you don't have to go as far as chernobal to see what a dirty bomb could do. that was a run-away reaction situation, which is really nothing like a dirty bomb.
a dirty bomb would be a situation that would have waste and by-products being uncontained. for a bit of insight into this just check the cancer rates in richland, pasco, and keniwick washington. thyroid problems for kids born in the last 30 years there are something like 450% of national average. I've talked to people who have had 7 people come down with the same type of cancer all on the block they live on, (and just about every one in the area has a simular story, maybe not as dramatic as 7 on 1 block but extreame none the less)
Boroda, I always try to hear you out and realise that you may have insights into areas I don't know about. but on this subject I do know what I'm talking about. I've worked in the nuke power industry, I've been inside generators during fuel change outages (and taken over 1,100 mrem of dose in a 37 sec entry), I've been contaminated, and agresivley deconned.
I've been to the hanford reservation where most of our waste and byproduct are 'stored'(stored in the sense of the word that a teenager stores stuff in their bedroom), I've seen the charts that show where the waste was put, what tanks leaked(when they used tanks other times the waste was put in cardboard boxes and dumped in trenches, or just ran whole trains into the desert and burried them), I've been shown where the leakes they know of have spread twards ground-water and and how the direction of those ground-plumes corolate with cancer rates of people using well-water in the path of that waste. I've seen the diagrams of cancer and thyroid rates on a map and how the high rates areas look axactly like the wind directional diagrams when calculated with gasseous releases of radioactive iodines.
they have these little yellow plackard they put up whenever they locate a spot where waste was dumped, I've stood in the desert and looked off to the horison in all directions and seen these plackards looking like some sort of fluffied up crop fading into the distance as far as I could see. and the sickness rates in the sarounding area are much higher than the rest of the country. not 'signifigantly higher', as in 3%, 10% 50%. I'm talking about 100% higher, 300% and more.
I have to tell you, if they've managed to convince you that "Also, JFYI: small doses of radiation are good for your health.", or that a handkerchief could protect you from contamination, or that the wastes can't come in the form of acid, or base solutions that will eat through your skin and take the contamination directly into your bloodstream (and eventually to your liver, kidneys,pancreas,......), or that after an incedent the gov't (in our case the DOE) won't try to hide or mislable disease or death rates, and misslead or outright lie to protect the public opinion of the nculear power system, then you're the one who's swallowed a bit too much propaganda in this case.