Border Breach? Customs Fails to Detect Depleted Uranium — Again

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/Primetime/sept11_uranium030910.html ^ | 9/10/03 | scabbage

[El Gato]

Well depleted or enriched, it`s still freggin` uranium, something you might want to keep an eye on.

Depleted uranium is only slightly radioactive, and about as poisoness as lead or other heavy metals, too. Are you going to keep an eye on the all the heavy metals, lying around?

[Billthedrill]

"If they can't detect that, then they can't detect the real thing," explained Tom Cochran, a nuclear physicist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which lent the material to ABCNEWS for the project.

Cochran said the highly enriched uranium used for nuclear weapons, would, with slightly thicker shielding, give off a signature similar to depleted uranium in the screening devices currently being used by homeland security officials at American ports.

Yeah, the NRDC is sure a reliable source in the matter. It's like asking the "firearms experts" at the Brady Campaign about gun control policy. But it's clever to quote the NRDC - one could easily assume they meant the NRC, which is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, a genuine government entity. The NRDC is a private environmental advocacy group.

Mr. - he's going to have to prove "Dr." to me after this howler - Mr. Cochrane is a liar by equivocation. The "signature" he's talking about is, in small amounts of the respective substances, principally neutrons and heat. But the "signature" of 15 pounds of U-235 in close proximity is a very, very bright light and a mushroom cloud. Critical mass of 100%-enriched U-235 is only about 760 grams. A pound and a half.

There is a milspec for depleted uranium, which is approximately 60% as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium, which is only about 1% U-235 to begin with. Here are some facts about the stuff.

Personally I find this sort of "scare the hell out of Aunt Minnie" approach disgusting.

[El Gato]

I thought the official news media position was that depleted uranium was a highly dangerous substance that caused Gulf War syndrome and was making millions of Iraqi children sick.

It could be, although not likely. Chemically uranium, both fissionable and non-fissionable isotopes, is a a poison, just like lead is. It's more brittle though, and shooting the stuff (as in anti-tanks rounds for both tank shells and aircraft cannon) could make signifignet amounts of uranium dust, which if ingested, could cause sickness. Most indoor gun ranges don't allow food or drinks in the range area proper, because the lead dust could get into them and then be ingested. (probably overkill, but the theoretical possibility of harm is there)

[FreedomCalls]

Maybe they should try to ship in a suitcase full of barbie dolls into Saudi Arabia.

Oh yes, I had forgotten about that!

From "The Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices." website on things forbidden in Saudi Arabia:

The enemies of Islam want to invade us with all possible means, and therefore they have circulated among us this doll, which spreads deterioration of values and moral degeneracy among our girls." On the photo, under the heading "The Jewish Doll," is a story titled "The Strange Request." The story reads: "One girl said to her mother: 'Mother, I want jeans and a shirt open at the top, like Barbie's!!' The dolls of the Jewish Barbie in her naked garb [sic], their disgraceful appearance, and their various accessories are a symbol of the dissolution of values in the West. We must fully comprehend the danger in them.

[StopGlobalWhining]

Kill the messenger!

[Prolifeconservative]

ABCNEWS should be ashamed of themselves.

If this truly happened, they should go to the Homeland Security Department and say, "Psssssss, hey lookie here, we might have a problem here.....look what we were able to do."

But no, they have to make headlines with this kind of stuff, proclaim it to the world and show America to be vulnerable. It's just flat out despicable and borderline UNpatriotic. If ABC truly cared about America and her safety, they would keep these types of security breaches under their hat, disclosing their discoveries only to the American powers that be.

[EUPHORIC]

ABCNews apparently found a nicely complicit LIAR of a Physicist/Nuclear Expert to back up their story. DU would in NO WAY have the same radioactive signature as an Atomic Bomb or the physics package thereof.

DU is U238 and quite simply that stuff is refined OUT of Weapons Grade Uranium which is U235.

And although the U235 can indeed make a nice Atomic Bomb (the Little Boy Hiroshima bomb was a U235 weapon) it takes over 110 POUNDS of it to do the job.

And I frigginguaranteeya that any of the portal monitors currently in use would detect even a tiny quantity of U235.

U238 is indeed slightly Radioactive but nothing like U235 or Plutonium.

ABC is pushing an agenda with this one and sensationalizing with very bogus science. Kinda like sealing a few marijuana seeds in a sealed bag inside an evacuated flask and screeching chicken little style when the drug dogs give it a pass.

B.O.G.U.S.

[EUPHORIC]

Well depleted or enriched, it`s still freggin` uranium, something you might want to keep an eye on.

Why? U is EVERYWHERE in varying quantities. ya got some IN YOU!!!

15 Pounds of DU? Bleh. I've sold about 15 times that in Uranium Ore samples on eBay in the past two years. Got 37 pounds more ore samples in a large lead lined box behind me in the other room too. Ya want some? :)

I've got some small samples of DU too and it is only slightly Radioactive. The ABC thing was just BOGUS science from start to stop. Just technical smoke and mirrors to wow the scientifically impaired and get some marketshare in the ratings game.

On the positive side it will drive my eBay sales through the roof this month! Thank you ABC!!!!! :)

[ConservativeMan55]

This is the funniest line I've heard in a long time.

[Toddsterpatriot]

dolphin-safe organic depleted uranium

Hehe.