Miscellaneous Articles

Americans get most radiation from medical scans
We fret about airport scanners, power lines, cell phones and even microwaves. It's true that we get too much radiation. But it's not from those sources - it's from too many medical tests.
Americans get the most medical radiation in the world, even more than folks in other rich countries. The U.S. accounts for half of the most advanced procedures that use radiation, and the average American's dose has grown sixfold over the last couple of decades.
Too much radiation raises the risk of cancer. That risk is growing because people in everyday situations are getting imaging tests far too often. Like the New Hampshire teen who was about to get a CT scan to check for kidney stones until a radiologist, Dr. Steven Birnbaum, discovered he'd already had 14 of these powerful X-rays for previous episodes. Adding up the total dose, "I was horrified" at the cancer risk it posed, Birnbaum said.
After his own daughter, Molly, was given too many scans following a car accident, Birnbaum took action: He asked the two hospitals where he works to watch for any patients who had had 10 or more CT scans, or patients under 40 who had had five - clearly dangerous amounts. They found 50 people over a three-year period, including a young woman with 31 abdominal scans.
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Former Valdez Cleanup Worker Warns of Toxic Dangers in the Gulf
At the time, it was the worst oil spill the United States had ever seen. It was 1989, and Merle Savage, then a healthy 50-year-old, had heard the news about Exxon Valdez. Compelled to help, she spent four months cleaning up Alaska's oil-contaminated waters and shores.
She has never been the same since. Now 71, Savage still feels the toll that summer took on her health, but as she watches the reports coming out of the Gulf, she's felt something else:
Deja vu.
After all, the symptoms [1] seem to line up [2]:
A flu-like illness [3]. Dizziness. Nausea. Nosebleeds. Vomiting. Headaches. Coughing. Difficulty breathing. Many of the same things she experienced two decades ago; some of the same things she still experiences today.
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At least $500 million has been spent since 9/11 on renovating Guantanamo Bay
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA -- At the U.S. naval station here, a handsome electronic sign hangs between two concrete pillars. In yellow enamel against a blue metal backdrop is a map of Cuba, the "Pearl of the Antilles," above flashing time and temperature readings.
"Welcome Aboard," the sign says.
The cost of the marquee, along with a smaller sign positioned near the airfield: $188,000. Among other odd legacies from war-on-terror spending since 2001 for the troops at Guantanamo Bay: an abandoned volleyball court for $249,000, an unused go-kart track for $296,000 and $3.5 million for 27 playgrounds that are often vacant. The Pentagon also spent $683,000 to renovate a cafe that sells ice cream and Starbucks coffee, and $773,000 to remodel a cinder-block building to house a KFC/Taco Bell restaurant.
The spending is part of at least $500 million that has transformed what was once a sun-beaten and forgotten Caribbean base into one of the most secure military and prison installations in the world. That does not include construction bonuses, which typically run into the millions.
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Historian criticizes Beck's "ludicrous" embrace of anti-Semitic author
In an interview yesterday with Media Matters, a prominent historian criticized Glenn Beck's "ludicrous" promotion of an anti-Communist screed written in the 1930s by a "crackpot" anti-Semite.
On June 4, Beck praised The Red Network: A 'Who's Who' and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, a 1934 book written by Elizabeth Dilling. Beck said: "This is a book -- and I'm a getting a ton of these -- from people who were doing what we're doing now. We now are documenting who all of these people are. Well, there were Americans in the first 50 years of this nation that took this seriously, and they documented it."
As we noted, Dilling was a virulent anti-Semite and a Nazi sympathizer. According to Glen Jeansonne, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee history professor who has written about Dilling, she hreferred to President Eisenhower as "Ike the Kike" and labeled President Kennedy's New Frontier program the "Jew frontier." Reached for comment yesterday, Jeansonne said that it is "ludicrous that this book written in the 1930s by a woman who was considered a crackpot at the time ... could be cited as an authority on Communism."
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Web of Shell Companies Veils Trade by Iran's Ships
On Jan. 24, 2009, a rusting freighter flying a Hong Kong flag dropped anchor in the South African port of Durban. The stop was not on the ship's customary route, and it stayed only an hour, just long enough to pick up its clandestine cargo: a Bladerunner 51 speedboat that could be armed with torpedoes and used as a fast-attack craft in the Persian Gulf.
The name painted on the ship's side as it left Durban and made for the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas was the Diplomat, and its papers showed that it was owned by a company called Starry Shine Ltd. Both the name and provenance were of recent vintage. Six months earlier, the Diplomat had been the Iran Mufateh, part of a fleet owned by the state-owned Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, known as Irisl.
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Vertical Farming
The VertiCrop^TM system is intended to sell fresh produce to the Hong Kong market and to serve as a demonstration unit for future customers and partners in the PRC as well as other segments of the Asian market. The Valcent technical team plans for Hong Kong based meetings in early July with prospective customers, partners, and representatives of the Government of the PRC, and to finalize specifications for the VertiCrop system to be installed.
At present, management estimates that Hong Kong produces 44 tons of vegetables per day and imports over 1,600 tons daily. Following completion of the first unit scheduled for eighteen weeks, the goal of the VFI partnership is to produce 10 tons of vegetables daily by employing multiple VertiCrop^TM systems in the Hong Kong market within 24 months.
Chris Bradford, President and CEO of Valcent Products stated, "We are delighted to announce our first commercial agreement for sale of a VertiCrop^TM system, particularly as Hong Kong will provide us with a gateway into one of the largest markets in the world. In our discussions with the VFI management team over the past few months we have become firmly convinced that we have found a partner fully capable of working with us to carry this major international project forward."
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