Easter Lemming Liberal News

Operation Crossroads was a disaster the Navy tried to hide for over forty years

Sailors caught in the warm radioactive mist of Baker Shot
Downwind, some said the mist felt good during the hot day.

Operation Crossroads was designed to show the world the power of the new US atomic weapons. It was also designed to measure the effects and learn how to decontaminate navy ships. The second underwater test was less visually impressive but created much more radioactive particles. There was not the proper equipment to monitor the plutonium and alpha particles. Navy men anxious to get their ships back grew angry and frustrated at scientists who said that ships repeated cleaned were still dangerous. Anxious not to permanently lose ships crews were repeated sent to clean ships again and again. Finally after the salvage commander was shown an X-ray of a fish from the lagoon made by just placing the fish on the negative they ended Operation Crossroads without setting off the third bomb. Afterwards the naval commander of the operation urged the world to ban the new weapons as the worst type of poison.

John Smitherman's story

First they cut off his left leg, then his right leg; in April the surgeon carved a chunk of flesh from his back. They have offered to take his left hand, swollen to the size of a cantaloupe, whenever he is ready to part with it.

John Smitherman says his government did this to him. His government says it did not.

Five times since 1977, when his failing body rendered him unfit work, Smitherman has asked the VA to award him disability pay. Five times the VA has rejected his claim, and a decision on his sixth appeal is expected any day.

"I think they're gonna turn me down again," he said last week.

"It was just a huge ball of fire -- just looked like a whole section of the ocean was actually on fire -- big rolling balls of fire started going up in the air."

The sea welled up and surged forth from ground zero, tossing about the destroyer Allen M. Summer beneath Smitherman's feet. Hours later, he recalls, the Summer -- one of more than 100 ships taking part in an exercise called Operation Crossroads in 1946 -- steamed into the lagoon where unmanned target ships had been anchored to test how they would weather the blast and to determine if they could later be rid of nuclear contamination.

They called me to go help fight a fire on the aircraft carrier Independence, which was one of the target ships. We went up there three times."

Fighting the fire was hot work.

"Right after that, we all went swimming in the lagoon there," Smitherman said. "There were dead fish around there, lots of them, but they said,"Nothing to worry about, no harmful effects,' and there were not restrictions to us whatsoever."

Later he witnessed a second, and more powerful, blast, from the fantail from the Sumner.

"We got peppered with those little debris,"he said. "We were sittin' there -- I didn't have a T-shirt on, just shorts and tennis shoes."

For many of those veterans, it was years before medical problems they blame on that exposure began to surface. For Smitherman, the inklings came early.

"We were still out there when I began to get some burns on my feet and legs, about the size of silver dollars," he recalled.

Doctors on board the Sumner dabbed a little salve on them, but that was not enough. Seven months later he was hospitalized in Hawaii, and seven months after that he received a medical discharge from the Navy. They told Smitherman that kidney problems were causing his legs to swell.

For years -- according to Smitherman, his family and acquaintances -- the periodic swelling continued. Now the doctors say his lymph system has turned against him.

He traveled to Japan, where doctors in a Hiroshima hospital that specializes in treatment of radiation victims said there was no doubt that the exposure triggered his ills.

But the VA has continued to reject his disability claim. He figures if they granted his disability claim, dating back to 1977, it would mean a single lump-sum payment of about $30,000 and monthly checks slightly in excess of $1,000. More important, it would mean a small pension for his wife of 22 years once he is gone.

From The Oregonian Tuesday May 24, 1983

Excerpts from the book Operation Crossroads

The amount of radioactive material that collapsed back into Bikini's lagoon moments after the Baker shot was simply staggering. Unlike the Able blast, the fission products at Baker did not dissipate in the atmosphere. The water surrounding the bomb trapped most of the radioactive material and rained it down over the target vessels. As much as half the bomb's fission products remained in the lagoon's water or in the mist remaining in the air after the surge of spray fell back into the lagoon.

Scientists knew from studies of radium-dial workers that only a few millionths of a gram of radium lodged within human bones could prove fatal. Plutonium, the main component of the Baker bomb, has the same effect and is even more toxic. Test Baker, though, did not involve millionths of grams of radium, or even hundredths of grams. It created the equivalent of thousands of tons of radium. Within one hour of the blast, radiation levels in Bikini's lagoon reached the approximate equivalent of 5,000 tons of radium, which is 1 billion times the radioactivity from just one gram of radium Initial dose rates on the decks of target vessels closest to the blast exceeded 8,000 roentgens per day, 80,000 times the daily tolerance standard and 20 times more than a fatal dose.

During the first hour, wrote Ralph Sawyer, Crossroads's technical director, "the radiation was roughly equivalent to that from several thousand tons of radium." Even an hour after the shot the target ships a mile from Zeropoint showed a dose rate of 1,200 roentgens per day, more than three times the lethal dose, meaning that the daily tolerance dose would be reached in seven seconds.

Despite all the warnings that the highly radioactive column of water would come crashing down on the ships, absolutely no one-not even the radsafe section-had planned for the very disaster that had been predicted with amazing accuracy. As the navy admitted a few months later, "Since the nature and extent of contamination of the targets was completely unexpected, no plans had been prepared for organized decontamination measures."

For all its thousands of pages of detailed plans, the U.S. Navy managed to expose tens of thousands of men and more than 200 ships to radioactive contamination more than 2,000 miles from decent port facilities without ever having attempted experimentally to irradiate a ship or parts of one to determine how-or whether-a ship could be decontaminated.

The examination of the target ships-the very reason for Operation Crossroads-could not proceed if the vessels were too radioactive for reboarding and examination.

By Jonathan M. Weisgall

Gary Permalink on 8/26/2005

Bikini Atoll: Art from the Atomic Bomb Test

Art Link from my brother, note these are considered tactical weapons now and not the bigger and more powerful strategic.

Gary Permalink on 8/26/2005

The 'Fair Tax' Grossly Unfair

Kill the IRS and go to all sales tax? Stupid!

There is already an analysis that indicates the sales tax rate would have to be 44% instead of the 23% supporters talk about to be revenue neutral. This would also be incredibly regressive - poor pay much, much more, rich pay much, much less.

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

Stealth Plan to Privatize Social Security

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

Bush is al-Qaeda's 'Useful Idiot'

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

Bush Cocoon of Unreality Started with November 2000

The hidden lead - "If all legally cast votes in Florida were counted in Election 2000, Democrat Al Gore would have carried the state and thus won the White House, according to an unofficial tally of disputed ballots.”

But that wasn’t how the major newspapers and TV networks presented their findings. Instead, they bent over backwards to concoct hypothetical situations in which George W. Bush might still have won the presidency – if the recount had been limited to only a few counties or if legal “overvotes,” where a voter both checks and writes in the name of the candidate, were cast aside.

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

One day before crucial vote, fighting breaks out in Najaf

'Peaceful' city of Najaf explodes as Shiites battle

My nephew in the Rangers has just been informed he is heading back to Iraq for the third time leaving his wife and very young daughter. Bush is breaking the all-volunteer army.

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

Bush Sells Iraqi Women Down The River After Using Them For Propaganda

Whiskey Bar: Is Anybody Listening?

The White House propaganda maestros used an Iraqi women's rights activist as a living prop at Shrub's state of the union address earlier this year, whipping wing nut war hawks and media dingdongs alike into a frenzy of teary-eyed patriotism. They also arranged for her to stand immediately in front of the mother of a Marine killed in action in Iraq -- setting the scene for a "spontaneous" hug that reduced a national television audience to quivering lumps of sentimental jello and left Joe Klein spitting phlegm-coated bile at the Democratic Party.

Now, that very same activist is telling the world the Americans just sold her, and her Iraqi sisters, down the river to a bunch of medieval mullahs with Made-in-Tehran labels on the insides of their turbins.

Will her betrayal simply be pushed down the media memory hole with yesterday's garbage? Are we really that far gone?

Selling Down The River

"When we came back from exile, we thought we were going to improve rights and the position of women. But look what has happened -- we have lost all the gains we made over the last 30 years. It's a big disappointment."

Safia Taleb al-Souhail

Mission F**king Accomplished For Mullahs and Bush

The secular leaders said the draft, which was presented to the parliament Monday, contains language that not only establishes the primacy of Islam as the country's official religion, but appears to grant judges wide latitude to strike down legislation that may contravene the faith. To interpret such legislation, the constitution calls for the appointment of experts in Sharia, or Islamic law, to preside on the Supreme Federal Court.

The draft constitution, these secular Iraqis say, clears the way for religious authorities to adjudicate personal disputes like divorce and inheritance matters by allowing the establishment of religious courts, raising fears that a popularly elected Islamist-minded government could enact legislation and appoint judges who would turn the country into a theocracy.

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

Iraq - Democrats have a lot of agreement

The GOP has more splits over Iraq than Dems. Here is what Democrats agree on:

Bush lied about Iraq having WMD's and being a threat to U.S. national security.

Bush, Rumsfeld & Co have bungled the occupation of Iraq through poor preparation, mismanagement and bad decisions and gotten us into a horrific quagmire.

Halliburton and other firms favoring the GOP have gotten filthy rich on the bloodshed in Iraq.

At the present casualty rate, more Americans will have been killed in Iraq by next summer than were killed in the attacks on 9-11.

We have already spent $250 billion taxpayer dollars in Iraq, and there are credible forecasts indicating that the final tab could reach $1 trillion.

Although there have been no more attacks within U.S. borders since 9-11, our "homeland security" is highly porus, with many needed measures, such as stronger port security, left sorely underfunded.

There are probably more terrorists willing to do harm to the U.S. today as a direct result of U.S. oocupation of Iraq than there were before we invaded Iraq.

We have a manpower shortage in our armed services, and new enlistments have slowed to a trickle.

Gas Prices are higher than ever, and expected to go up even further.

Flip-flopping on what to do about Iraq is clearly a loser. Dem candidates all across the dove-hawk spectrum must state a clear policy on Iraq, while leaving enough room to adjust to changing realities.

Bin laden is alive and taunting the U.S, and he ain't in Iraq.

With Buchanan and Hagel and other conservatives calling for immediate withdrawl which party is divided? Lobe disagrees and says mpst Dem leadership are now hawks.

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

It's all about-face for the Democrats - Los Angeles Times

Kevin Drum calls for a unified Democratic Party to urge Iraq withdrawal within two years. This is a position a large majority of the American people support.

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

Public Opinion Watch

An interesting article by Ruy Teixeira on Bush's decline in support among Republicans as well as others leading to his sub-40 approval, the rising not lowering self-identification of Latinos with the Democratic Party, and how Gallup screws up its polls by not weighing by party ID.

"Between February 4-6 and February 7-10, an 11 point Republican advantage became a 6 point Democratic advantage. Similarly, between March 18-20 and March 21-23, a 5 point Republican advantage became an 8 point Democratic advantage."

So in a couple of days over 10% of the people have switched parties? No one except Gallup believes this and they have doubts. Article in PDF form. The article also points out the growing concensus on how to fix this party ID problem and get more accurate polls.

Not every polling organization is interested in this. There is a big advantage to polls which have big swings in opinions, they get more publicity because they make news. It seems clear that Gallup likes to be quoted and be talked about more than they like to be correct. I have the impression they also seem to take special care on their last poll before an election which is what people use to check accuracy.

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

North Pole Becoming Ice Free

Arctic could see ice-free summers in 100 years, other sources say a decade or two.

Looking at data on the rate of ice melt in the Arctic, researchers from the University of Arizona and other universities concluded that the rate is accelerating and that no foreseeable natural forces will counteract that acceleration. As a result, ice-free summers loom.

The situation will have worldwide ecological impact, the researchers said. The progressive melt will cause sea levels worldwide to rise, flooding coastal areas, where a substantial portion of the world's population lives. Huge sections of Bangladesh, for example, consist of river delta at sea level. The melt could also thaw permafrost, which could lead to an increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The increasing rate of ice melt is already having some impact on people and animals in the Arctic. Other researchers have speculated that the progressing ice melt around Siberia may lead to a summer Northeast passage connecting Japan to Europe in a decade or so.

This was the reason for Canada sending gunboats to protect the sea passages and oil fields in my previous post. With shipping easier this is a more valuable and vulnerable area.

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

'God Bless You Cindy Sheehan'

A song called 'God Bless You Cindy Sheehan' is #1 on an online country music chart.

The artist - Les Visible and some of his other songs - just a liberal Hawaiian cowboy.

Gary Permalink on 8/25/2005

Where to get Burning Man photos

Flickr: Photos tagged with burningman

Gary Permalink on 8/24/2005

Bad Policy Fuels High Gas Prices

Progress Report - Bad Policy Fuels High Prices

As millions of Americans hop in their cars for vacation, the average price for a gallon of gas has spiked to $2.60 -- and many people are paying more than $3.00 per gallon to fill their tank. While most everyone is feeling the pinch, "for many lower-income people -- often those who work in service jobs or are looking for work -- each new bump up in price means altering daily routines, spending less on clothes and food, and keeping the kids at home instead of driving them to the pool or friends' houses." A big part of the problem is that, despite huge advances in technology, "America's cars and trucks are significantly less efficient, on average, than they were in the late 1980's," driving up demand, and the price, for fuel. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has staunchly resisted efforts to help solve the problem by improving fuel efficiency standards. Now, all Americans are paying the price.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION CONCEALS FUEL ECONOMY REPORT: In late July, "the Environmental Protection Agency made an 11th-hour decision...to delay the planned release of an annual report on fuel economy." The decision to block the release of the report was made "because it would have come on the eve of a final vote in Congress on energy legislation." The study showed that "the average 2004 model car or truck got 20.8 miles per gallon, about 6 percent less than the 22.1 m.p.g. of the average new vehicle sold in the late 1980's." Specifically, "the average 2004 model sold by Nissan, Hyundai and Volkswagen was at least a half-mile a gallon less fuel-efficient than in the previous model year, a sharp drop." (A report by Environmental Defense provides details for all major manufacturers.) That wasn't news the Bush administration wanted public to hear because the bill "largely ignore[d] auto mileage regulations." Several Senators offered amendments "to strengthen fuel economy standards for S.U.V.'s, minivans and pickups" but they were all rejected. Bush signed the energy bill, which gave away billions to the energy industry, on August 8. Even the administration acknowledges the bill will do nothing to reduce gas prices.

FAST, FURIOUS AND GAS-GUZZLING: The failure to mandate the production of more fuel efficient vehicles is a giant missed opportunity. There have been "leaps in engine technology over the last couple of decades" that could make cars much more efficient. But in the absence of stricter efficiency standards, these gains "have been mostly used to make cars faster." Also, since the early 1980s, "average new vehicle weight has risen to about 4,000 pounds today, from about 3,200." During that time "the horsepower of an average engine has roughly doubled over two decades, trimming four seconds from the time it takes for the average vehicle to accelerate from zero to 60."

KEEP ON TRUCKING: The key to avoiding fuel efficiency standards is to classify every new and trendy "crossover" vehicle as a truck. Light trucks "are held to a lower [average fuel efficiency] standard—20.7 mpg as of model year 2003, compared to 27.5 mpg for cars." Manufacturers are also moving vehicles that were once classified as cars to the truck class "to sell more of the large trucks on which profit margins have been so high." Today "S.U.V.'s and other light-duty vehicles account for 40 percent of the nation's oil use." With only the smallest cars remaining in the "car class" there is no pressure to improve the efficiency of those vehicles either. President Bush and the Congress had the opportunity to close these loopholes and improve overall efficiency in the energy bill, but didn't do it. New regulations set to be released later this month will create up to five classes of vehicles based on height and width. Dan Becker of the Sierra Club says the upcoming proposal is "an invitation to game the system."

BUSH PROTECTS MASSIVE LOOPHOLE FOR HUMMERS: In 2003, President Bush proposed extending "fuel economy regulations to include Hummer H2's and other huge sport utility vehicles," which are now completely exempt. As gas prices soar to record levels, the administration has abandoned the proposal. The exemption applies to vehicles weighing over 8,500 pounds. When it was created, "vehicles of that weight were generally used for commercial purposes, but now hundreds of thousands sold each year are intended for family use." The exemption, along with potential tax breaks for consumers who purchase them, create "powerful incentives to produce such vehicles."

Links to all the facts in this article at Progress Report.

Gary Permalink on 8/24/2005

What's Your Political Philosophy?

QuizFarm.com :: What's Your Political Philosophy?

I scored as New Democrat. New Democrats emphasize fiscal conservatism, and have a strong preference for the free market. They believe in small-scale programs that provide targetted help to those in need, while working with the business community.

New Democrat

95%

Old School Democrat

90%

Green

70%

Foreign Policy Hawk

55%

Libertarian

40%

Pro Business Republican

25%

Socially Conservative Republican

20%

What's Your Political Philosophy?
created with QuizFarm.com

Gary Permalink on 8/24/2005

My favorite right-wing conservative apologizes for not being dead yet

Gary Permalink on 8/24/2005

This is now a Trillion-Dollar War - New York Times

Gary Permalink on 8/23/2005

Dead Men Walking Coming To Houston

HoustonChronicle.com - It's hush-hush, but Cheney's coming to stump for DeLay 5-7 p.m. on Sept. 16 at the Westin Galleria Hotel

Gary Permalink on 8/23/2005

Split between Beltway Democratic Leaders and Grassroots getting noticed

Gary Permalink on 8/23/2005

Posner's an Idiot

So says Slate's Jack Shaffer regarding Possner's book reviews and article on media bias here in the New York Times. So say as well Bill Moyer and Eric Alterman and the editor who published his sorry review. - from cursor.

Gary Permalink on 8/23/2005

Australia's The Age used to like Hitchens but now calls him Colonel Blimp

Gary Permalink on 8/23/2005

Preaching Justice, Slaying Demons

Justice Sunday II - Theocrats telling both the GOP and Dems it's our way or the highway.

Gary Permalink on 8/23/2005

Canadian Gunboat Diplomacy - Protecting the Arctic

Gary Permalink on 8/23/2005

Wendell Wilkie Last Great GOP Nominee?

How Wendell helped FDR prepare the country for war.

For those of us depressed by the corruption and mismanagement that the American political system has wrought lately, the book should provide hope that, under the right circumstances, that same system can turn things around.

One can question whether the circumstances are right today. Peters certainly takes pains to describe how different American culture was back then. Yet he also marvels at the role of chance and individual character. Had France not fallen just as the GOP convention was opening, or had Willkie followed other advice, history might have turned out quite differently.

The same, I think, can be said of our own time. Recall what the nation felt like immediately after 9/11. For a few brief months, we were more united than at any point in my lifetime. Had President Bush wanted to, he could have called for rescinding his tax cuts, a crash program of mandatory national service, and major reforms of NATO and the United Nations in the service of a united war on terror. The country and the world, I think, would have responded positively. It was his choice to take us in a different direction.

Or think about the last election. The candidate who most closely resembled Willkie was probably Wesley Clark. Had the former general and onetime Republican voter decided to jump into the presidential race a year earlier, chosen cleverer advisors, and not conceded Iowa, I think the probability is high that he would have won the nomination, and maybe the presidency.

Gary Permalink on 8/23/2005

The Best Colleges in the Country, for the Country

Other guides ask what colleges can do for you.
We ask what colleges are doing for the country.

Gary Permalink on 8/23/2005

FSO Transcription - Matthew R. Simmons "Twilight in the Desert" August 6, 2005

Deadly serious - $300 a barrel oil very soon.

I was apparently the first person in the world to ever actually challenge the assumptions of the unlimited amount of their oil supplies. And it hit a nerve I would never ever have expected because I wasn’t a household name – I think I am today in Saudi Arabia – I was just an investment banker in Houston. It was the same sort of reaction if someone went to the Vatican and said, “I hate to tell you all this, but there really isn’t a God, and there isn’t a Pope.” And out of that came a massive public relations campaign by the senior management of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, and the Petroleum Ministry that effectively has said, “we can produce 10 million or 12 million or 15 million barrels a day for 50 to 100 years. Our 260 billion barrels of proven reserves, there’s this conservative number we can easily add another 200 billion, and we can still add another 200 billion we have yet to discover”. And I actually think that they believe that, which is far more dangerous than “it’s just a political statement.”

JIM: Now the thesis of your book is Saudi production is very near its peak...

MATT: I decided that this book was going to be so controversial that I really tried my darnedest to avoid a bunch of very specific conclusions that people could shoot holes in them: “how would you know that?” But I’ve had enough time now to reflect on everything I wrote about, and also feedback from lots of technical people that said, “you know what, what you triggered in the memory of what was going on in the 70s”, and etc, etc. I think it’s highly likely that they’ve actually exceeded sustainable peak production already. And I think at the current rates they are producing these old fields, each of the fields risks entering into a rapid production collapse.[9:03]

JIM: If this is indeed the case then, by assumption, we have to assume global peak is at hand then.

MATT: Absolutely. Once it’s clear that Saudi Arabia cannot sustain increases in its production on a sustained basis, then in my opinion, with a certainty of 99.9% the world has actually passed sustainable peak production. Because one of the reasons all of these supply models always have Saudi Arabia producing 25 million bpd by 2025 is that there isn’t another country on earth that has the potential to raise their production more than 1 or 2 million bpd at best.

I had started writing months ago that we were already at or even past peak oil based on another writer and here we have Simmons saying that we are at peak now. Oil prices went up over 1000% from 1972 to 1980 before falling because of reduced demand and new supplies. What is being said now is that there are not new supplies like on the scale of last time.

Gary Permalink on 8/23/2005

The Bear and the Panda practice invading Taiwan

This link was from natasha but she draws a different lesson. Pacific Views: Brothers in Arms: The Bear and the Panda. And she has a solution that may or may not apply in Taiwan's case - "You know what to do when you don't want people to become separatists? Treat them so well that they don't want to leave."