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Video: Kseniya Simonova -- Sand animation

(Україна має талант / Ukraine's Got Talent)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 64 years

Daniel Ellsberg: Our popular image of nuclear war -- from the familiar pictures of the devastation of Nagasaki and Hiroshima -- is grotesquely misleading. Those pictures show us only what happens to humans and buildings when they are hit by what is now just the detonating cap for a modern nuclear weapon.

Drug company fakes science to push HRT

Medical Papers by Ghostwriters Pushed Therapy

The New York Times: Newly unveiled court documents show that ghostwriters paid by a pharmaceutical company played a major role in producing 26 scientific papers backing the use of hormone replacement therapy in women, suggesting that the level of hidden industry influence on medical literature is broader than previously known.

The articles, published in medical journals between 1998 and 2005, emphasized the benefits and de-emphasized the risks of taking hormones to protect against maladies like aging skin, heart disease and dementia. That supposed medical consensus benefited Wyeth, the pharmaceutical company that paid a medical communications firm to draft the papers, as sales of its hormone drugs, called Premarin and Prempro, soared to nearly $2 billion in 2001.

But the seeming consensus fell apart in 2002 when a huge federal study on hormone therapy was stopped after researchers found that menopausal women who took certain hormones had an increased risk of invasive breast cancer, heart disease and stroke. A later study found that hormones increased the risk of dementia in older patients...

The articles appeared in 18 medical journals, including The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and The International Journal of Cardiology. The articles did not disclose Wyeth's role in initiating and paying for the work. Elsevier, the publisher of some of the journals, said it was disturbed by the allegations of ghostwriting and would investigate...

Dr. Joseph S. Ross, an assistant professor of geriatrice at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, who has conducted research on ghostwriting [said] 'You don't know which articles are tainted and which aren't.' Because physicians rely on medical literature, the concern about ghostwriting is that doctors might change their prescribing habits after reading certain articles, unaware they were commissioned by a drug company.

Image source here.

Sea ice thins, tundra heats up

New NASA Satellite Survey Reveals Dramatic Arctic Sea Ice Thinning

Arctic tundra hotter, boosting global warming: BC expert

Vancouver Sun: Regions of Arctic tundra around the world are heating up very rapidly, releasing more greenhouse gases than predicted and boosting the process of global warming... Professor Greg Henry of the University of British Columbia also said higher temperatures meant larger plants were starting to spread across the tundra, which is usually covered by small shrubs, grasses and lichen. The thicker plant cover means the region is getting darker and absorbing more heat. He said tundra covers about 15 per cent of the world's surface and makes up about 30 per cent of Canadian territory.

Henry, who has been working in the Arctic since the early 1980s, said he had measured 'a very substantial change' in the tundra over the last three decades... Since 1970, he said, temperatures in the tundra region had risen by 1 degree Celsius per decade -- equal to the highest rates of warming found anywhere on the planet. 'We're finding that the tundra is actually giving off a log more nitrous oxide and methane than anyone had thought before... We're really trying to get a handle on this because (if further tests show) that's true, this actually changes the entire greenhouse gas budget for the North, and that has global implications.'

Image: NASA

US war economy

From The New York Times.

'You couldn't ask for a better boss.'

From Paul Hawken's Commencement Address to the Class of 2009

University of Portland, May 3rd, 2009

Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating... Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades... And here's the deal: Forget that this task is not possible in the time required...

If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore the this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse... You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day... This is the largest movement the world has ever seen...

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers... This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know... And today tens of millions of people do this every day...

The first living cell came into being nearly 40 million centuries ago, and its direct descendants are in all of our bloodstreams... In each of you are one quadrillion cells, 90 percent of which are not human cells. Your body is a community, and without those other microorganisms you would perish in hours... In a millisecond, our body has undergone ten times more processes than there are stars in the universe...

So I have two questions for you all: First, can you feel your body?... One septillion activities going on simultaneously, and your body does this so well you are free to ignore it... You can feel it. It is called life... Second question: who is in charge of your body?... Life is creating the conditions that are conducive to life inside you, just as in all of nature... What I want you to imagine is that collectively humanity is evincing a deep innate wisdom in coming together to heal the wounds and insults of the past... Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn't ask for a better boss.

Image source here.

Afghanistan: 'The absurdity of the war'

War without purpose

Chris Hedges, Truthdig: No one seems to be able to articulate why we are in Afghanistan. Is it to hunt down bin Laden and al-Qaida? Is it to consolidate progress? Have we declared war on the Taliban? Are we building democracy? Are we fighting terrorists there so we do not have to fight them here? Are we 'liberating' the women of Afghanistan? The absurdity of the questions, used as thought-terminating cliches, exposes the absurdity of the war. The confusion of purpose mirrors the confusion on the ground. We don't know what we are doing.

Al-Qaida, terrorists bit players in Afghan attacks 2004-2008: report

The Canadian Press: Al-Qaida and other hard-core terrorists groups are behind only a fraction of the attacks carried out in Afghanistan over a four-year period... Ethnic Pashtun Taliban were responsible for 97 per cent of the bombings, ambushes and kidnappings... Violence is driven from the ground up rather than from outside the country. Washington and Ottawa for years have claimed the troops are fighting international terrorists in Afghanistan in order to prevent attacks in North America... Civilian bombings and shootings by NATO forces have contributed to the growing violence... Kandahar City and the surrounding area, where Canada's 2,850 troops and aircrew are based, was the most violent region in the country.

Armageddon at the Top of the World: Not!

Juan Cole, in TomDispatch: Few of the Pashtuns in question, even the rebellious ones, are really Taliban; few so-called Taliban are entwined with what little is left of al-Qaeda in the region; and Iran and Russia are not, of course, actually supporting the latter. There maybe plausible reasons for which the US and NATO wish to spend blood and treasure in an attempt to forcibly shape the politics of the 38 million Pashtuns on either side of the Durand Line in the twenty-first century. That they form a dire menace to the security of the North Atlantic world is not one of them.

Civilian deaths up 24 per cent in Afghanistan: UN

The Globe and Mail: Two thirds of the deaths caused by the Afghan government forces or its international allies came in air strikes.

War Complicates Aid Efforts for Afghan Women

Truthout: Orzala Ashraf Nemat, a leading civil society and human rights activist in Kabul, disagrees with the US troop buildup. 'As an Afghan woman I feel the military is definitely not the solution... Look at what is happening with the troop increase. This year there is more violence and more fighting and more threats, more suicide bombings. Women and children are the main victims of fighting and war... Sweeta Noori, Afghanistan's country director for Women for Women International [said] the vast majority of women in Afghanistan have seen no improvement in gender-based discrimination and violence... Women's rights have actually deteriorated as a direct consequence of deliberate US policy, including alliances with warlords hostile to women's rights... 'Additionally, the US war has fueled a misogynist insurgency that has only gotten stronger and worsened anti-woman sentiment.'

Afghanistan women outraged at proposed family law

The Guardian: The law has already achieved its aim -- instilling fear and insecurity among an already traumatised female population... Jamila Barekzai is a police officer whose female colleague was killed last year in Kandahar for daring to do a man's job... 'The biggest problem facing women today in Afghanistan, aside from illiteracy, is the lack of support. It is always the intention of men to keep women in their cages. To keep women down.'

Image source here.

Author outs rape in US armed forces

Three Good Reasons to Liquidate our Empire

And Ten Steps to Take to Do So

Chalmers Johnson, in Tom Dispatch

3. We Need to End the Secret Shame of Our Empire of Bases

In March, New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert noted, 'Rape and other forms of sexual assault against women is the great shame of the US armed forces, and there is no evidence that this ghastly problem, kept out of sight as much as possible, is diminishing.' He continued: 'New data released by the Pentagon showed an almost 9 percent increase in the number of sexual assaults -- 2,923 -- and a 25 percent increase in such assaults reported by women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan [over the past year].'...

The problem is exacerbated by having our troops garrisoned in overseas bases located cheek-by-jowl next to civilian populations and often preying on them like foreign conquerors. For example, sexual violence against women and girls by American GIs has been out of control in Okinawa, Japan's poorest prefecture, ever since it was permanently occupied by our soldiers, Marines, and airmen some 64 years ago...

The problem of rape has been ubiquitous around all of our bases on every continent and has probably contributed as much to our being loathed abroad as the policies of the Bush administration or our economic exploitation of poverty-stricken countries whose raw materials we covet...

It is fair to say that the US military has created a worldwide sexual playground for its personnel and protected them to a large extent from the consequences of their behavior. As a result a group of female veterans in 2006 created the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN). It's agenda is to spread the word that 'no woman should join the military.'

I believe a better solution would be to radically reduce the size of our standing army, and bring the troops home from countries where they do not understand their environments and have been taught to think of the inhabitants as inferior to themselves.

Chalmers Johnson is the author of Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006), and editor of Okinawa: Cold War Island (1999).

Image source here.

Iran: 'We can win this.'

For a few hours I saw a look in many people's faces that I had not seen since the week after the election -- a look that said, 'we can win this.'

-- Email from Tehran

Iran security forces retreat as huge numbers of mourners gather at cemetery

Los Angeles Times: Uniformed security forces initially clashed violently today with some of the mourners, supporters and leaders of the opposition, who were there to protest and grieve for those killed in recent unrest. Unsuccessful presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi attempted to attend the graveside ceremony marking the religiously significant 40th day since the death of [Neda] Agha-Soltan and others killed in the fighting...

According to one witness, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, Mousavi stepped out of his car only to be surrounded by police, who forced him back into his vehicle and out of the cemetery. At first, mourners were confronted by security forces, who struck some with batons and made arrests in an attempt to bar them from gathering at Tehran's Behesht Zahra cemetery, the country's largest. The tree-lined streets leading to the graves of Agha-Soltan and others were blocked by riot police, the witness said.

The witness said protesters identified and violently confronted several plainclothes Basiji militiamen. 'Police, police, support us,' the crowd chanted. 'God is great!' But as people poured out of the nearby subway station and taxis along the highway, security forces retreated. One witness said police released detainees and began cooperating with the mourners, directing them to Section 257 of the cemetery, where Agha-Soltan and others were buried.

Videos here.

Image source here.

Human activity causing mass extinction

Human activity is driving Earth's 'sixth great extinction event'

The Guardian: Earth is experiencing its 'sixth great extinction event' with disease and human activity taking a devastating toll on vulnerable species, according to a major review... [The] report identifies six causes driving species to extinction, almost all linked in some way to human activity... Species are being threatened by habitat loss and degradation, invasive species, climate change, over-exploitation, pollution and wildlife disease...

The report sets out a raft of recommendations to slow the decline by introducing laws to limit land clearing, logging and mining; restricting deliberate introduction of invasive species; reducing carbon emissions and pollution; and limiting fisheries. It raises particular concerns about bottom trawling, and the use of cyanide and dynamite, and calls for early-warning systems to pick up diseases in the wild.

Dead and buried

Cretaceous-Tertiary: 65m years ago the dinosaurs were wiped out in a mass extinction that killed nearly a fifth of land vertebrate families, 16% of marine families and nearly half of all marine mammals. Thought to have been caused by asteroid impact that created Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan.

End of Triassic: About 200m years ago, lava floods erupting from the central Atlantic are thought to have created lethal global warming, killing off more than a fifth of all marine families and half of marine genera.

Permian-Triassic: The worst mass extinction took place 250m years ago, killing 95% of all species. Experts disagree on the cause.

Late Devonian: About 360m years ago, a fifth of marine families were wiped out, alongside more than half of all marine genera. Cause unknown.

Ordovician-Silurian: About 440m years ago, a quarter of all marine families were wiped out by fluctuating sea levels as glaciers formed and melted again.

Image source here.

Iran rallies tomorrow in memory of Neda

Strong Words From Iran's Opposition

New York Times: Mr. Moussavi and other opposition leaders have asked permission [which was denied] to hold a public mourning ceremony for the dead on Thursday. That day has great symbolic importance, because it is 40 days after the shooting of Neda-Agha-Soltan, the young woman whose death ignited widespread outrage in Iran and beyond. Commemorating the 40th day after a person's death is an important mourning ritual in Shiite Islam; similar anniversaries for dead protesters were essential in the demonstrations that led to the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Iran's Protesters: Phase 2 of Their Feisty Campaign

Time: Phase 2 has begun. Six weeks after millions took to the streets to protest Iran's presidential election, their uprising has morphed into a feistier, more imaginative and potentially enduring campaign. The second phase plays out in a boycott of goods advertised on state-controlled television... It includes calls to switch on every electric appliance in the house just before the evening TV news to trip up Tehran's grid. It features quickie 'blitz' street demonstrations, lasting just long enough to chant 'Death to the dictator!' several times but short enough to evade security forces. It involves identifying paramilitary Basij vigilantes linked to the crackdown and putting marks in green -- the opposition color -- or pictures of protest victims in front of their homes. It is scribbled antiregime slogans on money. And it is defiant drivers honking horns, flashing headlights and waving V signs at security forces.

The tactics are unorganized, largely leaderless and only just beginning. They spread by e-mail, websites and word of mouth. But their variety and scope indicate that Iran's uprising is not a passing phenomenon... Iranians are rising above their fears... Today's public resolve is reminiscent of civil disobedience in colonial India before independence or the American Deep South in the 1960s. Mohandas Gandhi once mused that 'even the most powerful cannot rule without the cooperation of the ruled.' That quotation is now popular on Iranian websites... The public is defining its own agenda, with Rafsanjani, Mousavi and other opposition figures responding to sentiment on the street rather than directing it. After meeting on July 20 with the families of people detained following the election, Mousavi warned the power structure, 'You are facing something new: an awakened nation, a nation that has been born again and is here to defend its achievements.'

Image source here.

Heat to spike soon at 150% of predicted rate

World will warm faster than predicted in next five years

New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles is expected to silence global warming sceptics

The Guardian: The research to be published in Geophysical Research Letters... is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO2 and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity, and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.

The analysis shows the relative stability in global temperatures in the last seven years is explained primarily by the decline in incoming sunlight associated with the downward phase of the 11-year cycle, together with a lack of strong El Niño events. These trends have masked the warming caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

As solar activity picks up again in the coming years, the research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change... The study comes within days of announcements from climatologists that the world is entering a new El Niño warm spell. This suggests that temperature rises in the next year could be even more marked.

Image source here.

High water temperatures kill Fraser sockeye

Sockeye salmon numbers crash as bust replaces anticipated bounty on BC coast

Pacific Salmon Commission cuts estimates of spawning salmon almost in half

Vancouver Sun: What was supposed to be a bountiful year for the Fraser River Sockeye salmon fishery -- the height of the four-year cycle -- is beginning to look like a bust... Instead of the 165,000 projected before the season started, the commission now expects 85,000... The commission has also downgraded its pre-season projection of 739,000 early summer sockeye by 64 per cent to 264,000.

But the big question is what will happen to the summer sockeye, which are supposed to make up 83 per cent of the 10.5 million salmon the Pacific Salmon Commission had predicted would make their way up the Fraser River this year. The summer sockeye run so far has been 'well below expectations,' said a fishery notice released by Fisheries and Oceans Canada...

The Fisheries and Oceans Canada report is not optimistic, noting: 'Fraser River water temperatures are forecast to reach approximately 21 C by Aug. 1. Water temperatures exceeding 20 C may cause high en route mortality of Fraser River sockeye.' As a result of the low returns, the sockeye fishery on the Fraser River has been closed until further notice, raising concerns that first nations may not be able to catch enough for their food fishery...

Last year's sockeye salmon catch was 1.7 million fish, Fisheries and Oceans Canada salmon team leader Paul Ryell said last September. That was well below the average return of 4.4 million fish. In October, the International Union for the Conservation of nature went so far as to label BC's sockeye salmon a threatened species.

Image source here.

Fireworks? I'll show you fireworks!

It was the second night of Vancouver's Celebration of Light, the international fireworks competition, and South Africa was up. They did a great job, once we got to them, but the opening and collaborative act was the combination of a long and powerful thunderstorm coinciding with a glorious sunset.

First, the 1) Thunderstorm! Seen from Kitsilano, blue and white bolts striking behind downtown and the West End, stalking into North Shore Mountain valleys and finally moving west into the 2) Sunset! Cloud to ground, cloud to cloud, some of the bolts more like fireballs, their paths curving. People gathering on rooftops and balconies for the evening's fireworks shouting and oohing. Sheet lightning, bolts, the whole kit, and meanwhile a mist of fine rain dispersing all the light so that half the sky is amber/apricot from the sunset, half is blue/indigo, the blurred boundary a mauve/gray, indigo gradually moving across the sky until the sunset is a band on the horizon, but the lightning continues, no wind, the storm is basically sitting on us, and then the 3) Fireworks! By the time those started the rain had stopped and the storm had settled into sheet lightning outlining the mountains, but one sheet of blue covered the entire sky, its thunderclap-and-roll overwhelming the boom and crack of the fireworks. Even after the human display was over the sheet lightning continued. The storm lasted more than two and a half hours. 'Fireworks, eh? I'll show you fireworks!'

Image by Frank Eerdt, Vancouver Sun; photo gallery here.