Between 1930 and 1998, Dzerzhinsk was the dumping site for 300,000 tons of improperly disposed of chemical waste. 300,000 people are affected by the city's chemical and toxic byproduct pollution, such as sarin and VX gas. The pollution is a result of Cold War-era manufacturing of chemical weapons. According to Mother Nature Network, in 2003, the city’s death rate surpassed its birth rate by 260 percent.
Okay, so it could be worse than Columbus, WI, where the worst is some dairy feedlot pollution, last year's chemical fire, and the mosquito swarms.
Still amused to this day that doctors in Kentuck told my folks we should move to Arizona to "cure" my sister's childhood asthma. If she was already blue in KY, she would have been downright purple in AZ--you could watch the smog settle every day from our farm, which was slightly outside of town and elevated about 1000 feet over the nasty valley. But with those dust storms, particles were always bad enough to justify a bandit kerchief at all times.
STILL better that Russia or China!!
9 Of The Most Polluted Places In The World (PHOTOS)
Huffington Post, by Barbara Fenig - First Posted: 08-31-10 08:26 AM - Updated: 08-31-10 03:24 PM
From the highways of Los Angeles to the Citarum River of Bandung, Indonesia, earth's most polluted city of Linfen, China to the streets of London, the world is laden with man-made pollution. Chemical, air, water and oil pollution ruin the environment, cause premature deaths, spoil the world's resources and worsen climate change.
As the world's population soars to nearly 7 billion, we here at HuffPost Green thought that it time to investigate some of the world's most polluted places. Check out our slideshow of nine of the most polluted places in the world. Find out which city's death rate surpasses its birth rate by 260 percent. Or which city has 50,000 people die prematurely each year due to man-made air pollution.
*cough, cough*
Read more!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
9 Of The Most Polluted Places In The World (PHOTOS)
These are not going by unnoticed...
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer Robert H. Reid, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 48 mins ago
KABUL, Afghanistan – Five more American troops were killed in action in Afghanistan on Tuesday, ending the month with a spike in bloodshed that has claimed the lives of 19 U.S. service members in only four days.
The U.S. death toll for August stood at 55 — three-quarters of them in the second half of the month as the Taliban fight back against U.S. pressure in southern and eastern strongholds. American losses accounted for more than 70 percent of the 76 fatalities suffered by the entire NATO-led force.
NATO said four of the Americans were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, while a fifth died in a gunfight with insurgents in the country's south. No other details were released.
Until the late month spike, it appeared that the death toll for August would be well below the back-to-back monthly records of 66 in July and 60 in June.
By the middle of August only 13 Americans had been killed — in part because of greater use of heavily armored vehicles and other defenses against roadside bombs, the Taliban weapon of choice.
The reason behind the sudden spike in deaths was unclear because few details about the casualties are released for security reasons.
A member of a Marine honor guard salutes the family of Lance Cpl. Kevin Cornelius, during a burial service at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington,Va., Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010. Cornelius of Ashtabula, Ohio, was killed in Afghanistan.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)Most of the U.S. deaths occurred in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, longtime Taliban strongholds that are the focus of the American-led operation against the insurgents.
As the U.S. formally ends its combat role in the Iraq war, NATO and Afghan forces are ramping up operations in Afghanistan, especially in the area around Kandahar City, the Taliban birthplace and their former headquarters until they were ousted from power in the U.S.-led invasion of 2001.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters in Copenhagen, Denmark, that higher casualties were inevitable because more troops have arrived in Afghanistan in recent weeks, bringing the overall alliance force to more than 140,000 — including 100,000 Americans. The U.S. figure is more than triple the number of American service members in Afghanistan at the beginning of last year.
"Right now we see more fighting and unfortunately also more casualties," Fogh Rasmussen said. "But that is the inevitable result of sending more troops ... On top of that, we now attack the Taliban strongholds in Helmand and Kandahar. That of course means more fighting and unfortunately also more casualties."
A NATO spokesman in Kabul, James Judge, said the insurgents traditionally step up attacks in late summer and early fall before the advent of the harsh Afghan winter, when fighting usually eases. He said casualty figures were likely to remain "somewhat elevated" in September because the insurgents may try to disrupt parliamentary elections.
In a meeting Tuesday with journalists from The Associated Press and two other news organizations, the top commander Gen. David Petraeus insisted that despite the casualties, progress was being achieved in Helmand and Kandahar. Petraeus said he recently walked through the market in Marjah, which until last February had been a major Taliban stronghold and wholesale distribution center for opium.
He said security in Kabul had been reinforced in recent months and that five or six bases were being built for the Afghan army around the city to protect the capital.
Nevertheless, gunmen stopped a bus Tuesday carrying clerks of the Afghan Supreme Court in south Kabul. One gunman boarded the bus and opened fire, killing three people and wounding 12, the Interior Ministry reported.
British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg insisted Tuesday that the military campaign in Afghanistan was "turning the corner" as he wrapped up a two-day unannounced visit to British troops in Helmand.
"We hear so much bad news," he told British soldiers. "Of course the country mourns when people lose their lives. People are full of anguish when there are serious injuries. But what I have seen today is a complete transformation of the military effort that I first saw when I visited two years ago."
Also Tuesday, NATO said its forces, working with Afghan army and police, had killed 19 insurgents and captured five in a major air assault on the village of Omar in the eastern province of Kunar.
Ground forces taking part in the assault that began Monday uncovered weapons caches and ammunition stockpiles inside the village, a statement said.
Two insurgents were killed and one was wounded in an airstrike Monday on a Taliban commander in charge of logistics in Kandahar, NATO said.
In Zabul province, insurgents on Monday night ambushed a convoy carrying food and other supplies, killing two private security guards and wounding five others, provincial government spokesman Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar said.
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Associated Press Writers Deb Riechmann, Christopher Bodeen and Rahim Faiez in Kabul and Jan Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this report.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Find me some cuter pictures
Musician Chris Cornell and family [Vicky, Toni, Chris and Lil' Chris]arrive at the screening of Disney's "Tinker Bell And The Great Fairy Rescue" on August 28, 2010 in Beverly Hills, California. (August 27, 2010 - Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images North America)
The Universe is right.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
How many Muslims do we have to kill...
Getty Images
Before we can let go of 9/11? Apparently, several hundred thousand are NOT enough, as a cab driver in NYC was just brutally attacked last night for being a Muslim. I am so angry I cannot express myself. I'll end up taking it out on my yard and will probably raze every tree and bush to get it out of my system.
Are you fucking happy, you fear-spreading, hate-mongering individuals (I won't even say Republicans, because Democrats are guilty too) for creating such an atmosphere of hate and fear over a single mosque that now people are being attacked? I am ashamed of all of you that did not stand up for the truth, for freedom of religion, for those who refused to acknowledge that this whole issue was spun up to fuel electoral wars. Are you proud of your victories, now? I'm talking to you too, Obama, Mr. If-I-Don't-Say-Anything-It-Will-All-Blow-Over. Well, it hasn't. Another innocent man is hurt and could easily have been killed. How long until someone is?!
'Are You Muslim?' Question Leads to Cabbie Stabbing, Hate Crime Charge
Driver Answered Yes, Passenger Pulled Knife, Says NYPD
By AARON KATERSKY, MARK CRUDELE and RICHARD ESPOSITO
Aug. 25, 2010
New York City cab driver was attacked Tuesday evening just after 6 p.m. by a passenger who asked him if he was Muslim, says the NYPD.
According to police, passenger Michael Enright, a 21-year-old from Brewster, New York, hailed a taxi at 24th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan driven by Ahmed Sharif, a resident of Queens.
As the cab headed north on Third Avenue, Enright allegedly asked Sharif, who is of South Asian origin, "Are you Muslim?" When Sharif confirmed that he was Muslim, police say, Enright stabbed him multiple times with a Leatherman knife.
According to a statement from the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents drives, Enright allegedly screamed "Assalamu Alaikum," a common Islamic greeting meaning "Peace be upon you," before slashing Sharif across the face, neck and shoulders. Sharif also sustained defensive wounds to the arm and hand.
Police said Sharif, 43, was able to pull the car over and temporarily lock Enright, who had been drinking, in the back seat before summoning help. Enright was lying in the street blocking traffic when apprehended by an off-duty police officer.
Both Sharif and Enright were taken to Bellevue Hospital, Enright for psychiatric evaluation. Enright was classified as an EDP, an emotionally-disturbed person, at the hospital.
"I feel very sad," said Sharif, according to the Taxi Workers Alliance. "I have been here more than 25 years. I have been driving a taxi more than 15 years. All my four kids were born here. I never felt this hopeless and insecure before."
"Right now, the public sentiment is very serious," said Sharif, in what seemed to be a reference to loud public debate over the proposed construction of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan . "All drivers should be more careful."
No link to the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy has yet been established, however. "We have no reason to believe this is anything but an isolated incident," said an NYPD spokesperson.
Enright is a filmmaker who had recently traveled to Afghanistan with an organization called Intersections, a New York-based group that promotes itself as promoting justice and peace across lines of faith. Enright told police he had returned from Afghanistan in May.
He is charged with attempted murder as a hate crime, as well as assault, harassment and criminal possession of a weapon. He is expected to be arraigned this afternoon."
This victim survived. I only hope the next one fares as well.
Read more!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Stewart: FOX Failed To Mention Co-Owner Is One They Accuse Of 'Terror Funding' (VIDEO)
This reviewer says: Fucking A Brilliant
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Parent Company Trap | ||||
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I'm with Evil. No, Stupid. Oh shit, can't they be both? Read more!
4 of the Most Logical Solutions to the Mosque at Ground Zero Issue
4 of the Most Logical Solutions to the Mosque at Ground Zero Issue by Erin Gibson at the Huffington Post
This whole "mosque at ground zero" thing got me thinking about how we could build a mosque that wouldn't make its opponents so angry. So, I made a list of how we can, as Tim Gunn says, "make it work".
#1 - Build the mosque, but surround the mosque with puppies.
You see American's, heck humans, love puppies, and once they see those cute little furry dog babies, they'll forget all about the religion going on inside that building. Next thing you know, Americans and Muslims will just be standing around the mosque, giving those puppies cute names like Max, Rockie or Bushra. And they'll all be happy, all the time. Because when the puppies get too old, they'll replace them with new puppies!!**
#2 - Ice cream!!!
Not just an ice cream truck, we'll install an ice cream slide that carries ice cream from the minaret straight into people's mouths. Think about how happy you are after eating ice cream! So happy! I had multiple servings of mint chocolate chip ice cream after my grandma died of cancer and instantly I was almost back to normal. It's a magical, milky cure all for the blues, and I think it could really help solve this problem. We'd have to figure out a good rotation of flavors. I'm not dumb enough to think that everyone's favorite flavor is vanilla, so I think putting in a nice rotation of chocolate, strawberry and pecan should satisfy everyone.
#3 - An invisible mosque.
You remember Wonder Woman? That lady had an invisible plane, so why not take that cartoon technology and apply it to an actual building in real life? I don't see any reason why not, especially since it's a particularly good idea.
#4 - Take everyone who doesn't like the mosque idea, put them in a spaceship (I'm looking at you, Richard Branson) and take them to another planet.
Then, the people who want the mosque will live on Earth. Those people who are against it can start their own civilization (we'll help them, of course - we're not monsters who would just maroon people on another planet). I mean, how fun would that be? To start your own planet? Really fun! But I won't be going, because I like the mosque idea. Which means I'll me missing out on a free trip to space, which sounds like a nice time.
You know , writing these out and posting this first draft without proofreading it has shown me that if you just spend a few minutes, you can open your mind and maybe, just maybe you'll solve some of the world's biggest problems. Like I did today.
Keep ona thinkin'!
** I haven't figured out what will happen to the old puppies. Hopefully, they'd be adopted, but logically, I know there are not enough people to adopt all the puppies it's gonna take to surround the mosque with cuteness. This plan may actually call for a lot of dogs to be euthanized.
Mosques don't kill puppies, people kill puppies.
Read more!
My Whole Street Is a Mosque
My Whole Street Is a Mosque by Mira Schor of the Huffington Post
I live on Lispenard Street just south of Canal Street in Lower Manhattan, 14 blocks north of Ground Zero. My daily life on this street and this neighborhood gives me an insight into aspects of Muslim worship in Lower Manhattan people outside of New York City may not be aware of.
From my corner I saw with my own eyes the second plane hit the South Tower. I lived downtown through the scary nights and the many rough months after September 11, and I am here to say that my whole street is a mosque. Several times a day, small groups of Muslims -- mainly African street vendors who peddle carvings or fake Vuitton bags and Rolex watches on Canal Street -- pull out prayers mats, often just rolls of cardboard they store in the nooks and crannies of the buildings around, take their shoes off in all weather, wash their feet with water from bottles, kneel towards the east and pray, 14 blocks from Ground Zero, on ground they've spontaneously "hallowed." And the only thing one can say, in the words of my late Holocaust-refugee Polish-Jewish mother, is "Only in America."
Or at least, only in New York, where these outdoors rituals take place on the street surrounded by crowds of Chinese vendors, NYPD cops, business men, rich men's children and their nannies, and busloads of women tourists from the American South who have come to buy those fake Vuitton bags from those vendors (nice Christian ladies who have no problem breaking New York City's tax laws by buying fake label merchandise). Every day I pass these men praying across the narrow street from my front door and on corners throughout Lower Manhattan. It is an example of the religious freedom and tolerance that has made this country a beacon of freedom around the world.
And so the notion of keeping a mosque from the Ground Zero area is absurd: the streets all around it are already provisional mosques, because these men need to pray somewhere. Out of necessity they put the most private religious worship into the most public and the most humble of spaces. Along with the many who perished on September 11, they too bring to mind President Abraham Lincoln's words in the Gettysburg Address that "in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract." Ground can be hallowed many different ways. This is one that I witness every day.
Politicians like President Obama should be wrapping themselves in the American Flag, waving the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights and hollering about Freedom of Religion, the Mayflower, the Founding Fathers, Ellis Island, the Land of the Free, at the top of their lungs, throwing every righteous trope in the rhetorical book of the myth of America at those who would destroy "the better angels of our nature," not getting all wimpy and conciliatory in the face of people who pander hatred and bigotry and who are cynically manipulating the strong emotions of some Ground Zero Families and using the "hallowed ground" of Lower Manhattan as this week's battering ram against America's true greatness.
Read more!
Meet Jack's Distant Relative??
The innocent eyelashes that roped me in... 2005
Nancy, Wee Jordan, Sarah, and Jack the Quarab Pony in Spring of 2007, I think. Jordan must have been right about 1 year old, because she's standing in one of my photos.
In case anyone wondered why Jack the pony ended up as a "companion" pony and not a riding mount, here is a pony who must be a distant relative. Ed the pony, accd to owner, was completely checked by vet, saddler, trainer, etc. (as was Jack). On lead rope--almost always perfect (as was Jack). But let him off-lead and watch the sparks fly. Jack--and Ed--did NOT want to be ridden. The trainer found it so hard to believe that the mom finally made a clip of Ed Unleashed. Trainer was convinced.
Ed's little owner Ross, however, was madly in love with Ed, singing to him on the ground and telling him stories for hours. (Also like Jack--he was a puppy dog on the ground.) You'll notice mom had Ross in helmet AND full body armour (used for cross-country eventers). The only thing I noticed that Ed did NOT do that Jack would do is whip his head around and take a bite out of your calf. I always wore half-chaps working with Jack but he'd always find someplace uncovered to bite if I was aboard. The fun never ended with Jack.
As Ross outgrew Ed, Ed did finally go to a nice farm as a lawn ornament as well.
Felt bad laughing, but the lying down to get rid of your rider is SUCH a classic pony move: and the only one Jack didn't try.
Comparatively, Jack only threw me once--can't believe the tenacity of this little boy!
Here's Jack being a complete gentleman on-lead without saddle or bridle for Sarah and little Jordan. Appearances can be deceiving--we just didn't make a video of Sarah or me riding, or of our barn owner, Dan, who is extremely good with scared/nervous horses. He had the same experiences.
Jack touching base with Julian--a slightly safer ride for Jordan, or any human.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Jordan's ready for Halloween... Sort of
Then again, she could always go as a Matisse painting.
The Cat and the Crow
If you can get past the narration of Alan Thicke and a few schmaltzy re-enactments, this is truly something to crow about!
Sorry, I couldn't help myself. And don't worry, "SkinFlix" isn't what is sounds like. I, um, checked. Read more!
