Little Mr. Pluto and Today's Japan

Since the start of the nuclear boom in the 1970s, Japan's utilities have relied on temporary workers for maintenance and plant repair jobs, the experts said. They were often paid in cash with little training and no follow-up health screening. This practice has eroded the ability of nuclear plant operators to manage the massive risks workers now face and prompted calls for the Japanese government to take over the Fukushima clean-up effort.

In the mid-1990s Little Mr. Pluto debuted in Japanese TV wearing a green helmet with a pair of antennae and the chemical symbol for plutonium (Pu). Promising to "never be scary or dangerous," Little Pluto extolled the benefits of plutonium, which Japanese nuclear authorities have viewed as a fuel of the future for fast breeder reactor technology.
Today nearly 70 percent of Japanese believe nuclear safety measures are not yet sufficient to allow restarting reactors taken down for routine maintenance, a poll showed on Monday, suggesting Japan may have difficulty keeping plants running and avoiding a power crunch amid the protracted nuclear crisis at Fukushima.

"The end of Growth", Richard Heinberg's new book

The world's biggest economy will expand between 2.7pc and 2.9pc this year, weaker than it expected just two months ago. The latest evidence from manufacturing, the housing market and the consumer – still the engine of the economy – all suggest the deterioration that started in the first quarter of this year has extended into the second.
"Part of the slowdown is temporary, part of it may be longer lasting," said Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. "We don't have a precise reading on why this slower pace of growth is persisting." "Economists insist that recovery is at hand. Yet, unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments stagger under record deficits. The End of Growth proposes a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in our economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits."The End of Growth describes what policymakers, communities, and families can do to build a new economy that operates within Earth’s budget of energy and resources. We can thrive during the transition if we set goals that promote human and environmental well-being, rather than continuing to pursue the now-unattainable prize of ever-expanding GDP." http://richardheinberg.com

Is the beginning of a new era of progress without growth?

Prominent Swiss Politician Calls For Arrest of Kissinger at Bilderberg

A prominent member of Switzerland’s largest political party has called upon federal authorities to arrest Henry Kissinger as a war criminal if he attends the 2011 Bilderberg conference of global power brokers at the Hotel Suvretta House in St. Moritz.

Swiss People’s Party representative Dominique Baettig wrote a letter to the General Prosecutor of the Swiss Federation in which he asked, “In the name of Cantonal Sovereignty and independence, but especially of the Justice’s independence from executive power – may it be Federal or Cantonal – I ask you to check abroad for Arrest Warrants delivered by various Courts, Judges and also for all valid criminal complaints against the persons who were, amongst others, cited as mere examples in my (enclosed) letters to Mrs. Simonetta Sommaruga, Federal Counselor and Mrs. Barbara Janom Steiner, Cantonal Counselor and of course, to arrest them before diligent extraditions.”

Baettig’s letter also calls for the apprehension of George W. Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but neither are likely to be attending the conference. However, Kissinger is a regular Bilderberg attendee and is almost certain to be present in St. Moritz.
Kissinger, National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State for President Nixon and President Ford, has been accused of being complicit in a number of war crimes in Indochina, Bangladesh, Chile, Cyprus and East Timor. Numerous activists have attempted to arrest him over the years under the Geneva Conventions Act.

Prison Planet.com

Rabbit born without ears near Fukushima

(We cannot verify if this video is factual or not)

Will we ever see anyone caring for our poor asses?

Many people from Wall Street think inflation is now the biggest threat to the U.S. economy. In Brooklyn many more than Wall Steet's rather think the biggest threat is falling into another recession. 

Who is right?

Meanwhile the most significant economic news from the first quarter of 2011 is the decline in real wages. 

In fact, millions of Americans, in order to keep their jobs, are accepting lower wages. 

What do you get like this?

The only thing you get is consumers who can't buy enough to keep the economy going.

Why doesn't Wall Street get it?

How Asia Copes with America’s Zombie Consumers

NEW HAVEN – Asia needs a new model consumer. A post-crisis generation of zombie consumers in the United States is likely to hobble growth in global consumption for years to come. And that means that export-led developing Asia now has no choice but to turn inward and rely on its own 3.5 billion consumers.

Of course, this is not the first time that Asia has had to cope with the walking economic dead. Japan’s corporate zombies were at the epicenter of its first lost decade in the 1990’s. Sclerotic companies were put on life-support credit lines by their zaibatsu – like banking partners – delaying their inevitable failure and perpetuating inefficiencies and disincentives that resulted in a post-bubble collapse in Japanese productivity growth.

Similarly, the crisis of 2008-2009 led to zombie-creating bailouts in the West. From Wall Street to AIG to Detroit, the US was quick to rescue corporate giants that would have failed otherwise. Britain and Europe did the same, throwing lifelines to RBS, HBOS-Lloyds, Fortis, Hypo Real Estate, and others. In the West, the excuse was too big to fail. How different is that from Japan’s mindset nearly 20 years ago?

The War you see: wag the dog

"Truth is the first casualty of war" (Aeschylus, Greek Tragic Dramatist, 525 BC-456 BC) . It's as old as history. 
Who remembers the pictures of the fake mass grave in Rumania that everybody broadcast in 1989?
This was one of the many horror stories published by media and that's similar to other fake events such the Iraqi incubatores and the non-existent mass graves in Kosovo. 

Something like that seems to have happened in Libya. I am talking about the burial site discovered in Tripoli by the supporters of OneDayOnEarth.org. It's the "Timisoara syndrome".
It's highly probable that, rather than "mass grave", those are one of many "collective burials" of african migrants whose boats capsize frequently near the Libyan coast and whose bodies are then carried by the tide on the beach. What we can seen clearly from the video of the "mass graves" is that they're not "common". Those seems to be single-hole, dug out calmly and even with some care. Media and newspapers speak of "makeshift cemetery"on the beach. Cemetery certainly, but actually not improvised.
It is propably a cemetery at Sidi Hamed, who is close to the beach near the residential district of Gargaresh in Tripoli.
There are too conflicting reports on the number of killed, airstrikes by Gaddafi forces, the number of cities controlled by the opposition - about literally everything

In brief, the entire Western narrative is misleading people again. 

see also The War you don't see by John Pilger

NO OIL-NO CARE: escaping from the Arab Spring (English subtitles)

Swiss TV channel censors the Simpsons

The Swiss channel SF has decided to suspend all those episodes of the Simpsons which are set in the Nuclear Power Plant where Homer uses to work without care. The network judged it as offensive because of the recent and dramatic news from Japan. 

Should anyone be allowed to decide what we must think?

In the name of Feedom! please, don't say it again (part 2)

Sarkozy’s humanitarian war had already begun in early March. The onset of hostilities can be dated with the arrival in a cargo of 105 mm guns and anti-aircraft batteries in Benghazi, disguised as humanitarian aid to civilians. The sender was the French government, which accompanied the consignment with its military instructors, whom started training the rebels as soon as they touched the ground
Everybody knows it in Paris. French weekly Le Canard enchaîné gave the news on 16 March, hidden between its insider pages.
The reporter Claude Angeli wrote on the delivery of weapons by a DGSE’s action, (French intelligence).
Therefore, any deployment of weapons and military personnel took place before the resolution 1973, adopted by the UN Security Council on 17 March that called for "an immediate cease-fire" and authorized the international community to establish a no -fly zone in Libya and to use all necessary means to protect civilians.

In the name of Freedom!, Please, don't say it again

I am not surprised that the USA, the UK and France have just chosen to free Libya among many current conflicts in the world.

We must be honest, this is another war for oil. There is not Freedom in Sarkozy's dreams but oil  and a  new mandate which are why he is taking dangerous risks. “Sarkozy has a huge investment in seeing Qadhafi go,” said Justin Vaisse, the director of research for the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings in Washington. “He’s going to be a constant force in favor of hardening the stance and the action.” Once we’ve eliminated the air defense sites — then what next?.....

Behind World's inflation

U.S. consumption increased by 3.2 % over the fourth quater of 2010. Although Somebody has hailed it as a sign of economic growth, this is nothing more than pure inflation determenated by deficit and monetary stimulus of the Federal Reserve.

Monetary expansion created by the FED has again shown its destructive effects: inflation has begun to be exported overseas. U.S. dollar is enjoying an enviable position of reserve currency that doesn't follow the rules of other currencies and allows the U.S. to borrow, spend and consume with money that the FED simply creates "out of thin air". In this way the U.S. can expropriate resources from the world by buying other's goods and services abroad like a counterfeiter who spends his fake money at a shop. Unfortunately, the excess of dollars return back home to be converted into Treasury bonds whereas U.S.  partners with this same amount of dollars finance their deficits and encourage an irresponsible consumption of resources. In fact they haven't any incentive to use their dollar surplus to buy goods and services as in recent decades American industry completely lost its competitiveness. 

So, What does it happen to U.S. partners currencies? 

The dollars obtained by exchanging for exported goods must be converted to be spent in these countries. 

If markets did freely, the excess of dollars would raise the price of currencies with which U.S. dollar was exchanged. But, actually it doesn't work like that and to prevent worsening of their exporting, U.S. partners have no other choice but to keep their currencies competitive with a new monetary expansion. 

In fact, to maintain a stable exchange rate, they must buy the dollar surplus by resorting to a quantitative easing. Therefore, when the Federal Reserve prints fresh money "out of thin air", other central banks make the same thing. In this way, the amount of dollars sold is parked as Treasury bonds, allowing the U.S. to keep their interest rates low and to continue selling its debt. This whole process is an untold damage to economies in terms of inflation. 

In summary, the  G-20 central banks have flooded the economy with liquidity without any relation to the real global production. All this is the cause of rising food price, speculative investment and ephemeral illusion of prosperity. 

In North Africa, this economic system based on fraud now starts to kill people too.

What's behind the World's growing food-price crisis?

Year by year Humanity has reached Peak oil. So rising oil prices make many people think of bio-ethanol as a possible solution. But ethanol fuels are produced by fermentaion of sugars derived from wheat, corn, sugar beets, sugar cane, molasses etc. Here comes trouble. In fact, data show that developed countries already spend a very high percetage of their domestic cereals supply for livestock production, especially pigs. The European Union e the USA use between 70% and 90% domestic ceral supply for feeding animals and with 470 million of hogs, China has more pigs than the rest of the planet stacked together!!!

Yet from 2007 to 2008 the share of ethanol in global gasoline type fuel use increased from 3.7 % to 5.4 %. In 2009 worldwide ethanol fuel production reached 19.5 billion gallons (73.9 billion liters). Soon very large-scale farming will be necessary to produce agricultural alcohol with substantial amounts of cultivated land. University of Minnesota researchers report that if all corn grown in the USA were used to make ethanol it would displace 12 % of current US gasoline consumption only.

In summary, the growing demand for the energy sector and the most traditional use for feeding animals make millions of people starve. 

Prices on such food as corn and wheat have risen over 180%. Rising food prices that have already caused rebellion in several developing countries will likely push more than 100 millions of people into deep poverty.