Not really surprising

If this is true, I am not shocked:

James Gentry served his country honorably as a battalion commander in Iraq. Now, he is dying of a rare form of lung cancer. And he's not the only one. A troubling number of troops in Gentry's Indiana National Guard unit have bloody noses, tumors and rashes. And tragically, one soldier has already died.

New reports suggest these injuries may be the result of exposure to toxins at a KBR-run power plant in Southern Iraq. In 2003, James and his men were responsible for guarding that plant, and protecting KBR's employees. The soldiers were stationed there for months before being informed that the site was contaminated with a chemical known as hexavalent chromium.

...But this is not just some sad story about accidental chemical exposure. This is a question of responsibility. CBS News has uncovered evidence that KBR may have known about the contamination at the power plant months before it took any action to inform the troops stationed there.

This is sort of personal to me. Not that I think I was exposed to hexavalent chromium, but because when I got back I was able to answer, "often" to a question I would never have thought I could say, "even once" to.

In the health survey they ask if one was exposed to a host of things, one of them was, "Burning excrement," and I was. In Dogwood you could always tell when the wind from the latrine details had shifted. Last year I finally realised the vector for the infection which caused my Reiter's to manifest was smoke from the burn pits; probably by way of settling on my food.

So lets hope Evan Bayh's regisitry of the exposed is built.

Here's hoping

Women are doing better than they were when I was in high school. Back then I recall a chart saying they made 67 cents for the same work a man got a dollar to do.

Seemed wrong to me then. Seemed more wrong that the chart wasn't really being honest, because that what what white women got. Black, women, hispanic women, and asian women got even less.

Today women are getting about 80 cents on the dollar; if they are white. With luck that won't be the case next year. There was a big deal about this at the Democratic Convention, and today the house passed a bill (again) which is likely to go to the senate (which this time is likely to pass it, requiring equal pay for equal work.

Down with Tyranny has details.

“In this economy, families are struggling to make ends meet. Not one of them deserves to be shortchanged, but because women still earn 78 cents for every dollar men earn, many unfortunately are. But this does not need to be. Today, by passing the Paycheck Fairness Act, we send a strong message that gender discrimination is unacceptable and women will have the tools they need to combat it. We are standing up for working women and their families. It is our moment to fight for economic freedom and eliminate the systemic discrimination faced by women workers. With this legislation, we begin the change, make history, and change lives.”
Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)