SALT LAKE CITY - Mercury-laden clouds from gold mine smokestacks near Elko, Nev., are floating east and could pose a health threat and damage the ecology of the Great Salt Lake. The mines account for as much as 11 percent of total Mercury emissions in the United States.
Mercury is a heavy metal that occurs naturally. Exposure to the element has been linked to neurological and kidney diseases, autism, loss of motor control and death. Young children and pregnant women are most at risk.
Congress has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make rules to cut mercury emissions, but the Elko-area mines are not under those regulations.
Instead, they enrolled in a voluntary emissions program that has had mixed results, said Justin Hayes, spokesman for the Idaho Conservation League.
The organization is ready to sue to force the EPA to impose emissions reductions rules on the Nevada mines. In an Oct. 21 letter to then-EPA Administrator and former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, the Conversation League charged that prevailing winds and atmospheric circulation patterns send huge plumes of mercury into southern Idaho, possibly contributing to mercury-related fish consumption advisories.
And what goes for Idaho ought to go for Utah, Hayes said.
A March report prepared for the EPA that uses 1998 emissions reports and extrapolates backward to 1985, estimated the 18 Nevada gold mines released between 70 and 200 tons of mercury.
That's probably and underestimate, said Glenn Miller, the University of Nevada environmental science professor who prepared the report.
Scientists know that mercury can travel great distances and the element's organic form, methylmercury, can get into humans through the consumption of fish and shellfish. Lesser known is how else mercury harms humans, animals and the environment.
Consumption of swordfish and shark are high on the risk list in Asia and Africa, and California officials have issued warnings about some fish that populate streams in the Sierra fouled by gold mining.
Mercury contamination "is potentially a major impact on the recreational industry in Utah," said Miller. "You're going to be wondering if you should eat the fish you catch."
Studies of the Great Salt Lake have found some of the highest levels of mercury in the nation. But to date, Utah has no mercury-related fish consumption advisories.
Because mercury is drifting around the globe, it would be difficult to determine exactly where the mercury in the Great Salt Lake, or anywhere else, came from, Miller said.
It's unlikely the mining industry is responsible for all the mercury in Utah and Idaho, "but it is fair to say there is a significant fraction," he said. Still, "I would be surprised if in the Uintas you didn't have some pretty significant mercury loads."
The Utah Department of Environmental Quality hasn't identified any such loads, although no fish have been tested.
Division of Water Quality Director Walt Baker says the state is still developing testing protocols for fish tissue and other freshwater aquatic life, though a "limited number" of tissue samples have been sent to EPA. One sample exceeded the level of what they would consider acceptable, Baker said.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
05/02/2005 4:45:14 AM ||
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#1
Such a long article. So few facts.
How much Mercury actually ends up in the water of those states?
What concentration level do lakes have?
How much is dangerous in one dose?
How much can you build up over a life time?
How much would you get if you at a reasonable quantity of fish from those lakes? (Not 20 lb/day).
#5
Conversation League? I thought that was the UN.
AFAIK, the only marine life in that lake, which is 3 or more times saltier than the ocean, is Brine Shrimp. They're harvested for food for aquarium fish not human consumption. Unless,of course, someone is eating Tetra and Goldfish.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/02/2005 11:05 Comments ||
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We have a significant mercury problem here in Colorado on some waterways. The mercury, however, is naturally occurring. The EPA tried to fine a mine in Henderson several years ago for dumping, only to find the water UPSTREAM of the mine had twice the mercury found BELOW the mine. Embarrassment ensued. We have the problem with several other chemicals, including arsenic.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/03/2005 0:15 Comments ||
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Kilroy is still here. James L. Kilroy, that is. The ship inspector credited with creating one of America's most potent military mottos remains dear to the nation's heart. On the job around 1942, he wrote just three words in presumed anonymity on the hull of a Liberty ship: "Kilroy was here." Over time, the phrase came to mean there was no place so remote that the U.S. military could not reach it.
There's a campaign to put his catch phrase on a postage stamp. Others hope to persuade the U.S. Navy to christen a "USS Kilroy." There are Kilroy hats, bumper stickers and shirts. There's a photo competition, an essay contest, a fan club and a swell anniversary celebration planned for mid-May. To the delight of those who discover it, the Kilroy message has been engraved upon the new World War II Memorial on the Mall. "A 'Kilroy was here' meant a lot to those in World War II and the Korean War. But let me tell you, it lives on through today's military," said Michael Condon of the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum in Massachusetts -- once the Quincy Four River Shipyard and home base of the original Mr. Kilroy, who died in 1962. "The phrase has popped up in the caves of Afghanistan, and in Iraq. It's still a symbol of just how great the American spirit can be. It still means something to people," Mr. Condon said.
Mr. Kilroy was hired to inspect rivet holes in the bellies of troop ships before their launch. Other inspectors used simple chalk marks, but Mr. Kilroy hastily scrawled "Kilroy was here" in yellow crayon. The idea that some mysterious wag "had been there first" resonated with troops who sailed aboard the ships. They soon began writing the same thing wherever they landed, commonly embellished with a bug-eyed cartoon. Once Americans occupied German territory toward the war's end, the ubiquitous phrase was said to have convinced Adolf Hitler himself that Kilroy was an American "super soldier," and the German dictator ordered undercover agents to capture him.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
05/02/2005 6:51:32 AM ||
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#1
"Kilroy was here."
Clap your hands,
Jump for joy.
I was here
Before Kilroy.
:-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/02/2005 14:26 Comments ||
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#2
I didn't know you did rap, Barbara!
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
05/02/2005 14:37 Comments ||
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Good Lord, Mrs. D! I don't think we had rap back in the 1960's when I was in high school. Or maybe I heard that little ditty in grade school - not sure.
It's not original with me, and it's old as the hills, but it still cracks me up. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/02/2005 16:02 Comments ||
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#4
When I was in grade school in the 1960s, we chalked ''Kilroy was here'' on the playground equipment.
This Sunday is the 60th anniversary of VE Day. For those who are interested in WWII history, may I recommend ''Tin Can Man,'' by Emory Jernigan. Rate this one PG-16; it's the gob's eye view of destroyer service, including brief but very personal descriptions of shore leave. Read Tin Can Man, and then go dig up a fat book in the Library, ''The United States Navy in WWII,'' compiled in the 60s from various sources. You can cross reference the Big Picture with the gob's point of view of the same action.
Also go dig up Ernie Pyle in the Library, and glom your own copy if you run across it at the used book store.
Before a Saudi man makes a heroic attempt to keep a woman from being kidnapped, he should think twice. A.R. was cruelly beaten after saving a young girl from being kidnapped. Ironically, the 27-year-old man was assaulted by the girl's family.
"Here y'are, Miss. All safe and sound!... Ow!... Ouch!... Hey! Stop it! You're hurting me!"
The story began after midnight when A.R. was on his way home. He came upon three young men trying to kidnap a 16-year-old girl.
"Arrr! A young babe! I betcha she's good-lookin' under that sack!"
"Let's kidnap her an' dishonor her family!"
He did not hesitate for a minute. He quickly jumped out of his car to help the girl. The three men ran away after a fight that did not last long.
"Curly-toed slippers, don't fail us now!"
He asked her why she was out so late. She was crying and explained that her stepmother had kicked her out of the house.
"Beat it, y'little brat!"
According to A.R. he offered her a ride home but she refused.
"Want a ride home, baby?"
"Piss off! What kinda girl do you think I am?"
"She was afraid that her father would punish her. She asked for my mobile to call her mother and explain what had happened.
"Hello, Mom? Bitch Woman threw me out again!"
I was surprised later to receive a call from her father threatening to kill me for insulting his daughter," A.R. said.
"What you doin', sniffin' around our wimminfolks?"
The young man was furious; after all he had just rescued the young woman and this is how he was repaid. "I introduced myself to him politely. I then asked him to pick up his daughter."
"Just come get the little hussy!"
That was the beginning of the nightmare. The father along with her uncle arrived at the scene. They immediately, with no questions asked, began to beat A.R. He said, "I respect my elders and I cannot fight them."
"Uncle was pretty large. And he had a club."
When the police came, they were all taken to Olaya police station.
"Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! You, too, girlie!"
It was about 1 a.m. The girl's father tried to accuse A.R of kidnapping his daughter.
"... [grumble]... danged flatland furriners... [grumble]... sniffin' around our wimmin... [grumble]... got them danged city ways... [grumble]..."
The girl also gave her statement. After two hours of deliberations, the officer closed the case.
"Hello, chief? These people are crazy!"
He explained to the family that there was a misunderstanding. The courageous young man they had beaten actually had saved their daughter's life.
"Why don'tcha go try and find the guys that actually tried to steal her?"
"Dang! Never thought o' that!"
"The family apologized to me and regretted what they had done. They even invited me to a dinner in my honor," A.R. said.
"We're having mutton!"
"Oh, Dad! Not mutton again!"
"'Again'? How many times has this happened?"
"Eleven."
"And she's only sixteen?"
An official source explained that the case could get complicated if A.R. talked to a lawyer. The lawyer might demand that his client be compensated for the assault; however, A.R. refused any compensation. The family's apology was enough.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/02/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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That this came from the ArabNews is something of a jaw-dropper - but a good sign. I once had a conversation about "morality tales" with two Saudis I worked with. They told me a nice little story about something or other - and I guessed the "punchline" long before they were finished, which shocked and surprised them quite a bit. I explained that, in the West, a great deal of our "entertainment, from plays to songs to TV, is wrapped around morality tales or truisms. They were completely surprised - they thought Islam's version of this societal priority was unique, heh.
#5
Based on earlier reports he probably rescued her from her own relatives.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/02/2005 12:41 Comments ||
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you can't be humiliated if ya got no f*&kin brains. Guess A.R. can claim they dishonored him, and kill pops and the uncle?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/02/2005 13:26 Comments ||
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#7
sobiesky
I think the purge will ultimately come with the sacking of the two or three of the most progressive writers. That will cow the others and won't look as obvious.
The National Bolshevik Party (NBP), which is Russia's oldest radical youth organization, was created in 1994 by radical writer Eduard Limonov, Eurasianism ideologue Aleksandr Dugin (who soon left the party), and rock musicians Yegor Letov and Sergei Kurikhin, as well as other counterculture personalities.
Although according to its own statistics the NBP has 30,000 to 50,000 members and has branches in 24 key Russian regions as well as in the Baltic states and other former Soviet states, the party has no official status, as the authorities persistently refuse to register it. It has a network of regional and international websites and requests that its new members possess Internet skills.
The NBP's leader and its cult figure is Eduard Limonov, 62, a man with an unusual history and one of the few Russian politicians with no links to the Soviet and post-Soviet ruling elite. Born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Limonov was a member of the Soviet literary underground in the 1960s. In 1974 he emigrated to the United States, where he became close to American Trotskyites and anarchists. It was there that he wrote his best-selling novel "It is me, Eddie," (Eto ya, Yedichka), which has been translated into 15 languages.
Limonov soon moved to Paris, where he became a member of the French avant-garde literary salons and joined forces with French and European leftist and neo-rightist political radicals, including French National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. In the late 1980s he began to publish his articles in the national-patriotic press in the Soviet Union and in 1992 moved back to Russia. In 1994 Limonov launched the extremist ultranationalist newspaper "Limonka," which quickly began to attract various groups of young people frustrated by the hardships of reforms and embittered at the West.
Armed by his political experience in the West, Limonov proposed the creation of "revolutionary party of a new style" that could attract young people with a combination of extremist ultranationalist propaganda and "direct action" as practiced during the Maoist student protest in France and other European countries in 1968. Limonov suggested calling the new party the National Bolsheviks, as he believed that communism as a word has been compromised by the reactionary policy of the Communist Party, which he also blamed for "losing the USSR."
Continued on Page 49
This is transcribed from the WSJ on dead tree pg. B1, so thereââ¬s no link.
The hottest Saturday night TV program in South Korea this season has featured a quiz pitting elementary school students from North Korea against kids from the south.
The show, called "Exclamation Point," looks like a milestone in North-South cooperation, but it is actually a triumph of skillful editing. It meldsfootage from a quiz show aired last year in North Korea with scenes shot in a studio in Seoul, to produce what looks , at first glance, like a head to head competition.
"Exclamation Point" is the latest in a string of South Korean TV shows and movies to portray Northerners as friendly, if a bit eccentric, while at times - critics say - glossing over unpleseant truths about the repressive Pyongyang regime. A recent hit film, for example, follows the comic adventures of two North Korean marines blown ashore in South Korea. As the pair desperately try to get home, they befriend a girl in trouble and rescue her by outfighting South Korean hoodlums.
I guess we should be thankful it was South Korean Hoodlums and not U. S. Marines.
These clucks are in for a bigger surprixe than the Germans when they get to reunite their country
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
05/02/2005 1:12:26 PM ||
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Maybe it's time to encourage that and just pull back to Japan etc.
Posted by: too true ||
05/02/2005 13:34 Comments ||
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I have a feeling the younger generation in South Korea is in for quite a surprise one of these days...
#3
notice the sunken eyes, mishapen bodies and rickets in the NK kids? Or are these Kim's little brown shirts, well fed?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/02/2005 13:43 Comments ||
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#4
They were put on broadcast TV -- so they were the well-fed children of high-ranking officials.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/02/2005 14:12 Comments ||
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What the hell is keeping us in SK? Only thing I can think is that it's the political power wielded by Hyundai owners who want to make sure their warranties are honored.
The greatest moral quandary of our day is whether we, as Americans, support the Iraqi insurgency. It's an issue that has caused anti-war Leftists the same pangs of conscience that many felt 30 years ago in their opposition to the Vietnam War. The specter of disloyalty weighs heavily on all of us, even those who've never been inclined to wave flags or champion the notion of American "Exceptionalism".
For myself, I can say without hesitation that I support the insurgency, and would do so even if my only 21 year old son was serving in Iraq. There's simply no other morally acceptable option... For myself, I can say without hesitation that I support the public horsewhipping of individuals who openly support and encourage the enemy in time of war.
Overshadowed since 9/11 and the age of spectacularly explosive acts of terrorism, economic espionage against businesses, industries, technology, and trade interests continues to erode American economic strength and, consequently, U.S. national security. The notoriety of a French school dedicated to teaching the finer points of what is called 'business intelligence,' may be drawing more attention to a type of warfare that, pre 9/11, was considered a grave threat to America.
Al Qaeda's 2001 strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon dealt a serious blow to the nation's economic wellbeing in direct losses and in a profound ripple effect nationwide. Economic espionage wields the potential to cause greater damage, experts fear. It can serve to destroy the rewards of investment and, hence, "to destroy the incentive to innovate," in the words of Peter Schweizer, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The U.S. economy is the world's leader in no small part because of the tremendous innovation that goes on here. In fact, the very socialist underpinnings of European economies tend to stifle innovation. As former CIA Director R. James Woolsey explained in a March 17, 2000 Wall Street Journal op-ed, "[European] governments largely still dominate [their] economies, so you have much greater difficulty than [the U.S.] in innovating, encouraging labor mobility, reducing costs, attracting capital to fast-moving young businesses and adapting quickly to changing economic circumstances." Unable to change their economic foundations, Europeans have found that "[I]t's so much easier to keep paying bribes."
What makes the threat of economic espionage against the U.S. unique from other security concerns is that the culprit nations are, by all other accounts, America's strongest allies and trading partners. In a world of increasing globalization, competition, and economic integration, however, they have become our biggest rivals. France, in particular, has emerged as perhaps the most serious practitioner of economic intelligence against the U.S. As one Clinton Administration official told the New York Times in 1996, "when it comes to economic espionage, no one is any better."
France is "one of the most aggressive collectors of economic intelligence in the world," according to Schweizer, who authored the 1993 book "Friendly Spies: How America's Allies Are Using Economic Espionage to Steal Our Secrets" (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993). Utilizing espionage methods normally associated with traditional intelligence targets, the French government has been accused of infiltrating numerous American companies including IBM, Texas Instruments, and Corning, which, among other things, produces cutting edge fiber optics, semiconductors and advanced materials for the telecommunications industry. According to Schweizer, these operations, mainly aimed at stealing American technology, were carried out by France's "well-developed intelligence service," the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE). Parallel to these state-run efforts, however, France has also, in recent years, been cultivating a controversial academic approach and institutional framework intended to develop a strategic edge in the current climate of intense economic competition between countries and between firms. In 1996, the Ecole de Guerre Economique (EGE) or School of Economic Warfare was established by Christian Harbulot, described by the French daily Liberation in November of 2004 as an "ex-Maoist of the proletarian Left." He still heads the school, located in Paris... Some of these tales of espionage are blatant and crude: the theft of laptop computers on Air France flights, the bugging of Parisian hotel rooms where US businessmen stay, and continual efforts to invade US corporate COMSEC.
Ominous changes in the behaviour and the makeup of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in northern Vietnam has the flu world worried the virus may be getting better at infecting humans.
In recent months the virus has sparked increasing numbers of small clusters of cases, suggesting more frequent occurrences of limited person-to-person spread. As well, it appears not to be killing as many of its human hosts - a biological change that cannot be assumed to be an entirely positive sign.
"Both of those observations, if they're true, might indicate that the virus is evolving to be a more efficient human pathogen. A more effective human pathogen," says Dr. Scott Dowell, the senior official in Southeast Asia for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
"We've been following that very, very closely and continue to be quite concerned that that may be the case . . . . (But) there is frank scientific uncertainty about what it really means."
Dowell is director of the CDC's international emerging infections program based in Thailand...
Posted by: Matt ||
05/02/2005 11:26 ||
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From TFA: Though PBS's ratings have stabilized lately after several years of decline, the network has faced criticism that much of its programming - shows like "Antiques Roadshow" and "Masterpiece Theater" - is little different from what can be found on cable television. Though a huge bequest to National Public Radio from the estate of Joan Kroc, widow of the founder of McDonald's, has furthered the independence of public radio, corporate support and state financing for public television have slipped in recent years, making the nearly $400 million in federal money annually funneled through the corporation increasingly important.
Nor have administration officials and lawmakers been shy about challenging certain programming. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, for example, earlier this year publicly denounced a program featuring a cartoon rabbit named Buster who visited a pair of lesbian parents.
Let the Krocs of the world fund the CPB turkey. I do not want the official government seal on this sorry-ass excuse for a broadcasting entity any longer.
Defund NPR.
Let them survive in the marketplace by their own devices.
#2
NPR's "sponsors" are advertisers, pure and simple. Also, NPR charges local stations for its programming. Absurd to pretend that it's non-commercial "public radio."
Nothing wrong with a liberal voice on the radio, but let them compete in the market like anyone else. De-fund them and also force local "public" stations to offer equal time at the same rates to every other commercial broadcaster.
#3
To NPR, to the tune of a jingle used by one of your very sponsors:
Theeeeere's a place for you...
Some-wheeeeeere, a place for you...
un-der...
the dust-heap
of his-to-ry
ABIDJAN: Fourteen people were killed and around 30 were injured during clashes which broke out on Friday in the western Ivory Coast cocoa town of Duekoue, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Sunday. "The local Red Cross with ICRC support have evacuated about 30 wounded to the local hospital in addition to eight people killed," ICRC spokesman Kim Gordon-Bates said. "The situation there at the moment is still tense and we're keeping a close watch on it," he said. Residents said on Saturday hundreds of people had fled their homes after their houses were attacked and looted by members of a rival ethnic group.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/02/2005 00:00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Before a Saudi man makes a heroic attempt to keep a woman from being kidnapped, he should think twice. A.R. was cruelly beaten after saving a young girl from being kidnapped. Ironically, the 27-year-old man was assaulted by the girl's family.
ABIDJAN: Fourteen people were killed and around 30 were injured during clashes which broke out on Friday in the western Ivory Coast cocoa town of Duekoue, the 
