] The fact is that we simply can't get deeper into space without
] moving this direction, and NASA has been planning this for
] quite some time. By putting his name on it, Bush takes credit
] for something was in the works long before he showed up, for
] better or for worse...
]
] I expect this issue to be really annoying. People will jump to
] protest it without understanding what the risks actually are.
] Even the analysis will be biased. You can bet the left wing
] organizations will have data showing that its dangerous. You
] can bet NASA will have data showing that its not. You can bet
] no one on either side will really be interested in listening
] to anything they don't want to hear.
]
] Cloning issue, round two, fight!

The way I understand it, booster rockets blow up on takeoff sometimes, with on the order of 1 in a hundred frequency (how many shuttle flights preceeded Challenger?). Plutonium is their fuel of choice, tens of kilograms per vehicle. Plutonium dust is fatal in very small doses, micrograms. So that's conservatively a billion lethal doses per vehicle. Atmospheric dynamics have been shown to efficiently distribute small particles globally.
I don't want to catch a lungfull of that stuff when somebody forgets to convert their units, or asks "what's that button do?".

RE: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Nasa to go nuclear

SEE? I told you. Evil, evil, evil.
But I like the RPG links even more. GURPS etc.

Scroll down a ways for the true story of where the One-Ring has ended up...

Frodo Fails...

Some very interesting information here. In particular, check out the 9/11 timeline, which details the events of the day and leading up to the day. It becomes clear that there are a lot of unanswered questions, the investigation of which the administration is attempting to block. Why did the jets not scramble to intercept once the planes were suspected to be hijacked, when it is standard operating procedure to do so? (note that interception is NOT the same as shooting them down, but puts fighters in a position to do so) Serious investigation into this and other issues would uncover a scandal much bigger than Watergate: the Bush administration was complicit in the attacks of 9/11, if not actually behind them.
Insane? Read it for yourself, and ask, just what has the administration gained from 9/11? An endless, profitable, global war, amazing popularity, righteousness, complete amnesia about the judicial coup, Total Information Awareness, Fatherland Security, unprecidented secrecy, the ability to perpetually detain and execute anyone, citizen or not, *accused* of terrorism, in secret, with no evidence and no representation.
It is clear that they had been warned. With so much to gain, why would they try to stop it?

Center For Cooperative Research (911 Scandal)

] Brilliantly, seditiously remixed State of the Union
] address video.

It's refreshing to hear the fellow addressing us with the plain truth for once.

Deconstructing Bush...

] The richest 10% of the population - about 10 million
] households - owned 84% of the stock and 90% of the bonds
] held by individuals (including that held indirectly
] through mutual funds). The democratization of ownership
] supposedly brought about by mutual funds has a long way
] to go.

Great little graph wost the way down showing change in the the comparative wealth of American society.

Distributing the booty