Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
COMMENTARY: This week, as widely reported, the U.S. Navy blew up the dysfunctional Lockheed-Martin satellite known as “USA 193.” According to the Pentagon, we’ve blown it up real good.
The Department of Defense, rather than risk 1,000 pounds of the toxic fuel hydrazine being released into the atmosphere, decided to destroy the space vehicle. Launched December 14, 2006, the reconnaissance mission of the defunct 220-mile-high orbiter was never revealed.
A Navy Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) was launched from the cruiser USS Lake Erie at an estimated cost of $60 million, a pittance compared to the approximately $10 billion annual budget for a missile-defense system in the works for the past 25 years.
Now, you may be asking: Why the fuss over some rocket fuel that many say would have burned up as the satellite re-entered Earth’s atmosphere?
Yes, it’s highly toxic, easily absorbed through the skin, and also found in small amounts in tobacco smoke.
But is that the real focus? Isn’t the military actually worried about satellite spy technology falling into the “wrong” hands? Aren’t they also eager to show off their missiles after a similar Chinese satellite shoot-down last year?
If the Department of Defense was really worried about the satellite’s toxic propellant, wouldn’t they also have concern for the hundreds of thousands of tons of depleted uranium (DU) that is sprayed as ammunition in the current War on Terror?
An estimated 375 tons of the toxic metal DU was pulverized and scattered in Kuwait and Iraq during the Gulf War of 1991.
Although DU’s effects have been deemed by the Pentagon as non-hazardous at levels that coalition soldiers experience in the ongoing offensive to spread democracy and freedom in Iraq, others have declared the dust created by exploded depleted uranium shells to be the modern equivalent of Vietnam-era Agent Orange.
The same Pentagon officials so worried about rocket fuel also conscript thousands of U.S. soldiers to breathe radioactive dust in daily missions. Not to mention the environmental hazard left for locals when the Iraq occupation finally ends.
Yeah, I feel so much safer now that they blowed up that satellite. They blowed it up real good.
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