Nagasaki Day - See 2006 U.S.Congress Forum Video

To commemorate the date, I put together an excerpt from the August 9, 2006 forum entitled "Consequences of US Nuclear Policy: from Hiroshima to Iran" at the U.S. congress that I moderated. It features scenes from the nuclear war movie "The Day After" and part of a talk by Iranian Simin Royanian, of Women for Peace and Justice in Iran. The forum was shown repeatedly on C-Span. See photos at StoptheWarNow.Net

Happy Hiroshima Day - NOT!!

It's sixty-two years (August 6, 1945 in the United States) since the first and last time large nuclear bombs were used against humans in war time. Of course, they were used against humans in peace time during hundreds of 1950s and 1960s above ground tests. People did not die quick deaths from fire, blast and radiation but slow ones from cancers caused by radiation poisoning. And then there are all of those who have suffered and died from the use of depleted uranium coated artillery shells the United States used in Iraq and Afghanistan. That number includes thousands of U.S. soldiers.
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The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were mini-bombs of 15-20 kilotons. The Russians have nuclear weapons of 5, 10 and 20 megatons that can be targeted on United States cities within a minute. A 20 megaton bomb will set fire to anything within 50 miles and blast away anything with 20-30 miles. The U.S. has much smaller nukes, mostly targeted on Russia's military sites. Russia targets cities because it's less sure it can hit U.S. military sites. A far greater proportion of American's live in big cities than do Russians.
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And the Russians will use nuclear weapons, should they feel sufficiently threatened. Like if the U.S. uses nuclear weapons against Russia's trading partner Iran, just a few hundred miles from Russia's border. Need I say more? For lots of scary nuclear war videos see Youtube/DontBombIran.

Keffiyehs Rock

It's August and I'm in a very a-motivational state. Mostly cleaning up some Wikipedia articles of interest, house cleaning for two messy animals (one human), and taking care of my sick old dog who's on his last (arthritic) legs but still has lots of (barely and iradicaly functioning) heart. (Oh, yes, and I'm still looking for a $15 an hour job making the conscious, secessionist revolution, in case you got one. Otherwise I'm a slave to the temp agency.)
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But just read an amusing blog entry about Keffiyah's. Being one of those people terrified of having a cold head, I wear them faithfully and daily from October to April. And, of course, to express solidarity with the Palestinians.
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Here's a photo of my dog wearing one taken for the "sorry i voted for bush, world" web page a few years back. And you can see me in one of mine the day I got arrested at the Senate for trying to say "It is the right of the people to alter or abolish government" a little too loudly.
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Anyway, check out the HAWGBLAWG entry on "It's becoming cool to be Arab-American." The blogger is obviously as lazy as me this hot August cause he largely quotes another article. "This is a somewhat belated posting of this article from Heeb. I highly recommend this magazine, which wikipedia.com describes as a "Jewish magazine aimed at intellectual Jews." It is refreshingly irreverent, left-wing, and dare one say, "post-Zionist." This is one of the best articles on the topic, of the many that have appeared this year...
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There's no doubt that young Arab-American activists are some of the most sophisticated, intelligent, well-organized and NON-knee-jerk-leftist activists about. Check out Hawglawg's list of links which will link you to lots more relevant and interesting ones.