Thanks! Added both to their respective playlists.

In reply to this comment by GreatBird:
Hey rbar. I posted this TED Talk with Sir Martin Rees and I noticed you didn't have it on your TED Playlist. Thought you might want to add it.
http://www.videosift.com/video/TED-Talks-Sir-Martin-Rees-Earth-in-its-final-century
And here is one for your Feynman playlist.
http://www.videosift.com/video/It-Took-a-Genius-Richard-Feynman-and-the-atomic-bomb

Big fan of your playlists, by the way.

Hey rbar. I posted this TED Talk with Sir Martin Rees and I noticed you didn't have it on your TED Playlist. Thought you might want to add it.
http://www.videosift.com/video/TED-Talks-Sir-Martin-Rees-Earth-in-its-final-century
And here is one for your Feynman playlist.
http://www.videosift.com/video/It-Took-a-Genius-Richard-Feynman-and-the-atomic-bomb

Big fan of your playlists, by the way.

"we thought perhaps they would even give us an atom bomb to take back with us. that was our hope, because we wanted to fight the Chinese. we were ready to die. that's all we could think of." - be interesting if similar words came from someone in the middle-east, how different the public perception would be.

CIA meddling at its finest. promise some oppressed peasants the world if they rise up, then deliver nothing.

Do you have links to said "right leaning blogs"

Not sure how anything Obama just said could sound negatively, or is he just pandering to peace loving hippies?

DAMN YOU PEACE LOVING PEOPLE, I HATE PEACE, WE NEED MORE ATOM BOMBS.

because he doesn't like atom bombs.
everyone loves atom bombs.

I gave a few away last Christmas for example

I see. At least we don't see those videos anymore. Good research, by the way.

In reply to this comment by hoju:
There was no hate involved - nothing personal at least. I was trying to point out that we were seeing a lot of those types of videos and I was a little sick of them, and yes, I was a bit of an ass about it. That comment still makes me laugh though.

In reply to this comment by Fjnbk:
Why all the hate?

In reply to this comment by hoju:
WOW! Right before I came across this post, I was thinking to myself, "you know what I've NEVER seen before? Someone taking footage of atomic explosions and then putting MUSIC to it... I bet that would be a wicked awesome idea!" and then here it was. The most unique and revolutionary concept EVER. Congrats to you for coming up with it!

http://www.videosift.com/video/Atomic-Bomb
http://www.videosift.com/video/massive-attack-1946-atomic-bomb-test-at-bikini-atoll
http://www.videosift.com/video/Nuclear-Power
http://www.videosift.com/video/Sad-Storm-A-Nuclear-History
http://www.videosift.com/video/GYBE-Rockets-Fall-on-Rocket-Falls
http://www.videosift.com/video/nuclear-explosion-compilation
http://www.videosift.com/video/Underground-Nuclear-Bomb-Testing-INTENSE-Music
http://www.videosift.com/video/Orchestral-string-music-and-nuclear-explosions-haunting

and my favorite:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Big-Boom--2

There was no hate involved - nothing personal at least. I was trying to point out that we were seeing a lot of those types of videos and I was a little sick of them, and yes, I was a bit of an ass about it. That comment still makes me laugh though.

In reply to this comment by Fjnbk:
Why all the hate?

In reply to this comment by hoju:
WOW! Right before I came across this post, I was thinking to myself, "you know what I've NEVER seen before? Someone taking footage of atomic explosions and then putting MUSIC to it... I bet that would be a wicked awesome idea!" and then here it was. The most unique and revolutionary concept EVER. Congrats to you for coming up with it!

http://www.videosift.com/video/Atomic-Bomb
http://www.videosift.com/video/massive-attack-1946-atomic-bomb-test-at-bikini-atoll
http://www.videosift.com/video/Nuclear-Power
http://www.videosift.com/video/Sad-Storm-A-Nuclear-History
http://www.videosift.com/video/GYBE-Rockets-Fall-on-Rocket-Falls
http://www.videosift.com/video/nuclear-explosion-compilation
http://www.videosift.com/video/Underground-Nuclear-Bomb-Testing-INTENSE-Music
http://www.videosift.com/video/Orchestral-string-music-and-nuclear-explosions-haunting

and my favorite:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Big-Boom--2

Breath, read my comment again. Relax.

I'll be the first to admit that Islam has issues especially in places like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and fundamentalist elements within Pakistan. But we are talking about a fringe here that has come to represent the wider religion of Islam.

The problem is largely stemming from Saudi Arabia and lawless regional areas of Pakistan, which both construct and fund maddrassas preaching a ultra conservative, anti western Islamic subsect called Wahhabist Islam. This is all ties back to funding from Saudi Arabia, though for some odd reason no Western power ever criticizes its funding and application (OIL) this subset of Islam which created 11 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 and continues to send soldiers into areas where 'Jihad' thrives be it Chechnya, Afghanistan or Iraq. The Saudi Royal family controls the masses through its oppressive religion that allows them to stay in power indefinitely, western powers are too afraid to question the de facto standard fearing economic effects with regards to oil. See how Washington took no stance on the recent abusive verdict of a Saudi woman who was gang raped and then punished herself for being with unrelated man at the time of the attack.

Islam is a religion with at war with itself, but it doesn't preach segregation or enslavement of women, thought control or violence but it is a religious movement that has been corrupted through political aspirations of those seeking power. The Islamic Caliphate at its height ruled from Spain to Iran, it mingled with other faiths and peoples, and did not impose its religion on those areas it claimed. Unfortunately moderate voices in Islam are hardly heard or ignored by the sensationalist media and figures like Pat Condell.

There is no separation between those that follow the faith according to the teachings and do so with respect to other gender and minorities such as Sunni Hanafism, Sufi Islam and Ismaeli movement. Indonesia, Turkey, Uzbekistan are just some of the Islamic states I can think of, they are not operating on that level you mention. Not to mention the large and growing Islamic communities in Canada and the USA.

Take for example those extremist elements in the UK preaching Sharia law acceptance and other restrictive practices, they are trying to create a social divide between those who are faithful and those they deem outside of Islam. By actually paying attention to them and reporting on it you are creating a self feeding cycle, because they can claim oppression, and build further divides between elements of society. But at the end of the day they are all immigrants living in a foreign land bound by the laws and regulations of that land, all coming there to lead a better life then the one they lead in their own nations. I believe they are hypocritical cunts personally that use the religion for their own ends.

The UK government is at fault here as well, they are being overly politically correct to a religious movement that should be treated as religion not some atomic bomb. Muslims follow the faith at their choice they shouldn't be treated any more special then Christians or Jews, bar preventing religious conflicts if targeted (this applies to all).

A recent Economist article looked at how Islam and immigration is being used by European politicians hoping to gain votes by inciting differences, especially when it comes to certain issues (eg Mosques being built). The benefits are easy to deduce, they benefit those extremists who can claim their religion is being attacked, and they benefit those hoping to garner votes and political power based on xenophobia and misunderstanding (see previous Swiss elections). In Germany, Netherlands and France the influx of immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East only aggravates the problem, cohesion into European society is hard for immigrants, and there aren't many institutions that deal with it. But I don't see Islam putting shackles on European society thats a bit silly and sensationalized.

I think the problem is a little more complex then just saying lets get rid of Islam tomorrow, forcing people down a certain path of action is just as bad as imposition of thought control. I think a dialog should be made, I think there needs to be understanding on both sides, between those who don't know the faith and those who follow it. I personally think Islam needs to comeback to tolerance and major reforms should take place. In the short term understanding will allow intermingling and eventual passive shifts in thought through being exposed to a free society, and higher education. Religion becomes a choice and or leads to atheism. However attacking the faith and citing it as being foolish or stupid or a bad idea is only going to create further divides.

basically a dupe: http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Atomic-Cannon-1953-Test-Footage

both are contained in: http://www.videosift.com/video/Trinity-and-Beyond-The-Atomic-Bomb-Movie

Tags for this video have been changed from 'oppenheimer, atomic, bomb, hindu' to 'oppenheimer, atomic, bomb, nuclear, weapon, hindu, vishnu, death' - edited by calvados

I'm grateful to raven for raising the issue of the sanctions regime:

Cool war:
Economic sanctions as a weapon of mass destruction

Joy Gordon


* * *

In searching for evidence of the potential danger posed by Iraq, the Bush Administration need have looked no further than the well-kept record of U.S. manipulation of the sanctions program since 1991. If any international act in the last decade is sure to generate enduring bitterness toward the United States, it is the epidemic suffering needlessly visited on Iraqis via U.S. fiat inside the United Nations Security Council. Within that body, the United States has consistently thwarted Iraq from satisfying its most basic humanitarian needs, using sanctions as nothing less than a deadly weapon, and, despite recent reforms, continuing to do so. Invoking security concerns—including those not corroborated by U.N. weapons inspectors—U.S. policymakers have effectively turned a program of international governance into a legitimized act of mass slaughter.

Since the U.N. adopted economic sanctions in 1945, in its charter, as a means of maintaining global order, it has used them fourteen times (twelve times since 1990). But only those sanctions imposed on Iraq have been comprehensive, meaning that virtually every aspect of the country's imports and exports is controlled, which is particularly damaging to a country recovering from war. Since the program began, an estimated 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of five have died as a result of the sanctions—almost three times as many as the number of Japanese killed during the U.S. atomic bomb attacks.

News of such Iraqi fatalities has been well documented (by the United Nations, among others), though underreported by the media. What has remained invisible, however, is any documentation of how and by whom such a death toll has been justified for so long. How was the danger of goods entering Iraq assessed, and how was it weighed, if at all, against the mounting collateral damage? As an academic who studies the ethics of international relations, I was curious. It was easy to discover that for the last ten years a vast number of lengthy holds had been placed on billions of dollars' worth of what seemed unobjectionable—and very much needed—imports to Iraq. But I soon learned that all U.N. records that could answer my questions were kept from public scrutiny.

Read the entire article here: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2002/11/0079384

@Bakalex: IIRC, this is from the documentary film 'Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie'. No doubt the original footage was intended for Chinese propaganda purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_and_Beyond

continued...

Togo sent Ambassador Sato to Moscow to feel out the possibility of a negotiated surrender. On July 13, four days before Truman, Churchill, and Stalin met in Potsdam to prepare for the end of the war (Germany had surrendered two months earlier), Togo sent a telegram to Sato: "Unconditional surrender is the only obstacle to peace. It is his Majesty's heart's desire to see the swift termination of the war."

The United States knew about that telegram because it had broken the Japanese code early in the war. American officials knew also that the Japanese resistance to unconditional surrender was because they had one condition enormously important to them: the retention of the Emperor as symbolic leader. Former Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew and others who knew something about Japanese society had suggested that allowing Japan to keep its Emperor would save countless lives by bringing an early end to the war.

Yet Truman would not relent, and the Potsdam conference agreed to insist on "unconditional surrender." This ensured that the bombs would fall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It seems that the United States government was determined to drop those bombs.

But why? Gar Alperovitz, whose research on that question is unmatched (The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, Knopf, 1995), concluded, based on the papers of Truman, his chief adviser James Byrnes, and others, that the bomb was seen as a diplomatic weapon against the Soviet Union. Byrnes advised Truman that the bomb "could let us dictate the terms of ending the war." The British scientist P.M.S. Blackett, one of Churchill's advisers, wrote after the war that dropping the atomic bomb was "the first major operation of the cold diplomatic war with Russia."

There is also evidence that domestic politics played an important role in the decision. In his book, Freedom From Fear: The United States, 1929-1945 (Oxford, 1999), David Kennedy quotes Secretary of State Cordell Hull advising Byrnes, before the Potsdam conference, that "terrible political repercussions would follow in the US" if the unconditional surrender principle would be abandoned. The President would be "crucified" if he did that, Byrnes said. Kennedy reports that "Byrnes accordingly repudiated the suggestions of Leahy, McCloy, Grew, and Stimson," all of whom were willing to relax the "unconditional surrender" demand just enough to permit the Japanese their face-saving requirement for ending the war.

Of course, political ambition was not the only reason for Hiroshima, Vietnam, and the other horrors of our time. There was tin, rubber, oil, corporate profit, imperial arrogance. There was a cluster of factors, none of them, despite the claims of our leaders, having to do with human rights, human life.

We face a problem of the corruption of human intelligence, enabling our leaders to create plausible reasons for monstrous acts, and to exhort citizens to accept those reasons, and train soldiers to follow orders. So long as that continues, we will need to refute those reasons, resist those exhortations.

wiki: Howard Zinn (born August 24, 1922) is an American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright, best known as author of the bestseller, A People's History of the United States. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn

Howard Zinn served as Second Lieutenant and bombardier, U.S. Army Air Corps where he flew combat missions in Europe, 1943-45.

Important enough to publish in full:

The Bombs of August

Dispelling the Myth of Lives Saved by the Hiroshima Bomb

by Howard Zinn

The bombing of Hiroshima remains sacred to the American Establishment and to a very large part of the population in this country. I learned that when, in 1995, I spoke at the Chautauqua Institute about Hiroshima, it being the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing. There were 2,000 people in that huge amphitheater and as I explained why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unforgivable atrocities, perpetrated on a Japan ready to surrender, the audience was silent. Well, not quite. A number of people shouted angrily at me from their seats.

Understandable. To question Hiroshima is to explode a precious myth - that America is different from the other imperial powers of the world, that other nations may commit unspeakable acts, but not ours.

Further, to see it as a wanton act of gargantuan cruelty rather than as an unavoidable necessity ("to end the war, to save lives") would be to raise disturbing questions about the essential goodness of the "good war."

What could be more horrible than the burning, mutilation, blinding, irradiation of hundreds of thousands of Japanese men, women, children? And yet it is absolutely essential for our political leaders to defend the bombing because if Americans can be induced to accept that, then they can accept any war, any means, so long as the warmakers can supply a reason. And there are always plausible reasons delivered from on high.

That is why the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is important, because if citizens can question that, if they can declare nuclear weapons an unacceptable means, even if it ends a war a month or two earlier, they may be led to a larger question - the means (involving forty million dead) used to defeat Fascism.

The principal justification for obliterating Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that it "saved lives" because otherwise a planned US invasion of Japan would have been necessary, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. Truman at one point used the figure "a half million lives," and Churchill "a million lives," but these were figures pulled out of the air to calm troubled consciences; even official projections for the number of casualties in an invasion did not go beyond 46,000.

In fact, the bombs that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not forestall an invasion of Japan because no invasion was necessary. The Japanese were on the verge of surrender, and American military leaders knew that. General Eisenhower, briefed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson on the imminent use of the bomb, told him that "Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary."

After the bombing, Admiral William D. Leary, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the atomic bomb "a barbarous weapon," also noting that: "The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender."

The Japanese had begun to move to end the war after the US victory on Okinawa, in May of 1945, in the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. After the middle of June, six members of the Japanese Supreme War Council authorized Foreign Minister Togo to approach the Soviet Union, which was not at war with Japan, to mediate an end to the war "if possible by September."

This footage was also used in the Massive Attack video submitted by the lovely and talented plastiquemonkey.