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“Oooo! ‘E’s Ever Such A Kind Man, Really”

Have you noticed it’s the time for sanitizing one’s legacy. Two decrepit old political has-beens have just published books designed to make us all go, “Ah, bless ‘im, he really is a nice man, after all.”

Cheney Heaart

I am, of course, referring to that evil mastermind of the George W Bush years, Dick Cheney: the true president, in all but name. His latest work, “Heart – An American Medical Odyssey” is, as they say, on the bookshelves.

Mike Lofgren, a one-time Republican staffer with twenty-eight years service in Washington, writing in his book, ‘The Party Is Over’, states:

…After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security was as much a legislative mess as it was an enduring monument to American gullibility and deliberately induced fearfulness. President Bush and his advisers, meaning Dick Cheney, did not want a cabinet department at first. Bush and Cheney preferred to keep homeland security functions under the executive office of the president, which would have made it free of legislative oversight…[p31][my bold]”

With his latest book, Cheney is trying to tell us he really does have a heart. He truly does, he purloined it from someone else who sadly wasn’t able to choose who got it.

In a recent interview with USA Today, when asked about President Obama’s ‘personal leadership, his political agenda and, especially, his handling of national security’, Cheney responded:

“His priorities are radically different from mine…I’d put defense first and foremost. The Constitution and the oath of office, the first thing you need to be focused on is defending the nation. All the highway money, food stamps and education, and everything else we like having the government do, don’t amount to a hill of beans compared to our inability to defend the nation.”[1]

Defend the nation against whom, Mister Vice President? Eighteen Saudi Arabian religious nutters hell-bent on getting their own back for your invasion of their holy land? Perhaps if your citizens were properly educated to the real truth of American diplomacy…

american.diplomacy

…and properly fed, they’d force you to remove your US jackboots from Mecca out of respect for the cultures and beliefs of others.

And, how many hungry Americans today would give their right arm for your hill of beans?

Following in the ‘I’m really a Mister Nice Guy’ footsteps of Richard Bruce Cheney is the ex Chairman of the FED, Alan Greenspan. Now eighty-seven years old, Greenspan has just published his own book, “The Map and the Territory”…

themapandtheterritory

In an interview on ‘The Daily Show’ this week Greenspan refuted any idea that he knew what the banks were up to prior to the economic crash of 2008. Does he really expect us to believe that?

Steven Pearlstein, writing in the Washington Post, succinctly makes the point…

What we find, however, is that Greenspan’s journey of discovery brings him right back to where he began — to an unshakable faith in free markets, an antipathy toward market regulation, and a conviction that progressive taxes and social spending are to blame for slow growth, stagnant wages and exploding deficits.

Those who have followed his career know that it was Greenspan who gave the green light to bank consolidation, Greenspan who pushed financial deregulation, Greenspan who advocated new global rules that would have reduced bank capital reserves and Greenspan who blocked efforts to crack down on abusive subprime lending. But if you are looking for him to accept any responsibility for the crisis that ensued, you will be sorely disappointed.[2]

Here we have one of America’s top economists (if not, the top), who for thirty years was chairman and president of Townsend-Greenspan & Co., Inc., an economic consulting firm in New York City; has also served as corporate director of the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa); Automatic Data Processing; Capital Cities/ABC, Inc.; General Foods; J.P. Morgan & Co.; Morgan Guaranty Trust Company; Mobil Corporation; and the Pittston Company (now ‘Brinks’, revenue $3.886 billion FY2011), has obviously hob-nobbed with top bankers and other aristocrats of the finance industry, yet has the gall to suggest he didn’t know what the banks were up to. Pull the other one, Mister Greenspan. Ayn Rand may have captivated your economic heart, but some of us are made of sterner stuff and less easily cajoled.

Incidentally, Alan Greenspan was also director of the Council for Foreign Relations from 1982 to 1988. A prominent member of that organization is Brian Williams, the $10,000,000/yr anchor and managing editor of NBC’s ‘Nightly News’ program.

A close associate of Williams, and one of NBC’s long-standing reporters and commentators, is Andrea Mitchell, probably best remembered for her ‘role’ in the ‘who outed Valerie Plame’ case.[3]

It’s pure coincidence, of course, but Mitchell just happens to be the wife of Alan Greenspan.

White House Correspondents' Dinner

What, you might ask, has that to do with anything?

Possibly nothing. But Brian Williams, the oh-so-perfect maestro of the tear-jerking sob-story Americans love so much, is constantly referring to NBC employees as members of ‘our great NBC family’, while refraining from any explanation as to just how far-reaching the branches of that ‘great NBC family’ truly are.

Well, the Big Daddy parent of the ‘Great NBC Family’ just happens to be the General Electric Company of America.

Yes, you’ve guessed it – the wealthy relative who makes really crap light bulbs, and even crappier nuclear power plants.[see previous post].

Small world, isn’t it?

My guess is there’ll be many more, as the years creep on, who’ll feel the need to sanitize their public legacies.

[1] “Cheney book documents his struggles with heart disease” USA Today, October 21st 2013

[2] “Alan Greenspan still thinks he’s right” Washington Post, October 18th 2013

[3] “Andrea Mitchell – Drunk Again?” FDL, March 13th 2007

It’s Only A Planet

General Electric is the 26th largest firm in the US and the 14th most profitable. So why can’t they make light bulbs that work?

In May this year I purchased six double packs of their ninety watt outdoor halogen bulbs for use in my security lights.

GE Crap

According to the pack, these bulbs will last 1.4 years. Then, the small print states that the figure is based on a usage of three hrs/day. Obviously, then, that figure won’t apply if the lights are used at night. This I found to be perfectly correct. My lights were used for six hrs/night through the summer. All twelve bulbs purchased in May are now defunct.

Given that my bulbs were on twice as long as recommended by GE, they should have lasted 1.4/2 = 0.70 years. That’s slightly less than nine months. All my twelve bulbs gave up the ghost within five months. Some lasted less than three.

“Ah, those bloody Chinese,” is the obvious response. Until one reads the pack blurb: “Assembled in the USA”. But, is that the same as “Made in the USA”? No, it just means the Chinese bits were shipped here for assembly.

One would think, given the size of the company, that by now GE would have learned how to make light bulbs.

Still, it’s only a bulb. I can always go out and buy another.

Have you noticed how Fukushima is decidedly out of the news right now? Remember the Japanese earthquake/tsunami of March 2011 that devastated whole communities, and took out six nuclear power plants that continue to pour highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean? It wouldn’t be surprising if you’d forgotten. The US media appears to have amnesia over the whole subject.

Which is all rather strange considering the United Nations and half the world’s atomic scientists are all rushing out to buy anti-diarrhea medicines because of it. You see, the problem with Fukushima’s six nuclear reactors is that they were badly designed in the first place. Reactor 4 is particularly critical right now. It houses about 1,300 fuel rods that, if they’re not removed safely, will cause a nuclear event roughly fourteen hundred times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.[1]

Reuters:

“The No. 4 unit was not operating at the time of the accident, so its fuel had been moved to the pool from the reactor, and if you calculate the amount of cesium 137 in the pool, the amount is equivalent to 14,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs,” said Hiroaki Koide, assistant professor at Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute.

“They are going to have difficulty in removing a significant number of the rods,” said Arnie Gundersen, a veteran U.S. nuclear engineer and director of Fairewinds Energy Education, who used to build fuel assemblies.

Spent fuel rods also contain plutonium, one of the most toxic substances in the universe, that gets formed during the later stages of a reactor core’s operation…”There is a risk of an inadvertent criticality if the bundles are distorted and get too close to each other,” Gundersen said.

He was referring to an atomic chain reaction that left unchecked could result in a large release of radiation and heat that the fuel pool cooling system isn’t designed to absorb.

“The problem with a fuel pool criticality is that you can’t stop it. There are no control rods to control it,” Gundersen said. “The spent fuel pool cooling system is designed only to remove decay heat, not heat from an ongoing nuclear reaction.”[2]

One major problem for the Japanese is that the pool housing these rods is over one hundred feet off the ground, and that ground is unstable, making the building prone to collapse. It’s vital those fuel rods are removed, and TEPCO, the Japanese company that owns the Fukushima plant, has stated it will begin removal next month.

There’s a problem with that. Normally, rods are removed using computer technology. They’re very close together, and it’s vital they do not touch or it could spark an unstoppable nuclear reaction. Even using computers, the process can take many months. TEPCO will be attempting to do the job manually.

One eminent western atomic scientist has already decided to move her family to the southern hemisphere, if it all goes wrong.[3]

Meanwhile, world opinion is forcing the United Nations to put pressure on Japan to allow an international team of scientists into the site to assist with this highly delicate task.

Given that the prevailing trade winds across the Pacific carry anything the Japanese eject into the atmosphere straight onto America’s western coastline, one can only hope they’re successful. So far, the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is in no hurry to cooperate, and TEPCO have proved decidedly ham-fisted in their approach to the problem.

As stated earlier, the removal of the fuel rods is complicated by the unduly bad design of the nuclear plant. Had the building housing the rod pool been on the ground it would be less susceptible to further earthquakes, or the gradually encroaching mud that is causing the building to sink further on its foundations.

So, who can we hold responsible for designing this ‘catastrophe waiting to happen’? Is it another example of that cheap Japanese rubbish they tried to parm us off with in the sixties?

Well, no. Actually, all six Fukushima plants were designed and built by the General Electric Corporation of America, otherwise known as GE.

Remember them? The company that can’t even make a decent light bulb?

Still, it’s only a planet. We can always go out and buy another.

[1] “Humankind’s Most Dangerous Moment: Fukushima Fuel Pool at Unit 4. “This is an Issue of Human Survival.” Global Research, September 20th 2013

[2] “Insight: After disaster, the deadliest part of Japan’s nuclear clean-up” Reuters, August 13th 2013

[3] “Caldicott: If Spent Fuel Pool No. 4 collapses I am evacuating my family from Boston (VIDEO)” ENENEWS (Energy News) April 2nd 2012

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Bears Favorable Comparison To The Great War – According To The British Prime Minister.

Yes, I know, this is supposed to be a blog by a foreigner living in America and I’m not supposed to comment on British subjects that Americans know nothing about. But the only reason they know nothing about anything outside their own borders is because the bloody US media ignore it – unless, in some way, US citizens are involved.

Actually, British life – and particularly political life – is so similar to the US way, that ‘not knowing’ really doesn’t matter too much. So, US citizens, just assume I’m discussing Washington, and replace the name of Cameron with Obama, and you won’t go far wrong.

cameron

It’s just so typical of the man. He wants to celebrate the centenary of the First World War. Now, I appreciate that this could prove confusing for my American readers. Why, they ask, is this relevant when the centenary of WW1 is still four years away?

(NOTE: for American readers, WW1 actually began in 1914. You were just a bit late arriving).

Yes, Cameron, apparently wants to see a:

“…commemoration that, like the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, says something about who we are as a people.”

Or, put another way, he’d like the British to be viewed as the sort of people who compare the suffering and deaths of twenty million slaughtered individuals with our monarch’s glorious sixty year reign.

Why it is that the British people insist on voting into office a load of rich public school (that’s ‘private school’ for our US readers) wallahs who’ve never done a day’s work in their lives and have no clue what it means to be ‘working class’ – (I did say British life is becoming closer to the US way, didn’t I?) – is quite beyond me.

David Cameron has no more qualification to lead a government than the Archbishop of Canterbury had to organize the Welsh national rugby team’s victory piss-up after winning the Triple Crown last year.

The man is a total jackass. So much so that one of the BBC’s oldest and most revered news presenters, Jeremy Paxman…

jeremy paxman

…took umbrage over Cameron’s comparison and told the BBC that:

…not to acknowledge the war’s significance would be wilful myopia”, but that “the whole catastrophe has been overlain with myth and legend”…

…the [Diamond] Jubilee was “an excuse for a knees-up in the rain to celebrate the happy fact that our national identity is expressed through a family rather than some politician who wants the job to gratify his vanity”.

“A number of distinguished fellow citizens, like the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy and the thoughtful musician Brian Eno, are worried that the events will turn into a celebration of war. Only a moron would ‘celebrate’ the war,” he added.

Thank you, Jeremy, for those few words of common sense. It’s nice to know I’m not the only human being alive who considers David Cameron to be a complete and utter moron. It seems the British media can still speak its mind occasionally.

Which is, of course, one area where Britain and America continue to remain dissimilar.

[1] “Jeremy Paxman criticises David Cameron’s WWI comments” BBC, October 8th 2013

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