Oh, and ultimately, the terror autopsy didn't even play that huge a part in determining Litvinenko's cause of death. They uncovered a whole bunch of interesting information about radiation poisoning, but they might have missed the cause of death entirely if someone hadn't ordered a test for polonium's signature alpha radiation on a hunch before Litvinenko had even died. That's right: After preparing for a radioactive threat to the point of almost hiring Godzilla as a bodyguard, the whole thing was solved by fucking accident.

The Insane Aftermath:

I love a good "Goddammit, Japan" joke as much as the next guy, and holy shit does the following give me ammunition for that. However, this isn't one of those times. See, the Tohoku earthquake and its assorted horrors claimed the lives of almost 16,000 people (not counting the missing 2,500). The Fukushima disaster forced 160,000 people to evacuate. So out of respect for them, I'll just report the events as professionally as I can. And to record my innate inability to do anything with a straight face, I'll denote every time I catch myself instinctively trying to jokingly compare the situation to a similar scenario from Japanese pop culture with an asterisk. Here goes:

The Fukushima disaster's cleanup has predictably been a bit of a nightmare. Japan has been unwilling to build a Chernobyl-style "sarcophagus" around the plant, opting instead for other methods to study, contain, and eventually clean up the site. A major challenge has been that the plant's debris and reactors are extremely dangerous to humans, which is why Japan has taken to fighting its radiation-related disaster woes with robots*. Authorities have been using specially equipped robots* with names like "Scorpion"* and "Warrior"*** to roam the radioactive ruins* of Fukushima, in the hopes that they could locate and hopefully ultimately remove the radioactive fuel within. However, so far, the disaster is winning*. Robot missions* keep failing* as hitherto unexpected radiation levels blast them* and break their systems. The area has already devoured* "at least" seven robots, and authorities are starting to get pretty desperate*.

Fortunately, there's still a chance that Japan will win the fight* against monstrous* radioactivity. Recently, a new robot* has been introduced to the Fukushima battlefield*: Little Sunfish, an unassuming-looking* swimming robot that has managed to navigate the radiation-riddled maze* of Fukushima's Unit 3 reactor, and may even have succeeded to locate some of the radioactive fuel. And like that, Japan juuuust might be back in the fight.*

Ultimately, this is fairly generic "fuck religions, fuck politics, fuck countries, fuck celebrities" fare which by and large remembers to set its targets high and makes a pretty clear distinction between crazy fundamentalists and the rest of the world. One previous depiction of the Prophet specifically has him cursing out fundamentalists and lamenting that it's hard to be loved by idiots.

Recently, however, it seems to me that Charlie Hebdo has been less about sniping targets and more about closing their eyes and throwing wild haymakers in every direction, regardless of who they hit. The paper reacted to the 2016 Brussels bombings by straight-up blaming each and every Muslim out there for "contributing to the atmosphere" that led to the attack. In 2017, they did the same in the aftermath of the Barcelona vehicle-ramming attack, with a cover that featured a caricature of the incident and sarcastically proclaimed Islam a "religion of peace." It's not just about Islam, either. In 2016, the paper mocked the victims of a large earthquake in Italy with a cartoon that featured burnt, bloodied, and crushed victims and compared the style of their injuries to various pasta dishes. Then they went on to claim that all of those crumbled houses were just shoddily built by the mafia anyway. That dead Syrian toddler on the beach from October 2015? According to Charlie Hebdo, he would just have grown up to be a molester. Oh, and here's how they reacted to the plight of the victims of Hurricane Harvey:

Charlie Hebdo

Charlie. Dude. I know you're not a physical entity that can actually hear me, but are you OK? It's one thing to use satire to shake up the establishment and provoke change. But when you start reacting to natural disasters by insinuating that the victims were all Nazis who totally had it coming, or comparing crushed apartment buildings with multiple dead inside to a fucking lasagna, you've got to ask yourself if you're actually trying to say something important or if you've just decided to hatefully kick the world in its collective balls.

Ah, the Summer Olympics! In 2016, everyone's favorite source of doping scandals, "Will they be ready in time?" media hand-wringing, and Ryan Lochte stupidity took place in Rio de Janeiro amidst the usual construction panic (and slightly less usual insane pollution levels). But the occasional poop-water bay aside, Rio still attracted a whole host of tourists for the event, and even after the Olympics and Paralympics were over, the city would greatly benefit from the new infrastructure it'd built for the competition ... R-right?

The Insane Aftermath:

While Rio was building megastructures for the Olympics, Brazil was suffering from a massive case of what economists call "no dang money" and corrupt officials. Impeached presidents, that kind of thing. (Though in this case, it wasn't the impeached president who was corrupt.) The country's still not what you'd call a paragon of fiscal stability, and it turns out that countries are just like people: In financially tough times, the first thing that goes to shit is all the ridiculously expensive, high-maintenance crap you bought to impress your friends.

What's impressive, however, is just how quickly Rio managed to turn its prized Olympic venues into post-apocalyptic scenery. After about six months, all that's left from the elaborate $13 billion Olympics was a bunch of debt-riddled, polluted, filthy hellscape structures that would make a Fallout character complain about the hamfisted atmosphere. Athletes have been replaced by looters and vandals. Mud and rat shit encrusts the Olympic pools ... which, now that I think about it, should be an Olympic event all on its own. The 100m filth trudge. Even the pride and glory of the event, the Maracana Stadium, now stands a darkened, barren husk that owes almost $1 million in electricity costs alone.

Pilar Olivares/Reuters

The locals have been fucked over way worse than the venues themselves, as most of the Olympic buildings and infrastructure were supposed to ease everyone's life in some way or another. Some of the venues were intended to be transformed into schools. (Nope!) The athletes' village was supposed to be converted to high-demand apartments. (Only 10 percent of the units have been sold!) The canoe slalom pool was supposed to stay open as a free swimming pool for a poor neighborhood. (Totally closed now!) The rapid bus lines that caused at least one favela's sole leisure space to be completely torn down were supposed to help the community. (The buses still work, but the poor community has no access to them because there's no terminal!)

And while the Olympic park does remain open to the portion of the public that's not too wary of tetanus or radscorpions, its complete lack of basic services, such as functional bathrooms (hey, that might explain those brown pools!), has pretty much left it a wasteland. The officials keep making promises that things will turn around, and who knows? Maybe one day in a distant, better future, they even might make good on their promises, provided that super mutants haven't declared the Maracana an independent state by then. For now, everyone seems to talk about the Olympics and their impact on Rio and the whole country as a white elephant.

But surely, the Olympics were at least good for Brazil's athletes? They won 19 medals and garnered worldwide attention, for fuck's sake! Well, don't say that to Philip Wu, who took home a silver medal in the 10m air pistol event. Instead of getting showered in accolades, financial dire straits and lack of funding have forced him to cut his competition and traveling schedule, and he recently got evicted for his troubles. Open water swimming bronze medalist Poliana Okimoto flat out states that her life is somehow more difficult than before winning the medal. In fact, the entire Brazilian sports scene is suffering the kind of crisis that'll affect this generation of athletes and the next. The government can't afford them anymore, sponsors have dried up, training centers are getting closed down, and elite coaches have fled the country like it was on fire. But hey, at least they have that kickass opening ceremony to reminisce about, right?

Pauli Poisuo is a Cracked columnist and freelance editor. Here he is on Facebook and Twitter.

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