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Wildlife Returning To Chernobyl
The wilderness is encroaching over abandoned towns in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. One of the elderly residents who refused to evacuate the contaminated area says packs of wolves have eaten two of her dogs, and wild boar trample through her cornfield. Scientist are divided as to whether or not the animals are flourishing in the highly radioactive environment: "Robert J. Baker of Texas Tech University says the mice and other rodents he has studied at Chernobyl since the early 1990s have shown remarkable tolerance for elevated radiation levels. But Timothy Mousseau of the University of South Carolina, a biologist who studies barn swallows at Chernobyl, says that while wild animals have settled in the area, they have struggled to build new populations."
It's hard to attract females when you have 2 beaks, 3 hooves and only 1 eye.
I for on am welcomming our're new three-headed frog overloads!
select * from base where originalOwner = 'you' and currentOwner != 'us'.
0 rows returned.
Packs of wolves have eaten two of her dogs, the 73-year-old says, and wild boar trample through her cornfield. And she says fox, rabbits and snakes infest the meadows near her tumbledown cottage. ... Then we have... Others say animals may be filtering into the zone, but they appear to suffer malformations and other ills.. Inference: She saw what she thought was a pack of wolves when in fact it was a three headed wolf.
Infiltrated dot Net
I could've sworn there was an article on this in some magazine several years ago.
Finally a town I can look normal in!
No: it was full of wildlife for years now.
And yes, the DNA of most animals in the area is pretty effed up, but surprisingly most of them appear healthy and reproduce normally. Only goes to show how much redundancy and resilience is built into the DNA / replicating mechanisms we use.
Truth is, even with a sufficient number of a-bombs accross the world, we'll have a very hard time wijping all of humanity and wild life. Life's a tough mother f*cker, hard to destroy.
The Bikini atoll was also evacuated of people and set off-limits to fishing after the nuclear weapons tests the US did there in the 1950s. Today Bikini has the most abundant wildlife in the Pacific.
If movies have taught me anything it's that this is the start of the downfall of man.
In a few years we'll be herded into wooden pens by mounted apes and then experimented on.
Oh the folly of it all!!!
It's an interesting article, but it mainly talks only about mammals and occasionally vegetation. The effect of radiation on high reproduction insects would be far more interesting.
Any photos of giant insects or ninja turtles? At least maybe a cross between a spider and a man?
Damn. Radiation in real life is BORING.
Given the choice of sharing the environment with humans or radiation, animals would much rather have the radiation.
Are these bionic AMD-64 running mutant radioactive wildlife critters, or something?
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
"In explaining their starkly differing views, Baker and Mousseau criticize each other's studies as poorly designed."
Science at its best.
The new MSV alpha
The fundies have their Creation Museum, Chernobyl is like the Evolution Museum: watch as the animals mutate right before your eyes!
Correct me where I'm wrong here, but I believe animal bodies have developed some pretty good ways of dealing with radiation over the eons. I know my skin does a fair job of managing UV radiation - though I will probably be darkening it when the therapy is available.
I wonder, has the antioxidant level in the plant life been measured? How much research is there in regards to long-term, lower-dose radiation exposure not just to individual organisms, but to ecosystems. Ecosystems are like massive organisms themselves.
I would think that selective pressures are probably biting at the bit to get working on increasing tolerance in populations inhabiting these no-man-lands.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
If you only need a couple of years to become old enough to breed and do so, then you're more likely to live long enough to reproduce in pretty much any situation. Nature abhors a vacuum...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"Dense forests have reclaimed farm fields and apartment house courtyards. Residents, visitors and some biologists report seeing wildlife - including moose and lynx - rarely sighted in the rest of Europe. Birds even nest inside the cracked concrete sarcophagus shielding the shattered remains of the reactor."
"...I wish I had a lawnmower."
But now there is an article about it on the internet, making it original, novel, and fit for Slashdot.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
...or looking for an intriguing read on a Friday morning, this young lady Elena describes her motorcycle ride to and through the so called Chernobyl "dead zone", with pictures. Interesting read.
Beware of the Leopard.
Are there any scientists/historians out there who can comment on whether the radioisotopes involved are the types that would work their way up the food chain? It seems this would make a big difference in which critters thrived and which ones couldn't make it...
Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness
This was already discussed one year ago. It's the 6th result when you search for "chernobyl"...
O.K., we have a game story about odd moments in games filed under "Politics" instead of "Games" and an environmental story filed under "Hardware" instead of "Science". Methinks maybe some /. editors have been spending a bit too much time in Chernobyl themselves, and it's had a deleterious affect on their "1337 categorization skillz".
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I present to you this EXCLUSIVE photo, taken at great risk to life and limb. This is truly a remarkable specimen. Behold, the wildlife at Chernobyl!
I regret that I must remain anonymous, but if anyone found out I was this deep in the exclusion zone, I could be in deep trouble.
There is a fun little travel DVD called the "Vice guide to travel", put out by the folks who do Vice magazine. One of their little bits is that they go to Chernobyl and try to hunt radioactive boars with large guns. (another bit on the DVD was visiting the world's largest illegal arms market in Pakistan). It's worth renting... very fun little movie.
They will either evolve to accomodate their new conditions or they will die. It will be interesting to see if we get new species evolving more rapidly there or if the existing populations just wither and die off. Frankly, I would suspect that most of the animals there have been driven out of habitat elsewhere. That's how Mother Nature works. The looser is always the one that migrates. I'm not complaining much because that's what drove apes out of the forest and on to the plains to become the first hominids.
2 cents,
QueenB.
HDGary secures my bank
It wasn't a three headed wolf she saw, or a pack of wild wolves. It was 3 heads of a wolf flying around in a gravity vortex.
Percy: "Only this morning in the courtyard I saw a horse with two heads, and two bodies"
Blackadder: "Could it have been...two horses perhaps?"
There are already bacteria living in active zones of nuclear reactors. Animals with fast reproductive cycle will likely adapt first, both because of faster evolution - especially in the face of accelerated mutations - and because they don't have to survive as long to produce offsprings. It's only a matter of decades before we catch 5 eared rabbits with ECC in their DNA in addition to RAID1 that we currently have.
Um... hardware? Are the radioactive wildlife being used as PSUs in Russian computers? If so, I missed that in TFA.
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde
Aren't insect more resilient to radiation in general ? Thus the joke about the cockroach being the next master of earth in case the A,H and other 1 letter bomb start to fall ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The article seems to posit a false dichotomy between increased rates of cancer and deformity and a flourishing animal population. The usual mutation rate for most animals is pretty damn small. You could probably increase it 100 fold if not more and still maintain a large population of healthy breeding animals. Since animals, like humans, are naturally programed to prefer to breed with healthy members of their species there is no reason to think that the harmful mutations would 'take over' and cause the local animals to die out. Also just because more animals die of cancer doesn't mean they don't live long enough to successfully breed.
I mean it should be a lot like inbreeding. Sure inbreeding increases the number of seriously fucked up members of the population significantly so you wouldn't want to do it with humans but it can also be used to help establish certain useful traits fairly quickly. The animals living in the Chernobyl area might have more deformed babies, and no doubt if they had to fairly compete with non-irradiated members of their kind they would be at a disadvantage, but the long term effect might just be to increase the rate at which they evolve.
Of course you can't really decide this with a thought experiment but it is annoying that the article suggests increased deformity and cancer rates in individual animals is incompatible with overall health of the species/group.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
How long before Jack Thompson takes somebody to court because some kid went wandering into Chernobyl NPP in search of a monolith and ended up dead?
Because americans are well known for forgetting all about the rest of the world (unless they're invading it) so mentioning something nuclear in some strange (to them) country that happened 20 years ago is really exotic and cool and they naturally think they're the first people to discover it.
In Soviet Russia, animals take over your living space!
Give Kashyyyk back to the Wookies
Well, this may be true, but have you played STALKER? Have you seen the bloody wildlife? I'm staying WELL clear
One of the elderly residents who refused to evacuate the contaminated area says packs of wolves have eaten two of her dogs, and wild boar trample through her cornfield. Scientist are divided as to whether or not the animals are flourishing in the highly radioactive environment
Call me selfish or humanocentric, but I'd be very interested in a study on this person! That would be incredibly interesting. It's amazing to me that a person has subsisted in this area for all this time.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
One book I picked up a couple of years ago was Robert Polidori's Zones of Exclusion: Pripyat and Chernobyl, it documents though photos how nature is taking back the buildings and towns; and also includes shots from within the control room of the reactor.
o ri.shtml
http://www.theglobalist.com/photo/Chernobyl/Polid
Sorry. Someone had to put in an obscure pencil-and-paper RPG reference into this thread, or this wouldn't be Slashdot.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The article reports that one third of nestlings are malformed. What we have is a fairly natural cut: If the offspring is viable, it will end up being observed as behaving normally, it if is not then it won't be observed since it will be dead from, say, having the wrong shaped beak for its niche. It will be absent from counting surveys, making them biased. Most mutations are harmful so they do not survive. But, so long as less corrupted genetic material can migrate in, you'll get a superfical appearance of normalcy.
The reason for preserving wilderness is to preserve biodiversity which is essential to maintaining a strong ecosystem. This accidental wilderness has many counts against it in that context.
A similar thing is happening in Detroit, where re-forestation is taking over the inner city. Check out www.detroitblog.org for pictures of meadows in the middle of the city, and trees growing out of the roofs of abandoned skyscrapers http://www.detroitblog.org/index.php?paged=13
You can also see this in satellite pictures. Look closely around Tiger Stadium and you'll see block after block of green fields with only a few scattered houses.
The long established sub division I live in PA is starting to see some flirtations with top predators like bears. I hear some mountain lions may also be on the prowl.
Our Delaware River that been an industrial wasteland is starting to see some interesting fish migrations again.
Eliminating the poisons and raw sewage of our industrial past is clearly part of the solution, but there is more suburban sprawl here than ever and nature seems to adapt just fine.
When subdivisions have been around as long as rain forests, I suspect we might see new levels of adaptation and speciation. Nature can adapt.
Mysterious coal deposits underneath compost piles, a crazy naked couple running around with the animals, and some doddering old man writing frantically into a journal.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Us Stalkers have known this for quite some time. Just be sure to throw some nuts and bolts around in front of you!
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
Many will die from radiation poisoning.
Many contaminated animals will be sterile. Most of the mutated offspring will fail to survive to birth. Most of the rest will die before becoming fertile age. Most of the rest will be sterile. Most of the rest will repeat the process, leaving mutated genetic lines to expire quickly.
But some tiny fraction might survive mutated but fit to the new environment. They will be horrible beasts unable to survive anywhere else.
Until we contaminate the rest of the planet, which their families will inherit instead of ours.
--
make install -not war
Dr. Nick: "if it isn't my old friend Mr. McGregg - with a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg"
I guess we know where he's from.
...Tomacco!
Seriously, with the radiation there... it just... might... work!
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
I'm wild, I'm alive and I'm back!
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
Boars are stomping her corn cobs? Better toughen up lady, any day Monsanto will sue for infringing their holy patents on mutant crops. It's Greenpeace who really confuse me though, they're always on about biodiversity, then we get lots of new lifeforms in Chernobyls valley of the muties and they're cribbing more than ever. No pleasing some people.
So that's why all the videos I've seen of STALKER involve nothing more than shooting wild animals!!!
As another poster commented, without fresh DNA coming into the area, the local wildlife would not be as successful. Destroy all the ecosystems of the entire world, add a little nuclear winter and we will have created the worst extinction event the world has ever seen. Saying we haven't wiped out all life at that point would be merely a technicality. At that point, the only thing we could do is thank God there is life in the ocean basically out of our reach.
If I was living in a radioctive waste land, and my dogs started to disappear, I'd assume Swamp Thing before a pack of wolves.
There's this website where this woman chronicles her motorcycle rides through the area around Chernobyl. The last time I visited the site was several years ago; it appears she's returned since then. It's very fascinating, and without a doubt, eerie. If I remember correctly she mentions having spotted wildlife on a few occassions.
... and I thought they were just gonna send Paris Hilton to jail.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
First thing I thought of when you said "And that other 1 letter bomb" was the N-bomb or the F-bomb, then I realized that yes, we do have Neutron bombs and Fission bombs. :)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Why the hell is this funny? This is one of the most arrogant and self-centered comments I've ever come across on /.
-- Cheers!
Honestly, the ones claiming it is flourishing gave a much better argument. Among other things, the black hole people did not do a comparison to normal habitats, nor did they find more deaths. They just found some odd mutations (us non-creationists call that evolution at work), and some animals (not all) were hungry. Wow. some animals living in the wild don't get enough food. Bummer.
Of course, you Shouting Capitals, cursing, post insisting that everyone else had not read the article, despite the clear proof that you read it was far worse of an argument than either of the two groups of scientists made.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
"Anything! Anything with a pulse! Or NOT! Pulse OPTIONAL!"
-Dressed to Kill
"You're arguing for a universe with fewer waffles in it," I said. "I'm prepared to call that cowardice."
One must remember the shorter length of reproductive generations that many wild animals have.
For those who have yearly reproduction cycles, we are looking at 21 years, twenty generations for evolution to take place. Those with shorter cycles, such as mice and rats, etc. They probably have evolved enough protection through 50 or more generations that life for them is not so much of an issue.
Creatures with longer cycles, such as humans, would probably have a hard time adapting via evolution. The positive note hear is the relative short half life, but it is still a problem for future generations.
There is a study that indicates that low levels of radiation can have positive effects on health. Not that I would recommend moving to Chernobyl any time soon.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Read the article and learn a bit about cybernetic theory.
It doesn't really say that they are sinking into some kind of radiated black hole.
The concept of a sink is akin to certain desert lakes that don't have outlets. Water goes in but doesn't leave the way it usually does in wetter climates.
In this context, the area may be absorbing more animals and birds than it produces. They may be entering the area from safe zones but are not reproducing fast enough to sustain the populations once they get to the Cherynobyl area. So a constant resupply is needed.
Oh, the political correctness.. give me a break!
Humour usually is provoking in order to be funny.
How about relocating some zio-facist kibutzim?
Really, your statement is so 'FUNNY'!
One can only wonder why this guy still alive .. unlike animals, he didnt go wandering out of Chernobyl for most of his life... ... everyone knows radiation puts anything remotely involved in magnetism is a strange shape (gamma rays); however, while some parts of it where understandably flooded with parasites, some parts actually looked quite good (ie. no parasites) .. ... didnt looked that adversely impacted by radiation (most of their hairs in place, no apparent sickness, ...)
It reminds me of a documentary (French/German's Arte, but surely stems from BBC's) about Chernobyl
Additionally, in the same documentary, one can witness old (in their 60s or so) persons who were at the site (military & so on) in present time
So, what the fsck really happened here ? Or is my assumption that radiation kills fast (=10years) flawed ?
Wow, now you're saying that being a soldier is riskier than being a US civilian? Man, stop it, you are really blowing my mind here. Someone had better mod you insiteful, uh, insightful.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
See now, isn't that better than unimpressive statistics? A bit wing-nutty, but still better than, "OMG, 3500 troops died!"
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I guess by that logic, Columbine wasn't a tragedy either.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Chernobyl isn't the radioactive wasteland that people seem to have the idea it is. Mostly this is a fantasy put over by a lot of raving anti-nuclear folks and a whole lot more uninformed but well-meaning people.
No, the girl on the motorcycle is a hoax and her supposed ideas about how radioactive the ground is are utterly false.
Please take a look at http://www.chernobyllegacy.com/index.php?cat=1 and other sources before being taken in by the fearmongering.
There were a total of 46 people that died as a result of Cherynobyl. Somewhere in the low thousands have been treated for thyroid problems and some may in fact die from cancer due to exposure to the materials that were in the immediate area from the reactor fire. Nobody else is expected to die with a cause attributed to the reactor fire.
People that have taken measuring instruments into the exclusion zone have reported a slightly elevated background radiation and that is all. It is like the difference between living in Italy vs. Norway where Norway gets more cosmic radiation as compared to Italy.
If Chernobyl was anywhere near as bad as people here seem to think it was, Sweden would be a wasteland as well. It is where a lot of the fallout from the fire settled.
It's been 21 years since the catastrophe. All the short-lived isotopes are long gone. Heck, most of the isotopes were gone after a few weeks. The radiation levels are currently quite low, up to 7 mSv/year in the less contaminated areas of the zone. It's only 2-3 times of the natural background in the USA. There are places, where natural radiation is much higher than that. I'm surprised anybody can be surprised the wildlife is soaring. Human (or rather human activity) is the biggest wildlife killer. Radiation in low levels is completely unimportant.
Save the bandwidth. Don't use sigs!
Exactly. That, and the fact that the deads of Iraqis is WAY higher.
And also we should count how many people die in Iraq every year because of hunger, diseases, lack of medical care, lack of vaccines, etc. And if we take into account the fact that this is because the U.S.A has been living at the expenses of 3rd world countries for 2 hundred years, from slavery to gun trading, from controlled dictatorships to the FMI, the US got rich at the expenses of the rest of the world. And each dollar those dead soldiers and the rest of the USA population spent over the years, was one less dollar in Iraq, and one more kid dying of causes that could be prevented. So those soldiers were killing people in Iraq before they went to war. And so did the rest of the population. For 2 hundred years. They are also in a big part responsible for the lack of funding for education, what eventually leads to an uneducated, easily controlled population. And that, and the help of the USA Government, lead eventually to Saddam Hussein.
How many deaths could we prevent in Iraq with the money spent just in the funeral of a soldier of the USA?
Consider THIS: A typical funeral in the USA costs u$s 6000. An Iraqi father earns around u$s 150 a month. So an Iraqi family could live for MORE THAN 3 YEARS with just the cost of burying one soldier.
The killing didn't start with the war.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Provication can be funny. In the case of the OP, it wasn't.
Yes, many bird species will do something like lay three eggs, then the nestlings, at some point, push the others out of the nest to monopolize their parent's attentions(and food).
.9 .9 gets pushed out first on average, then, some time later either 1.1 or 1.0 gets pushed out, mostly 1.0.
.5, or 1.0, .9, and .7. The weakest still tend to get pushed out, eliminating it from further competition. The strongest still tend to survive. Sure, a .9 might be more likely to survive, but there's still plenty of evolutionary pressure to eliminate them before they're old enough to breed themselves.
3 nestlings, strength 1.1, 1.0,
With the higher deformation rate, it'd be more like 1.1, 1.0, and
I don't read AC A human right
"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998
"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998.
"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998.
"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them." Sen. Carl Levin (d, MI), Sept. 19, 2002.
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seing and developing weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002.
"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002
Lots more examples to be found, google string "snopes WMD". So... Yup, sure seemed to be a whole lot of, er, "lying" going on. Did you have a point?
The real question is, why do these people, and those who support them, have an apparently crippling case of memory loss? You know, the whole thing where they're pretending it was a one-person decision to go to war?
For most animals whose habitats have been invaded by humans, the survival rate is 0%. Let me ask you this: how many rattlesnakes are you willing to tolerate in the backyard where your children play? Or wolves, bears, alligators, pumas, or any other predators?
Or what about animals other than predators? How many mice, rats, deers, gazelles, bison, bighorn sheep do you have in your backyard?
I'd say that, unfortunately, for 99% of the Earth's wildlife a 99% rate of lethal cancer is better than the presence of humans...
That is a pack NUCLEAR POWERED TWO HEADED WOLVES !
RUPERT! I TOLD YOU TO WATCH THE BAGS! You were looking at the boys again, WEREN'T YOU.
In most areas removing humans will cause wild fauna to reappear within a decade or two...
And Chernobyl is in a particularly forested region — even in the year of the disaster wild boars could be observed from a helicopter, according to my father. The pilots were preparing for a hunt on the way back — after dropping him off...
If the humans are gone, the animals will flourish. Their life-span is not long enough for radiation-caused cancers — hunters are far more devastating than any disease.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Instead of just insulting everyone in the Western world, how about you offer some solutions?
China and India seem to be finding wealth without draining it from the rest of the world... could that be because wealth is created all the time, and doesn't just come from a big finite pool? Standards of living have gone up almost everywhere over the last half-century - this wouldn't be possible in a finite pool of wealth.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Everyone in the western world? I was talking very specifically about the U.S.A, not the whole western world.
And total wealth is not growing because:
1) Many of the resources that the human being uses are non-renewable.
2) The population is growing.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Most of the interstates are pretty well designed and do not encourage accidents. Twisty state and local roads without center dividers encourage accidents. Better roads, seat belts and other safety devices, legal and public pessure against drunk drivers, have resulted in a decline in traffic deaths over the last 50 years while the number of miles driven has more than doubled.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
SOOOO... the US was built on the backs of the rest of the world, but not Western Europe?
Seriously, wtf? A phrase you might have heard: "The Sun Never Set on the British Empire". Beyond that, you have French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, and others spoken all over the world. But I'm sure that these speakers voluntarily gave up their native languages.
True, there are non-renewable resources being depleted.
By the way, have you looked at who is having babies? (Hint: it's not people in the US.) Or would you like us imperialist pigs to start neutering poor folks in nations with high birth rates?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Which is great, but my point stands that people get all wound up about 3500 deaths over 4 years when 50x that number have died on the highways in the same period. One simple act would cut that number to almost nothing - setting the speed limit to 10 MPH. Hell, even 35MPH would probably do it. Instead we raise speed limits...
Oh, we're willing to live with the death in order to go fast, are we? So is is so far out to be willing to accept 3500 deaths in order to prevail in Iraq?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Come see the 2 headed deer. This sounds like it would make a great horror movie.
I love your selective quoting (although that's usually what you get by grabbing a random list off the internet). Let's take pick a random one, shall we?
... Except that they weren't:
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country"
OMG! Al Gore was trying to encourage us to go to war! The parent was so wrong!
Full context:
"Moreover, if we quickly succeed in a war against the weakened and depleted fourth rate military of Iraq and then quickly abandon that nation as President Bush has abandoned Afghanistan after quickly defeating a fifth rate military there, the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam. We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country.
We have no evidence, however, that he has shared any of those weapons with terrorist group. However, if Iraq came to resemble Afghanistan - with no central authority but instead local and regional warlords with porous borders and infiltrating members of Al Qaeda than these widely dispersed supplies of weapons of mass destruction might well come into the hands of terrorist groups.
If we end the war in Iraq, the way we ended the war in Afghanistan, we could easily be worse off than we are today. When Secretary Rumsfield was asked recently about what our responsibility for restabilizing Iraq would be in an aftermath of an invasion, he said, "that's for the Iraqis to come together and decide."
During one of the campaign debates in 2000 when then Governor Bush was asked if America should engage in any sort of "nation building" in the aftermath of a war in which we have involved our troops, he stated gave the purist expression of what is now a Bush doctrine: "I don't think so. I think what we need to do is convince people who live in the lands they live in to build the nations. Maybe I'm missing something here. We're going to have a kind of nation building corps in America? Absolutely not."
The events of the last 85 years provide ample evidence that our approach to winning the peace that follows war is almost as important as winning the war itself. The absence of enlightened nation building after World War I led directly to the conditions which made Germany vulnerable to fascism and the rise to Adolph Hitler and made all of Europe vulnerable to his evil designs. By contrast the enlightened vision embodied in the Marshall plan, NATO, and the other nation building efforts in the aftermath of World War II led directly to the conditions that fostered prosperity and peace for most the years since this city gave birth to the United Nations.
Two decades ago, when the Soviet Union claimed the right to launch a pre-emptive war in Afghanistan, we properly encouraged and then supported the resistance movement which, a decade later, succeeded in defeating the Soviet Army's efforts. Unfortunately, when the Russians left, we abandoned the Afghans and the lack of any coherent nation building program led directly to the conditions which fostered Al Qaeda terrorist bases and Osama Bin Laden's plotting against the World Trade Center. Incredibly, after defeating the Taliban rather easily, and despite pledges from President Bush that we would never again abandon Afghanistan we have done precisely that. And now the Taliban and Al Qaeda are quickly moving back to take up residence there again. A mere two years after we abandoned Afghanistan the first time, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Following a brilliant military campaign, the U.S. abandoned the effort to destroy Saddam's military prematurely and allowed him to remain in power.
What is a potentially even more serious consequence of this push to begin a new war as quickly as possible is the damage it can do not just to America's prospects to winning the war against terrorism but to America's prospects for continuing th
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
I'd be content with us not being so damn schizoid over what we want out of the third world. We can't just walk in, depose the government, and leave. We might as well annex any country we invade. We need to either be neutral and free or imperialist and rule with an iron fist. We can't have ourselves going halfway through.
Essentially, we should probably wipe those who oppose Us off the face of the earth and regulate the beliefs to become more western and Christianized.
for idiots: it's meant to point out the absurdity in trying to "finish the job"
+5, Truth
How many US soldiers WILL have to die to wow you??
"But this one goes to 11!"
"how about you offer some solutions?"
Ok. Sign yourself up and go over to Iraq and fight. You seem pretty gung-ho about it! Better yet, every person that is pro-war -- put your money where your mouth is and enlist now!
Sure, if by "random" you mean "the easiest one to find some vague explaination for which doesn't acknowledge fully that he had the same intel Bush did", sure, go ahead.
"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country"
OMG! Al Gore was trying to encourage us to go to war! The parent was so wrong!
Yes, I've seen the context. The fact remains, Gore in this statement is saying that, well, "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country". There's no way that any amount of weasel-words can change the meaning of that statement. And yes, thanks for giving more of the quote, it shows even further that you're missing the point:
"We have no evidence, however, that he has shared any of those weapons with terrorist group."
Exactly. To paraphrase Bush at the time, 'The best available intel shows that SH has the stuff, and he and AQ have us as a common enemy. It would be bad if the two of them would decide to put aside their (relatively minor) differences and share resources to attack us.' Yes, that's a paraphrase, not a quote. Gore's approach would have been to wait until they did team up, Bush's approach involved taking the battle there to prevent that. I prefer the latter approach, personally.
If we end the war in Iraq, the way we ended the war in Afghanistan,
When did the war in Afghanistan end? Someone alert the media and military, I'm sure they'll be glad to know it.
Furthermore... so freaking what? Al Gore didn't have the current intelligence on Iraq. Even Hillary Clinton, Mrs. Iraq War, one of the few Dems who *did* have access to it (at least, access to the intelligence that had passed Tenet and Cheney's filters), didn't even read it before she voted.
And, you use this to DEFEND her? Amazing. I don't think "I vote on things I don't understand" is a winning strategy for anyone. If you need cites for any of these, I'll gladly get them for you.
I really don't see any point in that. Your response seems to be, basically, that even though these quotes are true, (unless they're wrong in which case Snopes would love to know about it; they're usually pretty careful about things), the people quoted in them didn't actually mean what they were saying. So what was the case, were they just merely uninformed, or were they lying, or were they saying one thing while meaning something else? Because I can't see any other reason someone would say "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country" unless they mean "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country". All of those words have specific meanings, individually and in that grouping. Pretending that when they said "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country" they meant something other than "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country" is the hight of delusion.
Wouldn't it be easier to just admit that the Democrats came to the same conclusion as the Republicans based on the best available information, and now want to pretend they had nothing to do with said decision for reasons of political gain? Because it has the added benefit of being the truth.
"in order to prevail in Iraq?"
thank you. I really needed a good laugh today.
Perhaps we have different definitions of "prevail"... what is so impossible that it is funny? Would killing everyone in the country be prevailing? Would installing a new dictator and a strong army be prevailing? Would getting the hell out only to go back in if extremists take over be prevailing? What is your definition?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Predators were quick to move into the Chernobyl area because of the favorable night hunting, where prey animals glow in the dark.
Sure, the price they pay is that they can't bear viable young, but to live free without human intervention? Priceless!
The rainforests, whales, polar bears, otters, badgers, foxes, fox hounds, a variety of small animals not including the cockroach but including anything that is furry or appears to be smiling or sad, Chinese Bears, The Panda, The Manatee, liitle old ladies who cycle to church, The North Atlantic fish stocks, er... North Atlantic Norwegian Fishermen and endangered species et al and keep Greenpeacers and Sceptics reasonably happy.
All we need is a number of 'accidental' low level radioactive incidents that contaminate vast areas of land and ocean and scare of all of the humans. I am sure the people Rosie knows (wot can melt steel with fire)will be able to make the necessary arrangements.
Another cool - but very beneficial side effect - will be the sudden abundance of the Tomacco providing a unimaginable source of vitamin c, nicotine and food we don't like but are compelled to eat.
Almost the same as grammar school rice-pudding.
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
And, you use this to DEFEND her? Amazing. I don't think "I vote on things I don't understand" is a winning strategy for anyone.
Strangely, you seem to think that because a person supports some Democrats, they must inherently support all Democrats. I'm not defending her. I'm attacking her. You clearly didn't catch that. Hillary is one of the most pro-war Democrats currently in congress, and certainly the most pro-war Democrat who is prominant on the national stage (with the possible exception of Joe, who is a registered Democrat but is in congress as an Independent).
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
Strangely, you seem to think that because a person supports some Democrats, they must inherently support all Democrats. I'm not defending her. I'm attacking her. You clearly didn't catch that. Hillary is one of the most pro-war Democrats currently in congress, and certainly the most pro-war Democrat who is prominant on the national stage (with the possible exception of Joe, who is a registered Democrat but is in congress as an Independent).
Wow, talk about selective quoting. Tell me, why did you pick that one Gore quote instead of, for instance, this one: "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002.
Tell me, was _this_ out of context too? Because I don't care _what_ context you wrap around that, that statement is astonishingly clear in meaning.
It's interesting that the only thing you choose to answer from my post is that little snippet above. It's also interesting that Lieberman, so typical of Democrats, is playing both sides of the fence. He's an independent so he can get around the fact that he lost the primary, but he's a Democrat so the Democrats can hold the majority. It's another example, just like all the quotes then vs. actions now, of Democrats changing their reality to reflect whatever they think they can get away with.
Here is a cool site - a hot chix0r on a hot bike drives thru Chernobyl. The pictures are gripping, and not just because the hot chick is in some of them. Check it out.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
So how is my military record relevant to a discussion about what is best for the US and Iraq?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
We can expect up to 11 billion people coming up. We need to figure out how to make all of them welcome and at the same time, and this is very important, support and sustain the ecosystem. At a billion people, there was no paradise, at 11 billion there will have to be. See http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/05/scrooge.html for more on this.
Out of context or not, Gore STRONGLY opposed going into Iraq. I don't understand the point.
was the Tiberian Sun series?
I wouldnt say its wing nutty. I'm all for war if the cause is right. but Iraq was a lie and we all know it was. torture should NEVER be used when dealing with terroists. not just for ethics but for intel reasons, if you dominate a person they will probably tell you anything to get it to stop, but if you befriend them you can get a bit more info out of them.
Except they do come from a finite pool: The planet itself (discounting sunlight of course). Granted, wind is obviously limitless but more or less everything else isn't, at least at the rate we are depleting it. Maybe they're finding wealth in natural resources that are only being tapped recently, due to their later industrialization?
OK, who is the idiot who thinks that this is news?!
Wildlife has been observed for a LONG TIME in and around Chernobyl, Pripyat, and immediate areas. This is by NO means new. Not only has it been observed, but is WIDELY documented and has been almost since the disaster.
In the spirit of this article, I would like to announce a discovery:
If you don't refrigerate seafood, it goes bad.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
I said come in! Don't stand there! I said come in! Don't stand there! I said come in! Don't stand there!
I'm going to say that about as many or more (American) civilians have died from terrorist attacks, and that those 3500 men saved many more than 3500. Also, I call your attention to the death rates in the second world war, or the first, or the civil war, or from Hussein to his civilians, or Osama. You say that 3500 people have died. I say that thousands more have been saved.
"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it" -Orwell
As I understand it, his point is not whether or not Gore supported the war, it's that Gore (and other Democrats) agreed that Iraq had WMD, the general context being the post saying the war was over lies.
To many people, this shows Democrats accusations "Bush lied about WMD" to be hypocritical, as many of them agreed about the WMD even if they disagreed about the correct response.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
Have you gone to snopes.com and read the WMD quotes page? Please do, you might be surprised.
I don't know if it was a lie - I think it was the result of an incompetent man who surrounded himself with a bunch of "yes" men. Contrary voices were either ignored or suppressed lower down the chain. People all wondered what having an MBA President would be like, and now we know - he ran the country just like any of these poorly-run companies we have. I think Bush really did think that Iraq posed a more-or-less immediate threat to the US.
That said, I also think that he and the Neo-Cons got carried away with the idea that they could spread some kind of seed of democracy throughout the Middle East. Sure, like Iran and Syria would just sit there and let outsiders take over their neighborhood.
I agree on torture - it's a bad idea unless you have very specific information that you want that is instantly verifiable, like the password to an encrypted laptop. I can't think of many other uses for it, and it's certainly not good for the reputation of our country.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
So you are comparing numbers of deaths in a civilian population of 100s of millions to a military population of 100s of thousands?
Wealth, at least until now, is not simply about parsing out limited natural resources. It is also about specializing and becoming more productive and efficient. We can feed thousands of people with one farmer, whereas in Africa there is hardly any surplus at all, and so nearly everyone is a farmer. Making a cheap foot-operated pump can increase the productivity of a farmer so that he now has some surplus, which he can sell or trade. Then you have a snowball effect - the farmers can invest in even better farm equipment - maybe even purchase more farmland and make an even greater surplus. This both creates demand for other goods and services and frees up former farmers to go and do something else in the economy. Thus, wealth gets built with only a moderate uptick in resource usage.
Obviously, I made up the above scenario, but that is essentially what happened in Asia over the last 50 years - though it was better crops instead of pumps that initiated the uptick in farm productivity.
Moving forward, I don't know if that scenario will still work... it is widely believed that it will be impossible for everyone in China to attain Western standards of living... there aren't enough trees, food, or oil. Indeed it will be interesting - but trees, food, and oil are not what has limited the third world to date. Some of the poorest countries in Africa are some of the richest in terms of natural resources.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
No, that would be absurd - everyone knows that it is more dangerous to be a soldier in Iraq then a driver on a highway. My point is that 3500 AMERICANS died on roads last month. In Iraq 3500 AMERICANS died over the course of more than 4 years. I'm not comparing soldiers to drivers, but Americans to Americans. If you are making policy based on the number of dead Americans, then Iraq would be a silly place to start.
The truth is that people who are opposed to the war for other reasons invoke the body count for propaganda value and I resent that.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Wow, talk about selective quoting. Tell me, why did you pick that one Gore quote instead of, for instance, this one: "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
I picked a random one, like I said. Nothing more. I didn't want to have to do them all. Want the context on this quote?
---
To begin with, I believe we should focus our efforts first and foremost against those who attacked us on September 11th and have thus far gotten away with it. The vast majority of those who sponsored, planned and implemented the cold blooded murder of more than 3,000 Americans are still at large, still neither located nor apprehended, much less punished and neutralized. I do not believe that we should allow ourselves to be distracted from this urgent task simply because it is proving to be more difficult and lengthy than predicted. Great nations persevere and then prevail. They do not jump from one unfinished task to another.
We are perfectly capable of staying the course in our war against Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network, while simultaneously taking those steps necessary to build an international coalition to join us in taking on Saddam Hussein in a timely fashion.
I dont think that we should allow anything to diminish our focus on avenging the 3,000 Americans who were murdered and dismantling the network of terrorists who we know to be responsible for it. The fact that we dont know where they are should not cause us to focus instead on some other enemy whose location may be easier to identify.
Nevertheless, President Bush is telling us that the most urgent requirement of the moment right now is not to redouble our efforts against Al Qaeda, not to stabilize the nation of Afghanistan after driving his host government from power, but instead to shift our focus and concentrate on immediately launching a new war against Saddam Hussein. And he is proclaiming a new, uniquely American right to pre-emptively attack whomsoever he may deem represents a potential future threat.
Moreover, he is demanding in this high political season that Congress speedily affirm that he has the necessary authority to proceed immediately against Iraq and for that matter any other nation in the region, regardless of subsequent developments or circumstances. The timing of this sudden burst of urgency to take up this cause as Americas new top priority, displacing the war against Osama Bin Laden, was explained by the White House Chief of Staff in his now well known statement that from an advertising point of view, you dont launch a new product line until after labor day.
Nevertheless, Iraq does pose a serious threat to the stability of the Persian Gulf and we should organize an international coalition to eliminate his access to weapons of mass destruction. Iraqs search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to completely deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power. Moreover, no international law can prevent the United States from taking actions to protect its vital interests, when it is manifestly clear that there is a choice to be made between law and survival. I believe, however, that such a choice is not presented in the case of Iraq. Indeed, should we decide to proceed, that action can be justified within the framework of international law rather than outside it. In fact, though a new UN resolution may be helpful in building international consensus, the existing resolutions from 1991 are sufficient from a legal standpoint.
We also need to look at the relationship between our nati
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
And I don't get how quotes from a few Democrats, half of them hawks, half of them not even having access to the intelligence or having access to it but not reading it, a number of the quotes back from not long after Saddam actually *was* hiding stuff, and the intelligence itself having first been routed through Cheney's "Office of Special Plans" (which was created specifically because he didn't like what the intelligencewas saying), has to do with anything about Democrats as a whole.
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
Um, read entire Gore speech. He was *NOT* playing both sides of the fence. He was arguing, absolutely and clearly, that going to war would be a stupid thing to do.
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
What about the mutant humans with horrible mutations but also special powers, and the gangs of outlaws trafficing in radioactive materials, without fear because the police and military fear to tred in the radioactive area? A mutant leader with horrible mind control powers who desires absolute power at any expense, and is building the New Soviet Union out of the rubble of Chernobyl?
One of the elderly residents who refused to evacuate the contaminated area says packs of wolves have eaten two of her dogs, and wild boar trample through her cornfield.
This is good news?
I know, it is, it is.
But wild animals may be good, but dupes are not.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
Really, can't understand, why these scientists don't go to Chernobyl themselves. Instead they are exchanging fantasies and build empty theories. Russian and Ukrainian scientists just drive there and make new fantastic discoveries (like, for example, mushroom that feeds by radiation). People are working there, Chernobyl is still producing electricity for Ukraine. Probably Chernobyl is the wildest place in Europe where no animal is killed by man and no tree is chopped off.
Although some people are driving to Chernobyl to make it scarier. For example, I've seen graffiti on the walls of Chernobyl buildings that shows life and joy. Or of grief and horror. You can see them in this dedicated website: http://26-04-1986.com/
Your original statement was that the war was based on lies and greed. I showed that the same sorts of statements were being made on both sides of the aisle, and asked why when Bush says "Saddam has WMD" it's a lie, but when Gore and friends say "Saddam has WMD" somehow it's not a lie. They were either all lying, or they were all not lying. Even if you don't think the WMDs were moved somewhere else (cough...Syria...cough...), the worst that they can all be is _wrong_, unless they were stating an incorrect thing and they knew it.
So let's try that again. Was Gore wrong, or lying? Was Kerry wrong, or lying? Was Berger wrong, or lying? Was Bush wrong, or lying? And, maybe you can explain how data can be filtered and precooked by Cheney and the CIA, when so many of those quotes are from BEFORE Cheney got into office. Just to see if you can, would you mind actually addressing my points this time, instead of snipping 90% of my post, and responding to only the minor subpoint you think you have a chance with? Thanks awfully.
Face it. Your political bias is blinding you to the fact that both sides of the aisle had folks who agreed that Saddam had WMDs and the only way to stop him being a threat to us was to go to war. Do you need the link to the vote for the authorization to go to war? I can post it, or you could google it. Funny how your type keeps ignoring facts for political gain.
Your original statement was that the war was based on lies and greed.
What on Earth original statement are you referring to?
If you can't even keep track of who says what, why should I bother to argue with you?
Nothing says 'welcome to the neighborhood' like a gunny sack full of dead squirrels.
Part 1 and part 2
"How many US soldiers WILL have to die to wow you?"
I was pretty wowed when I realized more American citizens have died in Iraq than in 911.
Iy also answers the question I posed to myself "would the Bush administration really cause the death of 3000 of its own citizens?"
Need Mercedes parts ?