A friend forwarded me this article about 3 nuns from Kerala (the region of India my parents hail from...) who have chosen to remain in Baghdad.  They do so in defiance of government of India recommendations for citizens to leave the country.   The article is just so-so but it contains a classic example of how conventional wisdom gets regurgitated and reinforced by being referenced as a "side fact" in other stories:

The three -- Denzy, Rosylin and Thresiana, who hail from Kerala, arrived in Baghdad six years ago with a Bangladeshi nun and are the foster parents for the children. The parents of most of these hapless children died in the 1991 war. Some others died soon after the war due to radiation poisoning, caused by depleted uranium weapons used by the US.

Now, we don't know *exactly* how many civilian parents died in the '91 war (some speculation about this vanishingly small number is here) but it absolutely pales in comparison to the number of orphaned kids that Saddam has created over the past 20 years.   But somehow our hapless reporter found the custodians - Nuns no less - of the kids whose parents' loss can be specifically traced back to US-wrought Gulf War I violence.   Such info is presented so matter-of-factly that there's no reason for the reader to begin to question the conventional wisdom.

AND, of course, evil depleted uranium weapons used by the US had something to do with it as well.  Uranium.   Such an ugly word.   Using it *must* be just shy of a form of chemical warfare, isn't it?   SDB had some great, technical posts on why the DU debate is so stupid --here and here -- a quote:

"Depleted uranium" or DU is pure U-238, which isn't fissionable at all. I'm more radioactive than an equal mass of DU, and I'm about as fissionable. (All humans are radioactive because of small amounts of potassium-40 and carbon-14, both of which as beta sources are far more dangerous than U-238 is.)

Clearly, the reporter -- one V J Thomas (also likely a fellow Keralite) -- has some pretty strong preconceived notions about what went on in Gulf War I.  And these nuggets of conventional wisdom innocuously work their way "under the radar screen" of people on the look out for things like the DU debate. 

Oh, that liberal media.