4/26/2005: Agent Orange victim

[warch]

Apparently, decades after.

[glatt]

If ever.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Since nobody seems to have a way to clean it up, and it doesn't appear to be abating, the obvious solution is relocating. I suggest Texas.

[LCanal]

Untill then I'll look forward to a remake of John Candy's ConeHeads

[Clodfobble]

Texas already has the second-highest population of Vietnamese, after California. 134,961 as of the 2000 census.

41% of those are in one county (aka Houston.)

Seems someone already thought of it.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yeah, I remember the shrimp wars when they first got here and doubled the size of the shrimp fleet. That's why I thought Texas would be perfect with all that support group in place. I think Minnesota has a bunch too, IRRC?

[jaguar]

that's chloracne BigV. Can come on bloody fast to depending on exposure level, a bit like radioation sickness. IIRC big, old transformers had craploads of that stuff for coolant.
I'll quote myself wolf:

Maybe this one isn't Agent Orange related but the chances are it is

Dow and monsanto settled for a paltry 128m total, new claims have no *nowhere*.

I suggest Texas.

They've suffered enough.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by jaguar

that's chloracne BigV. Can come on bloody fast to depending on exposure level, a bit like radioation sickness. IIRC big, old transformers had craploads of that stuff for coolant.

PolyChlorinated Biphenol, not only transformers, all kinds of industrial and commercial oils were loaded with PCBs. That's why industrial sites, Railroad yards and Electric Company service yards are popular toxic fund cleanup sites.

[OnyxCougar]

Weren't we asked by South Vietnam to come help repel invasion from North Vietnam?

[LCanal]

Probably true I don't know the history.

That's the irony. Just as the Brits went to Northern Ireland originaly to protect the catholics from protestant violence.

Iraq is just getting started.

[tw]

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

Weren't we asked by South Vietnam to come help repel invasion from North Vietnam?

Read David Halberstam's "Making of a Quagmire". In particular is the battle of Ap Bac in December 1962. The S Vietnamese government's #1 fear was not communist insurgents (the Viet Cong). It was an coup d'etat by their own people. If a unit commander lost equipment while fighting communists, he could even be reprimmanded. Equipment that was stationed first and foremost to protect the S Vietname government from its own people.

Those who saw Vietnam in black and white never understood what David Halbersham warned in his 1964 book. Halberstam turned out to be right - in spades. But few even read the Pentagon Papers. To the ill informed, Vietnam was about stopping communism. Not really - at least from the perspective of the S Vietnamese government. For if it was true, then why was the Vietnam Declaration of Independence an exact copy of the US Declaration of Independence. For if it was true, then why did Ho Chi Minh send five letters to the US president asking that Vietnam be made a protectorate of the US - just like Philippines.

Those who see the world in simplist terms never really understood why America wasted so many lives in Vietnam. Making of a Quagmire is a lexicon of American culture because of this book. The domino theory was how politicans promoted their agenda to an American public who finally comprehended the real problem after 1972.