That is fucking awesome. They actually went to break with that? Holy shit.

'Will Obama leave the US defenseless?' <mushroom cloud>

wow.

>> ^TreacleMine:

The debris is still there, it's just zoomed out and not on fire anymore. Look on the left side after the shake, just over the house. You can see a few black objects still falling.


To clarify, the auto-focus went to the pane of glass rather than infinity. None-the-less, if you look closely, you can still see debris falling on both sides of the mushroom cloud. Also, Arvana produced another video of the same explosion from a different point of view. Also, it would be a super impressive fake. All of the caustics off of the glass seem correct and the atmospheric effects seem correct.

I was actually looking forward to the marshmallow sized mushroom cloud.

It must be my.. lucky day! har har.. Thank you!

In reply to this comment by lucky760:
I love this *quality stuff. (As you may be able to tell, I, like so many others am a fan of Pulp Fiction.

I love this *quality stuff. (As you may be able to tell, I, like so many others am a fan of Pulp Fiction.

OH MY GOD. I sat with my mouth agape staring at the screen... as a mushroom cloud formed where my brain used to be.

In reply to this comment by Crake:
In reply to this comment by griefer_queafer:
>> ^Crake:
Too much concept, and not enough craft.



GQ:
Wow. I wholeheartedly disagree. Do you know how much craft goes into something like this? I agree that much of its substance lies in the conceptual, but my god man, that is a beautifully crafted art object. Check out the documentary PBS's art:21 did on him. You may appreciate the work more if you see how much knowledge and artistry goes into his pieces.

CRAKE:
Sorry for the terse comment, I just used your video as an occasion to whine about a pet peeve of mine, that a lot of artists these days only do just enough work to convey some concept or message, and don't particularly care about the quality of the end result.
The half-hearted mushroom cloud is a good example - or Damien Hirst paying some contractor to do the actual hands-on work of making his pieces.

Not much love seems to go into it, is what I'm saying, I guess.

Nah. Its cool. No offense taken. I don't post videos for everyone to just agree with my tastes. I like my tastes to be challenged. I actually killed the video because I found one that I absolutely had to post, but it had already been posted. So its gone now

In any case, there is a way in which much art these days seems half-hearted, as you would put it. And though I still don't agree that Qiang's work in any way constitutes a half-hearted attempt at conveying an idea or feeling, I understand where you are coming from. Hirst IS a particularly good example, and its easy to hate him when he is selling his shit for record-setting prices. Westy pointed out that the piece ended up looking like a giant piece of floating crap at the end. I think that is part of the point. For a moment, it is really beautiful, but that is really fading. Blah blah blah. I don't know... i bet it would have looked amazing if the quality of the video was better.

In reply to this comment by griefer_queafer:
>> ^Crake:
Too much concept, and not enough craft.


Wow. I wholeheartedly disagree. Do you know how much craft goes into something like this? I agree that much of its substance lies in the conceptual, but my god man, that is a beautifully crafted art object. Check out the documentary PBS's art:21 did on him. You may appreciate the work more if you see how much knowledge and artistry goes into his pieces.

Sorry for the terse comment, I just used your video as an occasion to whine about a pet peeve of mine, that a lot of artists these days only do just enough work to convey some concept or message, and don't particularly care about the quality of the end result.
The half-hearted mushroom cloud is a good example - or Damien Hirst paying some contractor to do the actual hands-on work of making his pieces.

Not much love seems to go into it, is what I'm saying, I guess.

I disagree with Pprt's stance not only because of what I have outlined above but primarily because his approach does not provide a solution to the problem, which is insuring the security of civilians on both sides. Essentially what his stance advocates is the blank check towards Israel's continued aggressive tactics when dealing with the Palestinian people, which have been going on for 60 years and have created more and more instability and friction between both parties, not less.

One cannot bomb and maim people into submission no matter what weapons you will use, the US tried to subdue Vietnam through massive bombing campaigns and failed, not because it was wrong in its military approach or didn't drop enough ordnance but because it did not create cooperation nor understand the local populace. The Israelis do. But their aim is not to live peacefully along side the Palestinian people as a stance of foreign policy but to create enough friction that will eventually justify a cohesive seizure of all the lands in Gaza and the West Bank. Or better yet keep infringing on Palestinians so they retaliate and they can seize more land.

This cannot be allowed to occur, as it would justify the brute force tactics in capturing and holding entire enclaves under the guise of assuring security. The argument has already been applied in America's intervention in Iraq which started as when the US sought to nullify WMDs in Iraq lest the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud. This is the same argument Russia has used in intervene in Georgia and South Ossetia. The same argument Germany used in capturing Czechoslovakia.

The Holy land is not mandated to one peoples over another.

EDIT: For clarification.

>> ^bcglorf:

Only replying once, because I really don't care for internet arguments, but here goes:

Yes, it's obvious that they are holding back from their full potential. It's widely understood that they have nuclear arms, and I have yet to see pictures of a mushroom cloud over the strip. Clearly they could do more damage if they wanted to, and they could be less discriminate about civilian casualties.

On the other hand, they've caused injuries to over 1,500 people already. Aside from cost to life and limb, the IDF has caused considerable infrastructure damage to a place that was already in precarious third world conditions.

If you honestly think that Israel does its best to minimize civilian casualties, then please explain this:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/761781.html

The reason they aren't going farther is because they're playing politics. The world wouldn't be able to ignore it, and the US wouldn't be able to back it if Israel decided to "turn Gaza into a giant glass crater." Without US support, they fall. Therefore, they won't obliterate Gaza in one swift strike because they can't, so long as they too wish to survive as a country.

Killing civilians is deplorable, and war is deplorable, end of story. I have less sympathy for Israel in this conflict because they're the aggressors. Take a look at a few historical maps, and its pretty clear that Israel simply wants more territory. Hamas leaders have repeatedly stated that they could co-exist with Israel as defined in the Camp David Accords. The only problem is that Israel isn't interested in honoring that agreement.

Israel has Palestine backed into such a corner that parents can't properly feed their children, it's unsafe for people to walk their own streets, and unemployment in the country is over 20%. How can you possibly be surprised that parts of the populace want to strike back at their common enemy? Do you think they'd still be firing rockets blindly at towns if they had US-made F-16s of their own?

I never understood this strange naive loyalty alot of Americans express towards their president and their government. He is an elected official accountable to the people. Not the reverse.

Respect towards the president has to be earned not simply given once you attain the position of power, the exact reason why I didn't understand the sheer jubilation of Obama winning (okay maybe McCain losing/black president was a good reason), but he still has several key litmus tests to pass (constitutional rights being key).

To say that Bush wasn't the only one to want to go into Iraq is to AGAIN forget the fact that the administration cheery picked information to convince and fear monger the whole nation to go to war (10 Downing Memo, mushroom cloud being a smoking gun).

I would hate for a few years to pass and all that Bush has done to be forgiven, to be written off, to be rephrased and reanalyzed in saying that the man dealt with a difficult situation so we should all cut him some slack.

That is unacceptable.

Bush represents a failure of leadership. A failure to adequately frame a coalition against fighting terror that would be more depended on international cooperation between internal intelligence agencies instead of fighting unilateral wars.

A failure to rally the American people through words, to reiterate that a single attack did nothing to a great nation such as the US, to outline a just course, instead of fear mongering, elimination of basic rights, and going to war.

My initial reaction on seeing this was waiting for the explosion and subsequent mushroom cloud.

"That...is a mushroom cloud....of FIRE right there !!"

lol, fantastic.

"Though I'll disagree that the reasons for the Iraq war were intentionally dubious"

I merely stated that the reasons going into Iraq were wrong, mostly because the administration over sold the threat and under sold the actual cost of going into Iraq. I felt like it was fear mongering more then anything else, riding of the events of 9/11, with threats like "Don't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud". There was such flimsy connections drawn between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

But the greatest mistake was the lack of concrete planning for actions after the nation was conquered, that to me is the biggest mistake of the entire campaign in Iraq. ORHA was given a month to figure out how to run a nation, the CPA hired fresh grad students who brought technological know how to a country that could not afford the solutions they pushed forward. The dismantling of the Iraq military forces and de-Baathization. It all seems like dangerous adventurism.

Democratization of the Middle East

This is one factor I really supported with regards to going into Iraq, the region as a whole is full of autocratic and despotic rulers. However Bush's promises never materalized into anything concrete, mostly because they didn't understand the situation on the ground, when Palestine held elections Hamas ended up winning, the new president of Iran, Sadr in Iraq, polling results in Egypt and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The US supports democracy but only on its own terms.

All the talk behind democracy faded after that, and I ultimately believe it was Saudi Arabia and Egypt who killed it, both nations that do not want to see any kind of democracy occurring anytime soon because of the strangle hold they have on power and money withing their respective nations. One of them happens to be the worlds largest oil supplier as well. The largest failing point was when the US sold billion dollars worth of arms to states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and so on after concerns over Iran.

The following is a comment I left on Dag's profile a while back regarding Democracy struggles in the Middle East in relation to autocratic rule, citing Israel as democratic nation in the Middle East.

I don't know the issue is rather merky when it comes to autocratic rule and Middle Eastern states, I mean for example Kuwait has a parliamentary democracy, and all decisions taken by the Amir have to abide by rulings made by the parliament and the cabinet, all positions that are elected. Women's rights and voting power has been factored in since early 2002 or so.

However politically the country is stagnant, its full of nepotism and corruption, its democratic nature while loved by the populace as it gives me a semblance of influence and most of all free press has seen the country degrade to alot of political infighting and hand wringing when it comes to making decisions with regards to developing the nation and reaching that common cited goal of becoming a "business hub".

Now compare that with nations like UAE, Bahrain, Oman and Saudia Arabia, they all have varying degress of autocratic rule far and above those of Kuwait. However when it comes to economic development, Kuwait is lagging far behind especially when you look at a place like Dubai that doesn't nearly have the same kind of oil wealth that Kuwait has, yet it beating Kuwait year on year with rapid economic growth and development. This is all while at the same time both Dubai and Bahrain are shedding restrictive control over the population via religious doctrine.

This has lead many to ask whether democracy is right for the Middle East as a whole or is it better to be ruled by influential western educated heads of State, Emirs, and Princes? This is a NY Times article on that very issue. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/06/world/middleeast/06kuwait.html?n=Top/News/World/Countries%20and%20Territories/United%20Arab%20Emirates

I agree Israel's democracy is good, but I also feel that it runs too aggressive because of a cornered rat symptom. Let's not forget that their economic prosperity has alot to do with American economic assistance and leanancy with regards to weapons sales and investment. Its true that actions of the state get questioned but I feel its always after the fact, look at the US, how many statues has the administration broken and other then a change of faces will anything really change? The greatest damage done is not that it was committed but that it gives someone else afterwards more room to do more damage. There is little actual accountability.

My personal wish is for Middle Eastern states to unshackle themselves from religious control, which is not there because Islam wishes it so but because its a great political control apparatus, especially in Saudi Arabia. A secular state with respect to religious freedom like the one I saw in Turkey set up by Ahmed Kamal is very admirable to me, but in all I think the population as a whole in the Middle East is not educated enough on civic rights and responsibility, too reliant on age old tribal control and influence that still manifests itself in the political process.

Biological Weapons

I agree that not many would willing go down that path, the costs of development and more so actual deployment require a national industrial project to be effective enough.

I believe the threat is more based around acquired biological weapons from poorly secured sources like those in Russia. However even then we are looking at small contained actions like those in Japan Subway system by that cult.

With regards to Iraq possessing WMD and Bioweapons I find the case was always put forward not because they possibly existed, but because they had the knowledge. I think is the same reason people high up in the US fear Iran, because nuclear development and weaponization is within their grasp, even if they are not working towards that goal. Its the knowledge that scares them.

Okay, it's now 10:59 a.m. Eastern Time, US, on this day, Friday June 13, 2008.

I don't see any mushroom clouds.