Posts Tagged ‘Japan’
North Korea does two things badly
Thing 1
In Pyongyang, food appears plentiful, with sidewalk vendors doing brisk business selling roasted sweet potatoes and chestnuts, ice cream bars and griddle-fried pancakes. Those with cash can splurge on hamburgers and pizza.
But aid workers say the food shortage is very real in the poor provinces far from the comparatively prosperous capital city.
“It’s now very common to see people with little wicker baskets or plastic bags collecting whatever is edible” — even roots, grasses and herbs, said Katharina Zellweger, the longtime Pyongyang-based North Korea country director for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
Thing 2
Reports say the impoverished country spent around $850 million on the project, with another $5 million set aside to imprison any citizens who didn’t weep uncontrollably if the launch went bad, which appears to be the case.
Sources tell me US intelligence officials suspected a possible rocket launch after satellites picked up signs of artificial light in North Korea after sunset.
Oddly, the North Korean government just made a deal with the US to knock off the missile tests in exchange for 240,000 tons of food in February, guess that’s shot now?
Since they seem to be bad at doing both feeding its people and firing stuff into the sky, maybe they could keep their feet on the ground, and their heads out of their a**es and concentrate on feeding the people? See, Thing 1 above required little effort, just don’t do anything overly stupid, and food would come. Whether the government would actually deliver the food to ordinary people or not is yet another Thing altogether – likely the Proletariat Elite in big (visible to the outside world) cities would be the only ones benefitting from US and international food deliveries.
If these missiles of theirs ever actually work, we could have a problem.
Related articles
- North Korea’s Missile Launch Begins (gizmodo.com.au)
- Shoot It Down! (papundits.wordpress.com)
A “Thank You” from the earthquake victims in Japan to all the nations that helped them
We were all shocked by the devastation caused by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan afterward. We watched as the US Navy arrived with helicopters and supplies, runways and docks were cleared, and search and rescue and relief workers flooded the area. We donated what we could, and hoped for the best.
The nuclear reactor then took center stage, and suddenly the victims of the tragedy were pushed more or less to the side of the media spotlight as the focus was now on nuclear power plant safety and worries of how any clouds of radiation may be pushed by the prevailing winds to our shores.
To the rescue workers, the victims were always in the spotlight. While were looking elsewhere, the work hasn’t stopped. From the time they first set boots on the ground until now, it’s been a continuing effort worldwide that the people of the area are extremely grateful for, and they expressed that in the video below.
Tissue Alert
h/t Itsonlywords
Related articles
- Japan hit by powerful earthquake just days after first anniversary of tsunami disaster (mirror.co.uk)
- Video: Surfers, Fishermen and Radiation in Post Earthquake Japan (theenergycollective.com)
- Creed Singer Scott Stapp Has His Heart Broken in Japan (noisecreep.com)
- Infographic: Visualising the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami (epiphanysearch.co.uk)
“I did not choose the pen, or the microscope, or the musical instrument to make a living. I chose the gun”
h/t (interestingly) Ricochet.com
Image via Wikipedia
Many people, in their chosen fields of endeavor, use various instruments and tools to make a living. A tool is basically an extension of one’s own body. The hammer – used to replace the palm of your hand to hit hard metal objects. The musical instrument – an extension of your voice to help you express emotions you otherwise would keep inside. The pen – also replaces your voice in a more permanent way, to enable you to continue to speak long after death.
General Peter van Uhm, Chief of the Netherlands Defense Staff, explains the instrument he chose to enable him to extend his reach beyond the length of his arm; and the reasons he chose it;
We remain free in America today because we have guns. We, the people. Even IF Admiral Yamamoto never said it, it certainly was true; had Japan somehow been able to invade the mainland United States, there most certainly would have been a gun “behind every blade of grass.
“Damn you, Wikileaks!” Obama Great Bowing Apologizing Tour partially thwarted, docs reveal
How low can you go? Bent at almost 90% in this now famous/infamous photo
Bowing was only the beginning for what Obama hoped would be a complete supplication before Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko in November of 2009. He originally wanted to prostrate himself at both Nagasaki and Hiroshima as well, Wikileaks docs are revealing;
Leaked cables show Japan nixed a presidential apology to Hiroshima and Nagasaki for using nukes to end the overseas contingency operation known as World War II. Will the next president apologize for the current one?
The obsessive need of this president to apologize for American exceptionalism and our defense of freedom continued recently when Barack Obama’s State Department (run by Hillary Clinton) contacted the family of al-Qaida propagandist and recruiter Samir Khan to “express its condolences” to his family.
Khan, a right-hand man to Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed along with Awlaki in an airstrike in Yemen on Sept. 30. We apologized for killing a terrorist before he could help kill any more of us.
US nuclear weapons ended the Second World War by showing our enemy there was something worse than merely losing face; annihilation – ceasing to exist. Nothing to apologize to them for then or now. In the intervening years the United States helped to rebuild a Japan that not only competed with us economically, but bested us.
Maybe pushing Japan to reimburse us economically for the cost of the two bombs would be taking it a tad too far; best lets just call it even.
Related articles
- Wikileaks cable hints that Obama wanted to issue apology for Hiroshima (hotair.com)
- Obama Hiroshima trip discouraged in ’09: Wikileaks cable (search.japantimes.co.jp)
