The recent article at InsideBayArea.com, "Lab's Changes Cause Staff Anxiety," discusses the downgrading of the managerial role - and alleged lessened involvement - of the University of California at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory outside San Francisco.
The slant of this piece tries to make us feel sorry for academia at the University of California who no longer get to boast about being Big Nuke Scientists on Campus and hog all the limelight for their role in genocidal weapons-making at the Lab!
The federal Department of Energy, as obedient handmaidens for the DoD, along with the University of California, are designing - and exploding - radioactive weapons into the open air, about 40 miles outside San Francisco.
Have you heard of "Depleted” Uranium before, the munitions made from nuclear processing that the US military fires in Iraq and Afghanistan from our aircraft, tanks, and guns? If not, simply do a search for “Depleted Uranium” plus “Doug Rokke” or “Leuren Moret” or “Rosalie Bertell” and you will get the education of a lifetime.
Uh, yeah, there's certainly anxiety in California alright - at least among those who know what goes on at that nuclear weapons Laboratory - and it sure doesn't have much of anything to do with UC professors losin' academic notoriety or esteem.
But first let's discuss the UC scientists who like to play with nuke bombs technology for a living. It now appears that UC is playing a more subdued role and is at least not as publicly showcased as manager of California's weapons lab any longer.
The tone of this piece is such that we are almost moved to get out the violins and Kleenex for the poor, poor UC academics who now have to share some of the credit and glory for blowing up radioactively *hot* Uranium in our faces for a living.
So while we are being made to feel sympathy for an institution of higher learning that does not get to star in a leading role for its diabolical work in genocidal orchestration? Let us not be taken as fools and believe for even a minute that the University's part in Livermore Lab's deeds has ended.
Clearly, the skilled expertise of UC’s top scientists is very much needed and desired. Most assuredly, UC will go right on assisting the private firm running the weapons laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC and its partners, Bechtel National, BWX Technologies, Texas A & M University, Washington Group International, and national weapons laboratory manager, Battelle, as they perform their nuclear dirty work ensemble both at Livermore’s indoor laboratory and outdoor explosion areas.
Putting a corporation in charge of the Lab - at least on paper - is obviously a much better "business" strategy for a federal government interested in maximizing profits and minimizing federal liabilities, health, disability, and death claims benefits. Privatization of US-manufactured casualties is, after all, what this administration is all about.
With regard to UC scientists being played in this piece as "demoted," one surmises this is truly how it might feel to some academics there. Certainly one can understand why UC employees would find the twisted sense of glory and "perks" that radioactive weapons design and implementation has afforded them in the past to be immensely lucrative, desirable, and ego-swelling to boot.
Getting a rise out of designing and using instruments of mass destruction, regardless of the number of higher degrees one may posses in disciplines like physics and nuclear science, does not, however, indicate the presence of normal psyche functioning. One does not need an advanced shrink degree, after all, to know that these guys are frickin' nuts! I mean, who in their right mind goes off to work in the morning with coffee and donut in hand, thinking, Hmm... after I help design an even more lethal nuclear bomb today and explode deadly radioactive materials outside in an open area where 7,000,000 babies, children, women, and men live, work, and play within 50 miles of San Francisco... I think I'll rent a movie and get a veggie lovers’ pizza tonight?
Regardless of who receives - and who loses - all the credit and glory and prestige [sic] for playing the Lead Role in US poison gas weapons design and delivery? This supremely critical fact still remains: No matter who’s running the show, we are still nuking our own, in the open air, right here at home.
As we speak, the greater San Francisco Bay Area nuclear weapons laboratory is still dispersing - via open air explosions - 1,000 lbs. annually (perhaps soon to be 8,000 lbs.) of lethal, chemically toxic, radioactive aerosols such as Uranium oxide into the air that 10 million people in the densely populated greater San Francisco Bay/San Jose area are trying to breathe.
And while blasting one thousand pounds of “Depleted” Uranium into the air every year for 46 years straight may not seem like very much compared to the tons of it we are using on the Muslim world in the Middle East? Still, consider that just one invisible sub-micron size nano-particle we inhale that becomes lodged in our lung can stay there for decades, wrecking havoc on our bodies, causing cell death, mutation, and disease in the years to follow.
The US has been using radioactive Uranium aerosol (gas) in our air since the 1940's right up to the current day. Is there any wonder that almost everybody we know and their brother's got some form of illness known to be caused by radiation, from diabetes to asthma to cancer to an autoimmune system disorder?
Cathy Garger is a freelance writer, public speaker, activist, and a certified personal coach who specializes in Uranium weapons. Living in the shadow of the national District of Crime, Cathy is constantly nauseated by the stench emanating from the nation's capital during the Washington, DC, federal work week.
. . . check cancer rates. Check the date of the worldwide increase of diabetes and cancer. Check the number of autoimmune diseases becoming worse and more widespread.
There is NO safe place on earth because of the spread of radioactivity by the U.S. with "tests" and weaponry. Cancer and diabetes are rapidly increasing in "developing countries" where the lifestyles are not those traditionally blamed for the diseases. "Environmental causes" INCLUDE the increase of radioactivity but it is NEVER mentioned!
Why are there no publicly-released reports of this? Why are there no "news" people and "investigative journalists" digging up facts? Why is it a secret from the people?
You will have to find THOSE answers for yourself!
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Nancy Bracewell (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 19 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 8:30:59 PM
A little low-level radiation may actually be good for you, or more likely not really a measurable factor in human health. Can't let this news get out, because all the anti-nuke hysteria about power plants and depleted uranium is based on some mythical devastating effect thereof.
Cancer rates may be increasing, but surely NOT due to barely distinguishable radiation contributions by man:
Tobacco consumption remains the most important avoidable cancer risk. In the 20th century, approximately 100 million people died world-wide from tobacco-associated diseases (cancer, chronic lung disease, cardiovascular disease and stroke). Half of regular smokers are killed by the habit. One quarter of smokers will die prematurely during middle age (35 to 69 years).
The lung cancer risk for regular smokers as compared to non-smokers (relative risk, RR) is between 20 and 30 fold. In countries with a high smoking prevalence and where many women have smoked cigarettes throughout adult life, roughly 90 per cent of lung cancers in both men and women are attributable to cigarette smoking. For bladder and renal pelvis, the RR is five-six but this means that more than 50 per cent of cases are caused by smoking.
In developing countries, up to 23 per cent of malignancies are caused by infectious agents, including hepatitis B and C virus (liver cancer), human papillomaviruses (cervical and ano-genital cancers), and Helicobacter pylori (stomach cancer). In developed countries, cancers caused by chronic infections only amount to approximately 8 per cent of all malignancies. This discrepancy is particularly evident for cervical cancer. In developed countries with an excellent public health infrastructure and a high compliance of women, early cytological detection of cervical cancer (PAP smear) has led to an impressive reduction of mortality while in other world regions, including Central America, South East Africa and India, incidence and mortality rates are still very high. Today, more than 80 per cent of all cervical cancer deaths occur in developing countries.
The Western lifestyle is characterized by a highly caloric diet, rich in fat, refined carbohydrates and animal protein, combined with low physical activity, resulting in an overall energy imbalance. It is associated with a multitude of disease conditions, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arterial hypertension and cancer.
Given the overwhelming evidence for millions of people contracting cancer and dying due to the effects of cigarette smoking, diet and infection, and the dearth of any significant scientifically proven linkage between a little low-level radiation and any disease, why the complete lack of articles by Garger highlighting the former, and the virtual flood falsely demonizing the latter?
Could there be another agenda at work here, one completely ignorant of accepted science?
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Alan Williams (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 582 comments)
on Friday, December 28, 2007 at 9:46:21 PM
Cathy, you don't get it... most of the first 500 support staff at LLNL getting axed are blue collar workers; janitors, building maintenance, painters, gardeners, secretaries, etc - people with families... not highly educated scientist/engineers working on nuclear weapons programs... the $130 million short fall to the Lab's annual budget is directly due to the transition from "non-profit" University of California management to a private, "for-profit" company (www.llnsllc.com) = LLNL employees being moved off of the University's payrolls and benefit plans, $46 million fee to the new management company's parent companies (Bechtel, BWXT, etc), paying state/local taxes ... ironically many of the support engineers and scientist getting laid off in the next group of 300 staff actually work on non-nuclear weapons research and support basic science type projects that are funded by taxing the nuclear weapons work funding coming into LLNL.
Sadly, there is no money for actually improving operations (business, safety, environmental protection, health services, etc) at LLNL, and the departments that carry out these functions within LLNL are bearing the brunt of the budget cuts in order to minimize cuts to the research/science departments.
Folks like you shold be fighting to have Congress turn places like LLNL back into to true "National Research Laboratories" working on the countries and world's problems.
Here are blogs that give a glimpse at life inside a national lab
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Jay Craig (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Friday, December 28, 2007 at 9:55:06 PM
US Policies of aggression, nuclear arms, nuclear weapon development, nuclear wea pon use threats, and missile shields will only serve to antagonize China, Russia , and some Middle Eastern countries. The inevitable event will be one or many nu clear weapons fired against the United States in the very near future. The only thing that can stop this is for the globalization movement to stop its power grab and for native peoples to be given equal voice in institutions like the United Nations. The native peoples are the moral reserve of humanity, not the rich overbloated bankers, politicians and royalty. The world needs to come together to end racism against religions and ethnicities. We should start with Iran and immediately. The Third Major shaking of the earth on US soil was prophesized by the Cherokee long ago. Its time to listen to the native wisdom again, and let go of the snake oil politicians who are only concerned about themselves. "
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Andrew Jackson (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments)
on Saturday, December 29, 2007 at 8:20:53 AM
"It’s blamed for everything from birth defects to “Gulf War Syndrome” to cancer. It’s called a “nuclear weapon” to being a violation of the Geneva convention to being a backdoor method of genocide. According to this acivitist, it’s a crime by George W Bush and a genocidal “nuclear war.” Pardon my language but: bullshit."
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Alan Williams (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 582 comments)
on Sunday, December 30, 2007 at 10:26:29 PM
