UK Rejects Weasels

The UK election results are still not wholly reported, but one clear result: the Liberal Democrats were crushed.

This is the party whose weasel leadership joined in coalition with the Conservatives to rule the UK since 2010. The Liberal Democrats broke their promises to voters, to youth and the future, and have been justly routed & reamed.

People expect little from the Conservative Party. But the Lib Dems were a voice of reason before their sellout. Nick Clegg became Deputy Prime Minister for five years, and got to hobnob with fancy folk, but he sold-out his people. Clegg promised repeatedly to abolish university fees - but instead jacked-up fees horrifically (after he & his generation paid little or nothing). Lib Dems vows of "Fairness" were hypocrisy & deceit.

Clegg, his opportunist colleagues, and The Right Honourable Lord Ashdown now bear finery and flattery as rejected losers - wannabe lackeys outmaneuvered by the English ruling class.

Children's Day?

Japan & Korea celebrated Children's Day on 5th May.

Dedicating a national holiday to children is nice, but children's lives are often tough though surrounded by plenty.

Both Korea and Japan are highly competitive, and from infancy most kids are pushed to fight for advantage and grades. Children are forced to memorize large amounts of useless data, seeking to show one is slightly better than others. You compete with your peers instead of playing with them.

In Japan, the keyword is 偏差値, hensachi or deviation-value.

Koreans focus on 스펙, spec, or personal specifications.

It's a grim kind of hell from a kid's perspective.

Children's Day, central Seoul, demonstrating against excessive study & competition

USA Freedom Act

The hobbled American government is now debating The USA Freedom Act.

The new legislation supposedly will roll-back surveillance and limit use of dirty tricks against American citizens.

Why are we forced to legislate freedom?
Because some American elected officials & government employees subverted the Constitution and undermined our daily lives, creating a dangerously sloppy surveillance system infiltrated by assorted enemies, domestic & foreign.

Unacceptable.

Schoolteaching Sweden

Monday this week the OECD published a report (link) about systematic decline in Sweden's schools. Findings strongly suggest the teaching profession in Sweden needs uplifting.

The report was requested by Sweden's previous right-wing coalition government, who supervised eight years of profiteering while education declined. More schools became autonomously incorporated but teachers became more like production workers.
 
OECD Director for Education & Skills Andreas Schleicher highlights "Only five percent of teachers think what they do everyday is respected by society."  Surely that's a problem!
For more see Sweden's 2013 Teaching & Learning International Survey summary (here); or the full TALIS report (link).

Sweden's educational troubles are no surprise. Increasing numbers of teachers work outside the public sector, in publicly-funded corporate schools. Such "schools" may not be clearly labeled as private businesses though staff are corporate employees, typically subverted as quickly-replaceable units to fuel profit-driven corporate success.  

Sweden's school sector has suckled a class of politically well-connected corporate swine instead of cultivating efficiency and innovation. Fat venture capital parasites feast on underpaid labor, minimally invest in professional development, and cut support services & 'non-essential' dimensions such as the school library or student counseling. Students, parents and society are ill-equipped to fully analyze these firms, and there've been tragic cases of full corporate collapse (such as the 2013 JB Education bankruptcy - owned by Danish venture capital firm Axcel - that directly injured 10,000 students in 20+ schools).

Belief in Brutality?

Does anyone believe it's healthy to be Black in America?

U.S. polarization makes Justice trivial and senseless. People are afraid of each other, terrified by government, savaged by local law enforcement.

Big bosses live large; the rest of us fight for scraps. We're brutalized by frightened pigs hiding anxieties behind arrogance & bravado. The cops require respect for doing shit work, but they can never be paid enough.

Provoking each other:
(one nasty t-shirt earns a pepper spray facial & violent takedown):
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=83f_1430654444

Government's creative response? Beat on the People -- More.

Knowledge is Power

Yes -- Knowledge is Power.

That's why our political masters try to keep us in the dark.

In Western nations (before these ruler-jokers) the Church claimed to know better. Dey kept Power for themselves ... look for the gold of their palaces & retreats.

Thank MASA to help us know bettah:

Manning
Assange
Snowden
Anyone

Info for the Masses?

The European Parliament is debating if nutritional contents should be added to alcoholic drink labels.

All other mass-produced drinks and foods require such labeling... but not if alcoholic (1.2% or more by volume). Why the liquor exemption?  The big-business drinks lobby provides lots of political 'donations' to grease their perspective...

There seems no good reason to keep us in the dark about calories & additives, and many reasons we should know (such as rising obesity & dietary restrictions) what's inside the stuff we could consume.

Conditions are much worse in the USA, where even alcohol percentages are hidden.

Pretty packaging hides dangers. Knowledge is Power!

Anzac - The Rulers Know Best

This week is memorial to ANZAC, the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. Especially remembered are fighting & losses in 1915 at Gallipoli - Çanakkale Savaşı.

As with all wars, the losses and maiming are huge. Profiteers and scavengers (properly incorporated & politically connected) do very nicely. But most grunts simply suffer from WTF:
"What the Fuck Am I doing Here?"
Many go from pain to a box in the earth...

The following leads to a great song, "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" as done by The Pogues. The described battle could as well be Vietnam or one of the hundreds of conflicts through history from Afghanistan to Zion. Before enlisting to struggle & sweat & sacrifice for Empire, herded to the killing grounds for Wall Street & The City, listen to war well-told from a peon perspective:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqN1glz4JY

Fast Track to TPeeP

Why's Government keeping trade concessions secret? Why can't the people know?

It's Piracy laddie! A corrupt insider scam.

From the scum who gave insider-bankers our national treasuries.

TPP and TTIP will swindle you from home & community.
(And ye cannot emigrate to jobs in China).
Shut it down!

RIP Ms. Sabeen Mehmud

A ruthless response
Smothering debate with guns
Cocky right-wing thugs

Gunned down in the street
Is Karachi beyond shame?
Two unarmed women ...

Dried blood in the dust
Whatever will be, will be?
Fight ignorance now!

 

Petraeus Favoritism?

Former CIA Director David Petraeus mishandled highly sensitive information and violated the U.S. Espionage Act, sharing classified national secrets with his lover during an adulterous affair.

He's now a Federal criminal; but his misdemeanor conviction carries no jail time.

The progressive press is outraged:
"he's a bum"
"Slap on the wrist ... reveals double standard" (link)

A further worry: "initially Petraeus lied to investigators" (link)

Many analysts focus on how rank-and-file whistle blowers who expose government misconduct & criminality are threatened & imprisoned for espionage, and wish the same penalties on arch "insider" Petraeus.

Golden-boy Petraeus was previously widely thought to have Presidential ambitions. And David Petraeus was brought down soon after declaring that US interests often conflicted with Israeli operations. Did God punish foul Petraeus for failing to kiss Netanyahu's fat arse? (link) Perhaps Petraeus was considered unmanageable as a politician.

The "old boys network" in the USA that supposedly spared David Petraeus is not strong.

 The key is active leverage.

The eight highly classified notebooks the FBI found in an unlocked drawer at the Petraeus home were perhaps a diversion.

Petraeus was head of the CIA, he could easily have protective information (real dirt) that kept him from jail.

High-placed friends & wealth might also help...

Gawker sordid flowchart (link)

Nippon... maa...

This sensitive report will require more care to cover properly. But bare bones focus is three topics (as signified by "maa"):

Mishima
Aum
Atomic

Mishima Yukio (三島 由紀夫 born 平岡 公威) was an uncommon character. A novelist and social commentator, he was also able to create a private militia that sometimes trained together with the Japan Self-Defense Forces (Mishima enlisted himself in the JSDF at age 42). One day Mishima and a few of his team pushed their way into the JSDF Ichigaya military headquarters seeking to spark a national coup. When Mishima's bellowing was ridiculed, he gutted himself, and his assistants chopped-off his head. Nutty but Big News.

Aum Shinrikyo (オウム真理教) was a salvation-focused religious group that began to assassinate its enemies, and ultimately released sarin nerve gas on five crowded Tokyo subway trains. But nearly nine months prior, on 27 June 1994, Aum attacked a Matsumoto neighborhood (Nagano-ken, Japan) with poison sarin gas, killing 7 and injuring hundreds. Law enforcement in Japan was heavily criticized for not curtailing Aum's killing operations earlier, as there were many other extreme incidents prior to the Tokyo Subway attacks (Aum attempted perhaps 20 more chemical & biological attacks in the wider community - link, including use of VX nerve agent to murder followers including Tadahito Hamaguchi, and attacking Noboru Mizuno and others). Nutty - and Big News.

Atomic weapons (原子爆弾) were suddenly & violently introduced to Japan in August 1945. Officially, Japan since then has sought to be free of nuclear weapons. But the military alliance with the USA secretly allowed parking such bombs in Japan. After the Fukushima meltdown, it's reasonable to be suspicious of the haste which the present Abe government seeks to restart nuclear power plants -- understanding that nuclear power operations can mask nuclear weapon-building operations. Western governments have repeatedly accused Iraq and Iran and North Korea of such duplicity - maybe some subset of the Japanese government has ambitions for Japan to join the nuclear weapons club... Is this so nutty?

Concepts overly odd are nonetheless sometimes true...

Second Sewol Shipwreck?

Overloaded ferry Sewol 세월호 sank a year ago due to overloading, poor seamanship, and corrupt management. Hundreds of high-school students drowned when the crew ignored safety regulations and public rescue services proved inept.

The Sewol scandal is highly sensitive. But Korean Pres. Park Geun-hye's right-wing forces lost control this weekend in central Seoul, resorting to battering Sewol memorial marchers with clubs, water cannons & tear gas, and making scores of arrests.

Mainstream Korean citizens are increasingly upset by official arrogance and harsh government cruelty...  watching grieving parents & grandparents shot directly in the face with tear-gas... all from an administration only in power because of psy-ops (from organizing corrupt disinformation on their political opposition -- link).

Koreans are being punished for asking questions & disobedience. But it was unquestioning obedience that got the Sewol kids killed !

Buying Blackmail Access

The security services (NSA, FBI, GHQ, MI6, Mossad, etc.) collect and share massive amounts of information. They process and sort the information with private-sector contractors. Ed Snowden officially was employed by Dell during part of his intelligence career; he later followed NSA Director Mike McConnell to Booz Allen Hamilton (McConnell admits some incompetence, but maintains dogged disinformation - link).

Anyhow, the spooks continue collecting a treasure trove of global information about people, love affairs, finances, national security information of governments around the world, business secrets, competitive intelligence, and enemy schedules.

Intel is valuable. Where will the new train line stations be located? Land prices around each site will skyrocket in value. Early knowledge allows purchase option bargaining.

Mid-sized governments spend tens of billions on defense procurement. Or they could spend far-less to discover fundamental rival vulnerabilities.

Key knowledge can be quickly worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The bad guys know this. Ruthless little fuckers like Whitey Bulger have money and contacts. Yakuza or less-connected governments or ambitious corporations are each eager to invest. Weak links are targeted -- that will collapse to blackmail or bribery. Our own arrogant leadership infects us with pathogens created for our protection.

NSA's Treasure Trove is surely already infiltrated, and the corruption is global.

Our spying is dangerous to all.

Atoms for Abe?

Nuclear reactor restart is very unpopular in Japan, with only 27% in favor. But Prime Minister Abe's in a heap of hurry to restart Nippon's reactors. After the horrible Fukushima disaster one might reasonably wonder WHY? ...

Atomic restart becomes much more understandable assuming Japan has nuclear weapons capability (or substantive nuclear weapon ambitions) secretly hidden inside its nuclear power industry.

Fearsome Fantasy?

We hope a sane voice decides: "Shut it down."

세월호 Haiku

Careless billionaires
Hungry spawn of Dr. Hwang
Sewol Splashing

Politician tears!
So dry beside the ocean
Sinking Gangnam style

Hijacked radiance
Bright youth choked by nasty Wealth
Down in the eel grass

From spec to ilbe
Live, Work, Die - pali pali
Enthralled by ego

FAST Track Trade Conspiracy

Obama and close friends seek FAST Track authority to consummate new TPP laws (Trans-Pacific Piracy laws).

FAST is spelt:
F%#k  America's  Silent  Trust

Our jobs, savings, family, dreams -- killed by Corruption

What is Apostasy?

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia banned slavery in 1962, under reported pressure from U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Of nearly a half-million freed slaves, very many continued working for their former masters.

What's the surprise? That slavery was forbidden so recently? That it was outlawed at all? Why should the Saudi royal family kowtow & grovel to an American president? Can a person dirt poor be truly "free" ...?

Saudi King Faisal offered opportunity. We can imagine he reflected on the teachings of the Prophet (Peace be upon Him). He made a positive step forward.

America may claim responsibility... truth is more murky.

Fighting Over Debtors

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, AIIB, is preparing to launch under Chinese guidance. The USA (World Bank) and Japan (Asian Development Bank) have thus far resisted cooperating, piqued by expected operational overlap with the AIIB.

Japan is further irritated to be perceived a US flunky. Surely Japan's government continues to be a satellite to US government power -- but irritated when their subservience is on display.

Nature shows that apex predators don't play well together...

8 in the Back

A recent police shooting in South Carolina, USA, was recorded by a passerby: Walter L. Scott was killed by North Charleston police officer Michael Slager, who fired eight rounds as Scott tried to run away from a traffic stop.

Can many Americans claim surprise & shock?

The biggest surprise was that the person with the camera continued filming. Being nearby made him a target - maybe lucky the officer's weapon was then empty.

America's police expect obedience. They themselves are scared. If they mistakenly grab you, you still must obey and not resist. Sass 'em -- you may be killed.

You may be brutalized for no reason. Previously, Officer Slager was accused of unprovoked assault, but exonerated by his police department peers. (Justice hinges on what type of American claims damage -- and what proofs are offered -- that ain't changed from ages past).

Americans, taught their rights, are not taught how to survive partial lockdown of their local communities by law enforcement bullies. America needs citizen education courses on being rousted by cops. Anyone suddenly can be drawn into a deadly situation.

Everyday, Americans are trampled by public officials.
Learn to persevere. Obey the Law. Don't complain.
Live -- and protest later.

Welcome AIIB

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, AIIB, (亚洲基础设施投资银行 or 亚投行) is just now finishing its drive for founding membership (31 March 2015). Under first-stage leadership by China, those on-board as Founding Members include a large number of Asian & major Western nations, including the UK, Russia, Brazil, Egypt & Turkey. Many have communicated their application for membership in the closing days & hours.

Notably missing are the USA and Japan. The USA has been a critic of AIIB, though in past days has greatly moderated its opposition as American allies have increasingly ignored US disapproval and joined anyhow. (The USA itself may belatedly participate - see these news accounts: here and here).

It seems to be all about influence. The World Bank, for example, has 188 members (IBRD) but in the past was quite explicit about US influence on leadership: "Traditionally, the Bank President has always been a U.S. citizen nominated by the President of the United States, the largest shareholder in the bank. The nominee is subject to confirmation by the Board of Governors, to serve for a five-year, renewable term."  Recent World Bank explanations are less revealing: "Dr. Jim Yong Kim is the 12th president of the World Bank Group. He was selected by the Boards of Executive Directors for a five-year renewable term." [Kim is the 12th US citizen in a row appointed as President] Analysis of this US hegemony can be read here and here (links)

The Asian Development Bank (ADB), with 67 members, has been largely controlled by Japan -- at least so far, as to date all nine Presidents have been Japanese.

So tall tales of "fair governance" concerns holding back Japan and the USA are weighty as wind from a peasant's backside. If the AIIB is dominated by China, the process of big-power influence will be nothing new...

For most of us little folk, and for the very poor who need help most, it doesn't much matter if the loans we're supplied (and the bosses who offer aid) are from the USA, Japan or China. More help needed !

Radionuclide Latte

The Fukushima nuclear plant is highly dangerous.

It's dangerously unstable. The Mark I containment structure and spent fuel rods are perched high up in the air on a damaged undercarriage. Another huge earthquake, perhaps even a small earthquake, could rupture the containment vessels, releasing huge amounts of radioactivity into the environment.

Fukushima tries containing their bad news, while they're not containing their radiation. Japan's nuclear disaster is compounded by four years of feeble site repairs. Stabilizing the disaster site is incomplete and inadequate.

Forget debates on how much now is leaking -- how many xray exposures received, and natural base radioactivity...

Japan has regular deadly earthquakes. The scale of a new accident could easily be massive, exposing tens of millions to painful early death. Nobody pretends Fukushima Daiichi is stable - it's not.

RUN !

Flush TPP down Toilet

Trans-Pacific Piracy, the TPP agreement, hugely threatens self-determination.

We're being forced to accept corporate controls. Elite negotiators secretly debate & covertly agree hidden binding rules, in a bold attempt at wide-ranging enslavement.

TPP institution will force communities and national governments to welcome encroachment or pay punitive damages. There's no choice but to accept monstrosities such as the Fukushima nuclear cyst.

A century from now, if society survives, they'll surely hate TPP.
Where's corporate leadership after meltdown?
Corporations evade any & all responsibility.

TPP:  From the devils corrupting Fukushima
TPP = Trans-Pacific Partnership

Holy Indiana

Rastafari can celebrate the advent of Indiana's "religious freedom law" (SENATE ENROLLED ACT No. 101) by rolling a big spliff of sacrament. Congrats!

Accompanied Suicide

The recent Germanwings air crash in the French Alps is being described now as a deliberate act (link); the dead co-pilot had a "psychological illness" that reportedly caused the crash.

A similar crash in 1982 killed 24 people, when Japan Air Lines pilot Seiji Katagiri (片桐清二機長) dove his Flight 350 DC-8 (JA8061) into Tokyo Bay. JAL crew reportedly had been unwilling to work with senior pilot Katagiri due to his odd behaviour, so he typically flew with a quite junior crew who'd little or no choice. Captain Katagiri survived the crash; he was cleared of responsibility after being judged insane (心神喪失の状態にあった).

Katagiri's name is officially unmentioned now in Japan, maybe in respect to illness & privacy. In such case of diminished responsibility, Japan Air Lines seems all the more at fault. They had warnings of trouble, did little or nothing, and 24 people died. Very sad...

The world of work can be close to the edge. How many insane people are around us, and what should be done with them? Can trouble be identified before it erupts and kills?

TPP

Trans-Pacific Piracy

Big corporations seek to bind a dozen national governments to the new TPP agreement. The shackles will severely hurt non-corporate interests. We'll be chained to lobbyists and lawyers, taking away all possibility to regulate aggressive businesses.

Remember Enron? Bernie Madoff? They'd be given free entry everywhere, and when the flim-flam unravels, consumers and democracy forfeit all.

This is not a trans-pacific partnership, it's piracy. It makes us each a trans-pacific peon. Pee on.

You nations still not completely enslaved:
You're being tricked.  Wake UP.  Never accept TPP !
There's no "partner" in RAPE

Fiddle

Too often it seems our political economy shuts out the common citizenry: huge corporate interests manipulate our politicians and dominate community resources.

Imagine the worst?

Detente Poisoning

The Foreign Ministers of Japan, South Korea & China have been meeting together, finding areas of agreement and building a groundwork for a possible upcoming trilateral leadership summit.

Photo: Michael Gross & US State Department

Somehow, at the same time, diplomat Stephen Bosworth, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea (and eight-year President of the Sasakawa-funded United States-Japan Foundation) is widely quoted in the press declaring Japan "should not go back on what it has already agreed ... on the subject of comfort women and other subjects."  Major story in Korea!

This important topic has simmered for more than seventy years. It's a poorly-timed coincidence that the former U.S. official undiplomatically stirs-up trouble the same day a foreign minister's trilateral meeting is being held (to which the USA was pointedly not invited). 

Ambassador Bosworth & Secretary of State Clinton, 26 Feb. 2009

Bosworth goes on to discuss what he believes is "in Japan's interest" -- but if he really cared, he'd zip his lip.

Two friends? Hamster duo.

The USA is frightened of East Asia finding common ground & co-prosperity. Discussions find Yankee somehow pushing in...

Today's BBC (link) reports of meetings between China, the ROK and Japan:
'The poor relationship between Japan and South Korea has become a concern for the US, which sees the two countries as its main military allies in Asia. Last week, US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel described the tension between its "two friends" as a "strategic liability".'

"Team USA" is an increasingly illusive domestic abstraction, as 1% hoodwink the vast majority to submit.

South Korea & Japan are more apparently subjugated: the USA bases tens of thousands of young & vigorous American military troops in each nation. For more than sixty years the two lands and their gelded leaders have been reliable pet hamsters to American Empire.

Poison Japan

20 March 1995 I had an early appointment at a western Tokyo university. I walked from my home to Kasuga subway station, then rode a packed commuter train to Suidobashi and changed to the westbound Chūō Line for a 30-minute standing ride.

The trip just then was memorable for being crowded. At the start we were packed so tightly, I still remember being unable to move my arms to wipe my forehead or pat-down my hair. Swearing to avoid Tokyo rush hour trains, I've kept off 'em for the past 20 years.

The morning's further memorable dimension emerged later in the day, after returning home on an almost empty train: nearby painful death. Deluded people on five Tokyo subway trains silently released sarin nerve agent (a deadly poisonous chemical weapon) and then disembarked. I'd been blissfully unaware; the cars I rode were spared, and I saw nobody sick. But I was perhaps just a few meters away from the poisoners and their clear plastic bags of liquid. Hundreds were sickened, a dozen people were killed.

Spooky?  Sure. But two points are most horrible:

1) Nine-months earlier (on 28 June 1994, 240km west of Tokyo) the same group wreaked their first sarin attack in Matsumoto: killing eight & injuring 200 people (link). Japanese Police took some time to discover the killing agent was sarin, and the police throughout were woefully inept. A victim identified as the prime suspect, Yoshiyuki Kōno (河野義行), was vilified by media around Japan (Shincho Weekly later reportedly disavowed its article 「毒ガス事件発生源の怪奇家系図」 after threat of lawsuit - link; see also here). If Japan's police had been slightly alert that year, they'd have solved the Matsumoto case and avoided the Tokyo attack.

2) Response to the Tokyo sarin terror attack on the day was very poor & slow. One Marunouchi line train with poison gas went on its route back and forth and back again for one hour and forty minutes. Many stations were visited three times... and that train passed through my neighborhood twice while dripping poison (and a prior time with culprits pre-release)...

Lessons? Avoid reliance on Japanese officials. One book on the incident (Murakami's Underground. - link) depicts the sarin attacks as laying bare glaring problems of fragmented & sensationalized Japanese society. I wholly agree.