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Friday, December 18, 2009
Terror On The Tarmac
Zionist Senator Goes Ballistic
Two Jewish Senators Cause A Commotion
Air Marshals At The Ready
What Happened?
A Washington hack confronted a stewardess, caused a commotion, and delayed a fight.
A Washington hack confronted a stewardess, caused a commotion, and delayed a fight.
Chuck Schumer Threatens Stewardess
Schumer wanted passengers moved, an immediate drink, and wouldn't get off his cell phone. When told to unblock the aisle he said "Don't you know who I am".
A few minutes later, his phone rang again. "It's Harry Reid calling," Politico's source quoted Schumer as saying. "I guess health care will have to wait until we land."
Schumer wanted passengers moved, an immediate drink, and wouldn't get off his cell phone. When told to unblock the aisle he said "Don't you know who I am".
A few minutes later, his phone rang again. "It's Harry Reid calling," Politico's source quoted Schumer as saying. "I guess health care will have to wait until we land."
A Stewardess Doing Her Job
According to eye witnesses, the attendant asked both Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, to turn off their phones so the plane could take off. Schumer resisted, continueing with his call.. When told "no," he kept arguing, according to Politico's witness, a House Republican aide.He eventually hung up. After the attendant walked away, Schumer turned to Gillibrand and called the attendant a "bitch."
According to eye witnesses, the attendant asked both Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, to turn off their phones so the plane could take off. Schumer resisted, continueing with his call.. When told "no," he kept arguing, according to Politico's witness, a House Republican aide.He eventually hung up. After the attendant walked away, Schumer turned to Gillibrand and called the attendant a "bitch."
Passengers Became Angry
The flight attendant then approached Mr. Schumer and told him the entire plane was waiting for him to shut off his phone.
The flight attendant then approached Mr. Schumer and told him the entire plane was waiting for him to shut off his phone.
Schumer's Aide Covers Up
"The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn't have made, and he regrets it," Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon said.
"The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn't have made, and he regrets it," Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon said.
Schumer Rushes Off Jet
When Senator Schumer arrived at his destination, he was whisked off the jet, and had no time for reporters.
When Senator Schumer arrived at his destination, he was whisked off the jet, and had no time for reporters.
9. U. S. ships sand from Kuwait to Idaho
In May, an unusual shipment made its way from Kuwait to Idaho: 6,700 tons of radioactive sand. The cargo, contaminated by traces of depleted uranium from military vehicles and munitions that caught on fire during the first Gulf War, was extracted from a U.S. army base and dumped at a hazardous waste disposal site 70 miles southeast of Boise. And this isn't the first shipment, either: in years past, the dump operator, American Ecology Corp., has ferried hazardous materials from U.S. military bases overseas to sites in Idaho, Nevada, and Texas. "As you can imagine," a company spokesman explained to the Associated Press, apparently without irony, "the host countries of those bases don't want the waste in their country. FROM 2008.
Crews moving contaminated sand from ship to rail Tuesday, April 29, 2008 9:07 PM PDTBy Erik OlsonLongshoremen should finish unloading 6,700 tons of sand contaminated with depleted uranium and lead Tuesday afternoon, said Chad Hyslop, spokesman for the disposal company American Ecology.The BBC Alabama arrived at the port Saturday afternoon with the 306 containers carrying the contaminated sand from Camp Doha, a U.S. Army base in Kuwait. The sand was packaged in bags designed to transport hazardous waste.Longshoremen unloaded the containers in two shifts Sunday, then two more Monday, Hyslop said. They wore standard safety gear, and dust protection equipment and respirators were available, he said.However, no one has opted to wear the respirators, he said.“It’s gone real smooth,” Hyslop said.Half of the containers will be loaded onto 76 rail cars and transported to an American Ecology disposal site in Idaho. The other half will remain at the port until the trains return to haul them to Idaho. The containers all will be at the disposal site in Idaho within 15 to 30 days, Hyslop said.State Department of Health personnel are at the port to test radiation levels and to ensure none of the sand spills, Hyslop said. U.S. Customs agents also were on hand to inspect the cargo, he said.
Afghan is looking at did we use Depleted Uranium without tellling them
DU fired in Mid East may claim more lives than Hiroshima
Idaho Imports Radioactive Kuwaiti Waste
When a local company sells a product off shore it usually qualifies as “EXPORT” sales, but what is it when they are selling space for contaminated uranium waste that is IMPORTED?
Local media and the mainstreamers in Longview, Washington are all over a story about 6,700 tons of sand from Kuwait contaminated with depleted uranium and lead making a rail journey from Longview to Grandview, Idaho–a route that will cross both Canyon and Ada counties.
The 306 containers of contaminated sand will end up at the Grandview hazardous waste site owned by American Ecology. The sand became contaminated with low levels of depleted uranium following a fire at Camp Doha during the first Gulf War in 1991. The U.S. Army then discovered potentially hazardous levels of lead in the shipment.
Seems to us a better final resting site for this nasty stuff would be somewhere in Southern Iraq and NOT IN MY BACK YARD.
We can’t wait to hear from former Guvs Phil Batt and Cecil Andrus who spent a good portion of their terms keeping nuke waste out of Idaho or arranging to get it moved out. While the sand emits radiation, it is much lower than transuranic waste.
Here is what the on line WIKIPEDIA has to say that appears to be pertinent:“Depleted uranium munitions are controversial because of numerous unanswered questions about the long-term health effects. DU is less toxic than other heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, and is only very weakly radioactive because of its long half life. While any radiation exposure has risks, no conclusive epidemiological data have correlated DU exposure to specific human health effects such as cancer. However, the UK government has attributed birth defect claims from a 1991 Gulf War combat veteran to DU poisoning, and studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents continue to suggest the possibility of leukemogenic, genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure. Until such issues are resolved with further research, the use of DU by the military will continue to be controversial.”
The spin docs for the U.S. government will tell us it isn’t really THAT dangerous…which begs the question: “Why not leave it in the Mideast?” No doubt someone will be able to tell us importing the radioactive junk will mean jobs for Idaho.
The 306 containers of contaminated sand will end up at the Grandview hazardous waste site owned by American Ecology. The sand became contaminated with low levels of depleted uranium following a fire at Camp Doha during the first Gulf War in 1991. The U.S. Army then discovered potentially hazardous levels of lead in the shipment.
Seems to us a better final resting site for this nasty stuff would be somewhere in Southern Iraq and NOT IN MY BACK YARD.
We can’t wait to hear from former Guvs Phil Batt and Cecil Andrus who spent a good portion of their terms keeping nuke waste out of Idaho or arranging to get it moved out. While the sand emits radiation, it is much lower than transuranic waste.
Here is what the on line WIKIPEDIA has to say that appears to be pertinent:“Depleted uranium munitions are controversial because of numerous unanswered questions about the long-term health effects. DU is less toxic than other heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, and is only very weakly radioactive because of its long half life. While any radiation exposure has risks, no conclusive epidemiological data have correlated DU exposure to specific human health effects such as cancer. However, the UK government has attributed birth defect claims from a 1991 Gulf War combat veteran to DU poisoning, and studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents continue to suggest the possibility of leukemogenic, genetic, reproductive, and neurological effects from chronic exposure. Until such issues are resolved with further research, the use of DU by the military will continue to be controversial.”
The spin docs for the U.S. government will tell us it isn’t really THAT dangerous…which begs the question: “Why not leave it in the Mideast?” No doubt someone will be able to tell us importing the radioactive junk will mean jobs for Idaho.
http://boiseguardian.com/2008/05/01/idaho-imports-radioactive-kuwaiti-waste/ be sure to read the comment section at end of story!
Army Again Turns to Depleted Uranium for New Weaponry
For decades, depleted uranium (DU) has been the material of choice for anti-tank projectiles — despite a series of controversies about its potential health hazards. But for the near future, at least, the U.S. military will keep on using DU. Alternatives based on tungsten haven’t panned out. Now, the Army is upgrading to a new 120mm Advanced Kinetic Energy round, and about the only thing we know for sure is that it will be made of DU. The generation after that … may be an improved version of DU called Stakalloy.
Kinetic rounds are slim metal darts fired from tanks like the MAA1 Abrams at very high velocity. The preference for DU is not based, as some conspiracy theorists would have it, on a diabolical scheme to dump nuclear waste in developing countries. It’s because in addition to its high hardness and density, it has a property called adiabatic shear banding. Essentially, DU is crumbly rather than squishy. During the process of high-speed penetration through metal armor, fragments flake off a DU projectile. This means that a DU projectile is “self-sharpening” (compared to tungsten, which tends to deform in a blunted, mushroom shape.) It also means that DU produces a pyrophoric effect, filling the vehicle hit with a lethal fireball of tiny burning particles. That too makes it more effective than tungsten.
For many years, the Pentagon has been researching alternatives to DU, most notably Darpa’s “Liquidmetal” initiative on amorphous tungsten. This is a “glassy metal” without a crystalline structure which is very hard and shows the right kind of behavior under extreme stress. However, there still appear to be difficulties with producing large amorphous-tungsten penetrators.
Darpa wasn’t able to comment on the current state of the amorphous-tungsten research effort. However, Peter Rowland, spokesman for the Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) was able to give a categorical statement: Tungsten still plays second fiddle to depleted uranium.
“At present, there is no tungsten alloy or other material that provides armor penetration performance as good as DU,” he told Danger Room. “For some time, there have been efforts to continually improve the performance of tungsten alloys, in an effort to achieve performance comparable with DU. Thus far, DU remains superior.”
This is why the requirement for the new Advanced Kinetic Energy round specifies that it must be made of DU.
It should also be mentioned that the idea of tungsten being introduced as a “clean” alternative to “dirty” DU took something of a knock when it was found that military-grade tungsten alloy is highly carcinogenic in rats. A 2007 Department of Defense memo advised considering alternative materials to tungsten in munitions developments. Pure tungsten is not carcinogenic, and amorphous tungsten would be very different to existing applications, but this might be a difficult one to sell to the media.
Meanwhile, research continues into improving the performance of depleted uranium penetrators. From the earliest days of uranium processing, natural uranium was known as Tube Alloy (from “Tube Alloys”, a codename for the Manhattan Project), while enriched uranium was Oralloy (”Oak Ridge Alloy”) and the depleted remnant was known as Staballoy.
Staballoys containing DU with a small admixture of titanium (from 0.75 percent to 3.5 percent) have been the basis of anti-tank rounds for decades. However, now researchers are experimenting with a new version, known as Stakalloy, which combines uranium with niobium and vanadium. This is said to have improved hardness and ballistic properties compared to traditional uranium-titanium Staballoys.
In 2007, the Army requested the processing of “U-V-X Alloy Ingots,” described in the solicitation as Stakalloy. The document noted that “previous development work over the last few years at Aerojet for the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has produced new alloys with interesting properties and test prototypes for ballistic evaluation at ARL.” The idea was to find the best method of turning the ingots into “full-scale kinetic-energy penetrators.” (A two-stage quench process is suggested to prevent cracking.)
A detailed description of the new Stakalloy can be found in the patent for it. Stakalloy, incidentally, is named after its inventor, Dr Michael Staker.
Peter Rowland stated that the Stakalloy was not being considered for the new Advanced Kinetic Energy round, but left the future wide open. ”There is no way of predicting whether the performance of tungsten alloys or some other alternative material will ever approach that of DU, or if the penetration performance of DU itself can be further improved,” he said.
It’s possible that a viable alternative to depleted uranium will emerge in the next few years. But — at least from an engineering perspective — the advantage is all with DU. Whether it remains politically acceptable is another matter.
Kinetic rounds are slim metal darts fired from tanks like the MAA1 Abrams at very high velocity. The preference for DU is not based, as some conspiracy theorists would have it, on a diabolical scheme to dump nuclear waste in developing countries. It’s because in addition to its high hardness and density, it has a property called adiabatic shear banding. Essentially, DU is crumbly rather than squishy. During the process of high-speed penetration through metal armor, fragments flake off a DU projectile. This means that a DU projectile is “self-sharpening” (compared to tungsten, which tends to deform in a blunted, mushroom shape.) It also means that DU produces a pyrophoric effect, filling the vehicle hit with a lethal fireball of tiny burning particles. That too makes it more effective than tungsten.
For many years, the Pentagon has been researching alternatives to DU, most notably Darpa’s “Liquidmetal” initiative on amorphous tungsten. This is a “glassy metal” without a crystalline structure which is very hard and shows the right kind of behavior under extreme stress. However, there still appear to be difficulties with producing large amorphous-tungsten penetrators.
Darpa wasn’t able to comment on the current state of the amorphous-tungsten research effort. However, Peter Rowland, spokesman for the Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) was able to give a categorical statement: Tungsten still plays second fiddle to depleted uranium.
“At present, there is no tungsten alloy or other material that provides armor penetration performance as good as DU,” he told Danger Room. “For some time, there have been efforts to continually improve the performance of tungsten alloys, in an effort to achieve performance comparable with DU. Thus far, DU remains superior.”
This is why the requirement for the new Advanced Kinetic Energy round specifies that it must be made of DU.
It should also be mentioned that the idea of tungsten being introduced as a “clean” alternative to “dirty” DU took something of a knock when it was found that military-grade tungsten alloy is highly carcinogenic in rats. A 2007 Department of Defense memo advised considering alternative materials to tungsten in munitions developments. Pure tungsten is not carcinogenic, and amorphous tungsten would be very different to existing applications, but this might be a difficult one to sell to the media.
Meanwhile, research continues into improving the performance of depleted uranium penetrators. From the earliest days of uranium processing, natural uranium was known as Tube Alloy (from “Tube Alloys”, a codename for the Manhattan Project), while enriched uranium was Oralloy (”Oak Ridge Alloy”) and the depleted remnant was known as Staballoy.
Staballoys containing DU with a small admixture of titanium (from 0.75 percent to 3.5 percent) have been the basis of anti-tank rounds for decades. However, now researchers are experimenting with a new version, known as Stakalloy, which combines uranium with niobium and vanadium. This is said to have improved hardness and ballistic properties compared to traditional uranium-titanium Staballoys.
In 2007, the Army requested the processing of “U-V-X Alloy Ingots,” described in the solicitation as Stakalloy. The document noted that “previous development work over the last few years at Aerojet for the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has produced new alloys with interesting properties and test prototypes for ballistic evaluation at ARL.” The idea was to find the best method of turning the ingots into “full-scale kinetic-energy penetrators.” (A two-stage quench process is suggested to prevent cracking.)
A detailed description of the new Stakalloy can be found in the patent for it. Stakalloy, incidentally, is named after its inventor, Dr Michael Staker.
Peter Rowland stated that the Stakalloy was not being considered for the new Advanced Kinetic Energy round, but left the future wide open. ”There is no way of predicting whether the performance of tungsten alloys or some other alternative material will ever approach that of DU, or if the penetration performance of DU itself can be further improved,” he said.
It’s possible that a viable alternative to depleted uranium will emerge in the next few years. But — at least from an engineering perspective — the advantage is all with DU. Whether it remains politically acceptable is another matter.
FROM THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION-
Fact sheet N°257 Revised January 2003
Depleted uranium
Uranium
Metallic uranium (U) is a silver-white, lustrous, dense, weakly radioactive element. It is ubiquitous throughout the natural environment, and is found in varying but small amounts in rocks, soils, water, air, plants, animals and in all human beings.
Natural uranium consists of a mixture of three radioactive isotopes which are identified by the mass numbers 238U (99.27% by mass), 235U (0.72%) and 234U (0.0054%).
On average, approximately 90 µg (micrograms) of uranium exists in the human body from normal intakes of water, food and air. About 66% is found in the skeleton, 16% in the liver, 8% in the kidneys and 10% in other tissues.
Uranium is used primarily in nuclear power plants. However, most reactors require uranium in which the 235U content is enriched from 0.72% to about 1.5-3%.
Depleted uranium
The uranium remaining after removal of the enriched fraction contains about 99.8% 238U, 0.2% 235U and 0.001% 234U by mass; this is referred to as depleted uranium or DU.
The main difference between DU and natural uranium is that the former contains at least three times less 235U than the latter.
DU, consequently, is weakly radioactive and a radiation dose from it would be about 60% of that from purified natural uranium with the same mass.
The behaviour of DU in the body is identical to that of natural uranium.
Spent uranium fuel from nuclear reactors is sometimes reprocessed in plants for natural uranium enrichment. Some reactor-created radioisotopes can consequently contaminate the reprocessing equipment and the DU. Under these conditions another uranium isotope, 236U, may be present in the DU together with very small amounts of the transuranic elements plutonium, americium and neptunium and the fission product technetium-99. However, the additional radiation dose following intake of DU into the human body from these isotopes would be less than 1%.
Applications of depleted uranium
Due to its high density, about twice that of lead, the main civilian uses of DU include counterweights in aircraft, radiation shields in medical radiation therapy machines and containers for the transport of radioactive materials. The military uses DU for defensive armour plate.
DU is used in armour penetrating military ordnance because of its high density, and also because DU can ignite on impact if the temperature exceeds 600°C.
Exposure to uranium and depleted uranium
Under most circumstances, use of DU will make a negligible contribution to the overall natural background levels of uranium in the environment. Probably the greatest potential for DU exposure will follow conflict where DU munitions are used.
A recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report giving field measurements taken around selected impact sites in Kosovo (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) indicates that contamination by DU in the environment was localized to a few tens of metres around impact sites. Contamination by DU dusts of local vegetation and water supplies was found to be extremely low. Thus, the probability of significant exposure to local populations was considered to be very low.
A UN expert team reported in November 2002 that they found traces of DU in three locations among 14 sites investigated in Bosnia following NATO airstrikes in 1995. A full report is expected to be published by UNEP in March 2003.
Levels of DU may exceed background levels of uranium close to DU contaminating events. Over the days and years following such an event, the contamination normally becomes dispersed into the wider natural environment by wind and rain. People living or working in affected areas may inhale contaminated dusts or consume contaminated food and drinking water.
People near an aircraft crash may be exposed to DU dusts if counterweights are exposed to prolonged intense heat. Significant exposure would be rare, as large masses of DU counterweights are unlikely to ignite and would oxidize only slowly. Exposures of clean-up and emergency workers to DU following aircraft accidents are possible, but normal occupational protection measures would prevent any significant exposure.
Intake of depleted uranium
Average annual intakes of uranium by adults are estimated to be about 0.5mg (500 μg) from ingestion of food and water and 0.6 μg from breathing air.
Ingestion of small amounts of DU contaminated soil by small children may occur while playing.
Contact exposure of DU through the skin is normally very low and unimportant.
Intake from wound contamination or embedded fragments in skin tissues may allow DU to enter the systemic circulation.
Absorption of depleted uranium
About 98% of uranium entering the body via ingestion is not absorbed, but is eliminated via the faeces. Typical gut absorption rates for uranium in food and water are about 2% for soluble and about 0.2% for insoluble uranium compounds.
The fraction of uranium absorbed into the blood is generally greater following inhalation than following ingestion of the same chemical form. The fraction will also depend on the particle size distribution. For some soluble forms, more than 20% of the inhaled material could be absorbed into blood.
Of the uranium that is absorbed into the blood, approximately 70% will be filtered by the kidney and excreted in the urine within 24 hours; this amount increases to 90% within a few days.
Potential health effects of exposure to depleted uranium
In the kidneys, the proximal tubules (the main filtering component of the kidney) are considered to be the main site of potential damage from chemical toxicity of uranium. There is limited information from human studies indicating that the severity of effects on kidney function and the time taken for renal function to return to normal both increase with the level of uranium exposure.
In a number of studies on uranium miners, an increased risk of lung cancer was demonstrated, but this has been attributed to exposure from radon decay products. Lung tissue damage is possible leading to a risk of lung cancer that increases with increasing radiation dose. However, because DU is only weakly radioactive, very large amounts of dust (on the order of grams) would have to be inhaled for the additional risk of lung cancer to be detectable in an exposed group. Risks for other radiation-induced cancers, including leukaemia, are considered to be very much lower than for lung cancer.
Erythema (superficial inflammation of the skin) or other effects on the skin are unlikely to occur even if DU is held against the skin for long periods (weeks).
No consistent or confirmed adverse chemical effects of uranium have been reported for the skeleton or liver.
No reproductive or developmental effects have been reported in humans.
Although uranium released from embedded fragments may accumulate in the central nervous system (CNS) tissue, and some animal and human studies are suggestive of effects on CNS function, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the few studies reported.
Maximum radiation exposure limits and their limited application to uranium and depleted uranium
The International Basic Safety Standards, agreed by all applicable UN agencies in 1996, provide for radiation dose limits above normal background exposure levels.
The general public should not receive a dose of more than 1 millisievert (mSv) in a year. In special circumstances, an effective dose of up to 5 mSv in a single year is permitted provided that the average dose over five consecutive years does not exceed 1 mSv per year. An equivalent dose to the skin should not exceed 50 mSv in a year.
Occupational exposure should not exceed an effective dose of 20 mSv per year averaged over five consecutive years or an effective dose of 50 mSv in any single year. An equivalent dose to the extremities (hands and feet) or the skin should not surpass 500 mSv in a year.
In case of uranium or DU intake, the radiation dose limits are applied to inhaled insoluble uranium-compounds only. For all other exposure pathways and the soluble uranium-compounds, chemical toxicity is the factor that limits exposure.
Guidance on exposure based on chemical toxicity of uranium
WHO has guidelines for determining the values of health-based exposure limits or tolerable intakes for chemical substances. The tolerable intakes given below are applicable to long-term exposure of the general public (as opposed to workers). For single and short-term exposures, higher exposure levels may be tolerated without adverse effects.
The general public's intake via inhalation or ingestion of soluble DU compounds should be based on a tolerable intake value of 0.5 µg per kg of body weight per day. This leads to an air concentration of 1 µg/m3 for inhalation, and about 11 mg/y for ingestion by the average adult.
Insoluble uranium compounds with very low absorption rate are markedly less toxic to the kidney, and a tolerable intake via ingestion of 5 µg per kg of body weight per day is applicable.
When the solubility characteristics of the uranium compounds are not known, which is often the case in exposure to DU, it would be prudent to apply 0.5 µg per kg of body weight per day for ingestion.
Monitoring and treatment of exposed individuals
For the general population, neither civilian nor military use of DU is likely to produce exposures to DU significantly above normal background levels of uranium. Therefore, individual exposure assessments for DU will normally not be required. Exposure assessments based on environmental measurements may, however, be needed for public information and reassurance.
When an individual is suspected of being exposed to DU at a level significantly above the normal background level, an assessment of DU exposure may be required. This is best achieved by analysis of daily urine excretion. Urine analysis can provide useful information for the prognosis of kidney pathology from uranium or DU. The proportion of DU in the urine is determined from the 235U/238U ratio, obtained using sensitive mass spectrometric techniques.
Faecal measurement can also give useful information on DU intake. However, faecal excretion of natural uranium from the diet is considerable (on average 500 μg per day, but very variable) and this needs to be taken into account.
External radiation measurements over the chest, using radiation monitors for determining the amount of DU in the lungs, require special facilities. This technique can measure about 10 milligrams of DU in the lungs, and (except for souble compounds) can be useful soon after exposure.
There are no specific means to decrease the absorption of uranium from the gastrointestinal tract or lungs. Following severe internal contamination, treatment in special hospitals consists of the slow intravenous transfusion of isotonic 1.4 % sodium bicarbonate to increase excretion of uranium. DU levels in the human, however, are not expected to reach a value that would justify intravenous treatment any more than dialysis.
Recommendations
Following conflict, levels of DU contamination in food and drinking water might be detected in affected areas even after a few years. This should be monitored where it is considered there is a reasonable possibility of significant quantities of DU entering the ground water or food chain.
Where justified and possible, clean-up operations in impact zones should be undertaken if there are substantial numbers of radioactive projectiles remaining and where qualified experts deem contamination levels to be unacceptable. If high concentrations of DU dust or metal fragments are present, then areas may need to be cordoned off until removal can be accomplished. Such impact sites are likely to contain a variety of hazardous materials, in particular unexploded ordnance. Due consideration needs to be given to all hazards, and the potential hazard from DU kept in perspective.
Small children could receive greater exposure to DU when playing in or near DU impact sites. Their typical hand-to-mouth activity could lead to high DU ingestion from contaminated soil. Necessary preventative measures should be taken.
Disposal of DU should follow appropriate national or international recommendations.
RELATED LINKS- Depleted UraniumProvides a summary of the scientific literature on uranium and depleted uranium. - WHO guidance on exposure to depleted uranium [pdf 394kb]Provides information on medical treatment from excessive DU exposure and advice for programme administrators sending personnel to DU contaminated areas. - Uranium
Depleted uranium
Uranium
Metallic uranium (U) is a silver-white, lustrous, dense, weakly radioactive element. It is ubiquitous throughout the natural environment, and is found in varying but small amounts in rocks, soils, water, air, plants, animals and in all human beings.
Natural uranium consists of a mixture of three radioactive isotopes which are identified by the mass numbers 238U (99.27% by mass), 235U (0.72%) and 234U (0.0054%).
On average, approximately 90 µg (micrograms) of uranium exists in the human body from normal intakes of water, food and air. About 66% is found in the skeleton, 16% in the liver, 8% in the kidneys and 10% in other tissues.
Uranium is used primarily in nuclear power plants. However, most reactors require uranium in which the 235U content is enriched from 0.72% to about 1.5-3%.
Depleted uranium
The uranium remaining after removal of the enriched fraction contains about 99.8% 238U, 0.2% 235U and 0.001% 234U by mass; this is referred to as depleted uranium or DU.
The main difference between DU and natural uranium is that the former contains at least three times less 235U than the latter.
DU, consequently, is weakly radioactive and a radiation dose from it would be about 60% of that from purified natural uranium with the same mass.
The behaviour of DU in the body is identical to that of natural uranium.
Spent uranium fuel from nuclear reactors is sometimes reprocessed in plants for natural uranium enrichment. Some reactor-created radioisotopes can consequently contaminate the reprocessing equipment and the DU. Under these conditions another uranium isotope, 236U, may be present in the DU together with very small amounts of the transuranic elements plutonium, americium and neptunium and the fission product technetium-99. However, the additional radiation dose following intake of DU into the human body from these isotopes would be less than 1%.
Applications of depleted uranium
Due to its high density, about twice that of lead, the main civilian uses of DU include counterweights in aircraft, radiation shields in medical radiation therapy machines and containers for the transport of radioactive materials. The military uses DU for defensive armour plate.
DU is used in armour penetrating military ordnance because of its high density, and also because DU can ignite on impact if the temperature exceeds 600°C.
Exposure to uranium and depleted uranium
Under most circumstances, use of DU will make a negligible contribution to the overall natural background levels of uranium in the environment. Probably the greatest potential for DU exposure will follow conflict where DU munitions are used.
A recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report giving field measurements taken around selected impact sites in Kosovo (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) indicates that contamination by DU in the environment was localized to a few tens of metres around impact sites. Contamination by DU dusts of local vegetation and water supplies was found to be extremely low. Thus, the probability of significant exposure to local populations was considered to be very low.
A UN expert team reported in November 2002 that they found traces of DU in three locations among 14 sites investigated in Bosnia following NATO airstrikes in 1995. A full report is expected to be published by UNEP in March 2003.
Levels of DU may exceed background levels of uranium close to DU contaminating events. Over the days and years following such an event, the contamination normally becomes dispersed into the wider natural environment by wind and rain. People living or working in affected areas may inhale contaminated dusts or consume contaminated food and drinking water.
People near an aircraft crash may be exposed to DU dusts if counterweights are exposed to prolonged intense heat. Significant exposure would be rare, as large masses of DU counterweights are unlikely to ignite and would oxidize only slowly. Exposures of clean-up and emergency workers to DU following aircraft accidents are possible, but normal occupational protection measures would prevent any significant exposure.
Intake of depleted uranium
Average annual intakes of uranium by adults are estimated to be about 0.5mg (500 μg) from ingestion of food and water and 0.6 μg from breathing air.
Ingestion of small amounts of DU contaminated soil by small children may occur while playing.
Contact exposure of DU through the skin is normally very low and unimportant.
Intake from wound contamination or embedded fragments in skin tissues may allow DU to enter the systemic circulation.
Absorption of depleted uranium
About 98% of uranium entering the body via ingestion is not absorbed, but is eliminated via the faeces. Typical gut absorption rates for uranium in food and water are about 2% for soluble and about 0.2% for insoluble uranium compounds.
The fraction of uranium absorbed into the blood is generally greater following inhalation than following ingestion of the same chemical form. The fraction will also depend on the particle size distribution. For some soluble forms, more than 20% of the inhaled material could be absorbed into blood.
Of the uranium that is absorbed into the blood, approximately 70% will be filtered by the kidney and excreted in the urine within 24 hours; this amount increases to 90% within a few days.
Potential health effects of exposure to depleted uranium
In the kidneys, the proximal tubules (the main filtering component of the kidney) are considered to be the main site of potential damage from chemical toxicity of uranium. There is limited information from human studies indicating that the severity of effects on kidney function and the time taken for renal function to return to normal both increase with the level of uranium exposure.
In a number of studies on uranium miners, an increased risk of lung cancer was demonstrated, but this has been attributed to exposure from radon decay products. Lung tissue damage is possible leading to a risk of lung cancer that increases with increasing radiation dose. However, because DU is only weakly radioactive, very large amounts of dust (on the order of grams) would have to be inhaled for the additional risk of lung cancer to be detectable in an exposed group. Risks for other radiation-induced cancers, including leukaemia, are considered to be very much lower than for lung cancer.
Erythema (superficial inflammation of the skin) or other effects on the skin are unlikely to occur even if DU is held against the skin for long periods (weeks).
No consistent or confirmed adverse chemical effects of uranium have been reported for the skeleton or liver.
No reproductive or developmental effects have been reported in humans.
Although uranium released from embedded fragments may accumulate in the central nervous system (CNS) tissue, and some animal and human studies are suggestive of effects on CNS function, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the few studies reported.
Maximum radiation exposure limits and their limited application to uranium and depleted uranium
The International Basic Safety Standards, agreed by all applicable UN agencies in 1996, provide for radiation dose limits above normal background exposure levels.
The general public should not receive a dose of more than 1 millisievert (mSv) in a year. In special circumstances, an effective dose of up to 5 mSv in a single year is permitted provided that the average dose over five consecutive years does not exceed 1 mSv per year. An equivalent dose to the skin should not exceed 50 mSv in a year.
Occupational exposure should not exceed an effective dose of 20 mSv per year averaged over five consecutive years or an effective dose of 50 mSv in any single year. An equivalent dose to the extremities (hands and feet) or the skin should not surpass 500 mSv in a year.
In case of uranium or DU intake, the radiation dose limits are applied to inhaled insoluble uranium-compounds only. For all other exposure pathways and the soluble uranium-compounds, chemical toxicity is the factor that limits exposure.
Guidance on exposure based on chemical toxicity of uranium
WHO has guidelines for determining the values of health-based exposure limits or tolerable intakes for chemical substances. The tolerable intakes given below are applicable to long-term exposure of the general public (as opposed to workers). For single and short-term exposures, higher exposure levels may be tolerated without adverse effects.
The general public's intake via inhalation or ingestion of soluble DU compounds should be based on a tolerable intake value of 0.5 µg per kg of body weight per day. This leads to an air concentration of 1 µg/m3 for inhalation, and about 11 mg/y for ingestion by the average adult.
Insoluble uranium compounds with very low absorption rate are markedly less toxic to the kidney, and a tolerable intake via ingestion of 5 µg per kg of body weight per day is applicable.
When the solubility characteristics of the uranium compounds are not known, which is often the case in exposure to DU, it would be prudent to apply 0.5 µg per kg of body weight per day for ingestion.
Monitoring and treatment of exposed individuals
For the general population, neither civilian nor military use of DU is likely to produce exposures to DU significantly above normal background levels of uranium. Therefore, individual exposure assessments for DU will normally not be required. Exposure assessments based on environmental measurements may, however, be needed for public information and reassurance.
When an individual is suspected of being exposed to DU at a level significantly above the normal background level, an assessment of DU exposure may be required. This is best achieved by analysis of daily urine excretion. Urine analysis can provide useful information for the prognosis of kidney pathology from uranium or DU. The proportion of DU in the urine is determined from the 235U/238U ratio, obtained using sensitive mass spectrometric techniques.
Faecal measurement can also give useful information on DU intake. However, faecal excretion of natural uranium from the diet is considerable (on average 500 μg per day, but very variable) and this needs to be taken into account.
External radiation measurements over the chest, using radiation monitors for determining the amount of DU in the lungs, require special facilities. This technique can measure about 10 milligrams of DU in the lungs, and (except for souble compounds) can be useful soon after exposure.
There are no specific means to decrease the absorption of uranium from the gastrointestinal tract or lungs. Following severe internal contamination, treatment in special hospitals consists of the slow intravenous transfusion of isotonic 1.4 % sodium bicarbonate to increase excretion of uranium. DU levels in the human, however, are not expected to reach a value that would justify intravenous treatment any more than dialysis.
Recommendations
Following conflict, levels of DU contamination in food and drinking water might be detected in affected areas even after a few years. This should be monitored where it is considered there is a reasonable possibility of significant quantities of DU entering the ground water or food chain.
Where justified and possible, clean-up operations in impact zones should be undertaken if there are substantial numbers of radioactive projectiles remaining and where qualified experts deem contamination levels to be unacceptable. If high concentrations of DU dust or metal fragments are present, then areas may need to be cordoned off until removal can be accomplished. Such impact sites are likely to contain a variety of hazardous materials, in particular unexploded ordnance. Due consideration needs to be given to all hazards, and the potential hazard from DU kept in perspective.
Small children could receive greater exposure to DU when playing in or near DU impact sites. Their typical hand-to-mouth activity could lead to high DU ingestion from contaminated soil. Necessary preventative measures should be taken.
Disposal of DU should follow appropriate national or international recommendations.
RELATED LINKS- Depleted UraniumProvides a summary of the scientific literature on uranium and depleted uranium. - WHO guidance on exposure to depleted uranium [pdf 394kb]Provides information on medical treatment from excessive DU exposure and advice for programme administrators sending personnel to DU contaminated areas. - Uranium
SO IF YOU THINK PAYING FOR THESE WARS IS EXPENSIVE-IT WILL COST 10x THIS AMOUNT TO CLEAN UP AFTER OURSELVES!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
TORONTO STAR PHOTO BLOG HERE -
REUTERS PICTURES OF THE DECADE HERE -
By Joseph Menn in San Francisco
For more than a decade the common currency among cybercriminals has been pilfered credit card numbers, but some underground hackers have learned how to drain money directly from corporate bank accounts.
There has been a big rise in such frauds, raising the stakes in the war between financial institutions and criminals and costing some bank clients half a million dollars – or more.
The cyberhackers “are clearly ahead of the defence in terms of antivirus solutions, firewall solutions, etc,” Jeffrey Troy, chief of the FBI’s cybercrime section, told the Financial Times. Online bank thefts in 2009 had seen “a very dramatic increase from past years”.
Law enforcement warnings, recent reports from private security experts and lawsuits are focusing attention on the issue. Some professionals, citing the ongoing boom in virus infections through such social networks as Facebook and Twitter, fear the trends could combine in 2010.
Mr Troy estimated that criminals took about $40m from bank accounts this year, primarily targeting the small and mid-sized businesses that are themselves customers of small and mid-sized banks.
Such banks and their clients were less likely than their biggest competitors to have the highest-grade security procedures.
Targets have fallen victim to “spear phishing” and other tricks. In spear phishing, a misleading e-mail, instant message or social networking communication is aimed at one company or even a single person within that company, frequently a top executive. The message can be tailored convincingly with details of interest to that individual.
As with many generic phishing attacks that go to millions of users, the point is often to get the recipient to click on a link that installs software for surreptitiously logging keystrokes, so that passwords and account numbers can be recorded and transmitted over the internet to the hacker.
Aiming at small groups means that security programs that look for copies of previously reported attacks are less likely to recognise the software.
One of the most prevalent programs for stealing banking passwords, Zeus, can be bought and modified by anyone for about $700, Cisco Systems said in annual security study released this week.
Through both phishing and silent installs via compromised websites, Zeus has landed on some 3.6m machines. Another virus, URLZone, can rewrite online banking statements so that pilfered money does not appear to be missing.
Some businesses have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to thieves employing such tools. While banks typically indemnify consumers for online fraud losses that are spotted quickly, they can take a harder line against corporate clients. Such disputes are coming into the open with the first lawsuits over banking breaches.
This month a Baton Rouge equipment seller called JM Test Systems sued US bank Capital One. The suit says JM Test noticed an unauthorised $45,640 wire transfer to a Moscow bank a day after it went through.
Although the company complained immediately and Capital One pledged to investigate, it allegedly failed to freeze the account and a second fraudulent withdrawal of $51,556 went through six days later. The bank has refunded less than $8,000 of the losses, according to the suit, which accuses Capital One of having unreasonably lax procedures. The bank declined to comment, citing the litigation.
Banks were modifying their systems, said Mr Troy, but they had problems with authenticating account holders.
The same problem exists on the internet – and has been exacerbated with the trend toward shortened web links that deliberately compress – and disguise – the address of websites as they are passed along in e-mails or other messages.
Many social media users placed such trust in material posted by friends and colleagues “that they don’t stop to consider the dangers of clicking on an unidentifiable link”, Cisco found.
There has been a big rise in such frauds, raising the stakes in the war between financial institutions and criminals and costing some bank clients half a million dollars – or more.
The cyberhackers “are clearly ahead of the defence in terms of antivirus solutions, firewall solutions, etc,” Jeffrey Troy, chief of the FBI’s cybercrime section, told the Financial Times. Online bank thefts in 2009 had seen “a very dramatic increase from past years”.
Law enforcement warnings, recent reports from private security experts and lawsuits are focusing attention on the issue. Some professionals, citing the ongoing boom in virus infections through such social networks as Facebook and Twitter, fear the trends could combine in 2010.
Mr Troy estimated that criminals took about $40m from bank accounts this year, primarily targeting the small and mid-sized businesses that are themselves customers of small and mid-sized banks.
Such banks and their clients were less likely than their biggest competitors to have the highest-grade security procedures.
Targets have fallen victim to “spear phishing” and other tricks. In spear phishing, a misleading e-mail, instant message or social networking communication is aimed at one company or even a single person within that company, frequently a top executive. The message can be tailored convincingly with details of interest to that individual.
As with many generic phishing attacks that go to millions of users, the point is often to get the recipient to click on a link that installs software for surreptitiously logging keystrokes, so that passwords and account numbers can be recorded and transmitted over the internet to the hacker.
Aiming at small groups means that security programs that look for copies of previously reported attacks are less likely to recognise the software.
One of the most prevalent programs for stealing banking passwords, Zeus, can be bought and modified by anyone for about $700, Cisco Systems said in annual security study released this week.
Through both phishing and silent installs via compromised websites, Zeus has landed on some 3.6m machines. Another virus, URLZone, can rewrite online banking statements so that pilfered money does not appear to be missing.
Some businesses have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to thieves employing such tools. While banks typically indemnify consumers for online fraud losses that are spotted quickly, they can take a harder line against corporate clients. Such disputes are coming into the open with the first lawsuits over banking breaches.
This month a Baton Rouge equipment seller called JM Test Systems sued US bank Capital One. The suit says JM Test noticed an unauthorised $45,640 wire transfer to a Moscow bank a day after it went through.
Although the company complained immediately and Capital One pledged to investigate, it allegedly failed to freeze the account and a second fraudulent withdrawal of $51,556 went through six days later. The bank has refunded less than $8,000 of the losses, according to the suit, which accuses Capital One of having unreasonably lax procedures. The bank declined to comment, citing the litigation.
Banks were modifying their systems, said Mr Troy, but they had problems with authenticating account holders.
The same problem exists on the internet – and has been exacerbated with the trend toward shortened web links that deliberately compress – and disguise – the address of websites as they are passed along in e-mails or other messages.
Many social media users placed such trust in material posted by friends and colleagues “that they don’t stop to consider the dangers of clicking on an unidentifiable link”, Cisco found.
While covering Facebook's systematic elimination of privacy, we've been deluged with questions from readers asking how to restore certain Facebook privacy protections. Sadly, many such settings appear to be lost forever. Here are the most glaring examples.
1. Hide group and page memberships
Facebook changed its formal Privacy Policy to say that "pages you are a fan of... and networks" are now totally public information (along with many other things). There's apparently no setting to shield page and network data, which leads to terrible situation like this one, sent in as a reader plea:
All of a sudden my grandmother can see that I belong to the Queer Graduate Student Union and Open Relationships Networking Group. Please help. I can't bring myself to de-friend my grandmother!
2. Block Facebook activity from appearing on your wall
There used to be a setting that allowed users to prevent Facebook activity from automatically showing up on their Facebook wall, thus blocking updates like "John commented on Jane's picture," "John is now friends with Bob," "John is attending Uber Gay Circuit Party 2010," etc. This setting is apparently gone, and you have to remove such notices one at a time.
Writes one tipster:
It is extremely annoying not to mention a complete tell of how often I use Facebook during work hours:)
3. Prevent strangers from friending you
It used to be you could keep non-friends from sending you a Facebook friend requests, although they could confirm. That's not the most, well, social way to use a social network, but judging from our email, it was a frequently used and valued feature. Wrote one Gawker regular:
Before the changes I wasn't searchable on FB and hence friended only those I wanted to friend, in essence, I would initiate the request. But... I am now getting friend requests from people I don't know, or worse, from people I know but I don't want to befriend on FB...
Facebook now makes you offer the "Add friend" option to all friends of friends — you can't restrict any tighter than that, so strangers can still send you friend requests. Screenshot (click to enlarge):
1. Hide group and page memberships
Facebook changed its formal Privacy Policy to say that "pages you are a fan of... and networks" are now totally public information (along with many other things). There's apparently no setting to shield page and network data, which leads to terrible situation like this one, sent in as a reader plea:
All of a sudden my grandmother can see that I belong to the Queer Graduate Student Union and Open Relationships Networking Group. Please help. I can't bring myself to de-friend my grandmother!
2. Block Facebook activity from appearing on your wall
There used to be a setting that allowed users to prevent Facebook activity from automatically showing up on their Facebook wall, thus blocking updates like "John commented on Jane's picture," "John is now friends with Bob," "John is attending Uber Gay Circuit Party 2010," etc. This setting is apparently gone, and you have to remove such notices one at a time.
Writes one tipster:
It is extremely annoying not to mention a complete tell of how often I use Facebook during work hours:)
3. Prevent strangers from friending you
It used to be you could keep non-friends from sending you a Facebook friend requests, although they could confirm. That's not the most, well, social way to use a social network, but judging from our email, it was a frequently used and valued feature. Wrote one Gawker regular:
Before the changes I wasn't searchable on FB and hence friended only those I wanted to friend, in essence, I would initiate the request. But... I am now getting friend requests from people I don't know, or worse, from people I know but I don't want to befriend on FB...
Facebook now makes you offer the "Add friend" option to all friends of friends — you can't restrict any tighter than that, so strangers can still send you friend requests. Screenshot (click to enlarge):
4. Completely hide friends list
Your friends list, too, is considered public information. Though you can remove it from your profile, you can't keep friends of friends from seeing it. They just have to pull up one of your friends' friend list, click you name, and view your friends list.
Writes one reader: "Many of us are concerned, seeing as how there are thousands of people faced with the threat of stalkers." Another, right on cue:
I have been dealing with a deranged, threatening stalker... There is no way of keeping your Friend list private... I have been obsessively reading about this topic [overall Facebook privacy]... To say I'm outraged is an understatement.
We thought Facebook might be improving this, but we continue to receive emails like these, and Facebooks written Privacy Policy still states that friends lists are now public information.
5. Block Wall announcements that you've been tagged in a photo
You can keep photos of yourself out of the "Photos" tab on your profile, even if they've been uploaded by other people. But it seems you can't block from your Wall announcements that you've been tagged in someone else's photo , which sort of defeats the purpose: It leaves your profile as a very convenient central location for any incriminating pictures of yourself.
You can remove each notification manually, but that becomes a game of whack-a-mole.
Wrote one Facebooker:
I've already blocked everyone from viewing photos that I'm tagged in, but I'd prefer that my friends not even see that I've been tagged in the small preview photo that gets posted to my wall every time someone tags me.
UPDATE: According to a helpful tipster, this can be disabled by going to the Settings menu at the top right of your Facebook home page, then to "Application Settings," then the "Photos" application, then click "Edit settings." Then click the "Additional Permissions tab," and there is an option to "Publish to streams." Uncheck this. Like so (click to enlarge):
Your friends list, too, is considered public information. Though you can remove it from your profile, you can't keep friends of friends from seeing it. They just have to pull up one of your friends' friend list, click you name, and view your friends list.
Writes one reader: "Many of us are concerned, seeing as how there are thousands of people faced with the threat of stalkers." Another, right on cue:
I have been dealing with a deranged, threatening stalker... There is no way of keeping your Friend list private... I have been obsessively reading about this topic [overall Facebook privacy]... To say I'm outraged is an understatement.
We thought Facebook might be improving this, but we continue to receive emails like these, and Facebooks written Privacy Policy still states that friends lists are now public information.
5. Block Wall announcements that you've been tagged in a photo
You can keep photos of yourself out of the "Photos" tab on your profile, even if they've been uploaded by other people. But it seems you can't block from your Wall announcements that you've been tagged in someone else's photo , which sort of defeats the purpose: It leaves your profile as a very convenient central location for any incriminating pictures of yourself.
You can remove each notification manually, but that becomes a game of whack-a-mole.
Wrote one Facebooker:
I've already blocked everyone from viewing photos that I'm tagged in, but I'd prefer that my friends not even see that I've been tagged in the small preview photo that gets posted to my wall every time someone tags me.
UPDATE: According to a helpful tipster, this can be disabled by going to the Settings menu at the top right of your Facebook home page, then to "Application Settings," then the "Photos" application, then click "Edit settings." Then click the "Additional Permissions tab," and there is an option to "Publish to streams." Uncheck this. Like so (click to enlarge):
And more, we're sure
We'd love to be wrong about any of these privacy rollbacks, so if you know of settings or workarounds we've overlooked, do email us at tips@gawker.com. Conversely, if we've left out a lost privacy option you feel strongly about, let us know about that, too.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) originally said his social network's privacy changes were intended simplify and enhance the privacy experience on the site. Judging from our inbox, it would seem he's achieved neither.
Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at
Rot13.write('elna@tnjxre.pbz');
ryan@gawker.com.
We'd love to be wrong about any of these privacy rollbacks, so if you know of settings or workarounds we've overlooked, do email us at tips@gawker.com. Conversely, if we've left out a lost privacy option you feel strongly about, let us know about that, too.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) originally said his social network's privacy changes were intended simplify and enhance the privacy experience on the site. Judging from our inbox, it would seem he's achieved neither.
Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at
Rot13.write('elna@tnjxre.pbz');
ryan@gawker.com.
The implications of Facebook's recent privacy rollback will likely take months to reveal themselves. But it's already clear they go beyond Mark Zuckerberg's stash of intimate pics; we're already starting to learn new things about Hollywood celebrities.
Take Angelina Jolie, for example: Did you know the sought-after actress has just 27 Facebook friends, and they're almost all A-listers? Talk about a meticulously curated list:
Take Angelina Jolie, for example: Did you know the sought-after actress has just 27 Facebook friends, and they're almost all A-listers? Talk about a meticulously curated list:
Then there are the surprising affiliations. Will Smith, for example, is a member of the Facebook page "Jesus Daily," which posts bible quotes from Jesus each morning, even though the actor has made repeated donations to groups affiliated with the Church of Scientology; echoes the cult's "spiritual physics" rhetoric; has set up a middle school staffed with Scientologists; and has said Scientology is filled "brilliant and revolutionary" ideas. Smith was raised Baptist and has insisted he takes ideas from multiple religions. A look at his page (click to enlarge):
And you can send direct Facebook messages to a surprising number of celebrities, right from the "Send message" command in the upper left corner of their profiles, though it's not clear to what extent, if any, this has been affected by the new privacy framework, since some celebrities, like Tobey Maguire, still have messaging turned off. Some who have it enabled:
Angelina Jolie
Brad Pitt (aka Bradpitt Bp, via Angelina's profile)
Orlando Bloom
Tom Hanks
Robert DeNiro
Sean Connery
Julia Roberts
More, we're sure, to come.
(Top pic: Jolie, giving an interview to NBC's Matt Lauer in 2008, via INF)
Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at
ryan@gawker.com.
Angelina Jolie
Brad Pitt (aka Bradpitt Bp, via Angelina's profile)
Orlando Bloom
Tom Hanks
Robert DeNiro
Sean Connery
Julia Roberts
More, we're sure, to come.
(Top pic: Jolie, giving an interview to NBC's Matt Lauer in 2008, via INF)
Send an email to Ryan Tate, the author of this post, at
ryan@gawker.com.
Thank you Ryan Tate and Gawker.com
Personal details of Facebook users could potentially be stolen, the BBC technology programme Click has found.
The popular social networking site allows users to add a variety of applications to their profile.
But a malicious program, masquerading as a harmless application, could potentially harvest personal data.
Facebook says users should exercise caution when adding applications. Any programs which violate their terms will be removed, the network said.
Stealing details
Facebook is the darling of the moment, allowing friends to stay in touch, post photos, and share fun little games and quizzes. And it also lets you keep your details private from the rest of the world. Or at least that is the implication.
We have discovered a way to steal the personal details of you and all your Facebook friends without you knowing.
We made up the fictitious profile of Bob Smith. He keeps most of his details on his profile private from non-friends.
While we could not get all details, what we did get, included his name, hometown, school, interests and photograph, would certainly help us to steal someone's identity.
Mining data
So how did we do it?
Using a couple of laptops and our resident coder Pete, we created a special application for Facebookers to add.
One of the reasons Facebook has become so popular so quickly is because of the wealth of applications users can add to their profile pages.
Little games, quizzes, IQ tests, there are thousands of them available. And once you have added an application, your friends are encouraged to add it too.
Anyone with a basic understanding of web programming can write an application.
We wrote an evil data mining application called Miner, which, if we wanted, could masquerade as a game, a test, or a joke of the day. It took us less than three hours.
But whatever it looks like, in the background, it is collecting personal details, and those of the users' friends, and e-mailing them out of Facebook, to our inbox.
When you add an application, unless you say otherwise, it is given access to most of the information in your profile. That includes information you have on your friends even if they think they have tight security settings.
Did you know that you were responsible for other people's security?
Security
Now, many applications do need access to your details, in order to work properly.
We do not know of any specific application which abuses user information, apart from ours.
But the ease with we created our application has many people worried. If it is being used you would not even have to use the application we created to become a victim, you would just have to be a friend of someone who has.
“ Morally, Facebook has acted naively ” Paul Docherty, Technical Director of Portcullis Security
Because these applications run on third-party servers, not run by Facebook - it is difficult for the company to check what is going on, whether anything has changed, and how long applications store data for and what they do with it.
Although Facebook's terms and conditions contain a warning that this could in theory happen, and offer the option to stop an application from accessing your details, many games and quizzes would not work if this option is engaged.
In fact, the only way we can see of completely protecting yourself from applications skimming information about you and your friends is to erase all the applications on your profile and opt to not use any applications in the future.
So has Facebook done enough to protect its users from identity theft?
Paul Docherty is the Technical Director of Portcullis Security, which advises several governments on IT security matters including British government.
He told us he believed that Facebook's terms and conditions stated on the site meant that Facebook had legally covered itself from any liability.
But he added: "Morally, Facebook has acted naively."
He said: "Facebook needs to change its default settings and tighten up security."
He also believes it would be difficult to secure the current system because so many third party applications are now in circulation.
Removal team
We put these concerns to Facebook.
It told us that it has an entire investigations team watching the site, and removing applications that violate its terms of use which would include our Miner application.
It also advises users to use the same precautions while downloading software from Facebook applications that they use when downloading software on their desktop.
Now, all this comes in the month that competitor MySpace opened up its application platform. However, it handles them differently - here all applications run on its own servers so it can see what they are up to.
MySpace also manually checks all submissions and rechecks them if authors wish to change the code. We were unable to create a similar threat to users' security using the MySpace system.
It certainly seems that Facebook's standard security settings are not sufficient to protect your personal information, and those of your friends.
Are you a Facebook user concerned about your personal details? Have you had your data skimmed?
Your comments:
I'm a Facebook user and although I've not been skimmed (I can't even know yet until something flags it) it's really scary to hear that this is possible with the ever number of applications in the site. Everyday I get about 20 requests to join/add different applications onto my profile and this news makes me want to remove all of them. Problem is, if you do remove them, then what are you going to do on Facebook? Give us more security features Facebook. Ralph Ofuyo, Nairobi, Kenya
The only data an application can "steal" is that which has already been posted to Facebook by the user themselves. Common sense dictates "anything" you put on the internet can be found by just about anyone. Mark, Dallas, Texas, USA
Perhaps the problem lies not so much with Facebook than with our banking system. If your date of birth and address are enough to get a credit card or a mortgage, no wonder this is being abused. Isn't this yet another sign that we need a better way to prove one's identity? Surely a national identity card would go a long way towards this - other countries don't seem to have these problems. Bob, Oxford
This is why I lie to Facebook about things like date of birth, setting them to be roughly there but not accurate enough. I tend to do this to any site that insists on having this information but I don't see the need for. Richard, Leeds, UK
I use Facebook on a daily basis to keep in touch with friends. I've gotten very tight with my security settings but it never occurred to me to worry about the applications that my friends and I have added. Thanks for the heads up! Kate K, Washington DC, USA
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7375772.stm
The popular social networking site allows users to add a variety of applications to their profile.
But a malicious program, masquerading as a harmless application, could potentially harvest personal data.
Facebook says users should exercise caution when adding applications. Any programs which violate their terms will be removed, the network said.
Stealing details
Facebook is the darling of the moment, allowing friends to stay in touch, post photos, and share fun little games and quizzes. And it also lets you keep your details private from the rest of the world. Or at least that is the implication.
We have discovered a way to steal the personal details of you and all your Facebook friends without you knowing.
We made up the fictitious profile of Bob Smith. He keeps most of his details on his profile private from non-friends.
While we could not get all details, what we did get, included his name, hometown, school, interests and photograph, would certainly help us to steal someone's identity.
Mining data
So how did we do it?
Using a couple of laptops and our resident coder Pete, we created a special application for Facebookers to add.
One of the reasons Facebook has become so popular so quickly is because of the wealth of applications users can add to their profile pages.
Little games, quizzes, IQ tests, there are thousands of them available. And once you have added an application, your friends are encouraged to add it too.
Anyone with a basic understanding of web programming can write an application.
We wrote an evil data mining application called Miner, which, if we wanted, could masquerade as a game, a test, or a joke of the day. It took us less than three hours.
But whatever it looks like, in the background, it is collecting personal details, and those of the users' friends, and e-mailing them out of Facebook, to our inbox.
When you add an application, unless you say otherwise, it is given access to most of the information in your profile. That includes information you have on your friends even if they think they have tight security settings.
Did you know that you were responsible for other people's security?
Security
Now, many applications do need access to your details, in order to work properly.
We do not know of any specific application which abuses user information, apart from ours.
But the ease with we created our application has many people worried. If it is being used you would not even have to use the application we created to become a victim, you would just have to be a friend of someone who has.
“ Morally, Facebook has acted naively ” Paul Docherty, Technical Director of Portcullis Security
Because these applications run on third-party servers, not run by Facebook - it is difficult for the company to check what is going on, whether anything has changed, and how long applications store data for and what they do with it.
Although Facebook's terms and conditions contain a warning that this could in theory happen, and offer the option to stop an application from accessing your details, many games and quizzes would not work if this option is engaged.
In fact, the only way we can see of completely protecting yourself from applications skimming information about you and your friends is to erase all the applications on your profile and opt to not use any applications in the future.
So has Facebook done enough to protect its users from identity theft?
Paul Docherty is the Technical Director of Portcullis Security, which advises several governments on IT security matters including British government.
He told us he believed that Facebook's terms and conditions stated on the site meant that Facebook had legally covered itself from any liability.
But he added: "Morally, Facebook has acted naively."
He said: "Facebook needs to change its default settings and tighten up security."
He also believes it would be difficult to secure the current system because so many third party applications are now in circulation.
Removal team
We put these concerns to Facebook.
It told us that it has an entire investigations team watching the site, and removing applications that violate its terms of use which would include our Miner application.
It also advises users to use the same precautions while downloading software from Facebook applications that they use when downloading software on their desktop.
Now, all this comes in the month that competitor MySpace opened up its application platform. However, it handles them differently - here all applications run on its own servers so it can see what they are up to.
MySpace also manually checks all submissions and rechecks them if authors wish to change the code. We were unable to create a similar threat to users' security using the MySpace system.
It certainly seems that Facebook's standard security settings are not sufficient to protect your personal information, and those of your friends.
Are you a Facebook user concerned about your personal details? Have you had your data skimmed?
Your comments:
I'm a Facebook user and although I've not been skimmed (I can't even know yet until something flags it) it's really scary to hear that this is possible with the ever number of applications in the site. Everyday I get about 20 requests to join/add different applications onto my profile and this news makes me want to remove all of them. Problem is, if you do remove them, then what are you going to do on Facebook? Give us more security features Facebook. Ralph Ofuyo, Nairobi, Kenya
The only data an application can "steal" is that which has already been posted to Facebook by the user themselves. Common sense dictates "anything" you put on the internet can be found by just about anyone. Mark, Dallas, Texas, USA
Perhaps the problem lies not so much with Facebook than with our banking system. If your date of birth and address are enough to get a credit card or a mortgage, no wonder this is being abused. Isn't this yet another sign that we need a better way to prove one's identity? Surely a national identity card would go a long way towards this - other countries don't seem to have these problems. Bob, Oxford
This is why I lie to Facebook about things like date of birth, setting them to be roughly there but not accurate enough. I tend to do this to any site that insists on having this information but I don't see the need for. Richard, Leeds, UK
I use Facebook on a daily basis to keep in touch with friends. I've gotten very tight with my security settings but it never occurred to me to worry about the applications that my friends and I have added. Thanks for the heads up! Kate K, Washington DC, USA
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/7375772.stm
55 and haven't saved a dime? Yikes!
No doubt about it: Your late start on building a retirement is going to cost you. But don't panic. You still have these 10 options for padding your golden years.
If you're in your 50s and haven't saved for retirement, you know you're in trouble.
You've also got company. A full 30% of workers age 55 and older said they had less than $10,000 saved, according to the 2009 Retirement Confidence Survey (.pdf file) by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
There's no sugarcoating the situation: Your late start is going to cost you. But it's still possible to cobble together a decent retirement, even if it looks different from what you might have originally planned.
Here's what you need to do now:
Run the numbers Finance expert Roger Ibbotson has done the math, as I wrote in "Your magic number for retirement," and says people who start saving for retirement after age 35 face increasingly strong headwinds. (You can try the magic-number calculator to the right as well.)
To have enough to retire at 65, late starters must put aside huge chunks of their income. The older you are and the more you make, the more you'd have to save to catch up if you want to maintain something like your current standard of living and be reasonably assured you won't run out of money.
At 55, for example:
Someone who earns $40,000 a year would need to put aside 27% of her income to retire at 65.
Someone who earns $60,000 should contribute nearly 33%.
Someone who earns $80,000 would have to save nearly 37%.
Someone who makes $100,000 would have to shovel in 40%.
Clearly, few people will be able to pull off savings rates anywhere close to those levels.
But not all is lost.
You can use the MSN Money Retirement Planner to fiddle with some of the assumptions that can make a big difference in how much you need to save. Working longer, for example, can make a big difference, as can living on less money in retirement (more on that in a moment). Speaking of which:
70 is the new 65 A few more years in the workplace will benefit you in three ways:
You'll earn more money to contribute to your retirement funds.
Your nest egg will have longer to grow before it's tapped.
Your retirement will be shorter.
Yeah, that last one is pretty grim. Deal with it.
Delaying retirement until age 70 might reduce your required contributions to 15% to 20% of your gross income rather than 30% or more. That's still a big chunk of change, but it might be doable if you get serious about trimming expenses.
You've also got company. A full 30% of workers age 55 and older said they had less than $10,000 saved, according to the 2009 Retirement Confidence Survey (.pdf file) by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
There's no sugarcoating the situation: Your late start is going to cost you. But it's still possible to cobble together a decent retirement, even if it looks different from what you might have originally planned.
Here's what you need to do now:
Run the numbers Finance expert Roger Ibbotson has done the math, as I wrote in "Your magic number for retirement," and says people who start saving for retirement after age 35 face increasingly strong headwinds. (You can try the magic-number calculator to the right as well.)
To have enough to retire at 65, late starters must put aside huge chunks of their income. The older you are and the more you make, the more you'd have to save to catch up if you want to maintain something like your current standard of living and be reasonably assured you won't run out of money.
At 55, for example:
Someone who earns $40,000 a year would need to put aside 27% of her income to retire at 65.
Someone who earns $60,000 should contribute nearly 33%.
Someone who earns $80,000 would have to save nearly 37%.
Someone who makes $100,000 would have to shovel in 40%.
Clearly, few people will be able to pull off savings rates anywhere close to those levels.
But not all is lost.
You can use the MSN Money Retirement Planner to fiddle with some of the assumptions that can make a big difference in how much you need to save. Working longer, for example, can make a big difference, as can living on less money in retirement (more on that in a moment). Speaking of which:
70 is the new 65 A few more years in the workplace will benefit you in three ways:
You'll earn more money to contribute to your retirement funds.
Your nest egg will have longer to grow before it's tapped.
Your retirement will be shorter.
Yeah, that last one is pretty grim. Deal with it.
Delaying retirement until age 70 might reduce your required contributions to 15% to 20% of your gross income rather than 30% or more. That's still a big chunk of change, but it might be doable if you get serious about trimming expenses.
You'll help yourself even if you just cut down to part-time employment rather than giving up work entirely. Every $5,000 you earn means you need $100,000 less in assets, financial planner Ross Levin says, assuming you'll tap 5% of your nest egg annually in retirement.
Besides, you won't be alone in working longer. AARP tells us that two-thirds of baby boomers plan to work past traditional retirement age.
Don't underestimate Social Security If the reason you haven't saved is that you don't make much, you may be pleasantly surprised at how helpful your future Social Security check will be. It probably won't pay all your bills in retirement unless you really cut costs, but it could replace 25% or more of your current income. The MSN Money Retirement Planner can give you an estimate of how much to expect, or you can check the Social Security statement you get in the mail about three months before your birthday.
Isn't it dumb to rely on Social Security, you ask? Well, sure, if you're young. By 2041, Social Security is expected to have enough money to pay only 75 cents for every dollar in benefits promised to workers.
But you'll be in your late 80s by that point, long since retired (we hope) and among the least vulnerable to benefit cuts. Congress is much more likely to trim future benefits for young and well-off workers than it is to snatch checks away from vulnerable old folks.
"There will be Social Security reform, but it will be things like (removing) the cap on earnings and taxing at a higher rate," says Levin, who works for Accredited Investors, a financial-planning company in Edina, Minn. "You can't pull the rug out from under" elderly people already receiving benefits.
Video: A retirement reality check
Get brutal Retirement savings must become your priority, period. Everything else has to take a back seat.
That will be tough to hear if you've got kids heading for college or elderly parents you want to support. But college students can get loans, and your parents may qualify for all kinds of benefits (start with the Eldercare Locator and check out GovBenefits.gov as well).
If you've been the go-to family member when others run into financial trouble, it's time to shut down the Bank of You. You can read "Should parents bail out their kids?" and "Should you bail out spendthrift parents?" for generation-specific advice, or just head straight to "How to say no to anything -- or anyone."
Besides, you won't be alone in working longer. AARP tells us that two-thirds of baby boomers plan to work past traditional retirement age.
Don't underestimate Social Security If the reason you haven't saved is that you don't make much, you may be pleasantly surprised at how helpful your future Social Security check will be. It probably won't pay all your bills in retirement unless you really cut costs, but it could replace 25% or more of your current income. The MSN Money Retirement Planner can give you an estimate of how much to expect, or you can check the Social Security statement you get in the mail about three months before your birthday.
Isn't it dumb to rely on Social Security, you ask? Well, sure, if you're young. By 2041, Social Security is expected to have enough money to pay only 75 cents for every dollar in benefits promised to workers.
But you'll be in your late 80s by that point, long since retired (we hope) and among the least vulnerable to benefit cuts. Congress is much more likely to trim future benefits for young and well-off workers than it is to snatch checks away from vulnerable old folks.
"There will be Social Security reform, but it will be things like (removing) the cap on earnings and taxing at a higher rate," says Levin, who works for Accredited Investors, a financial-planning company in Edina, Minn. "You can't pull the rug out from under" elderly people already receiving benefits.
Video: A retirement reality check
Get brutal Retirement savings must become your priority, period. Everything else has to take a back seat.
That will be tough to hear if you've got kids heading for college or elderly parents you want to support. But college students can get loans, and your parents may qualify for all kinds of benefits (start with the Eldercare Locator and check out GovBenefits.gov as well).
If you've been the go-to family member when others run into financial trouble, it's time to shut down the Bank of You. You can read "Should parents bail out their kids?" and "Should you bail out spendthrift parents?" for generation-specific advice, or just head straight to "How to say no to anything -- or anyone."
You may not be able or willing to shed obligations to your parents, but any adult child without disabilities may need to be cut loose.
"With kids, you really have to think about some tough-love issues," says Delia Fernandez, a financial planner with Fernandez Financial Advisory in Los Alamitos, Calif., who recommends the books "Ready or Not, Here Life Comes" by Mel Levine and "When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us" by Jane Adams. "You can't continue to support them at the level they were accustomed to when they were living with you."
Get radical The fastest way to reach retirement is to dramatically cut your expenses. That will help you save more and at the same time reduce the total amount you need to save.
To learn how some people are doing it, read "Retired at 50: What it really takes." Many people who opt for this approach cite the book "Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin as their inspiration. The authors encourage people seeking financial independence -- that is, enough money to retire -- to examine every expense, from shelter costs to snacks, for ways to cut back.
If you're serious about getting out of the rat race, "Your Money or Your Life" may help. Try your public library first.
Catch up with catch-up provisions Once you're 50, you're allowed to stuff considerably more money into individual retirement accounts and workplace retirement plans such as 401k's and 403b's.
In 2009 and 2010, for example, your younger co-workers can contribute an annual maximum of $16,500 to a 401k and $5,000 to a standard individual retirement account or Roth IRA. Those 50 and older, though, can contribute an additional $5,500 to their 401k's and an additional $1,000 to their Roths -- for a total maximum contribution of $28,000 a year.
"With kids, you really have to think about some tough-love issues," says Delia Fernandez, a financial planner with Fernandez Financial Advisory in Los Alamitos, Calif., who recommends the books "Ready or Not, Here Life Comes" by Mel Levine and "When Our Grown Kids Disappoint Us" by Jane Adams. "You can't continue to support them at the level they were accustomed to when they were living with you."
Get radical The fastest way to reach retirement is to dramatically cut your expenses. That will help you save more and at the same time reduce the total amount you need to save.
To learn how some people are doing it, read "Retired at 50: What it really takes." Many people who opt for this approach cite the book "Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin as their inspiration. The authors encourage people seeking financial independence -- that is, enough money to retire -- to examine every expense, from shelter costs to snacks, for ways to cut back.
If you're serious about getting out of the rat race, "Your Money or Your Life" may help. Try your public library first.
Catch up with catch-up provisions Once you're 50, you're allowed to stuff considerably more money into individual retirement accounts and workplace retirement plans such as 401k's and 403b's.
In 2009 and 2010, for example, your younger co-workers can contribute an annual maximum of $16,500 to a 401k and $5,000 to a standard individual retirement account or Roth IRA. Those 50 and older, though, can contribute an additional $5,500 to their 401k's and an additional $1,000 to their Roths -- for a total maximum contribution of $28,000 a year.
Consider a side business You can put even more into tax-deferred accounts if you own a business. Sole proprietors who are 50 or older can stuff up to $54,500 into a solo 401k in 2009 (the limit is $49,000 for people younger than 50).
If you're able to save even more than that -- lucky you -- then a traditional pension plan may be the answer. These are complicated (read expensive) to set up and run, but they can allow you to put aside $100,000 or more a year toward your retirement.
Talk to a CPA or other tax pro experienced with small-business retirement plans for advice.
Don't count on your house When home prices were soaring, late starters had a backup plan: Sell the house and live off the equity.
Falling home prices have made that more difficult for today's retirees, and it may take years for real-estate values to recover.
In any case, trading down is usually more desirable in theory than in practice. To free up enough money to live on, Levin says, you may have to buy a much smaller place in a much less desirable neighborhood than where you live now.
"We've hardly seen anybody want to do that," Levin says. "They're not necessarily comfortable with what that looks like."
Moving to a cheaper area is also a possibility, but the majority of retirees want to "age in place" rather than start life over somewhere else.
Still, millions of retirees do opt to move, and some even go abroad to make their retirement funds stretch (read "Why retirees are fleeing the U.S."). If you've got plenty of equity and are considering such a change, consider spending at least a few weeks in your destination area to make sure it's a good fit before putting your house up for sale.
Video: A retirement reality check
Get help You can't afford to delay any longer. If your finances are a mess or you're intimidated by investing or you just need someone to hold your hand, then find an objective, qualified financial planner to help you get started.
You can get referrals to fee-only financial planners from the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors and the Garrett Planning Network. (Why fee-only and not fee-based or commissioned? Read "Can you trust your financial adviser?")
"If you're 55 and have credit card debt and you don't know what you're spending," Fernandez says, "you need to go to the emergency entrance of a financial planner's office."
Don't give up!
If you're able to save even more than that -- lucky you -- then a traditional pension plan may be the answer. These are complicated (read expensive) to set up and run, but they can allow you to put aside $100,000 or more a year toward your retirement.
Talk to a CPA or other tax pro experienced with small-business retirement plans for advice.
Don't count on your house When home prices were soaring, late starters had a backup plan: Sell the house and live off the equity.
Falling home prices have made that more difficult for today's retirees, and it may take years for real-estate values to recover.
In any case, trading down is usually more desirable in theory than in practice. To free up enough money to live on, Levin says, you may have to buy a much smaller place in a much less desirable neighborhood than where you live now.
"We've hardly seen anybody want to do that," Levin says. "They're not necessarily comfortable with what that looks like."
Moving to a cheaper area is also a possibility, but the majority of retirees want to "age in place" rather than start life over somewhere else.
Still, millions of retirees do opt to move, and some even go abroad to make their retirement funds stretch (read "Why retirees are fleeing the U.S."). If you've got plenty of equity and are considering such a change, consider spending at least a few weeks in your destination area to make sure it's a good fit before putting your house up for sale.
Video: A retirement reality check
Get help You can't afford to delay any longer. If your finances are a mess or you're intimidated by investing or you just need someone to hold your hand, then find an objective, qualified financial planner to help you get started.
You can get referrals to fee-only financial planners from the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors and the Garrett Planning Network. (Why fee-only and not fee-based or commissioned? Read "Can you trust your financial adviser?")
"If you're 55 and have credit card debt and you don't know what you're spending," Fernandez says, "you need to go to the emergency entrance of a financial planner's office."
Don't give up!
No matter how huge the task seems, even a partial victory is better than nothing. Wouldn't you rather face old age with something -- anything -- in the bank than wait for the mail carrier the first of each month?
Are Americans a Broken People? Why We've Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression
0 comments at 9:53 PM
A Thought Provoking story from Alternet
Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
Can anything be done to turn this around?
Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?
Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.
Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?
No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.
Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?
In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance, and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting this betrayal.
Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested these circumstances.
Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Yet, even this provoked few demonstrators.
When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice. Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.
U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
Maybe.
Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves-more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.
Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts and fear of having no health insurance.
The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation created by corporate-governmental policies. A 2006 American Sociological Review study ("Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades") reported that, in 2004, 25 percent of Americans did not have a single confidant. (In 1985, 10 percent of Americans reported not having a single confidant.) Sociologist Robert Putnam, in his 2000 book, Bowling Alone, describes how social connectedness is disappearing in virtually every aspect of U.S. life. For example, there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face contact with neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by governmental-corporate policies. And union activities and other formal or informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to resist oppression have also decreased.
We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity. A few examples:
Schools and Universities: Do most schools teach young people to be action-oriented -- or to be passive? Do most schools teach young people that they can affect their surroundings -- or not to bother? Do schools provide examples of democratic institutions -- or examples of authoritarian ones?
A long list of school critics from Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, John Holt, Paul Goodman, Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Ivan Illich, and John Taylor Gatto have pointed out that a school is nothing less than a miniature society: what young people experience in schools is the chief means of creating our future society. Schools are routinely places where kids -- through fear -- learn to comply to authorities for whom they often have no respect, and to regurgitate material they often find meaningless. These are great ways of breaking someone.
Today, U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly become places where young people are merely acquiring degree credentials -- badges of compliance for corporate employers -- in exchange for learning to accept bureaucratic domination and enslaving debt.
Mental Health Institutions: Aldous Huxley predicted today's pharmaceutical societyl "[I]t seems to me perfectly in the cards," he said, "that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude."
Today, increasing numbers of people in the U.S. who do not comply with authority are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric drugs that make them less pained about their boredom, resentments, and other negative emotions, thus rendering them more compliant and manageable.
Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers. The official symptoms of ODD include, "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules," and "often argues with adults." An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than the overt defiance of ODD is some type of passive defiance -- for example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all children diagnosed with ADHD will pay attention to activities that they actually enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the "disease" goes away.
When human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a "passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and not doing anything -- this is one reason why the Soviet empire crumbled. However, the diseasing/medicalizing of rebellion and drug "treatments" have weakened the power of even this passive-aggressive revolution.
Television: In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich) compiled a list of the "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy."
Mander claimed that television helps create all eight conditions for breaking a population. Television, he explained, (1) occupies people so that they don't know themselves -- and what a human being is; (2) separates people from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5) encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription-drug advertising); (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7) eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and (8) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.
Commericalism of Damn Near Everything: While spirituality, music, and cinema can be revolutionary forces, the gross commercialization of all of these has deadened their capacity to energize rebellion. So now, damn near everything – not just organized religion -- has become "opiates of the masses."
The primary societal role of U.S. citizens is no longer that of "citizen" but that of "consumer." While citizens know that buying and selling within community strengthens that community and that this strengthens democracy, consumers care only about the best deal. While citizens understand that dependency on an impersonal creditor is a kind of slavery, consumers get excited with credit cards that offer a temporarily low APR.
Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness, socializing self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating people from normal human emotional reactions, and by selling the idea that purchased products -- not themselves and their community -- are their salvation.
Can anything be done to turn this around?
When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is morale.
What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down.
The last people I would turn to for help in remobilizing a demoralized population are mental health professionals -- at least those who have not rebelled against their professional socialization. Much of the craft of relighting the pilot light requires talents that mental health professionals simply are not selected for nor are they trained in. Specifically, the talents required are a fearlessness around image, spontaneity, and definitely anti-authoritarianism. But these are not the traits that medical schools or graduate schools select for or encourage.
Mental health professionals' focus on symptoms and feelings often create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously. In contrast, people talented in the craft of maintaining morale resist this kind of self-absorption. For example, in the question-and-answer session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, "Yeah, every evening . . ."
If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what's the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what's the point? . . . First of all, those predictions don't mean anything -- they're more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you're guaranteeing that'll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism."
A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the advertised reality too seriously. In the early 1960s, when the overwhelming majority in the U.S. supported military intervention in Vietnam, Chomsky was one of a minority of U.S. citizens actively opposing it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, "When I got involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that we would ever have any effect. . . So looking back, I think my evaluation of the 'hope' was much too pessimistic: it was based on a complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read."
An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers" think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise. An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications. Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale.
Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and his latest book is Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007). His Web site is http://www.brucelevine.net/
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
Can anything be done to turn this around?
Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not "set them free" but instead further demoralize them?
Yes. It is called the "abuse syndrome." How do abusive pimps, spouses, bosses, corporations, and governments stay in control? They shove lies, emotional and physical abuses, and injustices in their victims' faces, and when victims are afraid to exit from these relationships, they get weaker. So the abuser then makes their victims eat even more lies, abuses, and injustices, resulting in victims even weaker as they remain in these relationships.
Does knowing the truth of their abuse set people free when they are deep in these abuse syndromes?
No. For victims of the abuse syndrome, the truth of their passive submission to humiliating oppression is more than embarrassing; it can feel shameful -- and there is nothing more painful than shame. When one already feels beaten down and demoralized, the likely response to the pain of shame is not constructive action, but more attempts to shut down or divert oneself from this pain. It is not likely that the truth of one's humiliating oppression is going to energize one to constructive actions.
Has such a demoralization happened in the U.S.?
In the United States, 47 million people are without health insurance, and many millions more are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage. But despite the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, there is no outpouring of millions of U.S. citizens on the streets of Washington, D.C., protesting this betrayal.
Polls show that the majority of Americans oppose U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry, yet only a handful of U.S. citizens have protested these circumstances.
Remember the 2000 U.S. presidential election? That's the one in which Al Gore received 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. That's also the one that the Florida Supreme Court's order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." Yet, even this provoked few demonstrators.
When people become broken, they cannot act on truths of injustice. Furthermore, when people have become broken, more truths about how they have been victimized can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more way we become even more psychologically broken.
U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses: They feel helpless to effect change. The more we don't act, the weaker we get. And ultimately to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shut-down mode and use escape strategies such as depression, substance abuse, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.
Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?
Maybe.
Shortly before the 2000 U.S. presidential election, millions of Americans saw a clip of George W. Bush joking to a wealthy group of people, "What a crowd tonight: the haves and the haves-more. Some people call you the elite; I call you my base." Yet, even with these kind of inflammatory remarks, the tens of millions of U.S. citizens who had come to despise Bush and his arrogance remained passive in the face of the 2000 non-democratic presidential elections.
Perhaps the "political genius" of the Bush-Cheney regime was in their full realization that Americans were so broken that the regime could get away with damn near anything. And the more people did nothing about the boot slamming on their faces, the weaker people became.
What forces have created a demoralized, passive, dis-couraged U.S. population?
The U.S. government-corporate partnership has used its share of guns and terror to break Native Americans, labor union organizers, and other dissidents and activists. But today, most U.S. citizens are broken by financial fears. There is potential legal debt if we speak out against a powerful authority, and all kinds of other debt if we do not comply on the job. Young people are broken by college-loan debts and fear of having no health insurance.
The U.S. population is increasingly broken by the social isolation created by corporate-governmental policies. A 2006 American Sociological Review study ("Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades") reported that, in 2004, 25 percent of Americans did not have a single confidant. (In 1985, 10 percent of Americans reported not having a single confidant.) Sociologist Robert Putnam, in his 2000 book, Bowling Alone, describes how social connectedness is disappearing in virtually every aspect of U.S. life. For example, there has been a significant decrease in face-to-face contact with neighbors and friends due to suburbanization, commuting, electronic entertainment, time and money pressures and other variables created by governmental-corporate policies. And union activities and other formal or informal ways that people give each other the support necessary to resist oppression have also decreased.
We are also broken by a corporate-government partnership that has rendered most of us out of control when it comes to the basic necessities of life, including our food supply. And we, like many other people in the world, are broken by socializing institutions that alienate us from our basic humanity. A few examples:
Schools and Universities: Do most schools teach young people to be action-oriented -- or to be passive? Do most schools teach young people that they can affect their surroundings -- or not to bother? Do schools provide examples of democratic institutions -- or examples of authoritarian ones?
A long list of school critics from Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, John Holt, Paul Goodman, Jonathan Kozol, Alfie Kohn, Ivan Illich, and John Taylor Gatto have pointed out that a school is nothing less than a miniature society: what young people experience in schools is the chief means of creating our future society. Schools are routinely places where kids -- through fear -- learn to comply to authorities for whom they often have no respect, and to regurgitate material they often find meaningless. These are great ways of breaking someone.
Today, U.S. colleges and universities have increasingly become places where young people are merely acquiring degree credentials -- badges of compliance for corporate employers -- in exchange for learning to accept bureaucratic domination and enslaving debt.
Mental Health Institutions: Aldous Huxley predicted today's pharmaceutical societyl "[I]t seems to me perfectly in the cards," he said, "that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude."
Today, increasing numbers of people in the U.S. who do not comply with authority are being diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric drugs that make them less pained about their boredom, resentments, and other negative emotions, thus rendering them more compliant and manageable.
Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) is an increasingly popular diagnosis for children and teenagers. The official symptoms of ODD include, "often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules," and "often argues with adults." An even more common reaction to oppressive authorities than the overt defiance of ODD is some type of passive defiance -- for example, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Studies show that virtually all children diagnosed with ADHD will pay attention to activities that they actually enjoy or that they have chosen. In other words, when ADHD-labeled kids are having a good time and in control, the "disease" goes away.
When human beings feel too terrified and broken to actively protest, they may stage a "passive-aggressive revolution" by simply getting depressed, staying drunk, and not doing anything -- this is one reason why the Soviet empire crumbled. However, the diseasing/medicalizing of rebellion and drug "treatments" have weakened the power of even this passive-aggressive revolution.
Television: In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television (1978), Jerry Mander (after reviewing totalitarian critics such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Jacques Ellul, and Ivan Illich) compiled a list of the "Eight Ideal Conditions for the Flowering of Autocracy."
Mander claimed that television helps create all eight conditions for breaking a population. Television, he explained, (1) occupies people so that they don't know themselves -- and what a human being is; (2) separates people from one another; (3) creates sensory deprivation; (4) occupies the mind and fills the brain with prearranged experience and thought; (5) encourages drug use to dampen dissatisfaction (while TV itself produces a drug-like effect, this was compounded in 1997 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration relaxing the rules of prescription-drug advertising); (6) centralizes knowledge and information; (7) eliminates or "museumize" other cultures to eliminate comparisons; and (8) redefines happiness and the meaning of life.
Commericalism of Damn Near Everything: While spirituality, music, and cinema can be revolutionary forces, the gross commercialization of all of these has deadened their capacity to energize rebellion. So now, damn near everything – not just organized religion -- has become "opiates of the masses."
The primary societal role of U.S. citizens is no longer that of "citizen" but that of "consumer." While citizens know that buying and selling within community strengthens that community and that this strengthens democracy, consumers care only about the best deal. While citizens understand that dependency on an impersonal creditor is a kind of slavery, consumers get excited with credit cards that offer a temporarily low APR.
Consumerism breaks people by devaluing human connectedness, socializing self-absorption, obliterating self-reliance, alienating people from normal human emotional reactions, and by selling the idea that purchased products -- not themselves and their community -- are their salvation.
Can anything be done to turn this around?
When people get caught up in humiliating abuse syndromes, more truths about their oppressive humiliations don't set them free. What sets them free is morale.
What gives people morale? Encouragement. Small victories. Models of courageous behaviors. And anything that helps them break out of the vicious cycle of pain, shut down, immobilization, shame over immobilization, more pain, and more shut down.
The last people I would turn to for help in remobilizing a demoralized population are mental health professionals -- at least those who have not rebelled against their professional socialization. Much of the craft of relighting the pilot light requires talents that mental health professionals simply are not selected for nor are they trained in. Specifically, the talents required are a fearlessness around image, spontaneity, and definitely anti-authoritarianism. But these are not the traits that medical schools or graduate schools select for or encourage.
Mental health professionals' focus on symptoms and feelings often create patients who take themselves and their moods far too seriously. In contrast, people talented in the craft of maintaining morale resist this kind of self-absorption. For example, in the question-and-answer session that followed a Noam Chomsky talk (reported in Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky, 2002), a somewhat demoralized man in the audience asked Chomsky if he too ever went through a phase of hopelessness. Chomsky responded, "Yeah, every evening . . ."
If you want to feel hopeless, there are a lot of things you could feel hopeless about. If you want to sort of work out objectively what's the chance that the human species will survive for another century, probably not very high. But I mean, what's the point? . . . First of all, those predictions don't mean anything -- they're more just a reflection of your mood or your personality than anything else. And if you act on that assumption, then you're guaranteeing that'll happen. If you act on the assumption that things can change, well, maybe they will. Okay, the only rational choice, given those alternatives, is to forget pessimism."
A major component of the craft of maintaining morale is not taking the advertised reality too seriously. In the early 1960s, when the overwhelming majority in the U.S. supported military intervention in Vietnam, Chomsky was one of a minority of U.S. citizens actively opposing it. Looking back at this era, Chomsky reflected, "When I got involved in the anti-Vietnam War movement, it seemed to me impossible that we would ever have any effect. . . So looking back, I think my evaluation of the 'hope' was much too pessimistic: it was based on a complete misunderstanding. I was sort of believing what I read."
An elitist assumption is that people don't change because they are either ignorant of their problems or ignorant of solutions. Elitist "helpers" think they have done something useful by informing overweight people that they are obese and that they must reduce their caloric intake and increase exercise. An elitist who has never been broken by his or her circumstances does not know that people who have become demoralized do not need analyses and pontifications. Rather the immobilized need a shot of morale.
Bruce E. Levine is a clinical psychologist and his latest book is Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007). His Web site is http://www.brucelevine.net/
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