The Biggest Volcanic Eruptions In History

Some of the biggest volcanic eruptions in human history have not always occurred in the typical places of interest. For some of you the eruption may even be a little closer to home. Here is a list of the the Top 5 biggest volcanic eruptions in recorded history. 

Ilopango in El Salvador had its biggest eruption in 260 AD producing more than 10 cubic kilometers of volcanic ash. 

Taupo in New Zealand, it's largest recorded eruption happened in 186. A.D. and it produced 80 cubic kilometers of volcanic ash. The pyroclastic flow traveled for up to 100 kilometers. 

This is what is left of the the volcano in Santorini in Greece, the eruption in 1470 AD produced over 10 cubic kilometers of ash but worse still it completely destroyed the Minoan civilization (along with all the minotaurs).

Kikai is a mostly submerged caldera or super-volcano off the south coast of Japan. It exploded in 4300 BC and produced 100 cubic kilometers of volcanic ash, the pyroclastic flow spread across the ocean 100km and devastated parts of southern Japan. 

Mount Mazama otherwise known as crater lake in Oregon exploded in 4650 BC producing more than 100 cubic kilometers of volcanic ash, at this time this area of America was sparsely inhabited, if such an eruption were to occur today the consequences would be disastrous. 

Lenny Bruce On The Irish

The King's Speech was filmed on a Gay Porn Set

After some conversations with the Mack we were informed that The King's Speech was filmed on the set of a gay porn film. The following set of images demonstrates this to the nth degree (we took the liberty of removing cocks as they have been distracting people from the issue at hand).

So the next time you are watching Mr.Firth demonstrate his oscar nominated stuttering interpretation of Bertie, keep in mind the steamy male on male action that occurred in these locations beforehand. This use of the same location definitely makes Firth's transition from playing George in Tom Ford's A Single Man feel like a more natural acting transition. Although this only functions on coincidental irony, here at MRHP we treat coincidental irony like America treat oil - we go digital and tell the world it is ok to start sucking like god damn Kirby every once and awhile...

First Pirate Trial since 1861

The pirate in question was a Somalian man (although the defence team claimed he was under eighteen, the court did not buy this). The judge who sentenced the pirate called Abdiwali Abdiqadir Muse to 33 years and 9 months in prison explained that she meted out such a harsh sentence for he "appeared to relish...most depraved acts." She gave an example of one such depraved act as holding mock executions. Also allegedly he shouted "bury him in a shallow area of the ocean” at the captain of the hijacked Maersk Alabama ship off the coast of Somali where it is not unlike scenes from the movie Waterworld:

The trial was also used as a showboat to curb the steady ship of 19th-century maritime laws been applied to 21^st century piracy. The argument defending such pirates as young Abdiwaii is one of common sense; they have nothing to turn to in such dire economic conditions and such a harsh sentence is been meted out by a hypocritical government who are attempting to police oceans thousands of miles away to protected their own evil multi-corporate businesses from going about their lucrative trade. Somali fishermen who have little means to defend themselves in their small-scale infrastructures have complained about being shot at by foreign fishermen with water-cannons and firearms.

Peter Lehr, a lecturer in terrorism studies says “The first pirate gangs emerged in the '90s to protect against foreign trawlers". These initial motives have conflated into a thirst by these exponentially mycobacteriatic pirates for more treasures. The sanctioning of Abdiwaii’s trial has thrust America and their dealings with foreign affairs into the limelight. Can we expect them to look beyond the acts of violence in the case of Abdiwaii as more than just an isolated case into how they manifested and are in fact a phenomenon directly linked with their own actions and perhaps help these countries rather than throw the old, wrinkled canon against the wall and then turn away?

The Hammer and Sickle Theory

Sometimes flags and symbols are ironic. However, none is more ironic than a Soviet Flag. Look at it. A tiny hammer and sickle on a vast scarlet field. What thoughts come into your mind?

After hearing about Stalin’s purges and Gulag's, all you can think of now is a huge pool of blood from millions of poor peasants, with their hammers and sickles dropping from their hands and floating around in this pool of blood. However, when the Soviets were designing this flag, they were thinking of quite the opposite. This is the story of how their lack of foresight has brought the Soviet Union down, through their flag alone.

Kasimir Malevich, the well known minimalist, was on the committee panel of the Soviet Flag design team. He is well known for works that portray things in the most faceless way and shun any will to be unique, such as the painting below:

No wonder he was so well accepted by the rulers of a nation that promoted facelessness and suppressed any individualism. He is also well known for his work, “The Black Square”. It’s just a black square on a white background. The French and German art critics went crazy about that work in their quest to find the most brutally outrageous work of art. They wanted something more outrageous than a “sculpture” of a urinal, and what could be more shocking than a black square?

So what was the committee thinking? They were trying to create a flag that captures the spirit of the Soviet Union, and in the most brutally minimal way. By using the successful philosophy of the Black Square for the flag, they thought they could create a flag that could boast to the world how forward-looking, efficient, hard working and modern the Soviet Union was, while pleasing radical European art critics at the same time. They got the efficiency and the hard work bit correct, but that was about  it. While being so idealistically excited about the great Soviet Nation, they forgot about the practical reality of the future. They didn’t know that in 1980’s, in the age of computers, waving a flag that showed such stone-age tools as hammer and sickle would make your nation look a bit backward.

Since the Soviet symbol was the Hammer and Sickle, the soviet union really was all about the hammer and sickle. It was all about the process of using the tools, but not the end result of their use. The flag clearly showed this. Stalin started to force millions of his people to work in distant lands with hammers and sickles, this carried on for years. Each new leader forced the new generation to obey his latest order, to the tune of the same Soviet anthem and the crimson colour of the Soviet flag.

 

 If the USSR had any aim, their flag wouldn’t look like this. For example, take the NASA flag. 

Sure, billions of dollars were blown on failed projects, and two shuttle disasters have happened. But the flag still showed that the aim of NASA was to explore space and beyond. And they did. Bear in mind that no single tool was shown anywhere on the NASA logo.

On the other hand, what could one say about the aim of Soviet Union, by looking at this flag? 

Nothing, because if you see the tools and nobody gives you the point for their use, you either look for something to make or you wait what the tool owner tells you to do with them. In the case of Soviet Union, you had to wait for whatever your leader wanted you to do. The Soviet Union was a dictator/control freak’s paradise. In the army, for example, there was a widespread practice of digging  trenches that would serve no purpose at all. These trenches are still scattered randomly over the former Soviet Union. They are scattered so aimlessly that they don’t even spell out a swear word, when you look at them from space. This is what these trenches failed to deliver:

It just shows you how the Soviet institutions were about control and the process of doing anything to obey the leader’s duties. There’s no aim to these trenches, but there were a lot of hammers, shovels and picks used.

A classic example of how aimless and control-craving the Soviet Flag became is shown through a legend of the Worker and the Farm Woman.

When times were hard, and the evil imperialist rulers completely ignored the ordinary people, the Worker and the Farm woman looked into the distance. They united their tools of hammer and sickle, hoping that anything or anyone from the sky above would notice their trouble and either save them or rule them. However, by performing such a dramatic gesture, they clearly weren’t thinking about the long-term business plan of their farming duties and the potential profitability of using a hammer for making stuff. When you’re enterprising, you don’t play out dramatic gestures to attract help or investment. You attract an  investor by using previous reports and books. Just by looking at this worker and peasant woman, you could tell that they looked a bit blank and lacked some entrepreneurial bravery. It’s a well known fact that any prospective entrepreneur would look at things with a scowl like this, and wouldn't engage in symbolic dramatics:

The level of blankness in the couple’s look and the eagerness to wait for orders from the higher power come close to that of a well known intergalactic army:

These are the ideal Soviet citizens, but Soviet artists weren’t excited enough about the facelessness of Soviet regime to think of something like this. So, the result was an only slightly blank gaze of the worker and the peasant woman. They were clearly waiting for someone, someone that could lead them.

In the end, their dreams came true. A bunch of short and bearded men, fresh from European prisons after raising hell over there with their control-freak ideologies, told this poor couple that their hammers and sickles could also help to save thousands of other people like them. 

How could the couple say no to that, when the previous regime had neglected them completely? The bearded men didn’t mention  such terms and conditions as how seriously should they take their orders, but that didn’t matter. Those men were criminals who have honed the fine art of idea selling, so terms and conditions and other ethical stuff wasn’t on their list of priorities.

Fast forward to 1990, when technology and ideas changed, and the USSR’s old  enemy, the USA, had a more timeless flag:

If those old communists were to pitch the idea of the USSR to an investor by using the Soviet flag, they couldn’t  say much. In the age of computers and space shuttles, the hammer and sickle as a nation-building tool was well out of date.  Even such a great leader as Michael Gorbachev had given up continuing the great Soviet nation, after he realised this. As an experiment, try to act as if you’re going to be starting a new country and convince any modern age politician with this sales pitch: "here's my plan for a successful nation,  and here's my logo, which contains a hammer and sickle on a red background, to show how hard working and land-loving my nation is.  This hard work will be done to my orders every five years, when I will finalise my five year plans. Now give me a  couple of billion dollars so I can force people to use those tools!” Of course, the politician would ask, why should the people work hard with hammers and sickles, when there are robots to build stuff and combine harvesters to plough the vast fields of wheat? Even as early as 1990, you had robots to make stuff. So the hammer and sickle as nation building tools were well out of date even 21 years ago. The Soviet Union’s flag needed an idealistic upgrade, but Malevich and the gang couldn’t think about this back in the 1918.   No wonder the Western world found the concept of the USSR out of date back in the 1990!

And for this reason, no wonder the USSR collapsed, when the hammer and sickle became a symbol of backwardness.