Look at that!

It’s true, politicians have absolutely no idea what they are destroying.

How they do it

Wow, that was easy… I don’t think.

Check out the final work and full story of the painting on Liam Rainsford.com

The side bar has a long list of other time-lapse paintings to watch as well.

An awesome piece of work.

Inside America’s worst toxic waste cover-up

Josh and Rebecca Tickell during filming of The Big Fix

 

Film Review: The Big Fix exposes BP’s efforts to minimize awareness of North America’s biggest oil spill.

In the weeks after the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded and oil began pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, filmmaker Josh Tickell was in touch with folks back home in Louisiana. The stories they told about the spill were very different from what he was hearing in the mainstream media. So Josh and his wife Rebecca hired a film crew and drove south to find out for themselves what was going on.

The Big Fix is the result.

It doesn’t feature the poisoned turtles, tar-soaked pelicans, or expanses of black crude that are now familiar images of North America’s biggest oil spill. It focuses instead on BP’s efforts to minimize awareness of the spill’s extent, creating what one gulf resident calls “the worst toxic waste cover-up in America’s history.”

Toxic brew

The Big Fix, 89 minutes, Green Planet Productions.

While an oil company shill was on national news saying that bacteria were eating the oil in the gulf, BP was applying a chemical solution to the problem: the oil dispersant Corexit, which contains a solvent known to be harmful to organisms.

According to The Big Fix, BP began semi-covert application of Corexit in the first days after the spill, continued to apply Corexit in huge amounts for months, and has not been held accountable for the consequences.

Although Corexit breaks oil into small particles invisible to the eye, it doesn’t make it go away, as Gulf residents suffering from exposure tell a federal official at a town hall meeting. By mid-July BP claimed to have stopped using Corexit. But local people could still smell Corexit in the air. They saw vats of the stuff in transit and planes spraying clouds of Corexit, often by night. In one telling scene, shot in September, the Tickells sneak past security to film a BP clean-up crew spraying Corexit on a beach under cover of darkness.

As marine toxicologist Susan Shaw explains,

The mixture of dispersant and oil is much more toxic than either oil alone, or dispersant alone.

When the filmmaker hints that BP is still secretly spraying dispersant, her jaw drops, and she sputters, nearly at a loss for words.

Truthtelling

She’s one of the many sources interviewed in the film—journalists, academics, scientists, fishermen, former government officials, and whistleblowers—who tell the real story of the spill, its aftermath, what BP got away with, and why. Their testimony leads Josh to conclude,

We live in a corrupt system, where a small few put power and profit over the health of humankind and the planet.

That’s a stark statement. But hope is provided by the army of truth-tellers enlisted in this film. They set the record straight and remind us that, when united in action, we have more power than we realize.

– Valerie Schloredt, Transition Voice

*Article originally appeared in Yes Magazine.

My source: Transition Voice

You want creepy, I’ll give you creepy…

Sulawesi, formerly The Celebes

The island of Sulawesi (formerly The Celebes) in Indonesia is the village of Toraja where the dead walk to their resting place.

Is it true?

Can the dead walk?

Apparently there are still people in the village that have the power to make the dead walk.

Torajans are famous for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses.

Sulawesi is a mixture of Christian, Muslims and Animist, Aluk To Dolo (“Way of the Ancestors”).

Tongkonan are the traditional Torajan ancestral houses

Effigies of the dead gaze out over their land

These last two images, I discovered, are from Madness and Beauty, give them credit. Good story there.

But apart from the gory death ritual where they slaughter many buffalo and pigs, it is the walking dead that makes this place a mystery

The walking dead

Apparently this is the only known photo. There has been much ridicule over whether it is faked. But since the time of the Dutch colonisation in the 1600s this story has persisted.

The mystery continues…

If this is a shrimp…

Penaeus vannamei

If that’s a shrimp, WTF is this?

No… it’s not a lobster

It’s an Asian Tiger Shrimp Penaeus monodon

As summer approaches, fear and intrigue is building in south Louisiana over the latest menace prowling the waters of the Gulf of Mexico: the tiger shrimp. Last year, mainly in the summer and fall, Louisiana saw a nearly 20-fold increase in the giant Asian shrimp that can grow to more than a foot long and weigh a pound or more. The worry is that even more will be seen in the coming months, as last year’s stock may have exponentially reproduced.

The shrimp, which have black and white stripes across their backs and tails similar to their jungle namesake, eat more and grow more quickly than native Gulf shrimp, prompting concerns they will out-compete the native shrimp for resources.

The tiger shrimp are edible, and some experts can even envision a market for the massive shellfish, because they are one of the most-farmed shrimp species worldwide.

Nonetheless, their emergence likely doesn’t bode well for the native shrimp population.

Source: Nola.com Read more

Comment:

You’ll need a bigger wok!

 

Work this Out

If Roles Were Reversed

To Understand this post…

You have to read the previous…

This is just plain wrong

I can’t believe that anyone would want to use their cell phone during sex…

Reminds me of the old high school joke:

Psychologist: Do you ever talk to your wife during sex?

Patient: Only if she happens to ring me.

UPDATE

Call me, indeed

During a conversation this morning with my student on this unbelievable statistic. He pointed out that there is the possibility that the cell phone on vibrate mode could be considered a sex toy…

Now there’s a thought, maybe the 12% have discovered the same. Now the idea doesn’t seem so silly after all.

But then, girls discovered that Harry Potter’s Nimbus 2000 could offer a more than thrilling ride too.

Enough to make the mind of a 60 year old boggle. The ‘Playboy’ of my youth pales in comparison.

Three flies, and you’re out!

Beijing sets ‘two flies only’ public toilet guidelines

The BBC’s Michael Bristow braves one of Beijing’s notorious public toilets

Authorities in the Chinese capital have set new standards for public toilets, including a stipulation that they should contain no more than two flies.

The new rules, published by the commission of city administration, also set standards on odour and cleaning litter bins.

Toilets in places such as tourist spots must comply with the new standards.

But it is not clear whether failing washrooms will be punished and if so, how.

The new rules also cover cleaning, the use of equipment and training for attendants.

There is an ordinance covering what is referred to as “discarded items” – there should be no more than two in any public convenience.

The new standards also require signs in both Chinese and English to be installed in the toilets.

They regulate advertisements displayed in toilets, saying they must not obstruct functionality and had to be legal, reports the Beijing Times.

Source: BBC News Read more