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March 17, 1953 – As part of the “Annie” nuclear test at the Nevada Proving Ground, scientists filmed the destruction of “House No. 1” located 3,500 feet from ground zero. The time from the first to last picture as 21/3 seconds, shot from a camera encased in a 2-inch lead sheath to protect it from radiation.
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(Source: png-saturnanimal, via kazukij)
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As Americans, we have this naïve assumption that people all over the world are struggling and way behind us. They’re not. Sweden and South Korea have more advanced high speed internet networks. Japan has the most advanced trains and transportation systems. Norwegians make more money. The biggest and most advanced plane in the world is flown out of Singapore. The tallest buildings in the world are now in Dubai and Shanghai. Meanwhile, the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
10 Things Most Americans Don’t Know About America http://bananenplanet.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/10-things-most-americans-dont-know-about-america/ (via curlycherie)
There are two areas where the USA is way out in front of the rest of the world: war and prison. The technology of killing is the main investment of US national energy, and of course the semi-public semi-private incarceration economy is flourishing while schools and roads crumble. In many other quality-of-life terms — housing, healthcare, public transportation, public access to technology, mental health support, support for people with disabilities, childcare, primary education, maternity support, social safety net — I think a lot of US Americans personally know that things are not exactly rosy but see no options for fixing it.
(via zuky)
(Source: curlycherie-blog, via decolonizeyourmind)
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Language disguises thought.Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (via victoriousvocabulary)
(via psshaw)
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(Source: weissesrauschen, via garden-eel)
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Australia’s history of racism towards Aboriginals is absolutely disgusting.
Until the mid-60s, indigenous Australians came under the Flora And Fauna Act, which classified them as animals, not human beings. This also meant that killing an indigenous Australian meant you weren’t killing a human being, but an animal.
To this day, Australia breaks every code of the Geneva Convention when it comes to indigenous Australians and their human rights. The “public housing” that the government has given them are one-bedroom shacks with no running water, no electricity and no gas, that entire families are forced to live in. These shacks are in communities in the outback, as far away from “civilised” society as possible. Out of sight, out of mind.
Indigenous Australians that live in the city are commonly forced to live in very dangerous and derelict areas that the government gives very little funding towards. Redfern in Sydney is a highly indigenous Australian populated suburb that is rife with crime, unemployment and horrendous living conditions. The government does next to nothing to help these people, either.
Whenever riots have broken out as a result of incredibly low morale, the police and the government are very quick to point all the blame at the indigenous Australians and say that they are the cause of their own problems, rather than looking at what the actual cause is.
Unemployment rates amongst indigenous Australians is astronomical. Crime rates are astronomical. Suicide rates are extremely high within the indigenous Australian community. Death from inadequate living conditions and inadequate health care is common. Brutality towards indigenous Australians is common.
The way many indigenous Australians are forced to live is equivalent to that of what one would expect from a third-world country. Indigenous Australians are considered by the UN to be one of the most horrendously marginalised groups in the world.
And how does the government amend all of this? With a national “Sorry Day”, where white people plant a hand in some designated area of soil as a token of their white guilt, and then continue going about their white privileged day.
On top of that, white people here commonly bitch and complain about how “good” indigenous Australians have it and how “thankful” they ought to be to the white man for improving their quality of life. Meanwhile, indigenous Australians have lost almost all sense of identity and culture because of white colonisation.
What is left of Aboriginal identity and culture has been nearly completely destroyed. And most people in this disgustingly privileged country do not give a single god damn fuck.
Australia is a disgusting country when it comes to racism. I am disgusted by my own country.
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30,000 year old flower revived.
Scientists have resurrected a flower from plant tissues found frozen in Siberian permafrost, thought to be 30,000-32,000 years old. The new Silene stenophylla is healthy and fertile, and producing viable seeds.
The experiment has excited many because it proves that material trapped in the permafrost is recoverable and usable - scientists have been working to recover other species of plant and animal life from the same area, such as the woolly mammoth.
(Source: USA Today, via housegreyjoy)
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