Karzai's last warning

BBC:

Mr Karzai said his government had repeatedly asked the US to stop raids which end up killing Afghan civilians and this was his "last warning".

But what either the reporter or Mr. Karzai failed to specify was that this was the last warning in the month of May. Next month's warning are being prepared now, just as NATO is preparing new airstrikes.

Goodbye Saleem

Saleem Shahzad, a journalist that worked for the Asia Times in Pakistan has been murdered.

I've read his reports for several years now, he was able to interview Taliban and 'al-Qaida' people and went where few other reporters could.

But it seems it might have been his latest reporting, delving into the relationship between Pakistan naval officers and the attackers of the Mehran naval base on May 22, that motivated his killers.

Speculation is that they are ISI, but that doesn't mean much. Pakistan's continuing devolution, spurred by the AfPak war, a corrupt political class, and natural disasters is destined to continue. Factions, both internally and externally motivated will only continue to struggle for their shadowy goals, and the few people with the courage and ability to explain what's going on will continue to die.

R.I.P.

If drones could smile

President Drone, after grovelling in front of Bibi Netanyahu, but getting his ass kicked and his face bitch-slapped all the same, now tells the British Parliament that the US and Britain are indispensable to the world, evidently for eliminating the oversupply of brown people.

Britain is still probably responsible for more millions of deaths throughout its colonial career than the US, but the two certainly tower over the other pipsqueaks around such as France, Italy, Japan, and, yes, Israel.

A beautiful friendship of blood and thievery is thus celebrated by a man who was supposed to bring hope and change, but has brought only more death and destruction hiding behind a constant stream of lies.

But with a smiley face!

Flesh colored kids that glow in the dark...

it's easy to see without looking to far that not much is really sacred.
-Paraphrasing Bob Dylan's It's Alright Ma, (I'm Only Bleeding)

Japan has taken the bold step of raising permissible radiation levels in schools twenty times.

The government argues the new rules are essential to keeping schools in the Fukushima region from being forced to close.

 It's actions like this that show the true face of neo-liberalism. Kids need an education, right? If they develop a few tumors down the road that's just bad luck, maybe that radiation is doing them a lot of good, too.

According to the US based Nobel Prize winning group, Physicians for Social Responsibility, the new limits mean exposed children now have a one in 200 risk of getting cancer, compared with a one in 500 risk for adults.

Unfit to print

TEPCO has acknowledged that reactors 1, 2 and 3 at Fukushima Daiichi have undergone meltdown. Unit 1 melted within hours of the earthquake/tsunami, and melted though the containment vessel.

The New York Times still hasn't deemed to cover this story, evidently their editors feel that the news that Osama bin Ladin is still dead is of overriding importance, and anything else just a distraction.

UPDATE: In an article on May 18, with the headline "In Japan Reactor Failings, Danger Signs for the U.S." the Times actually says it, well down in the body of text:

Tokyo Electric in recent days has acknowledged that damage at the plant was worse than previously thought, with fuel rods most likely melting completely at Reactors 1, 2 and 3 in the early hours of the crisis, raising the danger of more catastrophic releases of radioactive materials. The company also said new evidence seemed to confirm that at Reactor No. 1, the pressure vessel, the last layer of protection, was broken and leaking radioactive water.

Closure

I mean, ha, ha, what? Bloomberg headline:

Obama Seeks Closure at Ground Zero After Bin Laden Killing

President Drone opened the election season and the 10th anniversary of 9/11 season together today, and it will only get more intense. The nation's hit man in chief is running on his expertise in dispensing selective mayhem, and he's not going to let us forget his triumph, or the reason for it.

By the way, is the war over in Libya? It sure has disappeared from the news.

Hit men

It's now three days since Osama bin dead, but the party continues full force. Newspapers, television, the internet, all are obsessed with repeating the latest story from the White House, and commenting solemnly on it as if it were written in stone.

The NYT has stepped up to promote more torture, just so that it's called by any other name. WAPO columnists are practically frothing at the mouth, their blood lust being whetted by thought of hit men in green. USA, USA!

The main import of the killing, if true, is that Obama has started his run for another term in earnest. First they tried to whack Gaddafi, but failed apart from the dead children, then on to Osama. The jockeying of Panetta to Defense, where he will continue his exalted role as placeholder, and Petraeus to the CIA where he will merge the assassination squads of the CIA and the military sends a message that the hit men's gloves are off. President Drone will run for a second term as the nation's hit man in chief.

For the past few years I've made a futile effort to chart the number and spread of movies about hit men. Their numbers are legion. There are funny hit men, romantic hit men, tragic hit men, teenage girl hit men, hit men couples, pretty soon we might expect hit men dogs.

This relentless propaganda promoting killers that kill for gain, or because their jobs are to kill (kind of the same thing) is no accident. Obama, who is too weak to run a coherent foreign policy has hit on a winning strategy. Just kill people and you are cool.

Really?

President Drone says bin Laden is dead, but how can we know for sure without OBL's long form birth certificate?