Patrick Henry Press News

Office evacuated after receiving a "threatening" letter that contained white powder.

Dems don't expect Pelosi to pick quickly a new chairperson of the House Ethics Committee.

... said Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt as he defended a regulation that would de-fund medical institutions which force workers to their jobs even if they have religious objections to them (e.g., make them give out birth control pills, or be involved in abortions, and so on.)

Really Mike? We all know that you mean "people shouldn't have to prescribe birth control pills, or be involved in abortions if they don't like them", but have you really thought this through?

What if someone thinks, like Mother Teresa did, that pain medications are bad, because you get closer to God when you're screaming in agony, and refuses to give that medication. What if it's you, Leavitt, who is the one screaming his ass off in pain. Because personally, I think it would be immoral to give you pain medication. I think you need to be closer to God, Leavitt, and if Mother Teresa says pain is how you get there, who am I to disagree? Who are you to disagree?

Or perhaps I object to transplant operations and refuse to put a new heart or liver into people?

Or perhaps like one doctor I knew, I can't stand smokers and fat people, because I think their heart problems and cancer problems are their own damn fault, and I have a moral objection to spending money or time on them? Are you fat, Leavitt? Any of your family members fat, Leavitt? Ever smoke?

Is this really a can of worms you want open, Leavitt? Oh, I know you think it'll never happen to you or your loved ones, because people in your class  an always find an abortion clinic when their 15 year old daughters get knocked up.

And why should we limit this to medical affairs? If you shouldn't force people to say or do things they believe are morally wrong, should members of the military be able to say "no, don't disagree with this war. I'll pass?" I mean, why not? Because you give up that right when you become a member of the military? Well, frankly, until your idiocy the same thing was said of the medical professions—you had to give people the help they needed, whether you liked it or not.

Or how about taxes. Very famously Thoreau refused to pay taxes because they would be used for a war he believed was morally wrong. Should people not be forced to pay taxes, Leavitt? Or perhaps "I'll pay 90% of my tax bill, but not the 10% that goes to stuff I don't agree with, like the Iraq war." Are you going to push for laws and regulations so that people aren't forced to fund government activities they don't agree with?

Because, Leavitt, if you are, then I'll grant you're not just a religious fanatic trying to allow other religious fanatics to not do their damn jobs. But if you aren't, then you're a simple hypocrite. If it's morally wrong to force people to do medical procedures that you think kill people, then surely it is wrong to force them to participate in or fund wars that kill people.

But, like all America's religious right fantatics, you only care about fetus's right to life. The second a fetus makes it into the world, that sucker is on its own. It's not about the right to life, because if it was, you'd have been against the Iraq war.

But you weren't, and you aren't, so all you are is a garden variety religious hypocrite.

1962: NS Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, completes its maiden voyage.

In a world terrified by the prospect of nuclear war, the Savannah was meant to demonstrate the peaceful use and positive potential of nuclear power. President Eisenhower conceived the idea as part of his "Atoms for Peace" program in 1955, a time when the United States and Soviet Union were routinely testing increasingly powerful nuclear weapons.

Four nuclear-powered merchant ships were eventually built.

The Savannah, named for the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 1819, was in every sense of the word a showcase. The ship was given a sleek, streamlined design that wasn't really compatible with stowing large amounts of cargo, a fact that would eventually shorten its career.

Passenger accommodation was comparable to many conventional liners of the day. There were 30 air-conditioned staterooms, a dining room for 100 people, a swimming pool, a library and a lounge that could be converted into a cinema.

But the heart of the Savannah was its nuclear propulsion system, which at $28 million ($203 million in today's money) cost more than the ship itself, a mere $18.5 million ($134 million today). The Babcock and Wilcox nuclear reactor drove Savannah's two steam-turbine engines cheaply and efficiently.

In the end, though, it wasn't economical enough to offset the tight forward cargo area and other deficiencies that made the ship too expensive to operate commercially. Its tapered bow not only limited the cargo capacity to 8,500 tons -- well below that of contemporary vessels -- but also made loading difficult, especially as ports became more automated.

The Savannah also required a crew of 124, one-third again as large as conventionally powered ships, and those crew members required additional training to work with the propulsion system.

The Maritime Administration, which owned Savannah, leased her in 1965 to American Export-Isbrandtsen Lines for cargo-passenger service. But the ship never turned a profit and was laid up in January 1972. The Savannah spent most of the 1970s tied up in Galveston, Texas, where it underwent regular inspections of its nuclear plant.

Since then, the ship, which has been designated a National Historic Landmark, has become a museum piece in search of a home. Following decommissioning, the nuclear fuel was removed; the process of cleaning out all remaining nuclear contamination continues in a Baltimore shipyard.

When that job is completed sometime in 2011, the Maritime Administration hopes to see Savannah converted into a floating museum. So far, there have been no takers.

Source: Various