You can’t have #democracy without work #Brexit

So I was at a restaurant recently with a group of friends. There were twenty of us, including some children. And we had to decide on which main meal to eat. Three voted for steak and two voted for salmon. The rest were updating Facebook on their smartphones. When the steak choice won, the salmon people started throwing food around, saying that three people didn’t adequately represent twenty and, besides, those three were all senile and selfish people who didn’t deserve to live.

Of course I’m drawing a parallel to Brexit. Current logic is that the 52% “Leave” vote only represented a quarter of the entire UK population so, therefore, the “Remain” crowd should hold sway.

I’m not sure where such logic comes from. Could it be from the educational dumbing down we and our children have all been subject to over recent decades? In any case, I began a bit of light digging. In examining recent UK general elections I found that the turnout roughly hovers around the 70% mark. The Brexit referendum had a comparable turnout of 72%, something even Wikipedia admits was:

Continue reading You can’t have #democracy without work #Brexit

The loophole loometh #UK #Brexit #PeopleAsCommodities

[A short one this Ides of March as Life momentarily heats up]

In last Sunday’s paper, I came across an interesting article entitled “May impatient for divorce”. The story, from AFP, was about how British Prime Minister Theresa May will not “keep paying ‘huge sums’ into the EU budget after Brexit.” She’s impatient to start the divorce, it seems.

A Bill empowering May to trigger Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, starting a two-year divorce process, will return to parliament on Monday.

Final approval is expected by the middle of the week, leaving the prime minister’s path clear to start the withdrawal.

At which point I say, not so fast.

Continue reading The loophole loometh #UK #Brexit #PeopleAsCommodities

If you prick a #Yakuza does he bleed? #Fukushima #Daiichi

I have been looking at the radiation maps of the Pacific Ocean following on from the Fukushima disaster and, people, it’s Not Good. The “plume” stretches across half the planet, although we’re assured by many authorities that there’s nothing to fear. The Los Angeles Times, for example, had this to say in 2014:

The amount of radiation that finally made it to Canada’s west coast by June 2013 was very small — less than 1 Becquerels per cubic meter. (Becquerels are the number of decay events per second per 260 gallons of water.) That is more than 1,000 times lower than acceptable limits in drinking water, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Computer models that match fairly closely with the hard data that Smith collected suggest that the amount of radiation will peak in 2015 and 2016 in British Columbia, but it will never exceed about 5 Becquerels per cubic meter.
“Those levels of cesium 137 are still well below natural levels of radioactivity in the ocean,” said Smith.
Because of the structure of the currents, the radiation levels in Southern California are expected to peak a few years later, but by that time they will be even smaller than the highest levels of radiation expected in Canada.

Continue reading If you prick a #Yakuza does he bleed? #Fukushima #Daiichi

Poor #wogs and #wops can’t seem to catch a break #Plato

As is usual with my essays, I need to backtrack a bit before attacking the main point.

I did my schooling in Australia and it wasn’t a happy place for me. There was much name-calling, for instance. I was a “slope”, “brown mongrel” and “black monkey”, while others were wops, wogs and i-ties. I could understand my own names but I was always surprised by the other insults because the “wops, wogs and i-ties” looked white to me. I was stumped. Why were whites calling other whites names?

To this day, I still can’t figure it out. If I see someone from the back, most of the time I can’t tell whether they’re Chinese, Northern Indian or European. They all look white to me. Sure, if someone points it out, I can sometimes see the faintest tint to their skin, the darker tone of hair, but I really have to squint to see it. However such minute differences were as plain as day to my fellow students. Suffice it to say that, to Caucasians, anyone other than a Caucasian–Mediterranean types, Arab types, not to mention Asians and *shock*horror* black Africans–were/are obviously inferior.

Continue reading Poor #wogs and #wops can’t seem to catch a break #Plato

I want to respect #Russia but it’s difficult #Tupolev

While it’s true that I have a Master’s in International Politics, it’s not worth a helluva lot in this world because of all I wasn’t taught.

I wasn’t taught that the United States and the United Kingdom (together with their fellow Anglo wannabe dictator nations that make up the “Five Eyes”) use their influence to coerce other nations into actions counter to those nations’ interests. (There’s a reason why Australia has such a bad reputation among the Pacific Island nations.)

I wasn’t taught that the Mossad is essentially an anti-democratic death squad masquerading as a nation-state’s intelligence apparatus. I wasn’t taught that failed states can be propped up indefinitely through the use of military aid.

Continue reading I want to respect #Russia but it’s difficult #Tupolev

Who writes this shit? #Google #GoogleHome #Amazon #Alexa

Consumerist (now defunct) tells me that the internet is “transfixed” by two Google Home devices talking to each other. It (the internet) uses the words “amused”, “befuddled”, “delighted”. Interestingly, one word it doesn’t use is “horrified”.

Reading the transcript of these two devices is an exercise in how brainwashing works.

Before we get into that, though, we have to ask: what is Google Home? An AI? A voice-activated search engine? An artificial friend? According to Google’s website:

Continue reading Who writes this shit? #Google #GoogleHome #Amazon #Alexa