Greetings, dear reader. Your favorite beady-eyed marsupial is greatly distracted by other considerations at the moment, hence the lack of recent updates, but here is a lovely video of George Galloway going off on a caller last November. While it may, at seven minutes in length, challenge the attention spans of some people, I'm confident that anyone with the patience to still be reading my blog after all this time can handle it.
George gets rather excited, in the manner of talk show hosts the world over, but he has some very good points to make. And his caller is the exact English counterpart of the sort of American who watches Fox news.
Open Salon readers can watch the video here
Showing posts with label nuclear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nuclear. Show all posts
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Endgame in Pakistan?
As most of you are probably aware by now, last week US helicopter gunships crossed the border into Pakistan and attacked an outpost of the Pakistan army, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers, and wounding 13 more. There can be little doubt that this was a deliberate attack, ordered and approved at the highest levels of the Obama administration. It is virtually certain that the President himself approved the attack.
How do we know this? Well, consider the fact that as soon as the attack started, the Pakistanis radioed NATO command, and told them that their helicopters were attacking an outpost of the Pakistan army. The gunships then broke off their attack and left. But, fifteen minutes later, they returned to renew the attack. How do you explain that as an accident?
This was done after a blunt warning from the Chinese a few months ago, to the effect that any US attack on Pakistan could lead to war.
And a similar blunt warning from General Hamid Gul, former head of the ISI, (think Pakistan's CIA), in May of this year, as seen in the video below.
(Open Salon readers can watch the video here)
If you're short on time and patience, drag the slider to 10:00 and watch the last 2 minutes of the video.
Now, with regard to General Gul. As a former head of the ISI, there can be no doubt that he has bloody hands up to his armpits. I'm not suggesting for one moment that he is an angel, or a nice guy. But I cannot help but respect him for his strategic acuity, and most of all for his willingness to state the blunt truth. After all, dear reader, this was the man who had the courage to say openly that the "War on Terror" was nonsense, and entirely a product of George Bush's imagination.
So, having said all that, the obvious remaining question is, what the fuck is going on is Washington? Have they succumbed to the Bush-era thinking that "we are an empire now; we create our own reality"? Are they utterly stark, raving insane? Or are they pursuing a dark agenda which has not yet become apparent, even to those of us who attempt to sift through the mega-tons of media bullshit, and follow events in the world outside our borders?
In all truth, dear reader, I do not have a clue. Your guess is as good as mine.
How do we know this? Well, consider the fact that as soon as the attack started, the Pakistanis radioed NATO command, and told them that their helicopters were attacking an outpost of the Pakistan army. The gunships then broke off their attack and left. But, fifteen minutes later, they returned to renew the attack. How do you explain that as an accident?
This was done after a blunt warning from the Chinese a few months ago, to the effect that any US attack on Pakistan could lead to war.
And a similar blunt warning from General Hamid Gul, former head of the ISI, (think Pakistan's CIA), in May of this year, as seen in the video below.
(Open Salon readers can watch the video here)
If you're short on time and patience, drag the slider to 10:00 and watch the last 2 minutes of the video.
Now, with regard to General Gul. As a former head of the ISI, there can be no doubt that he has bloody hands up to his armpits. I'm not suggesting for one moment that he is an angel, or a nice guy. But I cannot help but respect him for his strategic acuity, and most of all for his willingness to state the blunt truth. After all, dear reader, this was the man who had the courage to say openly that the "War on Terror" was nonsense, and entirely a product of George Bush's imagination.
So, having said all that, the obvious remaining question is, what the fuck is going on is Washington? Have they succumbed to the Bush-era thinking that "we are an empire now; we create our own reality"? Are they utterly stark, raving insane? Or are they pursuing a dark agenda which has not yet become apparent, even to those of us who attempt to sift through the mega-tons of media bullshit, and follow events in the world outside our borders?
In all truth, dear reader, I do not have a clue. Your guess is as good as mine.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Porn Crazy On A Bitter 4th
Happy 4th of July, we say.
Just what's so fucking happy about it?
At least 20 million Americans are unemployed. At least 10 million more are underemployed. At least 7 million of the unemployed, the 99ers, have completely exhausted their unemployment benefits, and have nothing at all, since they still cannot find a job.
14% of the population of the USA is now receiving Food Stamps.
And meanwhile, we are on track to break the barrier of Four Trillion US dollars spent thus far on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Oh, but don't worry, it's only about 3 and a half Trillion so far.
Our constitutional rights have been raped away by the bitterly misnamed Patriot Act. The President has murdered Habeas Corpus. And the US Supreme Court is dominated by reactionaries who have declared corporations to have the same rights as people.
The Gulf of Mexico is dying, we still haven't been told the brutal truth about radiation leakage from the Fukushima plant in Japan, and our President is the most painfully inadequate eunuch to sit his unworthy fundament in the Oval Office since Warren G Harding.
Oh, but hey, Happy 4th of July, everyone!
Then again, (gasp!) perhaps my brain has been re-wired by pornography. That is the breathtakingly unoriginal assertion of Naomi Wolf in a recent article at AJE.
If you really have nothing better to do than read her regurgitated drivel, you will find that it's a tired recycling of old and discredited theories from the grossly-misnamed "War on Drugs", just re-targeted on pr0n instead. "They need more and more powerful drugs to get them off" has become, "They need more and more hardcore porn to get them off".
Oh, and to justify that breathless exclamation about "rewiring the male brain", she then solemnly invokes the word "dopamine", ooooooooh, Naomi, that's science! The whole article is a series of sloppy assertions, pseudo-validated by phrases like "we now know" and "there is an increasing body of evidence to support". And yet, not once in the whole article does she cite a single reference to back up any of these assertions. In fact the only reference in the whole article, and a half-assed one at that, is in support of a passing reference to the alleged effects of porn upon women.
If dear Naomi knew anything at all about pr0n, she'd know that while addictive personalities and those who have been raised in a sexually-repressive atmosphere may go crazy with it, most men simply get incredibly bored with it in fairly short order.
In short, this is nothing more than a socio-political hit piece, targeting 49% of the human race.
If you want to argue against porn, there are far more credible ways to approach the subject. My mother, late in her life, changed her position on pr0n, and decided that she was against it, simply upon the pragmatic grounds that, (in her opinion), it leads men to have unreasonable expectations of women. Now, you may or may not agree with that, but we can at least discuss the assertion, although it doesn't do anything to address the First Amendment aspects of the debate.
Just what's so fucking happy about it?
At least 20 million Americans are unemployed. At least 10 million more are underemployed. At least 7 million of the unemployed, the 99ers, have completely exhausted their unemployment benefits, and have nothing at all, since they still cannot find a job.
14% of the population of the USA is now receiving Food Stamps.
And meanwhile, we are on track to break the barrier of Four Trillion US dollars spent thus far on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Oh, but don't worry, it's only about 3 and a half Trillion so far.
Our constitutional rights have been raped away by the bitterly misnamed Patriot Act. The President has murdered Habeas Corpus. And the US Supreme Court is dominated by reactionaries who have declared corporations to have the same rights as people.
The Gulf of Mexico is dying, we still haven't been told the brutal truth about radiation leakage from the Fukushima plant in Japan, and our President is the most painfully inadequate eunuch to sit his unworthy fundament in the Oval Office since Warren G Harding.
Oh, but hey, Happy 4th of July, everyone!
Then again, (gasp!) perhaps my brain has been re-wired by pornography. That is the breathtakingly unoriginal assertion of Naomi Wolf in a recent article at AJE.
If you really have nothing better to do than read her regurgitated drivel, you will find that it's a tired recycling of old and discredited theories from the grossly-misnamed "War on Drugs", just re-targeted on pr0n instead. "They need more and more powerful drugs to get them off" has become, "They need more and more hardcore porn to get them off".
Oh, and to justify that breathless exclamation about "rewiring the male brain", she then solemnly invokes the word "dopamine", ooooooooh, Naomi, that's science! The whole article is a series of sloppy assertions, pseudo-validated by phrases like "we now know" and "there is an increasing body of evidence to support". And yet, not once in the whole article does she cite a single reference to back up any of these assertions. In fact the only reference in the whole article, and a half-assed one at that, is in support of a passing reference to the alleged effects of porn upon women.
If dear Naomi knew anything at all about pr0n, she'd know that while addictive personalities and those who have been raised in a sexually-repressive atmosphere may go crazy with it, most men simply get incredibly bored with it in fairly short order.
In short, this is nothing more than a socio-political hit piece, targeting 49% of the human race.
If you want to argue against porn, there are far more credible ways to approach the subject. My mother, late in her life, changed her position on pr0n, and decided that she was against it, simply upon the pragmatic grounds that, (in her opinion), it leads men to have unreasonable expectations of women. Now, you may or may not agree with that, but we can at least discuss the assertion, although it doesn't do anything to address the First Amendment aspects of the debate.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Infant Mortality Spikes in Philadelphia
First, right out of the gate, take the core of this story with a grain of salt, (or perhaps half a shaker full), because it was reported on Fox News.
According to Fox news, quoting the director of the Radiation and Public Heath Project, Philadelphia is experiencing dangerously elevated levels of both radioactivity and iodine in its drinking water. At the same time, there has been a "spike" in infant mortality in Philadelphia.
I place the word "spike" in quotes for a good reason. The infant mortality per week "has increased by 48%", Fox breathlessly reports. Well, OK, 48% is an alarming increase. Then we discover that this translates to an increase from 5 per week to 7.5 per week. We'll pass over the obvious half-a-baby gags and references to the Wisdom of Solomon.
The question is, does this constitute a large enough statistical sample to be valid? I don't know, do you? If you have some professional competence in any applicable field, by all means please comment.
I do know that the subject of infant mortality is a shamefully embarrassing one for the USA, and I definitely intend to visit the topic in full very soon.
According to Fox news, quoting the director of the Radiation and Public Heath Project, Philadelphia is experiencing dangerously elevated levels of both radioactivity and iodine in its drinking water. At the same time, there has been a "spike" in infant mortality in Philadelphia.
I place the word "spike" in quotes for a good reason. The infant mortality per week "has increased by 48%", Fox breathlessly reports. Well, OK, 48% is an alarming increase. Then we discover that this translates to an increase from 5 per week to 7.5 per week. We'll pass over the obvious half-a-baby gags and references to the Wisdom of Solomon.
The question is, does this constitute a large enough statistical sample to be valid? I don't know, do you? If you have some professional competence in any applicable field, by all means please comment.
I do know that the subject of infant mortality is a shamefully embarrassing one for the USA, and I definitely intend to visit the topic in full very soon.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Japan Nuclear Meltdown In Progress
Not to run around echoing the Alex Jones crowd, but we really can legitimately use the word meltdown now.
Check the following quotes from AJE's Japan Live Blog.
The important thing is to somehow keep all this in perspective. To evaluate the available information, weight it according to our best estimate of the credibility of that source, and decide what to do. For most of us, there's little or nothing we can do.
Check the following quotes from AJE's Japan Live Blog.
...
More on that "US nuclear chair" - who has now been named as Gregory Jaczko, the chief of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, currently giving a report to Congress.
He says all the water has gone from the spent fuel pools at reactor No.4 in Fukushima No.1 facility, Japan's most troubled nuclear plant. This means there is nothing to stop the fuel rods from getting hotter and ultimately melting down.
The outer shell of the rods could also ignite, with enough force to propel the radioactive fuel inside over a wide area, he says.
Gregory Jaczko did not say how the information was obtained, but the NRC and US Department of Energy both have staff on site at the Fukushima complex of six reactors.
....Staff at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant may receive "lethal doses" of radiation, the US nuclear regulator has told Congress. Gregory Jaczko, head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said:
Oh my. When a government official admits the situation is that bad, you know things are really fucked up.We believe that around the reactor site there are high levels of radiation. It would be very difficult for emergency workers to get near the reactors. The doses they could experience would potentially be lethal doses in a very short period of time.
The important thing is to somehow keep all this in perspective. To evaluate the available information, weight it according to our best estimate of the credibility of that source, and decide what to do. For most of us, there's little or nothing we can do.
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