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FLYING FISK PUTS WAR INTO WARMING
“The Independent‘s veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk,” writes Felicity Arbuthnot, “is no conspiracy theorist.” We’ll be the judge of that, Felicity. Consider Fisk’s latest theory:
This is February in Lebanon and early spring should have warmed the air. But it hadn’t.
It hadn’t? Dude, that’s ... that’s ... inexplicable! I blame the Bush clan (and, shortly, so will Fisk).
Right now, flying around the world to launch my new book – travelling more than the average air crew – I’m finding a lot of odd parallels. In Melbourne last autumn, for example, the Australian spring turned out to be much colder than expected.
Something—something terrible—is afoot.
Yet in Toronto at Christmas, all the snow melted. I padded round the streets of the city and had to take my pullover off because of the sun.
Maybe it was all that padding around. Doesn’t Toronto have cars? Or at least sleds?
I should add that those Canadians who welcomed this dangerous thaw seem at odds with reality; it’s a bit like being cold and then expressing pleasure that your house is burning down on the grounds that you now feel warmer.
Ungrateful Canadians; if it had only been colder, more of them might have died. Fisk now seeks a cause for all these pullover-removing, chilly-Lebanon weather anomalies:
A British scientist, Chris Busby, has been digging through statistics from the Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment which measures uranium in high-volume air samples. His suspicion was that depleted uranium particles from the two Gulf wars – DU is used in the anti-armour warheads of the ordnance of American and British tanks and planes – may have spread across Europe. I’m not a conspiracy theorist ...
So we’ve heard.
... but here’s something very odd. When Busby applied for the information from Aldermaston in 2004, they told him to get lost. When he demanded the information under the 2005 Freedom of Information Act, Aldermaston coughed up the figures. But wait.
Waiting!
The only statistic missing from the data they gave him was for the early months of 2003. Remember what was happening then? A little dust-up in Iraq, a massive American-British invasion of Saddam’s dictatorship in which tons of DU shells were used by American troops. Eventually Busby, who worked out all the high-altitude wind movements over Europe, received the data from the Defence Procurement Agency in Bristol – which showed an increase in uranium in high-volume air sampling over Britain during this period ... Shock and awe indeed.
Depleted uranium used in Kuwait and Iraq is forcing Robert Fisk to remove his pullover in Toronto. When you say it like that, the connection is kind of obvious.
I have a hunch that something more serious is happening to our planet which we are not being told about.
Or perhaps Fisk—currently “flying around the world to launch my new book, travelling more than the average air crew”—is simply trying to avoid blame for his own Gaia-smashing contribution to global warming:
Mark Ellingham, the founder of Rough Guides, and Tony Wheeler, who created Lonely Planet after taking the hippie trail across Asia, want fellow travellers to “fly less and stay longer” and donate money to carbon offsetting schemes. From next month, warnings will appear in all new editions of their guides about the impact of flying on global warming alongside alternative ways of reaching certain destinations.
Given Fisk’s exposure to the Middle East, he’s probably loaded with DU traces, too. He should be quarantined.
UPDATE: ”DU has the potential to destroy all planetary life.”
UPDATE II. It’s a two-fisted Fisking! During an interview with the ABC’s Eleanor Hall, a “baffled” Robert Fisk further explored his earlier theory that someone in Iraq is doing something:
ROBERT FISK: You know, I was at the funeral of a Sunni and asked his brother, you know, he’d been murdered - probably by Shi’ites, I think - I asked his brother if there was going to be a civil war and he said look, I’m married to a Shi’ite. You want me to kill my wife? Why do you westerners always want civil war?
Well, we don’t. Apart from Paul McGeough, that is. Do continue, Robert:
ROBERT FISK: Somebody wants a civil war. I mean, if you really try hard and you kill enough people you may be able to produce this.
ELEANOR HALL: So somebody wants a civil war?
ROBERT FISK: Yes.
ELEANOR HALL: You must have some clues about who.
ROBERT FISK: I don’t have… I have suspicions, I don’t have clues. I spend a lot of time, when I’m in Baghdad, trying to find out who this is and what this is. Clearly, the Interior Ministry have been torturing people to death, and clearly the Interior Ministry have people who do operate death squads.
But you’ve got to remember something, that a very prominent figure in politics, and a close friend of the United States, was accused just before the first elections of executing, quote, “insurgents,” unquote, in a police station, a police station I know very well. This was reported in Australia at the time. I suspect the story is true. I think he was a murderer, and he was working for the Americans, and he was a former CIA operative, as we know.
Fisk bravely declines to name Iyad Allawi. The rest of the interview is gibberish, notable only for Fisk’s claim to possess psychic abilities:
ROBERT FISK: I did a CBC interview in Toronto, which I’ve got a copy of, three years before 2001, and I said an explosion is coming. And obviously …
ELEANOR HALL: But do you think an explosion is still coming?
ROBERT FISK: Oh yes. I don’t … it doesn’t have to be a real physical one like ‘bang’. It might be. But something is coming. I mean, I feel it very strongly.
Hmm; paranormal Bob predicted September 11, and now he foresees another attack. This might justify a series of pre-emptive strikes across the entire Middle East.
Huh. I hate to fly and don’t own a car. For a RightWing Fascist Death Psycho I’m pretty darn green.
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 03 06 at 10:21 AM • permalink”DU has the potential to destroy all planetary life.”
Clicks on link.
Oh, “depleted uranium”. I thought for a moment you meant the Democratic Underground; I don’t know about the former, but I’m pretty sure the latter has the power to destroy life, if for no other reason through its emission of radioactive hyperbolic moron molecules.
Look, Fisk is quite mad; but the people who listen to him are simply fools.
Of course, he could be missing the most obvious explanation: That hell froze over when we re-elected Bush in ‘04 and where would the side-effects of hell be felt first but the ME and Canada…?Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 06 at 10:28 AM • permalink“His suspicion was that depleted uranium particles from the two Gulf wars – DU is used in the anti-armour warheads of the ordnance of American and British tanks and planes – may have spread across Europe.”
Ah, just so. Global warming is a dynastic trait of the Bush family. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but do the words “useful tool” come to anyone else’s mind when Fisk’s nail-biting maunderings are brought out into the open?
This one’s scientific cluelessness is well demonstrated in that he doesn’t even seem to realise that the “depleted” means that radioactive isotopes have been largely removed from the uranium (e.g. his statement: ” All these weapons have solid DU projectiles or warheads in them, and their use in combat ... is the “de facto” use of nuclear bombs.”)
BTW there is a nice overview of the health effects of DU at mil faq.
Does Fisk know he has become a verb, and what that verb means?
Posted by Monroe Doctrine on 2006 03 06 at 10:45 AM • permalinkHmm… how then do we explain this scary “arctic vortex”? Not enough DU, perhaps?
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/03/01/weather-forecast060301.html
According to sources found on Google, most of them moonbatty, 320 tons (320 thousand kg) of DU was expnded during the Gulf War. Let’s do some physics.
DU has a half-life of 4.51 billion years = 1.42 10^17 seconds. Therefore its decay constant lambda is ln(2)/(1.42 10^17) = 4.9 10^-18 Multiply this by the number of atoms of DU, and you get the activity. A mole of DU has a mass of 238g, therefore we have about 1.34 million moles of DU. That’s N = 8.1 10^29 atoms, for an activity of lambda N = ~ 4 10^12 s^-1 or a little over 10.6 Curies (a Curie is the measure of bulk radioactivity and is equal to 3.7 10^11 disintegrations per second).
By comparison, the 1986 Chernobyl accident released 50 million curies into the environment; many of the radioisotopes released were significantly more bio-available than DU, and almost all with much shorter half-lives (and hence higher specific activity). Yet no more than 60 fatalities have been directly attributed to radiation from Chernobyl, mostly among site workers and first responders. No significant rise in cancers or birth defects have been recorded.
Think about that: the worst nuclear accident in history released five million times the radioactivity of the DU weapons used in the 1991 Gulf War, and yet the death toll over the next fifty years is projected to be below 4,000 (effectively indistinguishable from noise). DU doesn’t persist in the body long enough to dump significant radiation (and it’s primarily an alpha emitter, to boot). But the moonbats continue to insist that DU causes all manner of horrific complaints. People that stupid should be put in the stocks and pelted with rotten fruit.
Posted by David Gillies on 2006 03 06 at 11:20 AM • permalinkOnce certain way that depleted uranium will cause death is to be riding in a tank that gets hit by a DU projectile.
Definitely a health hazard for that millisecond or so.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 03 06 at 11:29 AM • permalinkAndrea — it doesn’t count if we’re green because we’re broke. It only counts if we’re green because we’re just so damn much better than everybody else.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 06 at 11:32 AM • permalink23 It depends on whether you carry your lunch or walk to work.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 06 at 01:23 PM • permalink” . . . a police station I know very well.”
Er, just how exactly is it that you know this police station “very well”? What were you in for, Fisk? Drunk and disorderly? Soliciting? Predicting without a license? Now that you’ve paid your debt to society, you should have no fear in coming clean for your readers. I’m sure they’re both curious, and one of them is bound to be your mom, after all.
Chilly February weather in Lebanon ... hmm, let me see ...
Lebanon Temperatures in February
Historical (last 15 years)
Avg Mean - 56F
Avg High - 62
Avg Low - 50Feb 2006
Avg Mean - 59
Avg High - 64
Avg Low - 53My non-clue, but only a suspicion, is that the DU atoms, being 5 times heavier than CO2, mostly just swirled around or blew into Iran. Any that got high enough to briefly sail to places willy nilly, were taken by the prevailing jet stream to Waziristan. Woohoo!
But there is something in the air, or on the table, that Brit scientist is sniffing.
Whoops. Statistics courtesy of http://www.wunderground.com
Don’t fly as much? Once in awhile, an airline will cancel a flight if there are not enough passengers, but most airlines fly according to a scheduleregardless of the number of passengers. So, fill the plane already.
Posted by Mystery Meat on 2006 03 06 at 03:11 PM • permalink”DU has the potential to destroy all planetary life.”
Well he is right about that. you’d just need a fuck of a lot of it…
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2006 03 06 at 03:13 PM • permalinkWhatever would we do without Bobby Fisk’s unintentional comedy? The fool has once again proved himself beyond parody.
Wadda maroon.
Excellent post, BTW.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 03 06 at 03:42 PM • permalinkI’m beginning to think that Fisk’s brain is composed of depleted uranium. God knows he is dense enough.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 03 06 at 03:51 PM • permalinkIf Fisk’s speech patterns and gesticulations are in any way similar to his style of writing, one is put in mind of a homeless guy sitting by himself in the soup kitchen carrying on a nervous and highly confidential conversation with his spoon. I really don’t think it’s a good idea to have someone like this running around Baghdad. For his own safety, he should be sent back home.
Remember when Fisk was attacked and beaten by Afgan refugees in Pakistan (If I Was an Afghan I Too Might Have Attacked Robert Fisk—My Beating by Refugees is a Symbol of the Hatred and Fury of This Filthy War)? Well, I think he’s past due for another one. Any takers? Line forms to the left.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 03 06 at 04:23 PM • permalinkpaco,
If Fisk’s speech patterns and gesticulations are in any way similar to his style of writing, one is put in mind of a homeless guy sitting by himself in the soup kitchen carrying on a nervous and highly confidential conversation with his spoon.
There was a link on LGF back near the begining of the Iraq invasion where he did get quite agitated when called on his nonsense and did, in fact, resemble your wino arguing with his spoon.
Sun Tsu in The Art of War: “If your opponent is quick to anger, seek to irritate him.”
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 03 06 at 04:45 PM • permalink39: Y’know, maybe they beat him up just because he’s Robert Fisk. And if he were to be slapped around by a few RWDB’s, I wonder if he’d take a similar line - “I don’t blame them for beating me up; not after the performance of the MSM in covering up the more violent side of Islam.” Nah, don’t see it somehow. Of course, Monkeyfan has cut to the chase: who really gives, er, an airborne fornication what Fisk thinks? I mean, what would he think with ?
Someone tell Robert Fisk that the Australian spring last year was slightly warmer than usual. Melbourne was (relatively) a bit warmer than the continent as a whole, about 1-2 degrees above average.
I listened to Fisk on the A.B.C. yesterday.
I think he is fighting his fathers WW1 battles with British authority( his dad was forced to rebury the dead as punishment for not executing a British soldier). The injustice of army life and the boarders set by the allied victors set him on his life course. He thinks the Middle Easts problems all come from the British/French corrupt carve up post WW1.
Because he starts from this premise it’s easy to understand his ramblings.Sent mad by family history.
It could be that human activity will have no effect on climate change whatsoever.
However, if we do nothing, the effect could be 100 to 10,000 times worse than the effects I have outlined above.
In the meantime, I think it is best that everybody do what I say.
I am still working on an action plan, but here are a few suggestions that come to mind:
* Return Benny Hill and Dave Allen to free to air television
* Ban the production and promotion of rindless bacon.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 06 at 05:52 PM • permalinkRight now, flying around the world to launch my new book
I have this mental image of the books being flung from a transcontinental flight, where, propelled with sufficient force, they reach escape velocity. That’s what I call a book launch.
Posted by JDFlanagan on 2006 03 06 at 06:10 PM • permalinkThe Adelaide Writers’ Festival, predictably, helped fund the verbiagemeister.
The funny thing is that when Hall pressed Prophet Fisk to hint at what terrible ‘thing’ was coming, he said it might be the quick US withdrawal from Iraq! So he’d know!
He had also said that this withdrawal was essential, impossible, necessary and good, not good etc.
He says whatever comes into his head at the minute, and forgets a minute later.
He covers every base except the one of consistency. Why does he bother?I foresee unrest in the middle east and warmer months ahead in the northern hemisphere - probably this year.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 06 at 06:58 PM • permalinkpardon my scientific ignorance but I was under the impression that DU was in actual fact Extremely Fuucking Heavy.(EFH for the non scientific)
If I take dust that is EFH it should quickly subside to the ground, where being EFH, it should stay there.
Or am I missing Einsteins theory of EFH things which magicly makes it fly??
(Yes I am fond of EFH as a scientific term)Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2006 03 06 at 07:17 PM • permalinkThe Americans are up to their feet in the sand!
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1582067.htm
Posted by Pig Head Sucker on 2006 03 06 at 07:17 PM • permalinkRemoving the radioactive portion from uranium munitions is unnatural and is therefore bad for you.
Leaving the radioactive isotopes in the ammunition is clearly the only humane way forward.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 06 at 07:22 PM • permalinkMaybe all that jet fuel Fisk expended flogging his silly book might have something to do with a warm Toronto or maybe old lady Fisk is just going through the change. This guy is truly amazing and an absolutely perfect example of how bizarre warming “science” has become!
Just add it to all Fisk’s other theories.I should add that those Canadians who welcomed this dangerous thaw seem at odds with reality; it’s a bit like being cold and then expressing pleasure that your house is burning down on the grounds that you now feel warmer.
Except that Toronto has had many many many ‘dangerous’ green Christmases in the past, and the Earth is not aflame.
But if history and science aren’t enough to stop countless morons from believing this ridiculous quack, who am I to cast aspersions on his demented ramblings?
Posted by Crispytoast on 2006 03 06 at 08:19 PM • permalinkFrisky Fisky was on Triple J Hack last night- I haven’t had time to listen to his insane gibberish, but with the slavering anticipation shown by Steve Inane in promos for the interview, I have no doubt it will be prime grade bollocks.
He looks like he nudges the turps more than Chris Hitchens- how’s that go over with his belligerent bedouin buddies?
Toronto is not Lebabnon. Toronto is not Lebanon. Toronto is not Lebanon. Toronto is not Lebanon.
Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2006 03 06 at 08:48 PM • permalinkWho said lysergic acid diethylamide was passe? This fool is tripping bigtime and it doesn’t involve anything that runs on kero.BTW,they have a big lump of depleted uranium at the Lucas Heights Reactor which thrill seeking tourists are permitted to lift so as to compare it’s weight with a similar sized lump of lead.
We have a major Arctic cold front coming into California this week that’s going to knock temperatures down 15-20° this week. For god’s sake, send Fisk!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 03 06 at 11:03 PM • permalinkThis is February in Lebanon and early spring should have warmed the air
Early spring is in March and might well have warmed the air - I’m not from there but I believe February is late Summer north of the equator.
Or has global warming / climate change shifted the seasons as well?
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 03 07 at 02:00 AM • permalinkOops, late winter north. Keep forgetting where I live
Posted by Whale Spinor on 2006 03 07 at 02:02 AM • permalinkFor a rather more hard-headed analysis of the claim that depleted uranium dust from the Iraq war was found in Berkshire, you should go here: http://www.wise-uranium.org/dissgw.html
Even if one accepts the possibility that uranium dust may have been airlifted to Europe the same way as Sahara sands sometimes in fact are, no evidence is presented that this actually has happened with the depleted uranium dust released in Iraq, in spite of the use of this term in the title. The authors spend no thought on ruling out other possible origins of uranium that might have been transported to the United Kingdom, as for example: the two large uranium mines in Arlit and Akouta, Niger, experiencing a notorious dusting problem, and the huge phosphate mines in Morocco and Rio de Oro, exploiting a mineral that is well known to be associated with elevated levels of uranium. Without an isotopic analysis, no distinction can be made between such sources of natural uranium dust and any dust produced from the use of DU weapons in Iraq.
And there are also these remarks in peer review by a referee - http://www.wise-uranium.org/pdf/duawedf.pdf
Busby and Morgan report an interesting finding, but they do not support their explanation of the cause of this finding with either credible or sufficient evidence. I am sure you will agree that this paper requires significant changes and fact checking before it is considered salient, credible, and worthy of publication.
But the conclusions are so attractive…
Depleted Uranium as a health hazard was debunked authoritatively in quadrant magazine
In the wake of that stupid ‘documentary’ Blowing in the Wind showing deformed Iraqi children and blaming DU for it, Quadrant points out that Iraqi peasants’ penchant for marrying their cousins doubtless has more to do with the deformed-children problem.One of the highlights of the whole WOT was Fisk getting his ass kicked by the Afghanis.
Posted by Peter Boston on 2006 03 07 at 07:26 PM • permalinkRegardless of the paper qualifications of the author of the Quadrant piece, it is beyond dispute that DU is toxic.
It is a by-product of “burning” uranium in nuclear power plants, where, you may remember, stringent safety precautions and facilities are built in to prevent contamination. This is because it is dangerous stuff, depleted or otherwise. To suggest otherwise is delusional.
It is chemically toxic and it retains approx 60% of the radiation of the original uranium. So thats OK, isn’t it??
Mind you, it has a half life of approx 4.5 BILLION years (the earth is approx 6 billion years old..) So in 30 BILLION years, it will be safe…
Approx 2000 tonnes of the stuff was distributed over Iraq in the first Gulf War and gods know how much in the second debacle.
Read what the World Health Organisation has to say..
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs257/en/There have been numerous reports of illness and health problems in locals and ex military that demonstrate statistical significance which correlates with the use of DU.
None of the above addresses the morality of the wileful and widespread use this hideous stuff as a weapon..
Try this interesting article.
http://www.ratical.org/radiation/DU/KYagasakiOnDU.pdf
Or this..
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/DU-Casualties-Tashiro2001.htmMost of those who downplay the risk (to others) are those who, strangely enough, are part of the military that uses it. So they would, wouldn’t they?
Quite why a Professor of Neonatology is denying its risks is a puzzle.75 D
it has a half life of approx 4.5 BILLION years
Tip off: lefties emphasizing the INCREDIBLY LONG half-life of a particular element or substance are, in fact, cluelessly empasizing the STABILITY of that element or substance. It’s the ones with the short half-lives that are the most highly radioactive. Jackass.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 08 at 04:09 PM • permalinkDreyf
Forms of potassium are radioactive and have a longer half life than DU, so whatever you do, do not eat bananas.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 08 at 05:21 PM • permalinkCorrection - give or take a billion years or so.
Also, look out for Brazil nuts, containing reasonably high levels of radioactive radium…
BTW Because people eat radioactive food, we contain radioactive elements and you can reduce your natural exposure by not sleeping next to anyone
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 08 at 05:28 PM • permalinkSo physics is now a “leftie” plot…. Jeez on a pole, and I thought I was the conspiracy dummy..
BioPhysics 101..
Radioactive decay and the particles emitted are the problem.. And the paticles emitted are rather nasty in their own little way. (even at 60% of the original.)
If you ingest/inhale DU, it accumulates and concentrates and then those pesky little long life particle do their damage to your chromosomes and therefore cell components…
I think there is rather more DU on the ground, in the air and the food, from around various recent “sites of liberation” than in your nuts, but then I neither know or really want to know, anything about your nuts..
How are you going to sneer at them physics facts… Or is the FSM a leftie loony too??Dreyf
The FAO reports annual brazil nut production at about 5,500 tonnes per annum -much more than the figure for DU that you are quoting from the first Gulf War.
Bananas I would wager much higher again.
Just be careful out there - that’s all I’m saying.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2006 03 08 at 07:13 PM • permalinkDreygnoramus 79
So physics is now a “leftie” plot….
No, that can’t be right, because if it was, you would be in on the plot, and clearly you’re not. So we’ll briefly review this mysterious thing called “physics”:
Isotopes and elements with LONGER half-lives are MORE stable. This means that they are LESS radioactive. Get it? So when you loftily inform us (# 75) thatMind you, it has a half life of approx 4.5 BILLION years (the earth is approx 6 billion years old..) So in 30 BILLION years, it will be safe…
... what you are telling us is: (a) depleted uranium is very very very stable, i.e. that it is very very very UNradioactive; and that (b) you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
You’re welcome.Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 03 09 at 06:19 PM • permalink
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Jeebus H. Christ.
Any bets on how well these folks did in real science courses? I mean the ones that require mathematics, not the ones that teach about Gaia, etc.