News & Blues 6/2

Nuclear Power vs. Oil

Russia’s leading newspaper, Komsomoloskaya Pravda, suggested
the best way to handle the Gulf of Mexico oil geyser is to nuke it. It
reported the Soviet-era government relied on controlled, underground
nuclear blasts to move rock to plug oil leaks. Besides using “this
method five times to deal with petrocalamities,” the paper said
officials tried subterranean nuclear blasts as often as 169 times “to
accomplish fairly mundane tasks, like creating underground storage
spaces for gas or building canals.” Only one detonation failed to
accomplish its purpose. (The Raw Story)

Bad Medicine

Massachusetts authorities accused former Fall River dentist Michael
Clair of putting paper clips in patients’ mouths during root canals,
then billing Medicaid for the stainless steel posts he claimed he was
using. State prosecutors said that after Medicaid suspended Clair in
2002, he hired other dentists for his clinic and filed claims under
their names. (Associated Press)

Six New Jersey women who had black-market surgery to enhance their
buttocks wound up in the hospital because the injections contained a
diluted version of builder-grade silicone. “The same stuff you use to
put caulk around the bathtub,” said Steven M. Marcus, head of the New
Jersey Poison Information and Education System, adding it’s quite
different from medical silicone. Plastic surgeon Gregory Borah pointed
out that using over-the-counter silicone could cause abscesses on the
buttocks that resemble “a big zit.” (The Star-Ledger)

How Government Works

Although an Australian jobs tribunal agreed that an employer was
justified in firing a longtime worker for repeated safety violations
amounting to “relatively serious misconduct,” the panel also blamed the
company because the man’s firing turned out to be “a disaster” for him.
While helping clean a tank that filtered staples from recycled pulp at
the Norske Skog Paper Mills in Albury, Paul Quinlivan had to be told
four times to put his safety goggles back on. Fair Works Australia
tribunal vice president Michael Lawler pointed out that Quinlivan, who
worked at the mill for 20 years, was “a middle-aged man with very poor
employment prospects for whom the dismissal has such serious personal
and economic consequences.” The tribunal ordered the mill to rehire
Quinlivan and give him $16,000 (U.S. $14,600) as compensation. (The Australian)

News and Blues is compiled from the nation’s press. To
contribute, submit original clippings, citing date and source, to
Roland Sweet in care of The New Times.