Dead Beyond Count

Militarism is expensive. Costs are more than monetary -- including many forms of continuing trauma and death.

Afghanistan intervention cost at least 2356 American lives (link)

Iraq intervention cost at least 4489 American lives (link)

Each fatality is a tragedy (with far more killing of local people). Death is a continuing shock to friends & loved ones. The victim may suffer an instant of surprise, but hopes & promises are muddied & too-quickly erased.

The heroism of those serving overseas is tempered by reality: they should be home -- not enslaved to Big Capital or protecting an ugly foreign potentate. Courageous people who risked life & lost everything for an unknown flag. Bad choices led each of these troops to work & die overseas, away from family, far from home.

Our Law

Law should clearly reflect well-considered public opinion & basic human rights. Society's dreams tempered with good judgement.

Instead, Law is too often Public Relations. Our rulers twist Law to justify their misdeeds and solidify their controls.

The rulers have no mandate to operate above the Law.

It's unacceptable when medical doctors decide to euthanize chronic-care patients. Recurring sinusitis? Painful arthritis? Treat by lethal injection.

No less preposterous are politicos kidnapping people & holding the abducted without charge. After many years captive without legal conviction, the illegally imprisoned at Guantanamo became victims.

Sowing Enmity

American military forces based overseas may not be arrogant, but they're an occupying power, and some local people despise & resist them. Imagine Chinese or Russian or Israeli or Nigerian armed forces based in your community -- would you like it?

Bad enough disliking your rulers; worse they 'invite' a foreign army.

Open hostilities ended 60+ years ago - US Army Occupy goes on & on...

We overpay for our preventive militarism...

Goodbye GI Joe ?

The terrible slashing incident injuring US Ambassador Mark Lippert in Seoul, Korea (link) plus anti-military activism in Okinawa, Japan, confirm that US military bases are often unwelcome overseas.

New construction of Henoko U.S. Marine Base, heatedly-resisted by local people in Okinawa, is endorsed by America's arrogant political allies in Tokyo (some facts at this link). Similar conflicts arise around the new Jeju Naval Base (Gangjeong, South Korea), a military installation being developed in a UNESCO-listed conservation region that far-off Seoul has readily sacrificed.

Of course Seoul & Tokyo prefer peace, but directing any 'first-strike' at distant Okinawa or Jeju (where fallout blows far away from their major cities) is best bad choice (link).

Uncle Sam could simply decide his protective forces are unwelcome, and let the Japanese & Koreans protect themselves...

Military agenda is laborious, oppressive, and part mystery. Our Yankee GI Joe has parked himself in Asia for 70 postwar years. Problems and challenges have been hushed-up, ignored & misreported. Let's now teach the local yokels one great word of English: Goodbye.

Master & Messiah

Top fat-cat US Republican lawmakers are usually calculating & unemotional - they've shut down America for unpaid bills, funded death squads overseas, and continue to bomb & suppress in support of militarism and personal wealth maximization. So how can we explain Congress giving 25 standing ovations to Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu?

Netanyahu spoke to a fuller US Congress on 24 May 2011 and received 29 standing ovations. This week he got only 25. Do U.S. Republicans fear retaliation if unenthusiastic, so they clap and applaud and stand and cheer? Was this spectacle an unseemly disgrace? Not if you love Bibi. Sure, he's not the Messiah, nor a national hero. He's only a mean-hearted visiting foreign politician. But those with good humor can laugh watching Yank politicos dance to kiss his fat arse.

Sly Spies

"The White House admits ... disclosures about US spying have caused diplomatic tension with America's allies"
       --- BBC News, 29 Oct 2013

Bugger All!

Prepared Lies

Look carefully at this photo.
The green display is designed to show the amount of radiation along Japan's newly-opened Joban nukeway. Readings on 17 Feb 2015 were 5.5µSv/h (microsieverts per hour).   Notice anything odd?

Radiation on Japan's Joban Expressway (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

No higher reading than 9.9 can be displayed.  Convenient?

Maybe the 5.5 pictured is actually 25.5 or even 95.5µSv/h -- the display has no 10s or 100s columns ... Good design?

Losing People

In Korea the new school year began yesterday (Monday 2nd March).

Look at photos in this linked article: an elementary school with only one new first-grade child. But 120 schools had no new children, and 130 schools had only one new entrant.

Korea suffers low birth rate & young adults moving to larger population centers. Foreign immigration is very low.

Look next month for similar stories from Japan - their new school year starts April 1st...

Isotope Run 2020

Tokyo's 2020 Olympics will be the most expensive ever. Fukushima nuclear pollution must not cloud the games - face the problem & laugh!

Leaders deviate from promises (link), switching venues to cut costs.

Olympic 2020 marathon can ring the nuclear dead zone!

Two hours round the meltdown site will expose athletes to only 15.0 microsieverts of radiation (best case scenario). Slower runners, camera crews, and volunteer support staff are only slightly more threatened.

Viva Tokyo 2020 ?

Fukushima Nukeway

Japan celebrates the world's only nukeway - you can drive your vehicle through atomic radiation, including 8-km (5 miles) within the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster exclusion zone... What luck!

Today Japanese Prime Minister Abe inaugurated the controversial nukeway, as maximum aerial radiation dose on that section of the road was reportedly 5.4 microsieverts per hour (link). "A driver who crosses the section at a speed of 70 kph will be exposed to 0.2 microsievert..." What of services in the dead strip? Car breakdown?  Past radiation measurements in the area have been much higher, and isotope compositions unrevealed.

Visiting British Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, was brought to the region's periphery, where he reportedly (link) tasted local produce.

Tokyo policymakers & global business interests are increasingly emboldened, as Japan's docile people are now mostly stoic about Fukushima nuclear emissions. (Nuclear meltdown began 11 March 2011 in three of six Fukushima Daiichi reactors. Leakage & widespread contamination continue). Trust industry & government?  How many more mistakes are they making?

Visit Japan !   ?

Japanese PM Shinzō Abe (安倍 晋三) -- symbol of continued errors

Trust?

Just noticed the following in a BBC news article:

[ quote ]
Washington rejected the accusations as ludicrous.
[ unquote ]

Mmmm.

Ludicrous: "so foolish, unreasonable, or out of place as to be amusing."  But far too many deadly serious manipulations are ongoing, with a history (even a single case = too many) of supporting dictators and death squads. Remember the Vietnam War / massacre? US politics, US militarism, and US overseas adventurism are never laughable.

Nuclear Waste Neighbor?

Don't be deceived by those selling nuclear development 'opportunity' -- offers of jobs & money mean nothing when poisoned (as in Fukushima) and being forced to evacuate your neighborhood forever.

How can industry & government impose massive quarantine while claiming "All is well" ... ? Only possible for a public deliberately misinformed and confused.

We must learn from past mistakes! Nuclear power generates nuclear waste dumps. Your nuclear waste is stockpiled a short distance from your atomic reactor. Your local nuclear waste dump is an unstable target for deliberate misadventure, poisonous accident, and deadly stupidity.

 

Kids Unkosher

Shiny seaside rain
Flowers for the family
Gaza internees

Collective clearance
Punish everyone non-Jew
Prisoners Of War.

Homan its Bad !

Are the Chicago Police & Mayor Rahm Emanuel abusive?

Is Homan Square a US domestic 'black site' where law is ignored?

maybe...

Internet Voting

If you live in America, in exchange for web access, your internet provider seeks to suck you dry. Net neutrality opponents such as Verizon are dangerous to our continued use of a robust internet.

Verizon weasels & Fox News are vermin -- scavengers sickly hungry for your blood. If you can, go elsewhere for service. If they can, they'll twist the news, and cutoff your access to non-corporate opinion. Don't enlist in their browbeating -- paying to become another mega-business spokesperson.  Verizon is a turnoff. Fox News? Turn it off.

Opportunity Herzog

Son of Israeli General (later President) Chaim Herzog, grandson of Israel's first Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, little "Buji" Herzog promises moderate new leadership in The Promised Land.

The election's now 19 days away. Can Buji displace massive "Bibi" Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel?  Does it matter?


The world will be surely safer when Avigdor Lieberman and his ultra-right goons depart government. Along with Tzipi Livni and the Zionist Union, Herzog promises to make new friends & alliances for a struggling Israel. He'll also surely be a tough leader. One day Buji will be on the steps of Jerusalem's new Hurva Synagogue (בית הכנסת החורבה)... doing something positive.

PM Yitzhak (Isaac) "Buji" Herzog
10th Prime Minister of Israel from 2015

Choosing a Warlord: Antibiotics

Too many people must work when sick, and use assorted medicines to carry on... "Antibiotics" increase the proportion of resistant bacteria. So-called antibiotics nurture resistant & non-targeted bacterial colonies (link).

Infection can quickly kill anyone...
One treatment option uses bacteriophages, a form of bacterial parasites. Better-developed phage treatments are important.

Some links to resources:

Johns Hopkins University Phage Hunters

"Beyond Antibiotics" by Max Sherman


Sellano Phage Therapy

DSMZ possibilities

Biochimpharm

Novomed

PolymerPharm

Politicians for Hire?

To what extent are politicians willing to whore their experience & contacts in exchange for cash?

Recent "sting" efforts by UK media highlight two senior British members of Parliament: former Secretary of State for Justice / former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, MP (Labour), and Former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, KCMG, QC, MP (Conservative).

The men discussed how they could help a Chinese company based in Hong Kong as paid consultants.

Sir Malcolm was reportedly recorded stating "I am self-employed - so nobody pays me a salary. I have to earn my income." -- In fact, he's a salaried government employee: a sitting Member of Parliament who now serves as Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. His committee oversees British intelligence services MI5 and MI6.

Neither man had yet arranged access to any privileged or secret information (link).

The Americans and other allies will surely pay attention to these reports, if only to note how cheaply and easily British politicians become more friendly. Perhaps this ain't news...

Pocket Espionage

Big companies such as Google are increasingly concerned by eroding trust.

Edward Snowden confirmed many improprieties by government & the mega-corporations (Thank You Ed!). Most recently we read of sweeping infiltration of hard drive firmware (link), spyware on USB minidrives, and British government infiltration of Dutch-French firm Gemalto to compromise SIM encryption (link). (Gemalto SIMs are used in billions of mobile phones). More crimes surely remain unknown.

Oversight by external national authorities, or others such as the EU, help keep some mega-corporations from the worst dishonesties. More oversight is necessary, and accountability.

While major corporate apps and computer programs are increasingly & carefully scrutinized, their programs often require pairing with other apps by tiny firms demanding all access. The process is not accidental. The result -- curious noses of pigs up your arse.

Backdoor weaknesses, and info gathering generally, is liable to exploitation in unforeseen ways. We've all become spying targets. This spying weakens otherwise competitive corporations and destroys trust.

Bush League

I've not met Jeb Bush. But his brother crippled the USA, tortured blindly, and rightly should be in prison for crimes against almost everyone. Their sinister father was no better. Should we give Jeb a chance?

Hell no. It would be best if we could ship the whole creepy clan to Somalia -- or anywhere that would take 'em -- along with Hilary & America's other professional politicos ...

These dancing weasels, and the rare reformer, are a distracting sideshow to the systematic rape of our nation (and the world) by profit-hungry militarists without scruple or morals.

Greek Fete

The Greek government & people have borrowed a lot, and now hope to avoid repayment. Who'll be left with the bill? Of course they hope to escape their debts without pain.

Are the Greeks being reasonable?  Should all debts be forgiven?

Korea's "ilbe" illusions

일베저장소 (Ilbe Jeojangso) is a strange phenomenon in South Korea. Young disaffected people are doing odd & crazy things. The "anything OK" bulletin board is typically labeled libertarian or right-wing, but ILBE is a kind of anarchy - and the ILBE tribe follows a disturbing trend that reaches to the top of Korean society.

People in Korea see flim-flam in action. They followed how the government bolstered one party and undermined its opponent in an election farce far dirtier than Watergate. Anything is OK. It's unethical and corrupt, a soulless crony capital system.

There is dynamic democracy in Korea - partly stifled by authoritarian rigidities and corrupt leadership. Populism thrives. Local people feel outmaneuvered, and hit-out at those weaker. Chauvinistic popular feeling regularly condemns non-Korean businesses: unreasonable attacks are justified by the rubric that "Koreans are emotional." Ultimately, everyone is either connected & protected, or an outsider without influence.

We're all encouraged to hurry. Why?  Perhaps that's a root of  일베 ...

ILBE is best translated to English as "WTF" or "whatevah..."

Those who understand what's happening often believe it's sick, sick, sick. But so is the sham government of President Park: sick, sick, sick... Outsiders not invested in Korea see rot and corruption, and understand anarchist sentiments - where the unconnected are food for the fishes. Korea is unhealthy! So sad...

Unregistered Humans!

Japan has an estimated 10,000 unregistered citizens - people who've lived all their lives amidst society. Without family registry, they're official outsiders.

Read Japan's sordid story by Tomoko Otake here (link)

Both America & Japan have far more unregistered non-citizens -- illegal alien residents. President Obama this week was attempting to grant clemency & amnesty to many young foreigners illegally in the USA. Those plans are now waylaid by court order.

Nobody likes bureaucratic red tape. It's most horrible when entangled. But social services reasonably collect details to fuel their activities & for auditing oversight. Otherwise our taxes only disappear. We've yet to develop wholly robust systems, and poor systems discourage our investments in social services. Illegal aliens may have forced their way into our living room, and pushed aside those  invited, but gate crashers haven't right to remain. If not inviting everyone, we need controls.

Honoring Others

If we each honor the ideas & opinions of others, there can be no conflict.

Some people are pushy, some are rude. Some people wish us harm, to take our property or use us maliciously.

We cannot and perhaps should not seek to ignore such people. Recognize their ignorant and threatening malevolence.

The militarists in our midst are deeply dangerous. They speak of "acceptable error" with air strikes. But killing or maiming a single innocent person is horrible and inexcusable. In harming innocent children and non-combatants, we who fund violence target ourselves.

Our militarism is out of control, and deeply dangerous.

Torture Volunteers

Unit 731 was a Japanese wartime research facility responsible for experimenting on people: prisoners-of-war and local Chinese (link). Gruesome experiments on living humans and large scale germ-warfare trials were carried-out by medical personnel under control of the Japanese occupying military authority.

We don't know as much as we should about the horrors of Unit 731, Surgeon General Shirō Ishii, and superiors in Tokyo (731部隊と石井四郎) because of huge postwar cover-up when the blood-soaked data was bartered to the American military. (Some background here - link)

Now Japan would have us believe Unit 731 victims "volunteered" for sacrifice - without anesthesia or ceremony. Sure...

Scandal Nuts

Cho Hyun-A (조현아, Heather Cho) has been heavily denounced and condemned for nutty behavior at Korean Air (땅콩 회항 or "nut rage"). The heiress has now apologized, but only after triggering great outrage over abusive behavior among Korea's wealthy families. Today she was sentenced to a year's detention with no parole... with the judge stating "human dignity was trampled upon"... Was the tantrum truly as described? Did Cho's family & colleagues suffer such antics for 40+ years? Or is Mrs. Cho a vendetta victim from the ruling class?

"Parking Argument"

After the murder of three students in North Carolina (a young couple & teenage female relative) we're pointedly told it's not a hate crime. Who put this show together? All quite reasonable?

The accused murderer's wife does not claim his innocence; yet the brutal execution-style murder was ...?  The accused's lawyer suggests almost a misdemeanor debate over parking. But someone shot three unarmed young people in the head, killing them in cold blood in their home for no good reason!

See complete video within this page:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/thousands-gather-vigil-three-slain-chapel-hill-n304811

Reasonable people would not expend energy & effort denying hate crime without expressing remorse or shame. Without first declaring great sorrow for the tragedy, these people are disgusting. It's as if a skunk were killed. Three promising young people were butchered!

Perhaps "Parking Argument" needs to be added to the list of scandalous euphemisms (link), such as "Didn't Inhale" and "Wide Stance" and "Hiking the Appalachian Trail"...

I'm sorry for the senseless dead and their family & friends.
I'm sorry also for deceived & terrorized America.
Muslim Lives Matter  #MuslimLivesMatter


America the Cruel !

Dangerous America

The Spin is In:
We're told the murder of three Islamic youths in Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA was not hate crime, but a parking argument.

Sure!

Government & media also share responsibility for terrorizing the American Islamic community. Surely terrible! Many innocent people continue to die in this 5000-year "parking argument"...

Stop War, Stop Killing.
Muslim Lives Matter ! #MuslimLivesMatter

Dangerous Korea

The former Director of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, Won Sei-hoon (원세훈) has been sent to prison for three years for attempting to influence and intervene in the 2012 Korean Presidential election (link). Won & colleagues generated a massive disinformation campaign against the Presidential opposition candidate, while supporting the candidacy of now-President Park Geun-hye. The scandal greatly damaged Korea's democratic image, as well as fundamentally undermining the status and standing of President Park.

 Mr. Won was escorted to the Seoul High Court by right-wing paramilitary supporters in a futile and foolish-looking show of force & bravado.

Patriotic Delusion

Patriotism can be dangerous - as delusion distorts safety & reason.

American exceptionalism is one such case, but other peoples suffer similar befuddlement. South Korea is gradually reevaluating hubris. This week's trigger is Incheon Airport (ICO), Seoul's major gateway, too often uncritically celebrated as "The World's Best Airport" ...

I've used Incheon International Airport 50 times & feel no love - services are often closed; prices are high; the exterior is good-looking, but inside design is ugly and at best unremarkable.

Incheon is located an hour outside Seoul (some 40 miles? distance somewhat fudged), and access is typically by highway bus or taxi operating at high-speed (when possible) along a very scenic mostly waterside route. It's dangerous.

Yesterday at least two people died and dozens were injured in a huge traffic pileup on foggy Yeongjong Bridge (인천 영종대교; "the world's first 3-dimensional self-anchored suspension bridge" - which cost US$1.4 billion). In hindsight, surely traffic control signage was poor, and driving pace typically furious ...   빨리빨리 !   Victims:  Rest in Peace...