Showing posts with label poison. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poison. Show all posts

Friday, November 2, 2012

Monday, March 12, 2012

Return Of Godzilla: Japan's Nuclear Meltdown


Godzilla (ゴジラ, Gojira?) is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. With the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still fresh in the Japanese consciousness, Godzilla was conceived as a monster created by nuclear detonations and a metaphor for nuclear weapons in general.

Although his origins vary somewhat from film to film, he is always described as a prehistoric creature, who first appeared and attacked Japan at the beginning of the Atomic Age. In particular, mutation due to atomic radiation is presented as an explanation for his size and powers. The most notable of Godzilla's resulting abilities is his atomic breath: a powerful heat ray of fire from his mouth.

Godzilla is one of the most recognizable symbols of Japanese popular culture worldwide and remains an important facet of Japanese films, embodying the kaiju subset of the tokusatsu genre. He has been considered a filmographic metaphor for the United States, as well as an allegory of nuclear weapons in general. The earlier Godzilla films, especially the original, portrayed Godzilla as a frightening, nuclear monster. Godzilla represented the fears that many Japanese held about the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the possibility of recurrence. (read more)


(godzilla trailer) (nuclear boy)

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Godzilla: the nuclear monster


Godzilla (ゴジラ, Gojira?) is a daikaijū, a Japanese movie monster, first appearing in Ishirō Honda's 1954 film Godzilla. Since then, Godzilla has gone on to become a worldwide pop culture icon starring in 28 films produced by Toho Co., Ltd.

With the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still fresh in the Japanese consciousness, Godzilla was conceived as a monster created by nuclear detonations and a metaphor for nuclear weapons in general. As the film series expanded, the stories took on less serious undertones portraying Godzilla in the role of a hero, while later movies returned to depicting the character as a destructive monster.

Although his origins vary somewhat from film to film, he is always described as a prehistoric creature, who first appeared and attacked Japan at the beginning of the Atomic Age. In particular, mutation due to atomic radiation is presented as an explanation for his size and powers. The most notable of Godzilla's resulting abilities is his atomic breath: a powerful heat ray of fire from his mouth.

Godzilla is one of the most recognizable symbols of Japanese popular culture worldwide and remains an important facet of Japanese films, embodying the kaiju subset of the tokusatsu genre. He has been considered a filmographic metaphor for the United States, as well as an allegory of nuclear weapons in general. The earlier Godzilla films, especially the original, portrayed Godzilla as a frightening, nuclear monster. Godzilla represented the fears that many Japanese held about the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the possibility of recurrence. (read more) (godzilla trailer) (nuclear boy)



Wednesday, February 16, 2011

eat money


When all the trees have been cut down...

when all the waters are poisoned...

when all the animals have been hunted...

only then will you discover you cannot eat money.

~ Cree Prophecy

Friday, December 10, 2010

this has to stop


December brings the biggest showdown with Illinois' and possibly the nation's most gluttonous corporate freeloader: the corn ethanol industry.

Symbolically, the upcoming battle of budget hawks against ethanol's special pleaders is as significant as the fight over continuing the Bush tax cuts.

At issue is whether Congress will allow corpulent ethanol subsidies and a tariff against some imported ethanol to expire on Dec. 31. The ethanol industry has been tromping around Washington like starving bears, hoping to get the deal done during this lame-duck session of Congress, before budget-cutting hunters arrive in the next Congress.

Ethanol's supporters assert that it is an environmentally friendly, renewable and cost-effective gasoline additive. Its opponents dispute it on every point, arguing, among other things, that ethanol costs more than gasoline to make, raises food prices, increases tailpipe pollution and encourages cultivation of fragile lands. But dare to question ethanol, which consumes 41 percent of the corn crop, and snowstorms of studies are produced, from both sides. Clearly, the science supporting ethanol is "unsettled." Which makes spending billions of taxpayers' and consumers' dollars on ethanol at best a costly crapshoot.

Despite that, the Environmental Protection Agency recently decided that we aren't consuming enough of it. Instead of mandating that 10 percent of gasoline sold at the pump be ethanol, as has been required for years, the EPA issued its so-called E15 rule, which raised to 15 percent the allowable blend of ethanol for cars and certain trucks built since 2007. In that, the EPA ignored studies pointing to the harmful effects that 50 percent increase will have on cars, including the agency's own conclusion that it would damage the catalytic converters of tens of millions of cars now on the road.

Wait, that's only the start. The ethanol industry also receives a tax credit amounting to 45 cents a gallon and is aided by a tariff on sugar-cane ethanol valued at 54 cents. In addition, the 2007 energy act mandates the use of renewable fuels, including ethanol: 10.5 billion gallons in 2009, 14 billion in 2011 and 36 billion by 2022.

This is extraordinary. And insane. Here, the government creates a fake market for ethanol, then subsidizes the market, and then protects the market against foreign competition.

This has to stop. But don't count on it.

Agribusiness is an American biggie, especially in Illinois, loaded as we are with ethanol giant Archer Daniels Midland Co., commodities markets, corn farmers and countless refiners, processors, haulers and investors. Their people sit on important corporate boards and their campaign contributions flow into Congress and state legislatures. Even cost-cutters will pretend not to notice the need to carve away at this turkey, one of the most heavily subsidized businesses in America. And, I haven't even mentioned the tens of billions of federal dollars that go for crop subsidies and other boons for wheat, cotton, sugar, peanuts, dairy, wool and other types of farmers.

Critics of these subsidies get it from the right and the left. But opposing the subsidies is a growing coalition from the right and left. Among them are the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Working Group, Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council, National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, International Dairy Foods Association and Grocery Manufacturers Association. As their Web site (followthescience.org) illustrates, they are united in their opposition to the EPA's E15 rule for a variety of environmental and economic reasons, including, no doubt, their own self-interest. The coalition earlier this month filed a federal lawsuit charging that the EPA exceeded its statutory powers by issuing the rule. (chicagotribune.com)

Thursday, December 9, 2010

a better way


"What is wrong with us? Why do we seem to care so little about our own safety, our own health, and the future of our children?" asks Maria Rodale, farmer, author and CEO of Rodale Inc. "Why are we willing to pay thousands of dollars for vitro fertility treatments when we can't conceive, but not a few extra dollars for the organic food that might help to preserve the reproductive health of our own and future generations?"

In her powerful and informative new book, Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe, Maria Rodale has done all of the thinking and the research about organic farming for us. Yay, we don't have to think! Following in the path of her grandfather, JI Rodale, who launched Organic Gardening and Farming magazine in 1942 and her father Robert Rodale, who devoted his life to educating others on health and environmental issues, Maria Rodale explains why and how we must immediately begin to undo the damage we have done to the environment and to ourselves.

The 'Farming System Trial' that her father, Robert Rodale began in 1990, is now the longest running scientific study comparing 'synthetic-chemical' versus 'organic' agriculture. After 20 years of experiments, the trial clearly shows that organic farming is not only more productive than chemical farming, especially during times of flood or drought, but that soil farmed organically is a necessary step toward solving our climate crisis. 'Mycorrhizal fungi' which grow at the roots of plants, stores carbon. These miraculous fungi build our soil and its health while also sequestering excess carbon and pulling it underground.
(read more) (rodaleinstitute.org)