action figures sold separately

no nukes is good nukes [see comments for sources]

• days after 9/11/2001 on which the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission ruled that citizen concerns about plutonium fuel processing were not valid because citizens had failed to establish that “terrorist acts… fall within the realm of ‘reasonably foreseeable’ events.”: 1
• percentage of the very dangerous and highly radioactive cesium-137 which the NRC says could be released in a fire (started by earthquake, cracking, or impact from a plane or missile) at any of the 103 operating US nuclear power plants: 100%
• distance in miles from New York City to the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which holds 1,589 exremely volitile spent fuel assemblies: 35
• number of hazardous materials railroad accidents, per year, which occurred during the 1990’s: 33
• number of high-level nuclear waste shipments the US Dept. of Energy proposes to make to Yucca Valley over the next 38 years: 108,500
• number of truck and rail accients the DoE estimates could occur over those 38 years: 76
• number of truck and rail accidents estimated by transportation experts: 570
• rank of Hanford nuclear facility, near the Oregon/Washington border, amongst sites holing the largest volume of High-Level Radioactive wastes: 1
• number of new nuclear power plants which the Bush adminitration-assisted nuclear power industry is now planning to build: 25-50
• minimum number of nuclear weapons remaining in the world: 36,000
• factor by which, on average, these weapons are more powerful than the bomb the US military used to kill more than 66,000 Japanese in 1945: 18
• people in the US who would die immediately from an accidental launch of nuclear weapons from a single Russian submarine: 6,838,000
• number of “major” US nuclear weapons accidents that have occurred in the last 50 years: 50
• number of “conex” shipping conainters which arrive in the US each hour: 2000
• percentage of these containers which are opened for inspection: 2
• rank of “conex” containers among simplest delivery systems for a relatively easy-to-create crude atomic weapon: 1
• estimated minimum number of people who would be killed by such a weapon, if detonated in a metropolitan area such as New York: 270,000
• minimum number of years after which battle-used depleted uranium will continue to harm surrounding air, water, soil, and humans: 4,500,000,000
• estimated tons of depleted uranium stockpiled in the US: 500,000

without sounding trite i’d like to posit that it’s way past time for the US to simply quit the nuclear game and assist in the international efforts to stop this madness.

recalling a commentary on spending for education vs. incarceration which i wrote for Making Contact, i put together this little index (see comments for sources):

• current total u.s. government military expenditures, in dollars: 776,000,000,000
• years’ worth of drug treatment, for all u.s. residents who need it, which this amount would cover: 45.1
• number of extra K-12 students, beyond those already enrolled, for which this amount would pay all expenditures: 62,407,002
• dollars for repair of public housing recently cut from federal budget: 417,000,000
• dollars for job training and employment programs recently cut from federal budget: 700,000,000
• number of u.s. residents whose households regulary do not have enough food to eat: 8,500,000
• last year during which san francisco kept accurate records of the number of homeless people who died on the streets: 2000
• number of homeless people who died on SF streets that year: 169
• percentage of requests for emergency shelter that went unmet in 2001 due to lack of resources (bedspace): 37
• number of Food Not Bombs chapters sharing vegetarian food with hungry people and protesting war and poverty throughout the Americas, Europe and Australia: 175
• hours eli just spent trying, unsuccessfully, to track down reliable numbers for protests against “desert shield/desert storm” 1990-91 (UG!): 2
  [note: i think i have good info on that on paper somewhere, will update later, but if you have it, please post in comments.]

starting a new feature today, similar to the Harpers Index. click on the number to view the source material:

• rank of abortion among medical procedures most commonly provided to women in the u.s.: 1
• percentage of residency programs that require training in abortion: 12
  (note: the percentage of medical schools which require training is much smaller, approaching zero. the percentage of residency programs at which it is possible (but not required) to receive training is somewhat higher.)
• percentage of u.s. counties which have no identifiable abortion provider: 86
• percentage of u.s. rural counties which have no identifiable abortion provider: 95
• since 1997, dollars that the u.s. government has alloted to abstinence-only education programs: more than 500,000,000
• number of u.s. states that provide reimbursement for all medically necessary abortions for low-income women: 0