Children of Auschwitz ~ Liberation Revisit...

The DailyMail spots the Children of Auschwitz -- Jews pictured at the concentration camp upon liberation, revisiting for 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Red Army. Incredibly sad that this happened. And that it still happens today in North Korea, Iraq, Cuba, China, and Gaza, among others.

Battlefield Medicine ~ Accelerated Learnings...

Battlefield Medicine means treating those injured in or affected by combat. While the carnage of war and violence is horrific, an ironic good has come from it because normal civilian medicine has advanced by techniques first learned in treating war wounds, a topic I touched on a few weeks ago by looking at the WWII Guinea Pig Club. These documentaries survey this landscape...

Guinea Pig Club ~ Dr McIndoe's WWII Patients...

WWII airmen with terrible injuries were cared for by remarkable plastic surgeon, the New Zealander Sir Archibald McIndoe, who pioneered modern reconstructive surgery through bold but careful experimental methods at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, England.  The injured were "human guinea pigs" and proud of it.  With McIndoe's encouragement, these men formed an exclusive drinking club which endures even now, nearly three-quarters of a century later.  The Guardian's Lucinda Marland shares some of their stories.  And the BBC's Nick Tarver writes in 2011 as East Grinstead 'guinea pigs' celebrate 70th anniversary...

"According to the Guinea Pig Club's honorary secretary, Bob Marchant, who worked with the surgeon in the 1950s, it was his focus on young men's future lives, which paid dividends. "He not only treated them for burns, but also psychologically by getting them back into the community," he said. "There were a lot of wealthy people around here and McIndoe went out and asked them to invite the airmen into their homes. He also did the same in the pubs. "Eventually East Grinstead became known as the town that didn't stare."

Amazing and holistic healing innovations... Finally, 60 Minutes catches up with two Australian "Guinea Pigs" who met during recovery and are still best mates after all these years!

Death Map ~ Humane Borders, Better Future?

The Guardian's Edward Helmore writes that 'Death map' of deserts aims to save lives of desperate Mexican migrants...

"...over the past decade, more than 2,000 corpses, often desiccated, with the bones scattered by animals, have been recovered [...] Humane Borders is one of several groups working to reduce the number of migrant deaths. Yet even as the numbers of Mexican -- and increasingly Central American -- migrants attempting the hazardous crossing appears to have declined, the number who die trying remains troublingly consistent.The crossing to America is simply becoming more dangerous. [...] a new project known officially as The Arizona OpenGIS Initiative for Deceased Immigrants -- Younglas call it the "death map" -- may begin to reduce the deaths and help families of the missing recover the bones of their members."

P.S. Weaponized Drones for the Border Patrol will not help.

Agent Orange ~ War Chemical Keeps on Killing

Horrific CNN photoessay by Hiroko Tanaka showing the Effects of Agent Orange ‘ongoing silently’ in children in Vietnam's...

"...Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. Among other things, the Peace Village ward of Tu Du Hospital cares for about 60 children with severe deformities, many of whom were abandoned at birth, Tanaka said. The hospital blames Agent Orange for deformities in this ward. “They just live there,” she said. “They don’t go to school; they can’t leave; they don’t go out.” She also found stillborn babies and fetuses in jars, which are kept for research to find out why the babies were born with abnormalities. The hospital told Tanaka that as children born with deformities skyrocketed, those that didn’t make it were preserved. In the “reference room,” some of the jars were dated back to 2000. According to the Vietnamese Red Cross, babies born near lands heavily sprayed with the herbicide have illnesses and deformities at a higher rate than normal."

Isn't this a war-crime or at least a moral obligation to render aid?

The Gatekeepers ~ Zionist Übermenschen Speak

Those responsible for securing the Zionist lebensraum dream speak... Plus, fascinating interview with filmmaker Dror Moreh... And DN has interview/review...

Warbots ~ MAVs and Other Skynet Terminators...

Charlie Brooker writes in the Guardian that I know in my bones that a robot is going to kill you -- the new micro-drones...

"Most of the flying robots carrying out those kill missions are eerie, windowless airborne hulks bristling with Hellfire missiles. Enormous winged battledicks. They're frightening, but visually silly somehow, which adds to the obscenity of it all. The smaller drones [are] potentially more deadly. Compared with the current models flying over Pakistan, they have fearsome advantages of stealth, agility -- and sheer number. Because there were swarms of the things. Some were the size of pigeons. In fact, they actively disguised themselves as pigeons: they landed on overhead phonelines and folded their wings around themselves so the folk down below wouldn't get too suspicious. Then they hovered around gathering surveillance information. At one point the video shows a company of multiple "bugbots", each the size of a Milky Way bar, spreading out to wirelessly compile a good overall view of an apparently hostile city. Then one of them sneaks past a guard, swoops down a corridor, flies through a doorway and shoots a bad guy in the head. [...] See? Precisely the sort of thing that'll definitely kill us all."

Here's the USAF's MAV warbot vision...

Opium Brides ~ Afghan Collateral Social Damage

PBS Frontline documents Opium Brides...

"Afghan opium farmers have long borrowed money from drug gangs to subsidize their crops. Now, as the Afghan government destroys their livelihood in an eradication program, the farmers find themselves in a horrifying situation: repay their debts or give their daughters to drug-traffickers. Najibullah Quraishi reports on the harrowing story of the collateral damage of the counter-narcotics effort."

Acid Victims ~ Vile & Inhuman Attacks Epidemic?

The DailyMail shocks/spots Victims of Colombian acid attacks...

"Doused in a searing chemical; disabled and scarred for life; struck by a depression which can make it hard to go on -- the plight of Colombia's acid attack victims is truly heartbreaking. And the number of these horrific assaults is on the rise. At least 250 Colombian women have been disfigured in the last three years, with this year’s victim reports already outpacing 2011’s. [...] many are believed victimized by former lovers or some [...] for their looks. [...] 51-year-old Consuelo Cordoba was attacked by her boyfriend 11 years ago -- requiring her to wear a mask to prevent infection and a tube to breathe out of her nose [...] Today she walks a market in Bogota begging for change after, like many acid victims, being unable to find work for herself due to her appearance. 'I've thought about committing suicide, yes sir, I've thought about taking my life three times. I say to myself, why live? With a life like the one I have, what for?'"

Wow. I'm beside myself with both disgust at the subhumans who do this and wanting to embrace these women and convey strength and salute their resilience. Employers, please hire them. Doctors, treat. Everyday citizens, acknowledge their humanity. And politicians -- get your shit together and really criminalize these despicable acts.

Religulous ~ Ridiculing Really Almighty Bullshit

Religulous by Maher and Charles ridicules religious bullshit...

Voice of the People ~ Hong Kong vs Politburo...

The Economist shares the voice of the people versus Politburo from one of the two relatively free places in Mao's China...

"Colonial-era social freedoms still apply in Hong Kong, and pro-democracy groups in the territory have staged protests on July 1st ever since the first anniversary of the reversion to Chinese sovereignty 15 years ago. [...] Hong Kong officials were at pains to prevent Mr Hu from encountering any disaffected citizens, whose complaints range from Hong Kong’s growing wealth gap to the mistreatment of dissidents in mainland China to [...] the crushing of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. [...] Mainland Chinese media imposed a virtual news blackout on the demonstration."

Prometheus ~ Ridley Scott on Mankind's Origins

See Ridley Scott's latest Prometheus trailer... Plus here's TED 2023 with promethean character Peter Weyland...

Cry Freetown ~ Samura on Sierra Leone Civil War

Earlier today I posted promo videos emphasizing the emerging and promising future possibilities for Sierra Leone and its peoples. But we should never forget that just over a decade ago this beautiful country was being hacked apart by rebels and defenders alike in a brutal civil war. Photojournalist Sorious Samura was caught in the middle of it all and captured some truly horrifying footage. His Cry Freetown documentary pulls no punches and demands your attention...

Pig Moradi ~ Filthy Iranian Terrorist Scumbag...

The DailyMail helps us witness a religious wingnut and evil incarnate, the filthy Iranian terrorist pig Saedi Moradi who managed to blow off his own legs in a failed Bangkok bombing. He and his mad mullah minders are all scumbag swine -- impure, inhuman, unworthy... The only worse wingnuts are those who perpetuated the King David hotel massacre and their contemporary messianic missionary successors.

Nightvision Evac ~ Costa Via Coastie Chopper

Check out Italian Coast Guard nightvision video footage of Costa Concordia evacuation. Frightening as hell from a distance, it must have been terrifying to be caught in it... And here's more damning evidence from the Italian Coast Guard, a recording of CG Commander Gregorio Maria De Falco incredulous and outraged that Captain Francesco Schettino has not only abandoned ship while there are still pax on board but equivocating and effectively refusing to reboard to advise in the rescue. Grotesque. And in case you're curious, here's what this Captain's criminally idiotic showboating has destroyed... Here's GPS-map visualization of the path to destruction... And here's the latest Italian fashion, quoting De Falco telling the Chicken of the Sea to get the fuck back on board...

Blomkamp Dystopics ~ District 9 & Alive in Joburg

South African Neill Blomkamp's dystopic SF short, Alive in Joburg... Followed by full-on District 9 blockbuster, trailer here...

Killed by Incompetence ~ Latest MIT Death...

Very sad to hear MIT alumnus Phyo Kyaw was slaughtered Tuesday 12/27/2011 by a criminally careless truck driver while riding his bicycle at Mass Ave and Vassar. While this death is quite tragic -- and ought to be a capital case against the truck driver and a bankrupting civil case against the liable owner -- it's also a direct consequence of gross incompetence and complete safety neglect on the part of urban planners, traffic engineers, lawless drivers, absent or uncaring police, AWOL lawmakers, and for those rare court cases, spineless judges. Specifically, we have in Cambridge and Massachusetts today...

• Unsafe and totally inadequate bicycle lanes;
• Hazardous & poorly designed intersections;
  
• Unenforced speeding, red light, & cross-walk rules;
• Minimalist punishment of traffic & safety violations;
• Total absence of driver safety culture;
• Rampant road-rage & driving-while-distracted;
• Missing traffic intersection video recording & tracking;
• Inadequately strict driver-fault liability rules;
• Too few indictments, scarce convictions, & liberal sentences;
  
• And more.

In a just world, those directly and indirectly responsible would all be held criminally culpable for this death -- and for the many other related and entirely avoidable safety incidents between motor vehicles and the bicyclists and pedestrians they threaten daily. Let's look at the evidence: the photos show the murder victim's bike is crushed under the wheels of the JP Noonan-owned truck which is completely on the wrong side of the road. That driver should get the electric chair and yet the latest press reports indicate he's not even being charged. Even worse, an MIT campus policeman told me yesterday -- with a completely straight face, mind you -- that the word is "the bicyclist just ran into the truck" and that's why he died. So this vicious murder by means of criminally negligent and reckless driving is actually either an unfortunate "accident" or it's really the victim's own fault. Are you F#CKing kidding me?! This is completely appalling.

Road Kills ~ Witness the Automotive Slaughter...

Population Control ~ NYTimes on Horrible Things

Death to Dictators ~ Q'Daffy Tastes Own Medicine

Q'Daffy's dead. Good riddance. Now how about Assad, Mugabe, Chavez, Kim, Castro, Khamanei and the rest of the verminous swine? See here the bastard caught, courtesy DailyMail... Slain. And that's a good thing. Lockerbie avenged, among others...