Slashdot Mirror
DHS Pathogen Lab To Be Built In "Tornado Alley"
Hugh Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that Department of Homeland Security is relying on a rushed, flawed study to justify its decision to locate the $700 million National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility for highly infectious pathogens in a tornado-prone section of Kansas. A GAO report says that it is not 'scientifically defensible' to conclude that lab can safely handle dangerous animal diseases in Kansas. Such research has been conducted up to now on a remote island on the northern tip of Long Island, NY. 'Drawing conclusions about relocating research with highly infectious exotic animal pathogens from questionable methodology could result in regrettable consequences,' the GAO warned in its draft report. Critics of moving the operation to the mainland argue that a release could lead to widespread contamination that could kill livestock, devastate a farm economy, and endanger humans. Along with the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease, NBAF researchers plan to study African swine fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, and other viruses in the Biosafety Level (BSL) 3 and BSL-4 livestock laboratory capable of developing countermeasures for foreign animal diseases. According to the article, DHS lobbied a Congressional committee to try and convince them that the GAO report was flawed, and to head off any hearings on the controversy. Despite this, the House Energy and Commerce Committee's oversight and investigations subcommittee plans to hold a hearing Thursday on the risk analysis."
..hahahahahahahahha...sorry...
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
Re "it's 50+ years I haven't heard of one incident."
The infected workers in many labs like this around the would be dead or on disability and families are patriotic?
Asking for real autopsies and going to the courts, press ect can be very very very unhealthy.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
My wife and I commute in opposite directions, mine being a bit farther at 35 miles. Both government jobs, of a sort -- she teaches public high school and I'm a computer tech for a state university, so we're relatively secure, and our combined salaries are ~$80k/yr.
Traffic's not too bad; the worst is usually getting stuck behind a semi on a 2-lane highway for a long stretch, and sometimes the highway floods and I have to detour. Takes me about 50 minutes to get to work if I obey the 55 MPH speed limit. I would rather get a job in town and have a short commute again, but I like what I do.
I'm in southwest Missouri, so I can't speak for conditions in Wisconsin or Michigan. But don't expect any sort of mass transit.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Heh, klan zinger
Well, I grew up in the south...in one of the bluest counties in America (last election voted ~80% for Obama IIRC). The church my family went to was extremely liberal and extremely democrat (and I'm an atheist [or at least agnostic] now anyway, so that's done with).
The neighborhood I live in now is one that likes to pride itself on being progressive and accepting of alternate lifestyles, etc. I had to keep my political beliefs secret from wife's family because they're not exactly fond of Republicans. When at one Christmas dinner I couldn't stand it anymore and announced mid-Republican joke that I was a Republican there was a shocked silence for several minutes :-)
And yeah, I'm a conservative and a Republican.
Anyway, I guess my point with this post was just that stereotypes about people based on where they lived and _especially_ what party they choose to vote for are STUPID. I don't really get the thing about "oh my gosh, they're REPUBLICANS" [or, though again, I've never seen nor experienced ti..."oh my gosh, they're DEMOCRATS"] .. just baffling to me. My wife's political leanings never once entered into my consideration of how much i like her. It's all about respect. Even if you disagree with people politically, you can still respect them...
I guess that's part of uber-partisan modern American though. As the ranks of independents grow, the partisans become all the more vitriolic.