(BUM BUM) Tainted Blood

I promised someone that I'd lay off Arkansas bashing, but state officals are making it very hard. Paying prisoners to donate blood is weirdly noble, but not preventing those with hepatatis and HIV from donating mutes the sentiment somewhat.

Granted, the government is not doing this anymore (probably), but you can pretty well be certain they're doing some else just as mindbogglingly inhuman. Maybe I'm too worked up over this. I mean, it's not like it gave that many Americans HIV and the Hep - most of the blood was exported to other countries.

Sorry, Britain.

For the first time in the 124 year history of the Red Cross, the charity has been forced to borrow money in order to pay for relief efforts. The organization is currently $700 million dollars short of the $2 billion they estimate is necessary to deal properly with the disasters. Wilma and the Greek letters will probably drive that cost even higher.

To be fair, the Red Cross is as grossly inefficent as any enormous bureaucracy, but donations still do more good that not-donations.

Still alarming: Iran

Reuters reports on a recent speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

“Israel must be wiped off the map,” Ahmadinejad told a conference called “The World without Zionism”, attended by some 3,000 conservative students who chanted “Death to Israel” and “Death to America”.

This is nothing new, but somehow it gets us every time. “Death to America” is to Iran something like “Super-size it” is to America—an all-purpose phrase, equally effective as a salutation, expression of comradery, answering machine message, or political ideology, which miraculously retains its meaning and freshness despite constant repetition.

Known toxins in everyday products

According to the U.S. FDA, most hygiene products are not safety tested for long-term use. The average person uses nine such untested products every day—soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, and on and on—comprising a mix of some 126 ingredients. This leads to a potentially toxic “cocktail effect”.

The Independent lists some known toxins in personal care products. It contains such comforting sentences as, “Conventional toothpastes often contain irritating detergents like sodium lauryl sulphate, which can cause sore gums and mouth ulcers, and abrasives like hydrated silica, which can erode tooth enamel.”

Saddam witnesses refusing to testify

The Telegraph reports:

The trial of Saddam Hussein is in danger of collapsing because dozens of witnesses are refusing to testify against him after being told the former dictator had issued death threats from his cell.

Saddam reportedly threatened to “order a second act of mass murder in Dujail and to have the town razed afterwards”.

Hurricane Wilma

Wilma has become the strongest hurricane ever recorded.

On its present course, it could hit Florida this Sunday.

The Secret Service is watching

If you use a color laser printer, every page you print contains hidden information, most likely including your printer's serial number and the date and time you printed the page, thanks to a voluntary arrangement between the U.S. Secret Service and printer manufacturers.

If you registered your printer with the manufacturer, the U.S. government can probably trace anything you've printed on it directly to your home address.

How to get into a U.S. nuclear facility: act casual

Okay, so ABC's map of U.S. nuclear sites under the heading “LOOSE NUKES” is maybe a little sensational. But the vulnerabilities are real.

It should have been a reality show. ABC split 10 Carnegie Fellows (graduate students, basically) into teams and sent them on a road trip to 25 lovely U.S. college campuses and their quaint nuclear reactors. Hilarity dutifully ensued.

• At Ohio State:
  

  The Fellows arrived unannounced and were given access to the reactor and its control room for a tour by the retired director, who was gardening outside. He unlocked the building door, which leads directly to the reactor room, and let the Fellows in carrying bags and without checking ID.

  What a nice guy. OSU's comment on this little security incident: “We did an exceptional job.”
  
  
• At Texas A&M:
  

  A nuclear engineering student led the detailed 90-minute tour, during which the Fellows stood above the reactor pool and videotaped the reactor pool and core, while the reactor was running. When a Fellow asked whether there were any guards at the facility, the tour guide chuckled and said: “No, I mean, did you see any guards? Yeah, there's no guards and stuff.”

  The building with no guards and stuff contains up to 17 kg of highly enriched uranium.
  
  
• At University of Maryland:
  

  The doors to the reactor building were propped open with a garbage can and remained open throughout the day and night. [...]
  
  “I think the security is completely perfect here,” said Reactor Director Mohamad al-Sheikhly. “I am not concerned at all about the terrorists.”

  We're not either, really, but that's because we're plastered. What's al-Sheikhly's excuse?
  
  
• ABC didn't even have to send anyone to Los Alamos National Laboratory. They just interviewed its senior safety officer, Christopher Steele.
  

  According to Steele, the equivalent of 5,000 pounds of plutonium in barrels of radioactive waste is stored outside the laboratory under a tent. There it is vulnerable to theft and would be extremely dangerous if detonated on site, where it would release a radioactive plume.

The Alarmist is just grateful Fox didn't have the idea first. They'd have sent Paris Hilton and Nichole Richie—and come away with a full nuclear arsenal.

Iran's Not-So-Secret Nuclear Ambitions

Currently tearing up the charts in Iran: "Oriental Sun, Nuclear Science" and "Nuclear Know-How." I can't imagine this will lead to good things.

Mother Russia Loves Her Some ICBMs

Russia's been going missle test crazy recently. Considering the rise of islamic fundamentalism within its borders, the steady revocation of civil liberties, the almost total disintegration balanced government, and its cozy relationship with Iran, I'd say there is cause for concern.

So, you think avian flu is the next SARS?

Here today, gone tomorrow? Think again. This one has People In High Places worried. Very worried. Two million Americans dead, shattered economy, and end of American Civilization worried.

Nazi death doctor cornered in Spain

If you happen to live in the Spanish town of Palafrugell, you might want to get a glass in your hand before reading this Haaretz article, which describes how police are closing in on, but have not yet apprehended, notorious Nazi torturer and killer Dr. Aribert Heim, who is hiding out in your hometown.

Polio returns to U.S.

Reuters reports that four Amish children in Minnesota have contracted polio, a disease the U.S. CDC considers to have been “eradicated from the Western Hemisphere”. Officials are worried the virus could spread to other Amish communities.

Australia

Proposed legislation in Australia would grant the government absurd new police powers. Hard to believe:

Under the bill, the Government can apply to a court for control orders on terrorist suspects who have not been charged. These orders include house arrest, preventing them using the telephone or internet and restricting their social contacts and work opportunities. Suspects can also be fitted with tracking devices.

This applies to people who haven't even been charged, much less convicted, of any crime. The government doesn't even have to tell the suspect for what suspected crime he is being imprisoned.

The article also refers to new limits on anti-war protests, but offers no details.

Yet another U.S. spy agency

The new National Clandestine Service is so secret, we can't even tell you who runs it. Just call him José.

Avian flu is in Europe

H5N1 is spreading. First Turkey, then Romania. Authorities are killing thousands of birds in gas chambers and burning the bodies. Many countries have banned poultry and live bird imports from the two countries.

The U.S. remains unprepared.

Well, at least there isn't a shadow war on porn happening in America.

So, I was looking around on metafilter one day, and couldn't help but notice that the NSA (also known as the people who read your mail and listen to your phone calls) have a patent on a "method of geolocating logical network addresses." Or, as I call it, the ability to know where someone is when they're looking at pornography.

God to Bush: Invade

The White House last week categorically denied that President Bush ever said God had personally commanded him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.

Q: Are you aware of the -- there's a BBC broadcast tonight that's quoting the Palestinian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister as saying that they were in a meeting with the President in June of '03, and there are some very detailed quotes here, saying that the President said to them, "God told me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan,' and I did," and then "God told me, 'George go and end the tyranny in the Iraq'" and so forth and so on?

Scott McClellan: No, that's absurd. He's never made such comments.

All the same, that's how Mahmoud Abbas remembers it, according to the Washington Post (published in the Indianapolis Star):

Shortly after the summits took place, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz obtained the minutes of a Palestinian meeting in which then-Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas recounted the session with Bush. Haaretz provided a translation of Bush's words into English that was remarkably similar to the BBC account.

Arab columnists vented. God declined to comment. Just another day in U.S.-Arab politics.

Obituary

Preston G. Simpson, personification of The Alarmist and a dear friend, died at his home on October 6, 2005. He was 29.

Preston was the person to call if the world were ending. He was ready for any disaster. When we were closest, some years ago, he was never far from: a handkerchief, a knife, a lighter, pain medication, highway flares, and a baseball bat. Just in case. Later he abandoned the physical trappings of preparedness, but he never stopped being the go-to guy for crises large and small, physical and personal.

He studied the worst of history and kept his sense of humor. He gave blood regularly. He looked good in a hat. He was a true friend and an amazing person, and to know that he is gone from the world is almost intolerable.

Soldiers in massacre are still in Bosnian government.

Of the 19,473 Serb soldiers identified as having participated in the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, about 900 are still employed by the Bosnian Serb government. They're mostly police and soldiers. (International Herald Tribune.)

The massacre is one of the worst things to happen in my lifetime. The Serb army slaughtered 7,800 Bosniak men and boys in three days while UN peacekeepers stood by.

Spies

FBI intelligence analyst Leandro Aragoncillo is already facing charges of leaking classified information to Filipino leaders. Now the FBI is investigating whether he might have done the same when he worked at the White House from 1999 to 2001. Reportedly Aragoncillo has already admitted as much. (Houston Chronicle.)

Meanwhile, Department of Defense analyst Lawrence A. Franklin pleaded guilty to charges brought under the Espionage Act that he handed over secret intelligence to an Israeli lobbying group. (San Jose Mercury News.)

Calcutta paper: U.S. plans to invade Iran.

Calcutta Telegraph columnist K.P. Nayar writes:

Top-ranking Americans have told equally top-ranking Indians in recent weeks that the US has plans to invade Iran before Bush’s term ends. In 2002, a year before the US invaded Iraq, high-ranking Americans had similarly shared their definitive vision of a post-Saddam Iraq, making it clear that they would change the regime in Baghdad. (Emphasis added.)

Nayar doesn't name his sources.

It wouldn't be especially worrying to find that the U.S. military had plans to invade Iran. Presumably it has plans for many contingencies, likely and unlikely. But if the U.S. diplomatic corps is putting allies on notice... that would mean the decision has been made, and war is all but inevitable.

Credit: Andrew Sullivan.

Moore running for governor.

No, not that Moore.

Roy Moore, the Alabama judge who put a 2.5-ton monument to the Ten Commandments in the Alabama state courthouse and defied a court order to remove it, is running for governor. (Washington Post.)

Devil disease strikes Australian state.

Devil facial tumour disease is spreading unchecked (ABC News) across the Australian state of Tasmania. No one knows what's causing it or how it is transmitted. Up to 100% mortality is reported in some communities. Fortunately for you and me, the disease affects only Tasmanian devils, not humans. The disease has already claimed 20% to 50% of the devil population.

Read more:

• Australian government web site about devil facial tumour disease (Warning: gruesome pictures.)
• Speculative link to mass poisoning. (The Mercury, an Aussie paper)

Bagged salad may contain E. coli.

The US FDA is alerting customers to throw away certain bags of Dole pre-cut salad that have been connected to an E. coli outbreak. Eleven of the twelve people who got sick had bought the salad. Bizarrely, Dole isn't convinced there's anything wrong. (Washington Post.)

If you have any bags of salad in the fridge, you might want to at least skim the article.

Coming soon: cloneburgers.

“The federal government is nearing a decision to allow the sale of meat and milk from cloned cows and their offspring, according to officials,” reports the Indianapolis Star. There's no word on whether there will be a labelling requirement. Presumably not: there's no such requirement for genetically engineered foods.

Just think: a few years down the road, whenever we go to McDonald's, we could all be eating from the same cow. Genetically speaking, anyway.

Corsica

Striking ferry workers hijacked a boat (later recovered by special forces), blocked two seaports, and effectively blockaded the French island of Corsica. Tourists on the island had their vacations unexpectedly extended, as there was no way to leave. Sympathetic strikes shut down Corsica's airfields and the major port of Marseilles on the mainland, while a trucker strike made fuel scarce. During the festivities, someone fired a rocket at a government building on Corsica. No one was hurt. (Euronews.net, BBC.)

Yesterday French troops moved in, arresting protesters and reopening the port of Ajaccio. (BBC.)

Earlier this year, workers for the same government-owned ferry company, SNCM, set cars on fire and threw chunks of metal at police while trying to shut down the port of Marsailles. (Asheville Global Report.) At the time, the seamen were protesting legislative changes that led to wage competition from foreign workers. The current strike is to halt the planned privatization of SNCM, but if the union succeeds, the debt-ridden company will quickly go bankrupt. Recent EU regulations prohibit the French government from bailing it out.

25 dead, 100 wounded in Bali bombings

Three restaurants in Bali resort towns were bombed. Police reportedly found additional unexploded bombs. (BBC, FOX News.)

Three years ago, bombings in two crowded Bali nightclubs killed 202 people. Those bombings were linked to Jemaah Islamiah.