If you’ve been paying attention to international news coverage of the Fukushima nuclear accident, you’ve probably seen a lot of Arnold Gundersen (aka Arnie Gundersen). Anti-nuclear campaigners and conspiracy theorists have blanketed social media sites with links to Gundersen’s videos, most of which contain fearful claims about how Fukushima will kill hundreds of thousands of people.

A lot of Gundersen’s appeal comes from the belief that he is objective. People claim that he “doesn’t have an agenda” and that he “isn’t anti nuclear.” Pardon me, but that’s just plain bullsh*t.

Gundersen operates a for-profit anti-nuclear consulting business. Anti-nuclear groups have paid him to give testimony and write papers that favor their viewpoints. He has a vested financial interest in making nuclear power appear dangerous.

As a for-profit anti-nuclear activist, Gundersen has a lot to gain from appearing on TV and saying scary things about Fukushima. Every TV appearance increases his fame, and his business will probably be booming for years to come. As fearmongering about Fukushima causes increased public fear of nuclear energy, anti-nuclear activists around America and the world will pay good money for his testimony.

The misconceptions about Gundersen also extend to his credentials.

A Dubious Resume:

• Gundersen is frequently introduced as the “Chief Engineer” of Fairewinds Associates, an energy consulting company. It’s a meaningless title that Gundersen bestowed upon himself. Fairewinds Associates is a company that consists of only two people: Gundersen and his wife.
• Fairewinds Associates is a business devoted to providing “expert opinions” on the nuclear energy. It receives money from anti-nuclear groups that want an “expert” to spread fearful information about nuclear energy. As an expert witness for the anti-nuclear lobby, Gundersen can probably rake in about 300 dollars an hour. They have also paid him to write reports that make nuclear energy sound dangerous.
• Gundersen has advertised himself as having “39-years of nuclear power engineering experience” / “almost four decades experience in the nuclear power industry”. Very misleading, considering that Gundersen only worked in the nuclear industry between 1970 and 1990. He has worked full-time as a high school teacher since 1990.
• Gundersen says he is a licensed nuclear reactor operator: “The only reactor that he was ever license to operate was a 100 Watt “critical assembly” at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. That reactor had no power generation ability – its thermal power was about as much as a single lightbulb. Operating it provides no experience at all in nuclear power plant operations or maintenance.”
• Although Gundersen frequently talks about the health dangerous of various forms of radiation, he has no formal qualifications that make him an expert in that field.

Gundersen’s fans and supporters like to mention how Nuclear Energy Services (NES) fired him in 1990 because he was exposing safety violations in the nuclear industry. The story makes him sound like a heroic whistleblower, but is it true?

His former employer didn’t think GUndersen was telling the truth. They filed a lawsuit against him. Did Gundersen win? No, he did not:

• NES filed a defamation lawsuit against Gundersen. Defamation cases can be won if the accused is able to prove that his statements are true. Instead of taking the case to court and successfully proving the truth of his statements, Gundersen settled out-of-court.

Why couldn’t Gundersen prove the truth of his statements? Why was it settled? We do not know.

One this is clear: there are a lot of people on the internet who are clueless about Gundersen and his for-profit activism. He is not a neutral party. He has obvious financial incentives for what he is doing. He’s been a paid spokesman for the anti-nuclear industry for nearly two decades. He earns money by spreading fear about nuclear energy.

The Vice President of the United States drops an F-bomb on live TV:

Note: Sarah Palin has an IQ of 120. Are you smarter than her? Take this IQ test and find out!

Well, John McCain has finally announced his running mate, and as we at Who-Sucks.com had expected, he made quite a sucky choice. In the 24 hours since McCain announced that Governor Sarah Palin was his choice, we’ve gone around the net looking for some precise reasons why she sucks.

Here are 16 reasons:

1. A poor record: Her only political experience has been a few years as mayor of a small town in Alaska and less than two years as governor of that state. Her record wasn’t so great: the small town she left behind is now in financial ruin.
2. She has no experience with national level politics. At the time of this posting, many of her views on national policy issues were unknown simply because she is so inexperienced that she hasn’t even made public statements about them. Presidential history scholars believe she may be “the most inexperienced person on a major party ticket in modern history.”
3. She has no foreign policy experience. None.
4. Iraq War? Our country is in the midst of a war, and Palin’s son is going to fight in that war. However, Salon.com reports that she hasn’t even given much thought to the Iraq War, and has no clear opinions about it. Great.
5. She is a creationist, and she wants “creation science” to be taught in public schools.
6. She doesn’t believe in man-made global warming. Maybe that’s why she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
7. Not only does she think the government should be telling people who they can and cannot marry, she also thinks that same sex couples should be denied benefits given to straight couples.
8. Palin has been accused of abusing her power as Alaska governor to try to get her ex-brother-in-law fired as a state trooper. An investigation is underway.
9. She has messed up views on wildlife protection. Environmentalists are appalled by her support of a $150-per-wolf bounty program. She’s also supported the use of government money to educate people about how great it is to shoot bears and wolves, and she doesn’t want the polar bear to make it onto the endangered species list.
10. One nation, under stupidity: When defending the phrase “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, Palin said, “If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.” Reality check: The Pledge of Allegiance was written in 1892, long after the founding fathers died. The phrase “one nation under God” was added in 1954….
11. Anti-birth control nutcase- Not only does Palin oppose abortion in all cases, she also opposes the use of birth control in all cases. That includes married couples that want to use condoms or the pill!
12. Politicizing non-political jobs: When she was mayor of small town in Alaska, Palin abused her authority by firing city employees that did not fully support her reelection campaign.
13. She can’t even manage her own family – rumors have given way to an admission from Palin that her teenage daughter is pregnant, and will be having a shotgun marriage to the guy that knocked her up. That’s what abstinence-only education gets you.
14. Ninja editing: Her Wikipedia entry needed to be cleaned up before the public announcement that she was McCain’s VP pick.
15. She has no clue about the role of the Vice President.
16. It is quite clear she was chosen just because of her gender (most Republicans have never even heard of her), and she’s being used as a trick by the McCain campaign to gain some of Hillary Clinton’s supporters.

Note: Mike Huckabee has an IQ of 115. Are you smarter than him? Take this IQ test and find out!

Who’s this Mike Huckabee guy that’s doing so well in Iowa? Until recently, we here at Who Sucks dot com didn’t consider him important enough back when we created suck-lists for other presidential candidates, but now that Huckabee is getting attention as a serious contender.

We’ve spent the last couple days searching Google and going through the archives of major news sites such as Digg and Reddit and have compiled a master list of reasons why Mike Huckabee sucks. Here it is:

1. He doesn’t believe in evolution: Yep, Huckabee is a supporter of the “intelligent design” theory. He has claimed that this issue shouldn’t matter in the presidential election, but why in the world would we want a president who cannot come to objective conclusions based on present information?

2. He is a scaremonger: Huckabee has called Islamofacscism the greatest threat we ever faced. I think he needs to read a few history books and see that a few terrorists in the Middle East are hardly presenting America with greater threats than those faced in its war for independence, a civil war that tore the nation apart, a world war against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and a Cold War against a nuclear-armed USSR.

3. He thinks AIDS patients need to be isolated: Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could “pose a dangerous public health risk.” When recently questioned by the media on this view, he defended his previous statements.

4. He puts rapists on the streets: As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee personally demanded the release of a convicted rapist who had been put in jail under Bill Clinton’s governorship. After the man was released on parole, he promptly raped and murdered a young woman. Huckabee has tried to play down his role in the parole of the criminal, but those involved have confirmed that Huckabee was far more involved than he now claims.

5. He claims to be a “fiscal conservative,” but he is lying: Huckabee raised taxes and spending while governor of Arkansas, revealing that he is a free-spending big-government Republican.

6. He thinks God wanted the American people to re-elect George W Bush: At the 2004 meeting of the Republican Governor’s Association, Huckabee put on a performance in which he received a cell phone call from God in with the almighty endorced George W Bush’s reelection campaign.

7. He supports torture: Huckabee will continue the Bush Administration’s policy of torturing detainees if elected president.

8. He wants to give illegal immigrants drivers’ licenses: Thought that stuff he said about being tough on immigration in the youtube video with Chuck Norris was true? You’ve been fooled.

9. He holds extremist views on abortion: Even many pro-lifers would agree that a 15 year-old mentally retarded girl who was raped by her stepfather should be able to get an abortion. As governor of Arkansas, Huckabee blocked Medicaid funding of just such an abortion.

10. He doesn’t follow the news: When the newest National Intelligence Estimate came out revealing Iran was no longer developing nuclear weapons, Huckabee was one of the last people in America to find out about it. Does this guy ever pick up a newspaper?

11. He thinks God wants him to be president: Yes, Huckabee actually said that.

12. He doesn’t want us to know the truth about his past: Huckabee had computer hard drives used during his time as governor crushed at the end of his term in order to keep the information stored there from the public and the press. What are you hiding, governor?

International observers were shocked a few days ago when it was announced that the South Korean government had paid $20 million to the Taliban to free 19 Korean citizens who had been taken hostage while illegally performing Christian missionary work in Afghanistan. South Korea’s allies were quick to criticize Seoul’s negotiations with terrorists, and many of them voiced concerns that rewarding terrorists for their actions would only lead to more terrorism. The Taliban agreed:

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi vowed to abduct more foreigners, reinforcing fears that South Korea’s decision to negotiate directly with the militants would embolden them.

“We will do the same thing with the other allies in Afghanistan, because we found this way to be successful,” he told The Associated Press via cell phone from an undisclosed location.

It wasn’t just one press report either:

“We got more than $20 million dollars from them (the Seoul government),” the commander told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “With it we will purchase arms, get our communication network renewed and buy vehicles for carrying out more suicide attacks.”

“The money will also address to some extent the financial difficulties we have had,” he said, but did not elaborate.

Reports today indicate that the Taliban is pissed off by the continued presence of South Korean NGOs, which were supposed to be withdrawn from the country by the end of August. They will proceed to target South Koreans in Afghanistan in retaliation and have put the South Korean embassy in Kabul on their list of places to blow up. Boy, negotiating with terrorists sure did work, President Roh!

It’s too bad that nobody in the South Korean government listened to liberal blogger Michael Hurt when he wrote this warning on his blog on August 01:

…you cannot play the terrorists’ game, because there is only one way to win: by taking them out, or biting the bullet. And as horrible as the latter choice seems, giving the terrorists what they want is as good as pulling the trigger for the next group with guns, who, emboldened by the previous “success” (because, from the terrorists’ point of view, that’s what this would be), kill more people in the future.

Seriously – the South Korean government should stop acting like a group of frightened schoolchildren and act like a responsible government, and not bend over when a group of wackos engages in terrorist threats.

And the behavior of the Korean government is and will make South Koreans even MORE of targets of opportunity for terrorists, who will now learn that taking a few South Korean hostages prisoner can exert political force over that nation. If you were a terrorist, whom would you choose – an American, Italian, or a South Korean? I’d go with the country that would be more likely to give me what I wanted.

Which is exactly the point and modus operandi of terrorism.

And which is exactly what the South Korean government is doing by even entertaining the idea of negotiating, and embarrassing itself by saying it has no power to do anything about this.

Hurt also wrote about how Korean missionary organizations disguised themselves as cultural exchange and aid NGOs with official South Korean governmental cooperation, going to Afghanistan and putting on “cultural performances” such as the following:

Does that look bad to you? How about the video from a couple months ago showing South Korean missionaries [some have said this is the actual group that was later taken hostage] visiting Afghan schools and making the the little kids repeat Christian prayers and renunciations of Islam in an language the children don’t even understand:

When you think about things like that, it’s really not too much of a shock that these missionaries were targeted and captured by Islamic militants. Their actions were so blatantly stupid, it’s an outrage that the South Korean government would give jihadists $20 million to save them. What do you think about this issue, Who-Sucks readers?

PS: If the information in that post made you angry, please calm down by watching this hilarious but sad depiction of the situation from Korean expat blogger and humorist the Big Hominid:

The guys over at Coming Anarchy have written an informative post about the logo of Japan’s newly-established Defense Ministry. The Japanese government had run a contest asking designers for logo submissions, and 767 responses came in. This was the winning logo:

Cool? Lame? Awe-inspiring? Too Web 2.0-ish? Does it suck? If you’re not sure whether it sucks or not, why not compare it to this sampling of Armed Forces/Defense Ministry/Department logos from around the world:

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The UK:

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The USA:

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Germany [Defense Forces]:

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Saudi Arabia:

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Ireland:

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Iran:

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South Korea:

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Russia:

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Australia:

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India:

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New Zealand:

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Italy:

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Norway:

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Ethiopia (photo by Risbo):

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South Africa:

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Brazil:

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Canada:

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Lithuania:

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The Netherlands:

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Croatia:

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Romania:

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Portugal:

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Know of any cool defense logos we didn’t mention in this post? We’d love to see them, so please share them with us in the comments section!