According to Tree Hugger:

This art project by Isao Hashimoto does a phenomenal job of showing us where and when we started obliterating pieces of the planet with nuclear weapons. In a short video, Hashimoto shows every nuclear bomb explosion on the Earth from 1945 when the US tested nuclear weapons before dropping the infamous bombs on Japan, to 1998 as India and Pakistan began testing their own weapons. It brings a whole new perspective to the debate on the use of nuclear technology.

The artist writes, “This piece of work is a bird’s eye view of the history by scaling down a month length of time into one second.  No letters are used for equal messaging to all viewers without language barriers.  The blinking light, sound and the numbers on the world map show when, where and how many experiments each country have conducted.  I created this work for the means of an interface to the people who are yet to know of the extremely grave, but present problem of the world.”

To learn more about the history of nuclear testing we highly suggest watching Radio Bikini. Nominated for an Academy Award, this documentary tells the eye-opening story of Bikini Atoll — one of the most terrifying tragedies of the nuclear age. The peaceful Pacific island was the unwitting site of atomic bomb tests conducted by the United States in 1946; extraordinary archival footage reveals the stark reality of these tests, which left the island uninhabitable for 40 years and exposed thousands of sailors to heavy doses of radiation.  For those interested Radio Bikini is currently available on Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” system.

Learn even more about the sordid history of nuclear bomb testing around the globe, including the American-made Castle Bravo disaster of 1954 via Wikipedia.

My question is why can’t America ever be first in something positive like education or health care?

posted by: Harold Johns III

“This video was made as a response to the G20 Summit in Toronto June, 2010.  The rest speaks for itself. It was sent to us by a lover of our music who wants to remain anonymous.  We are very proud to share this mash-up with you.”  – Broken Social Scene

“Meet Me In The Basement” is from Broken Social Scene’s latest album Forgiveness Rock Record.

posted by: Harold Johns III

WAL-MART RADIO TAGS TO TRACK CLOTHING

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. plans to roll out sophisticated electronic ID tags to track individual pairs of jeans and underwear, the first step in a system that advocates say better controls inventory but some critics say raises privacy concerns.

Starting next month, the retailer will place removable “smart tags” on individual garments that can be read by a hand-held scanner. Wal-Mart workers will be able to quickly learn, for instance, which size of Wrangler jeans is missing, with the aim of ensuring shelves are optimally stocked and inventory tightly watched. If successful, the radio-frequency ID tags will be rolled out on other products at Wal-Mart’s more than 3,750 U.S. stores…

But the company’s latest attempt to use its influence—executives call it the start of a “next-generation Wal-Mart”—has privacy advocates raising questions.

While the tags can be removed from clothing and packages, they can’t be turned off, and they are trackable. Some privacy advocates hypothesize that unscrupulous marketers or criminals will be able to drive by consumers’ homes and scan their garbage to discover what they have recently bought.

They also worry that retailers will be able to scan customers who carry new types of personal ID cards as they walk through a store, without their knowledge. Several states, including Washington and New York, have begun issuing enhanced driver’s licenses that contain radio- frequency tags with unique ID numbers, to make border crossings easier for frequent travelers. Some privacy advocates contend that retailers could theoretically scan people with such licenses as they make purchases, combine the info with their credit card data, and then know the person’s identity the next time they stepped into the store….

Wal-Mart won’t say how much it expects to benefit from the endeavor. But a similar pilot program at American Apparel Inc. in 2007 found that stores with the technology saw sales rise 14.3% compared to stores without the technology, according to Avery Dennison Corp., a maker of RFID equipment…

Read the full article via The Wall Street Journal (published July 23, 2010)

Our two cents: Like I need another reason not to shop at Wal-Mart…

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WIKILEAKS RELEASES SECRET FILES EXPOSING THE TRUTH ABOUT THE AFGHAN WAR, AS THE WAR MACHINE KEEPS ROLLING ANYWAY

Undoubtedly most of our readers don’t have the time nor the inclination to read through the 91,000 pages released by Wikileaks, so you may be wondering what exactly was revealed by the leak that’s such a big deal. Some of the biggest revelations include:

Pakistani Intelligence Possibly Helping Taliban Kill Americans
“Americans fighting the war in Afghanistan have long harbored strong suspicions that Pakistan’s military spy service has guided the Afghan insurgency with a hidden hand, even as Pakistan receives more than $1 billion a year from Washington for its help combating the militants, according to a trove of secret military field reports made public Sunday.” (via NY Times and The Times of India)

U.S. and Afghan Officials Covering Up Civilian Deaths
The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder finds “at least 144 separate incidents” of civilian casualties “and subsequent cover-ups.” He writes, “The failed special forces attempt to kill Abu Layth Ali Libi, which resulted in the deaths of civilians, suggests the willingness of some provisional governors to collude with the official storyline. … There is a reference to a CIA paramilitary operative shooting at 30 yards a blind woman, something that was duly reported back to headquarters.”

Drones Much Less Effective Than Claimed
Der Spiegel reports, “the secret memos reveal the drawbacks of a weapon that has been lauded by the US military as a panacea, a view shared by the president. In his short time in office, Barack Obama has unleashed double the number of drone missions ordered by his seemingly trigger-happy predecessor, George W. Bush. … But they are not always reliable. According to official reports, 38 Predator and Reaper drones have crashed while on combat missions in both Afghanistan and Iraq. … each drone crash necessitates elaborate — and dangerous — salvage operations.”

30 Years Later, Taliban Still Have The Stingers We Gave Them
During the anti-Soviet Afghan War of the 1980s, the U.S. helped the Afghan insurgents secure stinger missiles. After the Soviet military withdrew and during the civil war of the 1990s, which is when the Taliban first emerged, the U.S. attempted to recover all of the missiles. But the New York Times reports, “The Taliban have used portable heat-seeking missiles against allied aircraft, a fact that has not been publicly disclosed by the military. This type of weapon helped the Afghan mujahedeen defeat the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.”

So what happened in the aftermath of this rather bleak information being revealed? Not much, 48 hours later The House of Representatives approved a $59 billion emergency war bill, most of which will go toward troop buildup in Afghanistan.

Our two cents: What will it take to end this war we have no chance of winning? Seriously, what the F is the end game in this scenario?

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DOZENS OF PENTAGON WORKERS TIED TO CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

Federal investigators have identified several dozen Pentagon officials and contractors with high-level security clearances who allegedly purchased and downloaded child pornography, including an undisclosed number who used their government computers to obtain the illegal material, according to investigative reports.

The investigations have included employees of the National Security Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — which deal with some of the most sensitive work in intelligence and defense — among other organizations within the Defense Department.

The number of offenders is a small percentage of the thousands of people working for sensitive Pentagon-related agencies. But the fact that offenders include people with access to government secrets puts national security agencies “at risk of blackmail, bribery, and threats, especially since these individuals typically have access to military installations,’’ according to one report by the Defense Criminal Investigative Service from late 2009…

Many of those apprehended were swept up in a much broader probe initiated by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in 2006. Operation Flicker identified an estimated 5,000 people who had paid money over the Internet to access websites operated overseas. But until now, it has not been disclosed that a sizable number of cases were referred to the Defense Department for investigation because they involved military personnel, intelligence officials, or defense contractors.

Read the full article via The Boston Globe (published July 23, 2010)

Our two cents: Apparently finding terrorists is lower on the priority list for some Pentagon officials than downloading kiddie porn to government computers provided to them by American taxpayers.

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AUDIT REVEALS U.S. CANNOT ACCOUNT FOR $8.7B IN IRAQI FUNDS

A U.S. audit has found that the Pentagon cannot account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraq reconstruction money, spotlighting Iraqi complaints that there is little to show for the massive funds pumped into their cash-strapped, war-ravaged nation.

The $8.7 billion in question was Iraqi money managed by the Pentagon, not part of the $53 billion that Congress has allocated for rebuilding. It’s cash that Iraq, which relies on volatile oil revenues to fuel its spending, can ill afford to lose.

“Iraq should take legal action to get back this huge amount of money,” said Sabah al-Saedi, chairman of the Parliamentary Integrity Committee. The money “should be spent for rebuilding the country and providing services for this poor nation.”

The report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction accused the Defense Department of lax oversight and weak controls, though not fraud…

Seven years after the U.S.-led invasion, electricity service is spotty, with generation capacity falling far short of demand. Fuel shortages are common and unemployment remains high, a testament to the country’s inability to create new jobs or attract foreign investors.

Read the full article via AP News on Google (published July 28, 2010)

Our two cents: Why would Iraq’s infrastructure need so much rebuilding? Oh yeah, our armed forces blew it all to shit during that whole “Shock and Awe” thing in our buildup to find those WMD’s Saddam didn’t have anyway.

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BANKS FINANCING MEXICO GANGS ADMITTED IN WELLS FARGO DEAL

Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet.

They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in Toluca, near Mexico City, Mexican prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else.

The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August 2010 issue.

This was no isolated incident. Wachovia, it turns out, had made a habit of helping move money for Mexican drug smugglers. Wells Fargo & Co., which bought Wachovia in 2008, has admitted in court that its unit failed to monitor and report suspected money laundering by narcotics traffickers — including the cash used to buy four planes that shipped a total of 22 tons of cocaine….

Wachovia admitted it didn’t do enough to spot illicit funds in handling $378.4 billion for Mexican-currency-exchange houses from 2004 to 2007. That’s the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history — a sum equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product.

Read the full article via Bloomberg (published June 28, 2010)

Our two cents: This is not surprising in the least given the amoral attitudes of our nation’s largest banks.

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Bonus: Top Secret America – A Washington Post Investigation

The Government has built a national security and intelligence system so big, so complex and so hard to manage, no one really knows if it’s fulfilling its most important purpose: keeping its citizens safe. 45 government organizations and 2,000 private companies spread over 10,000 locations within 1,000 communities across America are currently involved in top-secret operations.

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Bonus: Freedom of Photography – Police, Security Often Clamp Down Despite 1st Amendment (via Washington Post)

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posted by: Harold Johns III

click the image for a larger version

According to Good Magazine (published July 20, 2010):

Google compiles and holds vast amounts of the world’s data. It’s supposed to be totally private but sometimes governments need that information for investigations, and they request it from Google (or its subsidiaries like YouTube, Blogger, or Orkut). Other times, governments find a piece of data offensive or erroneous, and request that Google remove it from its database entirely. The search giant makes all these requests public. This is a look at which countries ask Google for the most information on its users, which ask Google to remove the most information, and how often Google gives information.

The infographic was designed by MGMT design.

posted by: Brent Carter

Alexaner Kosolapov, “McDonalds Commercial”

RUSSIAN CURATORS ANGER CHURCH, BUT ESCAPE JAIL

Two Russian curators were found guilty Monday of inciting religious hatred in a case that has highlighted the growing influence of the church and its links to the Russian government.

Yuri Samodurov and Andrei Yerofeyev were showered with roses by supporters as a Moscow court cleared them of a maximum jail sentence of three years for their 2007 Forbidden Art exhibit, which mixed religious icons with sexual and pop-culture images.

They must instead pay fines of 200,000 roubles ($6,477) and 150,000 roubles, respectively, to the state. Leading cultural figures had appealed to President Dmitry Medvedev to drop the charges, saying it heralded a new era of censorship.

“I am certain that this decision comes directly from Prime Minister (Vladimir Putin) and President (Medvedev),” Yerofeyev told Reuters when leaving the courtroom to chants and prayers from elderly women…

Russia’s Orthodox Church is undergoing a major revival after the fall of Communism almost 20 years ago and Russia’s leaders have endorsed it as the country’s main faith…

Among the art on display in the 2007 exhibit were works depicting an Orthodox icon adorned with Mickey Mouse, a Russian general raping a soldier, and a Soviet-era Order of Lenin medal over Christ’s head…(Check out some of the artwork here)

The works from the exhibit were placed behind a peep-holed veil so only those who wanted to could view them, and photography was banned to prevent the imagery from being broadly distributed.

Read the full article via Yahoo! News (published July 12, 2010)

Our two cents: What would Russia be without some censorship? Freedom of expression is a beautiful thing, I’m glad we have it here.

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CHEMO THERAPY DRUGS MAY BE GIVING HEALTH CARE WORKERS CANCER

Sue Crump braced as the chemo drugs dripped into her body. She knew treatment would be rough. She had seen its signature countless times in the ravaged bodies and hopeful faces of cancer patients in hospitals where she had spent 23 years mixing chemo as a pharmacist.

At the same time, though, she wondered whether those same drugs — experienced as a form of “secondhand chemo” while she mixed the drugs as a pharmacist at Swedish Medical Center and elsewhere — may have caused her cancer to begin with.

Chemo is poison, by design. It’s descended from deadly mustard gas first used against soldiers in World War I…

Crump, who died of pancreatic cancer in September at age 55, was one of thousands of health-care workers who on the job was chronically exposed to chemotherapy agents for years before there were even voluntary safety guidelines in place. Now some of those workers are being diagnosed with cancers that occupational-health specialists say could be linked to exposure to those same powerful drugs that have saved hundreds of thousands of patient lives.

Studies as far back as the 1970s have linked increased rates of certain cancers to nurses and physicians. Occupational-health experts believe that’s because when nurses, pharmacists, technicians and, increasingly, even veterinarians mix and deliver the drugs, accidental spills, sprays and punctures put them in close, frequent contact with hazardous drugs.

A just-completed study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) — 10 years in the making and the largest to date — confirms that chemo continues to contaminate the work spaces where it’s used and in some cases is still being found in the urine of those who handle it, despite knowledge of safety precautions…

Read the full article via The Seattle Times (published July 10, 2010)

Our two cents: Plain and simple, this is just sad.

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THE GULF OF MEXICO IS AWASH IN 27,000 ABANDONED OIL WELLS

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one — not industry, not government — is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.

The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells — those characterized in federal government records as “temporarily abandoned.”

Regulations for temporarily abandoned wells require oil companies to present plans to reuse or permanently plug such wells within a year, but the AP found that the rule is routinely circumvented, and that more than 1,000 wells have lingered in that unfinished condition for more than a decade. About three-quarters of temporarily abandoned wells have been left in that status for more than a year, and many since the 1950s and 1960s — eveb though sealing procedures for temporary abandonment are not as stringent as those for permanent closures.

As a forceful reminder of the potential harm, the well beneath BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig was being sealed with cement for temporary abandonment when it blew April 20, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in the nation’s history. BP alone has abandoned about 600 wells in the Gulf, according to government data.

Read the full article via AP News on Google (published July 6, 2010)

Our two cents: Nuke them all! Just kidding…our planet is fucked anyway.

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WORKERS CLEAR 1,000 TONS OF FAT FROM LONDON SEWER

Sewer workers have cleared out 1,000 tons of compressed fat and trash from beneath London’s Leicester Square, a tourist hot spot and venue for glitzy movie premieres.

Workers clad in overalls with masks and gloves shoveled out enough gunk to fill nine of London’s iconic double-decker buses, utility Thames Water said in a statement.

“We’re used to getting our hands dirty, but nothing on this scale,” said Danny Brackley, a sewer flusher with Thames Water. “We couldn’t even access the sewer as it was blocked by a 4-foot wall of solid fat.”

The fat is the product of Londoners’ “sewer abuse” — using the water system as general garbage disposal. Particularly troublesome is Londoners’ habit of pouring used cooking oil down the sink. Once in the sewer, the oil cools, congeals and then traps other garbage.

Getting at the goo was not easy. Teams of workers, replete with breathing apparatus to protect them from the rancid smell, had to attack the fat with shovels. They then used water cannons to break down the “fatbergs” inside the sewer…

Read the full article via AOL News (published July 14, 2010)

Our two cents: I just threw up in my own mouth a little

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US DENIES VISA TO AWARD WINNING COLOMBIAN JOURNALIST BECAUSE OF “TERRORIST ACTIVITIES”

The U.S. government has denied a visa to a prominent Colombian journalist who specializes in conflict and human rights reporting to attend a prestigious fellowship at Harvard University.

Hollman Morris, who produces an independent TV news program called “Contravia,” has been highly critical of ties between illegal far-right militias and allies of outgoing President Alvaro Uribe, Washington’s closest ally in Latin America.

The curator of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, which has offered the mid-career fellowships since 1938, said Thursday that a consular official at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota told him Morris was ruled permanently ineligible for a visa under the “Terrorist activities” section of the USA Patriot Act.

“We were very surprised. This has never happened before,” said the Nieman curator, Bob Giles. “And Hollman has traveled previously in the United States to give speeches and receive awards.” He said he had written the State Department to ask it to reconsider the decision.

He said the committee had discussed its concerns with State Department officials but was not provided with an explanation…

The 41-year-old Morris, one of 12 foreign journalists admitted to the Nieman program for the 2010-2011 academic year, is among the most controversial chroniclers of Colombia’s long-running leftist insurgency. Among international awards he has received is one from Human Rights Watch in 2007 in which he was praise by Executive Director Kenneth Roth for “courage, an unswerving commitment to justice and genuine concern for the rights of all victims.”

On Feb. 3, 2009, President Uribe called Morris “an accomplice of terrorism” posing as a journalist after Morris showed up with FARC rebels to cover the insurgents’ liberation of four Colombian security force members. Morris was also among journalists, judges and opposition politicians whose phones were illegally tapped by Colombia’s DAS state security agency…

Read the full article via AP News on Google (published July 9, 2010)

Our two cents: Keeping a journalist out of our country because he interviews leftist paramilitary groups while criticizing one of America’s crooked allies is Neo-McCarthyism at its worst.

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posted by: Harold Johns III

News moves fast these days, really fast, so fast we often struggle to get all the information we want to share up on The Rathaus. Our WTF News can be particularly troublesome in this regard, seemingly because we’re swimming in just this type of news as of late. So in an effort to document the best of the worst and the weirdest in the news, we’ve put together another roundup segment. Here’s what we’ve been shaking our heads to in WTF disbelief recently.

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OFFICERS CLAIM THEY DON’T NEED A LAW TO STOP PHOTOGRAPHERS FROM TAKING PICTURES

Two police officers stopped a teenage photographer from taking pictures of an Armed Forces Day parade – and then claimed they did not need a law to detain him.

Jules Mattsson, a 16-year-old freelancer from Hackney, east London, was photographing police cadets on Saturday when he was ordered to stop and give his personal details by an adult cadet officer who claimed he needed parental permission to capture images of the cadets.

After arguing his rights in a series of protracted legal debates with officers, the sixth former says he was pushed down a set of stairs and detained for breaching the peace until the parade passed.

Read the full article (with video of the incident) via The Independent

Our two cents: England’s own Association of Police Chiefs has made it clear that police are not allowed to harass photographers of any kind while in the public realm, so obviously the cops were out of line and acted like a goon squad in this instance.

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OKLAHOMA POLICE TASE AN 86-YEAR-OLD BEDRIDDEN WOMAN FOR NOT TAKING HER MEDS

American police have been accused of tasering an 86-year-old bed-ridden grandmother. Lonnie Tinsley called the emergency services to his home in El Reno, Oklahoma, when he became concerned that his grandma Lona Vernon had failed to take her medication. But instead of a medical technician, he claims at least a dozen armed police officers answered his call.

When Mrs Vernon ordered the police from her house, officer Thomas Duran allegedly decided she was being ‘aggressive’ and gave the order: ‘Taser her.’ Her alarmed grandson is then said to have replied: ‘Don’t taze my granny!’ According to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Tinsley’s ‘obstructive’ behavior prompted the police to threaten him with their tasers. He was then assaulted, removed from the room, thrown to the floor, handcuffed, and detained in a police car.

In order to ensure ‘officer safety’, one of his men ‘stepped on her oxygen hose until she began to suffer oxygen deprivation.’ Another of the officers then shot her with a taser, but the connection wasn’t solid. A second fired his taser, ‘striking her to the left of the midline of her upper chest, and applied high voltage, causing burns to her chest, extreme pain’, and unconsciousness.

Read the full article via the Daily Mail

Our two cents: American cops use tasers with all the discretion of a drunk teenager carrying a gross of bottle rockets. Check out TaserWatch to read other incidents of Taser abuse.

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ALL MCNUGGETS ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL, SOME CONTAIN THE SAME INGREDIENTS AS SILLY PUTTY

U.S. McNuggets not only contain more calories and fat than their British counterparts, but also chemicals not found across the Atlantic. CNN investigated the differences after receiving a  blog comment asking about them.

American McNuggets (190 calories, 12 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat for 4 pieces) contain the chemical preservative tBHQ, tertiary butylhydroquinone, a petroleum-based product. They also contain dimethylpolysiloxane, “an anti-foaming agent” also used in Silly Putty. By contrast, British McNuggets (170 calories, 9 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat for 4 pieces) lists neither chemical among its ingredients….

Dimethylpolysiloxane is used as a matter of safety to keep the oil from foaming, says Lisa McComb, who handles global media relations for McDonald’s. The chemical is a form of silicone also used in cosmetics and Silly Putty. A review of animal studies by The World Health Organization found no adverse health effects associated with dimethylpolysiloxane.

TBHQ is a preservative for vegetable oils and animal fats, limited to .02 percent of the oil in the nugget. One gram (one-thirtieth of an ounce) can cause “nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse,” according to “A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives.”

Read the full article via CNN’s The Chart

Our two cents: As a general rule, don’t eat food with an ingredient you can’t pronounce.

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LIGHTNING STRIKES THREE OF THE TALLEST BUILDINGS IN CHICAGO AT THE SAME TIME

Watch the video here

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AT LEAST 604 PEOPLE WERE ARRESTED DURING RECENT PROTESTS AGAINST THE G20 SUMMIT IN TORONTO, CANADA

Many of those arrested were innocent bystanders who were waiting for buses, walking their dogs or just taking a stroll. Amnesty International Canada is calling for an independent review of the G8/G20 security measures.

Read the full article via CBC News

Watch video taken behind the lines here

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posted by: Harold Johns III