Atomic apocalypse may still be upon us. That is what the filmmakers behind “Countdown to Zero” want us to remember. As President Kennedy says, “Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness.” This quote is used as the thesis behind this film. They used this thesis to scare the guano out of me. Seeing images of nuclear bombs going off while being told how your internal organs may explode if you’re close enough to the epicenter, really makes one ponder how to not have that happen. And that is exactly what they are going for. Getting a response is their way to get their audience to act and do what they want them to do whether that be writing their government, texting to a specific number, donating to a charity or reducing carbon emissions. It is emotional manipulation and it works. However, the direction they are trying to get us to move in is not only naïve, it is futile.
In 1942, the Manhattan Project, led by the American physicist Robert Oppenheimer, came together to beat Germany in creating a fission-based weapon. Many of the world’s leading physicists were brought into this incredibly top-secret project. They decided to make two bombs and use uranium in one (Little Boy) and plutonium in the other (Fat Man). Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945 while the Manhattan Project had yet to finish a working weapon. After a test in New Mexico that showed that the plutonium Fat Man released around 19 kilotons of TNT upon detonation, President Truman decided to use it against Japan. Little Boy was released above Hiroshima; Fat Man, above Nagasaki. At least one hundred thousand people died, most of them civilians. Tens of thousands would later die from radiation sicknesses and cancers.
Since 1945, the world has gone from two nuclear weapons to over 23,000 nuclear warheads. We’ve come a long way, baby. It would take just one-megaton bomb exploding in the air to throw the earth into a nuclear winter. So we have enough going here on this little planet to really mess things up. To have any bombs active really feels, on all sides, irresponsible. Like children picking up loaded guns, I wonder if our world leaders really comprehend what they have in their hands? The film’s solution to all this madness, disarm all the bombs. It’s great to aim high, but what are we truly trying to accomplish? In a way, the ancient demon we’re trying to destroy is the threat of great weapons in the wrong hands. It’s stopping outwardly antagonistic countries like North Korea and Iran from getting their hands on something that will kill us all. But then, is it right that we should have the bombs and they shouldn’t? As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is quoted in the film as saying, “If they are good, then why should we be deprived? If they are bad, then why do you have them?” Are we really more reliable, more responsible then they? We, America, are the only country who has ever used one. So really that ancient demon is us – all of us. Every single human on the planet is the reason why the dream of disarming all the nuclear weapons is never going to happen. We are not trusting, nor trustworthy enough to bring the count back down to zero.
There are currently nine countries in the world with confirmed nuclear weapons. Even if by sheer will and luck we are able to get 7 of those countries to completely disarm, the two that are left will fall into a “No, you first” face off. There is just too much power in having something your enemy doesn’t, which won’t allow us to just let it go. We, as a people, do not trust enough to do that. We think, “If I disarm my bombs, and they SAY they’ve disarmed all their bombs, but they really have a secret stash, that will leave me open to attack. I need to have my own secret stash.” And we also think it’s safer for us to have an ace up our sleeve just in case something happens – and in that way we are not trustworthy either. The film is great in that it got me to ponder and talk about all these situations and scenarios. However, call me cynical, but the solution they offer is, I believe, a big pipe dream that will never be realized.
We know people get crabby when they're trying to quit smoking, but the kinda shiz he was pulling is ridiculous!
Sources involved with the custody mediation reveal that Oksana Grigorieva claims Mel Gibson flew into a rage on January 6 because he had quit smoking that day.
She also said that Mel tried to quit smoking once a month with no success.
Apparently Mel was also seething because he accused Oksana of spending time with the dads from her son's basketball team since she went to the game earlier that day.
What a jealous control freak — and dangerous to boot, cigarettes or not!
Don't get us wrong, we love that she is all about the doting mom thing, but we think it's time she does a little something with her career.
Sources are confirming that this October, Nicole Richie will be reprising her role on the hit show, Chuck. It will only be an one episode gig, but insiders on the show say it is going to be HUGE!
As we understand it, Nicole's character was quite the baddie when she was on two years ago! We're looking forward to more of that!
Course, if we had our way, her return to TV would be for a Simple Life reunion! We miss that show SOOOOO much!
Last night, Rihanna was in El Lay for her Last Girl On Earth tour, and she was joined onstage by special guest Eminem to perform their smash hit, Love The Way You Lie!
After only five days in the hospital, Jeremy London's wife, Melissa Cunningham, has been released from the hospital after suffering a brain hemorrhage.
“Melissa checked into rehab last Wednesday and was having a really hard time with withdrawal,” claims a source. "After Jeremy checked in to (VH1’s Celebrity Rehab) on Sunday, Melissa suffered the brain hemorrhage and was immediately taken to the hospital.”
She has returned to the Pasadena Recovery Centre to continue treatment.
We're glad he was caught - this young man is clearly not well.
Zachary Chesser, the Islamic fundamentalist who threatened South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone after an episode of the cartoon aired that poked fun at the prophet Muhammad, has been arrested by the FBI for providing material to a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda!
The 20 year old college drop-out was reportedly so upset with the aforementioned episode that he posted a message on a radical Islamic website, threatening that the creators would end up like a Dutch filmmaker who was killed for presenting the faith in a fashion that they considered to be negative!
He then was caught when he attempted to fly after being placed on a no-fly list.
Phew! That's some scary stuff.
Didn't he realize that South Park doesn't discriminate - they attack everyone and everything, regardless of race, religion, color, or creed!
M.I.A. is once again acting like sour grapes and lashing out at not only Lady GaGa - which she seems to be doing at a regular rate these days - but also The Big O!
Watch yourself, girl! She is not someone you want to mess with!
She says:
'…Oprah seemed like she was giving me the cold shoulder. She was with Iman (Bowie). Iman was always dancing with me, hugging and kissing me, but Oprah seemed really pissed off with me. Also she made this huge speech at the ball praising Lady Gaga and about how she (Lady Gaga) is helping Americans to be the best of themselves. There's millions of other Americans who represent that for me. Is (it) about numbers? About how much you're selling? Is it truly about the journey? Because (Lady Gaga's) journey isn't that difficult: to go from the fucking Upper East Side to a fucking performing arts school and on to a stage at the museum of fucking wherever. That journey's about four miles.'
Wow!
She really does just sound like a jealous teenager, doesn't she?
And what's with the 'I'm so badass, look at me, I piss off Oprah' shtick? Like we're supposed to be impressed?
Michael Lohan is responding to Kate Major's abuse claims with threats of releasing audio tapes of their conversations, including information about Kate's "legal and personal issues!"
He says:
“Because of Kate’s behavior and false claims, I am going to release a statement and only the first of many pictures of Kate (obliterated) as well as the first of multiple recordings."
Here we go again!
Kate has obtained a restraining order against Michael and he is forbidden from contacting her or going anywhere near her! But their back and forth accusations don't seem to be coming to a halt any time soon.
As for the engagement, Kate supposedly returned her ring to Michael before he left for El Lay. She's also suggesting that he's fallen off the wagon and is drinking again.
Michael is claiming that Kate drained one of their bank accounts which she is denying.
So much he said - she said, but that's just how Michael and his women roll!
The parent company of the UK's News of the World will play an undisclosed amount to settle a lawsuit after the paper claimed Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were legally separating and negotiating custody arrangements for their children!
Brangelina's lawyer revealed that Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers accepted that the claims were "false and intrusive."
Brad and Ange didn't show up in court as they had more important things to do like looking hot together on the red carpet for the Salt premiere, but they will be donating the money for legal costs and pay damages to their charity the Jolie-Pitt Foundation.
Atomic apocalypse may still be upon us. That is what the filmmakers behind “Countdown to Zero” want us to remember. As President Kennedy says, “Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness.” This quote is used as the thesis behind this film. They used this thesis to scare the guano out of me. Seeing images of nuclear bombs going off while being told how your internal organs may explode if you’re close enough to the epicenter, really makes one ponder how to not have that happen. And that is exactly what they are going for. Getting a response is their way to get their audience to act and do what they want them to do whether that be writing their government, texting to a specific number, donating to a charity or reducing carbon emissions. It is emotional manipulation and it works. However, the direction they are trying to get us to move in is not only naïve, it is futile.
In 1942, the Manhattan Project, led by the American physicist Robert Oppenheimer, came together to beat Germany in creating a fission-based weapon. Many of the world’s leading physicists were brought into this incredibly top-secret project. They decided to make two bombs and use uranium in one (Little Boy) and plutonium in the other (Fat Man). Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945 while the Manhattan Project had yet to finish a working weapon. After a test in New Mexico that showed that the plutonium Fat Man released around 19 kilotons of TNT upon detonation, President Truman decided to use it against Japan. Little Boy was released above Hiroshima; Fat Man, above Nagasaki. At least one hundred thousand people died, most of them civilians. Tens of thousands would later die from radiation sicknesses and cancers. 
Since 1945, the world has gone from two nuclear weapons to over 23,000 nuclear warheads. We’ve come a long way, baby. It would take just one-megaton bomb exploding in the air to throw the earth into a nuclear winter. So we have enough going here on this little planet to really mess things up. To have any bombs active really feels, on all sides, irresponsible. Like children picking up loaded guns, I wonder if our world leaders really comprehend what they have in their hands? The film’s solution to all this madness, disarm all the bombs. It’s great to aim high, but what are we truly trying to accomplish? In a way, the ancient demon we’re trying to destroy is the threat of great weapons in the wrong hands. It’s stopping outwardly antagonistic countries like North Korea and Iran from getting their hands on something that will kill us all. But then, is it right that we should have the bombs and they shouldn’t? As Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is quoted in the film as saying, “If they are good, then why should we be deprived? If they are bad, then why do you have them?” Are we really more reliable, more responsible then they? We, America, are the only country who has ever used one. So really that ancient demon is us – all of us. Every single human on the planet is the reason why the dream of disarming all the nuclear weapons is never going to happen. We are not trusting, nor trustworthy enough to bring the count back down to zero.
There are currently nine countries in the world with confirmed nuclear weapons. Even if by sheer will and luck we are able to get 7 of those countries to completely disarm, the two that are left will fall into a “No, you first” face off. There is just too much power in having something your enemy doesn’t, which won’t allow us to just let it go. We, as a people, do not trust enough to do that. We think, “If I disarm my bombs, and they SAY they’ve disarmed all their bombs, but they really have a secret stash, that will leave me open to attack. I need to have my own secret stash.” And we also think it’s safer for us to have an ace up our sleeve just in case something happens – and in that way we are not trustworthy either. The film is great in that it got me to ponder and talk about all these situations and scenarios. However, call me cynical, but the solution they offer is, I believe, a big pipe dream that will never be realized. 
