Easy Install and Boot from USB Hard Drive?

[rab <rab nauticom net>]

I've asked similar questions before. I've been directed to using 
mkinitrd but it's kind of complicated. Does anyone know of a Linux 
distribution that would be easy to install to and boot from a USB hard 
drive? I thought the computer dept. at my old company was bad but the 
computer dept. people at the new job are just plain Nazi's and stupid 
besides. (One person told me she thought that Linux was not secure and 
was virus prone.) I would prefer to dual boot the machine but if I can't 
I would like to boot and run from an external USB drive. The new machine 
supports booting from a USB drive - I checked the BIOS setup. I don't 
want to install anything on the computer's hard drive although if I had 
to boot initially from a floppy I could live with that. Surely someone 
has a simple solution.

Rick B.