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By Root 383 0

Orange is a defoliant, a plant killer, that was used in Vietnam. The idea was that the Vietcong wouldn’t be so hard to kill if we could see them better by killing the jungle canopy that protected them. Specifically, Agent Orange was a 50:50 mixture of two phenoxy herbicides, 2,4-D (2,4- dichlorophenoxy acetic acid) and 2,4,5-T (2,4,5-trichlorophenoxy acetic acid). The dioxin that makes Agent Orange so deadly isn’t even an intended part of the plant killer. Dioxin is a man-made by-product of the manufacturing process for making phenoxy herbicides like Agent Orange. Actually, when 2,4,5-T is manufactured, a “synthetic contaminant,” TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin), is an unwanted by-product that cannot be removed.

* The following conditions, according to Congressman Bernie Sanders’ website, are recognized for service connection for Vietnam vets exposed to Agent Orange: chloracne (a skin disorder), porphyria cutanea tarda, acute or subacute peripheral neuropathy (a nerve disorder), and numerous cancers (non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, soft-tissue sarcoma, Hodgkin’s disease, multiple myeloma, prostate cancer, and respiratory cancers, including cancers of the lung, larynx, trachea, and bronchus). In addition, Vietnam veterans’ children with the birth defect spina bifida are eligible for certain benefits and services.

* A wind dummy, according to Secretary of State (and former general) Powell, is an inflatable dummy combat pilots toss from an open hatch to gauge wind direction and velocity over landing zones.

* An internal USDA memo (November 2002) to inspectors in Kansas obtained by the Government Accountability Project (GAP) suggests how the culture was changing. It warns inspectors that they bear a large responsibility when they stop the company’s production line to check for contaminated meat. Their supervisors will only support inspectors’ decisions if there is visible evidence of gross contamination on sides of eviscerated beef moving by them on the production line. “Identifiable and verifiable in-gesta or feces is as follows: material of a yellow, green, brown or dark color that has a fibrous nature. Milk is cream colored to white fluid, not clear.” One problem with the standard established by the memo, according to Carol Tucker Foreman, a former USDA food-safety undersecretary, is the fact that a smear of feces that is not fibrous yet can still cause deadly E. coli food poisoning. In large processing plants, ground beef is mixed together and one contaminated flank can contaminate tons of ground beef. “Remember, YOU are accountable for this very serious responsibility of stopping the company’s production for the benefit of food safety” reads a warning no inspector could consider encouragement to use all legal means available to protect public health.

* Name changed at the subject’s request.

* You won’t be allowed to see who met with Cheney to make your energy policy, because the vice president refuses to release any list of lobbyists who met with the task force. The Government Accounting Office sued the vice president, something the oversight office had never before done in its eighty-one-year history. After losing in federal district court, the GAO abandoned its appeal when the Republicans took control of both houses and threatened the GAO with a substantial reduction in funding if it pursued its appeal. It is known that Enron CEO Ken Lay met with the energy task force, as did several other Enronites. It’s a safe bet that the names of several of Steve Griles’ clients are on the list. Ed Swartz didn’t make the cut.

* It seems McGraw was right on target. A year after he filed his report, The New York Times sent a reporter to Gillette, where he found methane bubbling out of the Belle Fourche.

* By spring 2003, as Oregon was limping through a deficit crisis unlike anything the state had experienced since World War II, it began to appear that Enron had led state and local governments astray too. A number cruncher for the city of Portland was poring over Enron’s Securities Commission filings and discovered Enron