Measuring 1,200 feet (366 meters) in diameter, I had to ask myself: “What in the goddamned hell is a giant pentagram doing in an isolated area of Kazakhstan?”

Pretty much only viewable on Google Maps, archaeologist Emma Usmanova gets down to the nitty gritty and explains why this inexplicable pentagram isn’t really all that inexplicable after all. Via LiveScience:

It is the outline of a park made in the form of a star,” Usmanova told LiveScience. The star was a popular symbol during the Soviet era (Kazakhstan was a part of the former Soviet Union until its dissolution in 1991). Stars were often used throughout the Soviet Union to decorate building facades, flags and monuments. (Indeed, several online comments had suggested the site is an abandoned Soviet-era campground.)

The star in the lakeside park is marked by roadways that are now lined with trees, Usmanova explained, which make the star shape even more distinct in aerial photos. Additional images of the site, now abandoned and overgrown with weeds, can be seen at englishrussia.com.

Boo hoo! I was really hoping for a super crazy Kazakhstani devil worshipping story!

Via Zee News

 
“Fly Me to the Moon” interrupted by a 6.5 earthquake in Wellington, New Zealand. This occurred during the recording of a live album at 5:09 pm on July 21.

Sad, because I wanted to hear the rest of song!

 
Via WFMU on Twitter

 
It cannot be said that the citizens of Wisconsin didn’t truly get what they asked for when they had a chance to shitcan Republican Governor Scott Walker, but for some inexplicable reason, opted not to oust the lickspittle Koch whore. Nope, Wisconsin voted this toady to the rich and powerful in twice and well, that clearly wasn’t an accident, now was it? By any metric, Gov. Walker’s tenure in the statehouse has been a disastrous and divisive few years for Wisconsin, near the bottom in job creation and with a host of other problems the Charlie Brown-ish Walker has done little to solve and much to exacerbate.

But now Wisconsinites are getting a bite from a brand new flavor of shit sandwich that results from having a Republican-controlled legislature: Masked mercenaries with semi-automatic weapons are guarding the site of a controversial mining project that is being established near Lake Superior and understandably, people are freaking out about it.

Although there were serious environmental concerns about the mine, in March the GOP legislature pushed it through anyway. Since then there have been steady events protesting the mine, which will be owned and operated by a company called Gogebic Taconite. Over the July 4th weekend, however, masked security guards wearing camouflaged uniforms and carrying multiple semi-automatic weapons started patrolling the future mine’s site. Forget about the firepower for a moment, why do these dudes require masks to do their jobs???

Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall did a little digging into the background of Bulletproof Securities the rent-a-cop on steroids firm—or as they put it, the “No Compromise Security Force”—that is minding the mine:

Here’s the Bulletproof website which lists all sorts of security/paramilitary type services. They even have their own ‘border security force’, which is something I thought the federal government took care of. But apparently not without occasional help from Bulletproof.

Indeed, as the site notes, “BPS has at its disposal the latest cache of specialized equipment for border security operations, not typically found in the private sector. As example, BPS owns heavily armored Joint Light Tactical Vehicles (JLTV’s), Tactical All Terrain Vehicles (T-ATV’s), FLIR (mobile thermal systems), mast equipment (eye in the sky), and many other state-of-the-art assets … The presence of BPS will prevent criminal organizations from posing a threat to your personnel or your mission.”

If your needs are different, Bulletproof can also provide “a QRF (quick reaction force) tactical unit to secure a manufacturing plant during a heated worker strike.”

And they’ll do it all while wearing fucking masks!

Welcome to late period capitalism, baby! Which side of the fork do you reckon you’ll be on?

Worth mentioning that the Republicans who voted to push through the mine over community objections promised that Gogebic Taconite would be creating local jobs. So of course, the first thing, the very first thing that G-Tac did was import their paramilitary mercenaries from Scottsdale, AZ…

Something else worth mentioning? The land is actually open to the public and Bulletproof’s militarized rental cops do not even have the legal right in Wisconsin to actually use the weaponry that they are openly carrying around for the purpose of protecting property. And again, this is property that they do not own!.

Here’s a news report on this highly disturbing development from WISC-TV:
 

 
J.G. Ballard, surely the sharpest critic of late capitalism, offered up the bleakest literary prophecies of what sorts of chaos would be unleashed in the human psyche by changes in the environment brought on by pollution and technology. Ballard was writing about the endgame effects of global warming long before such a term or concept existed, even on the scientific fringes.

In The Burning World (aka The Drought) the author portrays a dry, nearly barren global landscape caused by industrial waste forming a chemical chain that catastrophically disrupts the precipitation cycle. Populations are uprooted, needing to move towards the oceans or die as the rivers turn to streams. The Drowned World is set in the year 2145 in a post-apocalyptic, heavily flooded London with tropical temperatures. Both novels explore what happens morally and socially when modern societies devolve to a hunter/gatherer culture.

But Ballard was writing science fiction, wasn’t he?

We may be finding out sooner—much sooner—rather than later how prescient Ballard’s dark, apocalyptic visions were. A report released today by the World Bank projects that much of Bangkok could be underwater before 2033 and that parts of Africa, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan could face severe drought by mid-century.

Via Reuters/Raw Story:

The flooding of 40 percent of the Thai capital was just one of dozens of negative effects the Washington-based World Bank warned would happen if the world grew warmer by just 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), which it said is likely to occur in the next 20 to 30 years under a “business-as-usual” scenario.

Under World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, the global development lender has launched a more aggressive stance to spur action on climate change. Kim has said it is impossible to tackle poverty without dealing with the effects of a warmer world.

The report builds on an earlier World Bank study released last November that shows the global impact of a 4 degree Celsius rise in temperatures by 2100.

Keep in mind that the National Climate Assessment global warming impact study found that even if mankind seriously put the brakes on carbon emissions by 2030, California would still face a likely rise of SIX degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century, causing rising ocean levels which will contaminate the water table and a severe increase in out of control forest fires.To say nothing of what this will do to the state’s agricultural output. To be clear, two models with varying inputs more or less predicted the same outcome… whether we do anything about greenhouse emissions or not.

The National Climate Assessment report used words like “apocalyptic” and “unprecedented.” You can read it here.

The World Bank report focused on the misery that higher temperatures will cause for developing countries. Sub-Saharan Africa and much of Asia will bear the brunt of the effects and their populations will need to move closer to water sources or perish. Imagine resource scarcity anarchy Mad Max-style writ large across entire regions and continents. Droughts are likely to hit north-western India, Pakistan and Afghanistan the report said. That should be fun.

Staple crops such as wheat, rice and corn have troubles in warmer climates, and the World Bank reports projects that up to a jaw-dropping 90% of the population in sub-Saharan Africa could be starving within forty years.

Even if North America and Europe will not suffer the grimmest fates from climate change (within your lifetime and mine, at least) imagine what this is going to do to the price of putting food on the table for your family. Everything always goes to the highest bidder.

The World Bank’s report can be read here.
 

 
Iggy Pop takes a stroll around New York’s Lower East-Side, in May1993.

As Iggy explains it: he likes living in New York because he is a ‘high-strung, suggestible person,’ and the city gives him a structure in which he can operate. Los Angeles, on the other hand, made him crazy because there was no center.

Iggy highlights some his favorite things to Dutch film-maker Bram Van Splunteren, as he gives a guided tour of the neighborhood. The graffiti, the people, the vibrancy, the food, the street signs, the artists and his personal belief that no one will tell you to shut-up for making any noise—which means Iggy can make as much noise as he likes.

It’s a fun trip, and closes with Iggy talking about Rap, Ice-T, why cops made him fearful and angry, and why he listens to Bob Dylan.
 

 
Portrait of Iggy Pop by Karen Bones.
 

Nestlé’s wet dream? They mark up water 53 million percent!

If you read my angry rant last week about Nestlé‘s chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe and his rather obscene ideas about putting a price tag on water (but don’t you dare call that privatization, he says!) then you’ll be horrified by a recent post at Hang the Bankers that does the math on the sorts of profits Nestlé is currently making off their exploitation of the Third World’s H2O.

All over the world, Nestle has been draining the water from financially beleaguered regions.

The technique Nestlé uses is this: Find an economically weak region, buy up the land surrounding the water source and grease the political wheels by making a proposal the residents can’t possibly refuse. How can depressed regions resist new jobs and added local revenue? But, the revenue generated by these regions natural resource by and large goes to a corporation headquartered in Lake Geneva, Switzerland. And if the financial incentives aren’t enough to assuage concerned citizens, Nestlé’s more than happy to battle it out in court.

Just so that’s clear, they find places that are already struggling with poverty.  Then, they make the poverty worse by damaging watersheds and wetlands, siphoning off hundreds of millions of gallons annually, and leaving the fields barren and dry. This isn’t something that is just happening in Third World countries.  They’ve done it in our own backyards.  Here are just a few examples of communities pillaged by Nestle: Denver, CO; Sacramento, CA; Fryeburg, ME; Mecosta, MI.

Hang The Bankers then goes on to explain exactly what happens when the corporate thugs at Nestlé get their mitts on a community’s water resources. This is so infuriating that I’ll warn you not to read any further if you’re worried about getting bummed out.

The small Canadian town of Hillsburgh, Ontario is Nestlé’s most recent target. Nestlé has permission to take 1.1 million liters of water per day from Hillsburgh’s aquifers, even during droughts.  Initially, the province had set limits on the company’s ability to withdraw that amount during drought conditions, but after “negotiations” the Ministry of the Environment capitulated to Nestlé’s demands that their water pumping not be restricted.  Meanwhile, residents of the town are held to usage restrictions, as their grass turns brown and their gardens die.

The Council of Canadians, along with several regional conservation groups, has appealed the ministry’s decision to an environmental tribunal.

“We find it very troubling that the Ontario government has settled with Nestlé,” Council of Canadians chair Maude Barlow said in a statement. “Ontario must prioritize communities’ right to water above a private company’s thirst for profit. Our government must think about water availability for our grand children, great grand children and beyond.”

Already on the verge of puking? Keep on reading for a really deep purge!

“Under its current permit, Nestlé pays $3.71 for every million litres of water it pumps from the local watershed, which it then packages in single-use plastic bottles and sells back to the public for as much as $2 million,” the Council says.

But a Nestlé spokesman told The Huffington Post Canada that the drought restrictions were only put in place due to an “administrative misunderstanding,” and mandatory rules were never the intent. (source)

ONE MORE TIME: Nestlé pays $3.71 for every million litres of water it pumps from the local watershed, which it then packages in single-use plastic bottles and sells back to the public for as much as $2 million

A mark-up of 53,908,255%.

(But then they went and ruined it with a bunch of Agenda 21 bullshit… It’s an interesting article otherwise and contains a long list of Nestlé products that you may wish to avoid in the future, but my “endorsement” ends when Agenda 21 stuff begins. As if there needs to be a conspiracy theory for something THIS outrageously offensive (and obvious)??? Give me a break…)

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Time of the Assassins: ‘The conversation’ about privatizing water needs to end NOW

The Dead Pool: Jim Bell’s crowd-funded’Assassination Politics’
 

 

For the love of god, don’t splash me
 
And you can too! The Gowanus Canal is infamously dirty. Actually, “dirty” doesn’t really even begin to cover it at all. An “unholy river of putrid filth,” maybe? It’s a Superfund site, of course, meaning the government has deemed it hazardous enough to merit serious clean-up. The Gowanus, however, isn’t just any Superfund site. The Gowanus Canal was completed in 1853, and has been collecting industrial (and human) waste ever since the Second Industrial Revolution. It’s been a dumping ground for coal gas plants, oil refineries, soap plants, machine shops, sulfur production, a leather tannery, chemical plants and cement makers from the very beginning. And then there’s the raw sewage that sometimes overflows into it from the surrounding inadequate sewer systems. I’m not privy to any special surveys of the waterway, but I like to imagine a layer of viscous sludge at the bottom that has remained mostly undisturbed over the years, like a toxic parfait. Maybe you could slice out a sample and read New York history like rings on a tree or geological striations…. except way grosser.

It goes without saying that the area around the canal can smell like horrifying chemical shit when the water gets too low. Or too high. Or when there’s a storm. Or, really, anything that disturbs the delicate balance of its murky, shitty depths.

I have a soft spot in my heart for the Gowanus Canal—it’s one of the great, er, “living” artifacts of US history! Once it was beautiful marshlands full of fish and famously giant oysters, now it’s a vessel for nearly every horrible byproduct of capitalism. And I am not alone in my affections! This summer I will be joining The Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club.

Describing themselves as “a volunteer organization dedicated to providing waterfront access and education related to the estuary and bordering shoreline neighborhoods,” the club makes regular leisure of paddling through the canal. They even have an (endearingly earnest) oath!

We will never bring disgrace to this, our estuary, by any act of dishonesty or cowardice, nor ever our suffering comrade in the ranks.

We will fight for the ideals and sacred things of the waterfront, both alone and with many.

We will revere and obey the waterfront’s laws and do our best to include a like respect and reverence in those above us who are prone to annul or set them at naught.

We will strive unceasingly to quicken the public’s sense of civic duty.

Thus, in all these ways, we will transmit this estuary, not only less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.

 
I never went last year because my ex had a (somewhat understandable) fear of cancer, pissed-off Swamp Things, and/or instant death at contact with the water. But this year, I shall join the Dredgers, those quixotic optimists paddling away on a forsaken and poisoned waterfront.
 

 
WOW this film looks AMAZING! And NOT in the way that the creators intended!

Fuck For Forest is a new documentary following the titular eco-activist group FFF, who have a simple modus operandi: convince strangers on the streets of Berlin to film gonzo porn with them, which is then sold with all profits going to help save the Amazon rainforests. The movie makers travel with FFF to the wilds of South America to meet the people they aim to ‘help’, only to discover, unsurprisingly, that the locals are not enamored with their unique brand of spirituality (which seems to entail a lot of nudity.)

It sounds like it came from the mind of Sacha Baron Cohen, but alas, it’s real. Here is the Fuck For Forest group’s Wikipedia page, which states that they are the world’s first ‘eco-porn’ org.

In its first year of existence,[when?] the organisation’s website netted over $100,000 for rain forest protection through the sale of paid memberships. In their first six months of existence the group received seed funding from the government of Norway. They are the world’s first eco-porn organization.However, the organisation’s unorthodox methods have made it difficult to distribute the money it makes. The Norwegian chapter of the Rainforest Foundation Fund as well as the WWF both in the Netherlands and in Norway have refused to accept donations from FFF. As a result, Fuck for Forest is working on a project to work directly with indigenous communities in Costa Rica and the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.

The film has just gotten a very limited cinema release in the UK, and the reviews have not been good. In fact, it was a damning review by the Guardian that seemed to imply unintentional hilarity that really piqued my interest, making me seek out the trailer and to place it immediately on my “to see” list.

Seriously, check out the additional footage in that Guardian video review after you watch the trailer, it has me wondering if Fuck For Forest is the damning, hilarious portait that this “eco-punk” (or neo-hippy, crusty, whatever you want to call it) scene has always needed?

Fuck For Forest [NSFW]
 

Trash Can. Photo by Steven Hirsch.
 
Photographer Steven Hirsch has been documenting the crusty punks (street dwellers) who live in and around Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan’s East Village. His blog, Crustypunks, is fascinating, beautiful, heartbreaking and provocative. The stories of these homeless folks are sad, infuriating and often tragic. These are hippies without a shred of idealism. And though they may wear the occasional Misfits t-shirt, few of them seem to have any connection to the punk scene of the 1970s other than their anger, which seems directed at virtually anything that moves.

As I looked at Hirsch’s powerful photographs, I realized anyone of us could become one of society’s damaged goods at any time. Our comfort zones are extremely fragile. While some of the crusty punks are just white kids slumming, there are plenty who have, for whatever reasons, given up on life. Many are victims of rape, domestic violence, mental illness, neglect, etc. There but for the grace of God…

Hirsch shot this video of a crusty punk (not the above pictured Trash Can) getting his kicks in a most unusual way. Talk about a cheap high. This makes sniffing glue look like part of a health food regime. 
 

 
Take a trip through Greenwich Village in 1969.

This promotional video was created by the Cotton Producers Institute, which explains the fabric fetish, beautiful models and ultra-groovy threads. Note that there are no hungry artists or bearded beatniks mucking up the mod world of “countrified cosmopolitans.” Kind of prophetic..