Monday, 2 May 2005
The legacy of Agent Orange
The US sprayed 80m litres of poisonous chemicals during Operation Ranchhand. There were many Agents used, including Pink, Green and White, but Agent Orange was used the most - 45m litres sprayed over a 10th of Vietnam.
Thirty years after hostilities ended between the US and Vietnam, the Vietnamese believe that the powerful weed killer used by america is responsible for massively high instances of genetic defects in areas that were sprayed.
Nguyen Trong Nhan, from the Vietnam Association Of Victims Of Agent Orange and a former president of Vietnamese Red Cross, believes the use of Agent Orange was a "war crime".
Agent Orange in particular was laced with dioxins - extremely toxic to humans. Dioxins accumulate in the body to cause cancers. Anyone eating or drinking in contaminated areas then receives an even higher dose.
Spraying stopped in 1971, after more than 6,000 missions and growing public disquiet.
In the late 1990s, a Canadian study tested soil, pond water, fish and duck tissue, as well as human blood samples, and found dangerously high levels of dioxin travelling up the food chain to humans. Dioxin concentrations have been found to be 13 times higher than average in the soil of affected areas, and, in human fat tissue, 20 times as high.
A Japanese study, comparing areas sprayed with those that were not, found children were three times more likely to be born with cleft pallets, or extra fingers and toes. There are eight times as many hernias in such children, and three times as many born with mental disabilities.
In 2001, scientists found that people living in an Agent Orange "hotspot" at Binh-Hoa near Ho Chi Minh City have 200 times the background amount of dioxin in their bloodstreams...
see also Depleted uranium, america's weapon thats currently causing under-reported problems in iraq
archive...
NEW PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
I pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora, fauna and human life that it supports, one planet indivisible, with safe air, water & soil, economic justice, equal rights and peace for all.
The US sprayed 80m litres of poisonous chemicals during Operation Ranchhand. There were many Agents used, including Pink, Green and White, but Agent Orange was used the most - 45m litres sprayed over a 10th of Vietnam.
Thirty years after hostilities ended between the US and Vietnam, the Vietnamese believe that the powerful weed killer used by america is responsible for massively high instances of genetic defects in areas that were sprayed.
Nguyen Trong Nhan, from the Vietnam Association Of Victims Of Agent Orange and a former president of Vietnamese Red Cross, believes the use of Agent Orange was a "war crime".
Agent Orange in particular was laced with dioxins - extremely toxic to humans. Dioxins accumulate in the body to cause cancers. Anyone eating or drinking in contaminated areas then receives an even higher dose.
Spraying stopped in 1971, after more than 6,000 missions and growing public disquiet.
In the late 1990s, a Canadian study tested soil, pond water, fish and duck tissue, as well as human blood samples, and found dangerously high levels of dioxin travelling up the food chain to humans. Dioxin concentrations have been found to be 13 times higher than average in the soil of affected areas, and, in human fat tissue, 20 times as high.
A Japanese study, comparing areas sprayed with those that were not, found children were three times more likely to be born with cleft pallets, or extra fingers and toes. There are eight times as many hernias in such children, and three times as many born with mental disabilities.
In 2001, scientists found that people living in an Agent Orange "hotspot" at Binh-Hoa near Ho Chi Minh City have 200 times the background amount of dioxin in their bloodstreams...
see also Depleted uranium, america's weapon thats currently causing under-reported problems in iraq
archive...
NEW PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
I pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora, fauna and human life that it supports, one planet indivisible, with safe air, water & soil, economic justice, equal rights and peace for all.
Sunday, 1 May 2005
"conventional military power stands little chance against a band of swarming 14th century terrorists." John Arquilla
archive...
On War and Transhumanism
a war over oil is like fighting a war over floppy discs or pre-1988 television sets. It's just plain absurd. Unless, of course, you happen to make your living in the fossil fuel industry.
There is one sure way to preempt self-evolution and to stop the Transhumanist dream and that's to return all of us to the Stone Age, when Christian fundie fanatics with nukes finally meet up with Islamic fundie fanatics with nukes and subsequently move toward their Final Conversation.
archive...
On War and Transhumanism
a war over oil is like fighting a war over floppy discs or pre-1988 television sets. It's just plain absurd. Unless, of course, you happen to make your living in the fossil fuel industry.
There is one sure way to preempt self-evolution and to stop the Transhumanist dream and that's to return all of us to the Stone Age, when Christian fundie fanatics with nukes finally meet up with Islamic fundie fanatics with nukes and subsequently move toward their Final Conversation.
"I'M NOT YOUR BOSS:
The Paradox of the Anarchist Superhero"
(written in 97 it lacks a perspective of both the invisibles and the authority)
"Since the invention of comic books in the 1930s, political and economic forces have conspired to keep comics a largely conservative medium. The genre of superhero comics in particular has tended to advocate a conservative, hierarchical view of human society.
New economic and creative freedom appeared in the comics industry in the 1980s, prompting the scripters of mainstream comics to experiment with political messages. In the vanguard of these innovative writers were three British comics scripters: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison.
The title character of Moore's V for Vendetta styles himself an anarchist revolutionary and indeed has antecedents in historical anarchist thinkers. Gaiman's Lord of Destruction is another example of an antiauthoritarian hero: by resigning his own divine office, he suggests that no one has a right to exercise authority over human beings. Morrison's absurdist villain Mr Nobody delivers another unique critique of the presumptions and institutions of authority. For all their brilliance, however, such comics have not supplemented their critique of social institutions with proposals as to how a reformed society might work."
(Anarchist Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, October 1997,)
The Paradox of the Anarchist Superhero"
(written in 97 it lacks a perspective of both the invisibles and the authority)
"Since the invention of comic books in the 1930s, political and economic forces have conspired to keep comics a largely conservative medium. The genre of superhero comics in particular has tended to advocate a conservative, hierarchical view of human society.
New economic and creative freedom appeared in the comics industry in the 1980s, prompting the scripters of mainstream comics to experiment with political messages. In the vanguard of these innovative writers were three British comics scripters: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, and Grant Morrison.
The title character of Moore's V for Vendetta styles himself an anarchist revolutionary and indeed has antecedents in historical anarchist thinkers. Gaiman's Lord of Destruction is another example of an antiauthoritarian hero: by resigning his own divine office, he suggests that no one has a right to exercise authority over human beings. Morrison's absurdist villain Mr Nobody delivers another unique critique of the presumptions and institutions of authority. For all their brilliance, however, such comics have not supplemented their critique of social institutions with proposals as to how a reformed society might work."
(Anarchist Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, October 1997,)
the fraud's prayer
our market who art on earth
hallowed be thy show
thy state power come
thy will be done
on the streets as it is in work
sell us this day our daily lie
and justify us y/our property
as we submit to those that assert property relations against us
and lead us anywhere but into autonomous temptation
but deliver us from anti-heirachical initiative
for our's is the stagnation
the cop and the celebrity
forever....or never?
amen
our market who art on earth
hallowed be thy show
thy state power come
thy will be done
on the streets as it is in work
sell us this day our daily lie
and justify us y/our property
as we submit to those that assert property relations against us
and lead us anywhere but into autonomous temptation
but deliver us from anti-heirachical initiative
for our's is the stagnation
the cop and the celebrity
forever....or never?
amen
87 min Lecture by Douglas Adams given a month before his death.
It’s a speech about the environment and his book Last Chance to See.
"All my other books are lined up in the science fiction section - which I kind of wish they weren’t. I think they could be in general fiction, but I don’t think there’s a science fiction writer who doesn’t think that," Adams said.
(via growabrain)
It’s a speech about the environment and his book Last Chance to See.
"All my other books are lined up in the science fiction section - which I kind of wish they weren’t. I think they could be in general fiction, but I don’t think there’s a science fiction writer who doesn’t think that," Adams said.
(via growabrain)
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!" ..... (oscar wilde)
A painting of a gorilla with a camera is among the pictures shortlisted for this year's BP Portrait Award.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
