Confirmed: Russia’s Back In The Game

Pax Americana needs a rival – and for now Russia is asserting itself. A circumspect Russia – with less ideology and more realpolitik.

Obama’s red line finally turned out to be line in the sand | Cartoon by Nate Beeler on Aug 28, 2013 in media.cagle.com

wo years ago, in November 2011, 2ndlook deciphered the Russian writing on the wall.

Syria seemed like a tempest in a teapot. Another Libya in the making. Pax Americana would stomp over Syria.

Except this time, the Russians were back.

Back again.

Does such propaganda work? | Cartoon by Steve Breen on August 29, 2011 in utsandiego.com

Prince Bandar bin Sultan flew into Moscow. His conversation with Vladimir Putin is a study in how diplomacy is not done. Give us Syria, said Bandar, and take the world. It was like the Biblical yarn about the Devil tempting Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. “Get thee behind me, Satan,” said Christ, refusing the blandishments. When Bandar offered all the guarantees for a “terror free” Sochi Winter Olympic games next year, Putin said we know you control terrorists.

This amazing conversation was supposed to be under wraps but one of the two sides leaked it to the Russian press. Bandar’s other startling undertaking was that whatever he offered the Russians had American backing.

This was the trump card Bandar handed Putin at the global casino’s high table.

via The US, Saudi, Israeli alliance is coming apart.

Related Articles

• 2nd Saudi Strike on Russia after Putin´s Dismissal of Bandar´s Threat (nsnbc.me)
• Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal (smh.com.au)
• Shawn Helton – Is the Russian terror attack related to Saudi Prince Bandar’s alleged threats? (prn.fm)
• Escalation: Vladimir Putin Reportedly Threatens Saudi Arabia With Massive Counter-Strike (thedailysheeple.com)

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Questions #Snowden Has Not Asked More Important Than The Answers That He Has Given

The close co-operation of the Anglo-Saxon Bloc to keep the world under their electronic surveillance is war by ‘other’ means.

Little Difference Between One-Party Systems and 2-Party Democracies | Cartoon BY SCOTT STANTIS on June 25, 2013 in chicagotribune.com

f it has not shocked, the scale of electronic surveillance of India by the US certainly has surprised Indians – except 2ndlook readers.

For the last 4 years, before Bradley Manning, Wikileaks and before Edward Snowden, 2ndlook has been raising the danger-flag of the Big Brother State.

PRISM & The Boundless Informant: Why Was India Such An Important Target For America’s NSA?

To many Indians who have considered US to be a friendly country, it may still not be enough that India has been under greater surveillance by the US than proclaimed US-rivals like China and Russia.

Clues to a changing world

In March 2013 the NSA picked up 9.6 billion pieces of information from India’s computer networks, making it the fifth tracked country in the world after Iran, Pakistan, Jordan and Egypt. The top four are all Muslim countries, with Jordan also a close ally, so it’s a no-brainer why the NSA is targeting them. But has the world shifted so much on its geopolitical axis that India is now a bigger target than Russia and China?

There are two possibilities. One, the Americans are making sure India remains on its side of the fence. Secondly, if the NSA has been able to steal more data from India than from Russia and China, it only shows how powerless developing countries are against well-equipped spy agencies.

via Why there are no friends in the spy game | Russia & India Report.

In Europe, Germany occupies the dubious position of being under greater surveillance than other European countries.

The fact that US is mounting this surveillance operations in partnership with Britain has only added to the disquiet.

An Uncanny Alliance

We have Edward Snowden to thank for this insight into the interaction of an uncanny club, the Alliance of Five Eyes. Since World War II, the five Anglo-Saxon countries of Great Britain, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada have maintained close intelligence cooperation, which apparently has gotten completely out of control.

It may be up to the Americans and the British to decide how they handle questions of freedom and the protection of their citizens from government intrusion. But they have no right to subject the citizens of other countries to their control. The shoulder-shrugging explanation by Washington and London that they have operated within the law is absurd. They are not our laws. We didn’t make them. We shouldn’t be subject to them.

The totalitarianism of the security mindset protects itself with a sentence: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. But firstly, that contains a presumption: We have not asked the NSA and GCHQ to “protect” us. And secondly, the sentence is a stupid one: Because we all have something to hide, whether it pertains to our private lives or to our business secrets.

No Agency Should Collect So Much Data

Thus the data scandal doesn’t pertain just to our legal principles, but to our security as well. We were lucky that Edward Snowden, who revealed the spying to the entire world, is not a criminal, but an idealist. He wanted to warn the world, not blackmail it. But he could have used his information for criminal purposes, as well. His case proves that no agency in the world can guarantee the security of the data it collects — which is why no agency should collect data in such abundance in the first place.

That is the well-known paradox of totalitarian security policy. Our security is jeopardized by the very actions that are supposed to protect it.

So what should happen now? European institutions must take control of the data infrastructure and ensure its protection. The freedom of data traffic is just as important as the European freedom of exchange in goods, services and money. But above all, the practices of the Americans and British must come to an end. Immediately.

via Jakob Augstein: Data Spying Programs Threaten German Security – SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Safety First, Privacy Essential

Apart the selection of targets (India, Germany, etc.), the joint activities of the Anglo-Saxon Bloc, the question is that of solutions. How can users be safeguarded?

• Is some kind of browser-based, sender-receiver encryption the answer?
• Do we need a greater variety of desktop-OS that will stop data-snooping?
• Should we have a global protocol where routers and internet switches use open-source chips, where the encryption key is variable and user-based?
• Do we need a combination of all the above ideas, which will secure the system, at multiple levels?

Maybe an alliance of India, Taiwan, Korea, Germany, China and Russia can define this architecture?

Terrorism? What About It!

In any one year, mosquitoes kill more Indians (malaria, dengue, chikungunya, etc.) than terrorists.

Is it time that we stopped Governments from terrorizing us with these false alarms? The answer to terrorism may also lie in checking the Anglo-Saxon Bloc.

Why is it that allies, past and present, of the Anglo-Saxon Bloc, are the source and generators of terror-factories!

Limit the Anglo-Saxon Bloc – and you anyway limit terrorism?

Less outrage and more actions will probably do the trick of making NSA into a toothless ogre.

Related Articles

• Anglo-Saxon Spies: German National Security Is at Stake (spiegel.de)
• Who authorised the NSA and GCHQ to spy on Germans? | Jakob Augstein (guardian.co.uk)
• We need to talk about Edward (stuff.co.nz)
• NSA and the Pandora’s box of surveillance (blogs.reuters.com)
• Russia debates letting Snowden in from the cold (+video) (csmonitor.com)

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India’s Deficient Healthcare System: Is Public Healthcare the Only Model?

Must India model its healthcare system on the vastly inefficient and costly healthcare system of the West?

US Healthcare costs and expenditure | Credits and source details embedded in image.

he Euro-zone health system costs the tax-payer close to a trillion dollars (two-thirds of total healthcare expenditure paid by the State; total healthcare expenditure by EU is 10% of EU GDP, that is US$ 15 trillion). Ditto multiplied by two for the US.  One trillion and two trillion for EU and US respectively.

As a result of high tobacco consumption, aging problem, China’s expenditure on healthcare is expected to be a trillion dollars by 2020, due to proposed expansion of facilities, coverage.

The combined population of the US and EU is about the 800 million – versus the 1200 million of India. Even if due to lower costs, India were to replicate the EU and US systems, the expenditure will be US$3 trillion. That is 50% more than the Indian GDP.

Simplistic?

Sure. But, if we are going to throw around billions and trillions that belong to taxpayers, why worry?

These systems will collapse – and when that happens, there will be plagues and epidemics across the West.

Remember that less than a 100 years ago, the flu-epidemic killed tens of millions in the West. Conservative estimates start at 2 crores, go to realistic estimates of 4 crores (40 million) and some estimates go beyond 5 crores (50 million). This depletion in population, coupled with WWI deaths toppled the West into the Great Depression, ten years later.

As John M. Barry, author of “The Great Influenza,” has observed, “Influenza killed more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century; it killed more people in 24 weeks than AIDS has killed in 24 years.”

via Grounding a Pandemic – New York Times.

The State as the natural and logical answer to every social problem is uniquely modern extension of Desert Bloc model of governance. The confidence that media and academia project in this model has no relation to reality.

We have seen the collapse of Spain, Portugal as imperial powers, Britain is at a tipping point – and many expect Pax Americana to follow.

Why must India duplicate this vastly inefficient and costly healthcare system of the West, as this recent article in the FT suggests.

Western governments could haul New Delhi to the WTO dispute panel to challenge its patent law as non-compliant with global trade rules, generics executives’ and health activists’ bigger worry is that the EU, and eventually the US, will secure provisions in new free-trade deals. These provisions would give western drugmakers more tools to stop Indian generic rivals.

Western pharmaceutical companies counter that India’s real health crisis is not the price of a handful of patented drugs but of a government that has abdicated its responsibility to ensure decent healthcare for its citizens. India’s government spends less than 1.2 per cent of gross domestic product on healthcare.

Some western companies, led by GlaxoSmithKline, are trying tiered pricing strategies in India to reflect the extremes of its wealth and poverty. Merck Sharp and Dohme sells its patented diabetes drug Januvia in India for about $24 per month, 80 per cent lower than its global price.

Still, the cut-rate price for Januvia has not deterred Glenmark, an Indian generics firm, from making its own version, which it sells for 30 per cent less than the discounted price. Last month MSD tried unsuccessfully to get a court order stopping Glenmark from selling its medicine, and protracted litigation lies ahead.

“You can parachute free medicine across the country but that will not improve access because you don’t the health infrastructure,” says Mr Shahani. “You don’t have doctors, you don’t have nurses, you don’t have nursing homes and you don’t have diagnostics.”

Shortages of nurses and orderlies meant young doctors had to do menial tasks such as carrying laboratory samples or wheeling patients into the operating theatre.

The junior doctors say the public hospital is so overstretched – and poorly managed – that they have to make snap decisions on how to handle patients, as if processing the wounded from a battlefield.

“This government doesn’t want patients to die, so our major concern is to prevent death, but what about proper management after that?” asks Sameer Prabhakar, a doctor at Safdarjung. “A doctor seeing 100 patients a day won’t have time.”

Safdarjung’s problems resonate across India’s public health system, which is starved of funds. Clinics struggle to cope with the flow of patients who can spend days queueing to see a doctor, only to be told they will have to wait months for treatment – even for potentially fatal diseases such as cancer.

India has just six doctors and nine hospital beds for every 10,000 people, compared with 15 doctors and 38 beds in China, and 24 doctors and 30 beds in the US, according to UN data. “The biggest question is: why is the government not building more hospitals and opening more medical colleges?” says Dr Prabhakar.

The emergence of swish upmarket private hospitals catering to India’s rich and middle classes is exacerbating the strain on public hospitals, as doctors, nurses and other specialists are drawn to the higher salaries and better working conditions.

With India spending just 1.2 per cent of gross domestic product on health – compared with nearly 3 per cent in China – the problems will not be resolved easily. Many poor Indians go to unqualified quacks. Lower middle-class patients are driven to private hospitals they cannot afford, clocking up debt to pay for essential treatment.

via India: Patents and precedents – FT.com.

Related Articles

• World economy in a tizzy, but Indian pharma flying high (thehindu.com)
• Should pharma MNCs be peeved? (rediff.com)
• India’s Solution To Drug Costs: Ignore Patents And Control Prices – Except For Home Grown Drugs (forbes.com)
• Fortis Healthcare to raise Rs 322 cr via IPP (news.in.msn.com)

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Ranking Moms Is Just So Bad An Idea

Why is this British NGO so desperately putting down moms from Africa?

No mother is any lesser than any other. To try and show superiority …| Cartoon by Randy Bish, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review – May 10, 2013 via PoliticalCartoons.com

herever in the world it is, bringing up children is a job second to none.

Every mother and father, and societies that help them bring up a child deserve a lot of respect.

To see people scoring points likes this …

For Moms in Finland, every day is Mother’s Day. A new report from the non-profit Save the Children says that the Scandinavian nation is the best country on the globe for mothers to live.

Scandinavia is definitely a good place to be a Mom. Finland, which often places high on education and quality of life in other international lists, is followed by Sweden at no. 2 and Norway at no. 3. In fact, all but one of the top 10 countries where Moms are the safest are European, with Australia placing tenth.

The ten unsafest places for mothers are all located in Central Africa, with the Democratic Republic of Congo ranking worst. An estimated 98% of newborn and 99% of maternal deaths occur in developing countries where basic health care services are scarce.

Check out the top 10 best and worst countries for mothers below, and see the full report here.

Best:

1) Finland

2) Sweden

3) Norway

4) Iceland

5) Netherlands

6) Denmark

7) Spain

8) Belgium

9) Germany

10) Australia

Worst:

167) Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

168) Chad

1

69) Nigeria

170) Gambia

171) Central African Republic

172) Niger

173) Mali

174) Sierra Leone

175) Somalia

176) DR Congo

via 10 Best Countries for Moms | TIME.com.

Proof of the pudding

So, if these Western countries are so good for women and becoming mothers, how come women here don’t want to become mothers often enough?

Why are these top 10 countries having so few babies? Why are their populations shrinking?

Motherhood statements on Mother’s Day that don’t hold up?

Simple statements that these countries have lowest infant mortality, maternal mortality, etc would have been enough.

But if you try ramming in a truck through simple data like this, it looks awfully close to talking down to us in Third World?

And if you know, your own backyard needs fixing, why waste time in putting down other people? Like how children in Britain want a brother /sister more than any other gift for Christmas? Or how the State thinks that it has more rights in naming a child compared to the child’s parents?

If your social systems are so good, why try these kind of dubious tactics to score points over people in Africa, who are down right now.

Pointing fingers at others is …

Bad psychologically.

Bad in ethics.

Not to forget Bad Journalism

Related Articles

• DR Congo ‘worst place for mothers’ (bbc.co.uk)
• What makes a country a good place to be a mother? | Debate of the day (guardian.co.uk)
• World Mothers’ Index: UK Falls To 23rd Place (news.sky.com)

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US Medical: Workings of Private Hospitals and Individual Customers

Would all those in the fan club of Yummrika’s ‘systems’ like to take a look at the US medical system? .

Around 20% of US residents do not have access to the US medical facilities on fair terms. This has been a long running racket in the US medical industry – and the US Government has made some ham-handed attempts at solving this problem. | Cartoon titled The Raft Of The Uninsured- By RJ Matson, The St. Louis Post Dispatch – 11/21/2006 12:00:00 AM

he US Government recently passed laws ‘compelling’ hospitals to ‘reveal’ prices that they charge for uninsured individual customers – who are also not covered by employer medical insurance, or State Medicare, Medicaid system.

Yumm-Rika – The Promised Land

We recently also covered some tweets from some more knowledgeable people on how the US is the most consumer friendly.

My observation: Governance in USA revolves around Citizen Safety and Citizen Convenience. Just love it!

— Vinita Deshmukh (@VinitaDeshmukh) April 25, 2013

But even in this backward country, India, private medical costs are easily and commonly available. And for those who can afford, there is vast network of private medical care. For those who cannot afford, there is the State-assisted medical hospital system, which provides, few questions asked medical services to any comer.

Uninsured & uncovered by Government Medicaid and Medicare | Image source & courtesy – turner.com

Cartels and Monopolies

One can quibble, one can cavil, one can whine and moan, but is there anything worse than a country-wide cartel of hospital systems that will not reveal heir costs to the consumers, upfront, openly and freely.

And this is the system that India trying to copy – and promote.

No wonder we have this new phenomenon that private insurers promise cashless medical insurance – and after the patient is admitted, after costs are approved, at the time of discharge, the hospital presents a bill to the patients, of costs that not approved by the insurer.

The Government bill, running into a reported 2700 pages has been challenged in the Supreme Court. The current administrations point of view is that some solution is better than the rampant abusive cartelization that is presently the norm | Cartoon titled Obamacare Bike By Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune – 3/27/2012 12:00:00 AM

Maya ahoy!

On with the story. American media is breathless with astonishment, when it took all the might of the world’s sole super-power, the US Government, to publish medical information on a Government website.

WASHINGTON — The actual cost of hospital care became a lot clearer for consumers on Wednesday when the Obama administration released the average prices charged by more than 3,000 U.S. hospitals for the 100 most common medical procedures.

The 2011 data, which shows wide cost variations at hospitals across the country – and in the same city or geographic area – raise questions about how treatment prices are determined and why the information has been so hard to get in the past.

Rates paid by private insurers and public health plans like Medicare and Medicaid are typically much lower.

The cost information is being released for the first time with the intent to “save consumers money by arming them with better information that can help them make better choices,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

“When consumers can easily compare the prices of goods and services, producers have strong incentives to keep those prices low,” Sebelius said.

Inpatient charges to treat heart failure in Denver hospitals, for instance, ranged from a low of $21,000 to a high cost of $46,000, while the same procedure ranged from $9,000 to $51,000 at hospitals in Jackson, Miss. Inpatient costs related to joint replacement ranged from $5,300 at a hospital in Ada, Okla., up to a high of $223,000 at a hospital in Monterey Park, Calif.

That kind of price disparity puzzled Jon Blum, director of the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. He said the cost variations could possibly reflect the health status of the patient, whether a hospital charges more because it trains future doctors, and even whether a hospital has higher capital costs that are passed on to patients.

But Blum added: “Those reasons don’t seem very apparent to us.”He said the charges “don’t seem to make sense to us from a consumer standpoint. There’s no relationship that we see to charges and the quality of care that’s being provided.”

Even though more than 40 states require or encourage hospitals to make their charges and payment rates public, the hospital association supports federal price transparency legislation sponsored by Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas.

Burgess’ proposal would require state Medicaid plans to ensure that states would pass laws requiring hospitals to make their charges readily available to the public and to provide information about patients’ estimated out-of-pocket costs.

via Prices for hospital care vary widely, even within same city, data show | McClatchy.

And who are these uninsured, the uncovered. There is fairly narrow range that the total number of the uninsured and uncovered was between 48-52 million legal US citizens and 10-15 million US residents who have not be legalized. To this add the fact that this data pertains to years 2011-2012. Due the current economic climate this number probably is closer to 65 million US residents. That would be around 65 million US residents. In a population of some 330 million. 20% of the US population.

Not surprising that vested commercial interests who have been running an opaque medical system, are spending massive amounts of money in lobbying with their law-makers. This lobbing in USA, in India would be called bribes subvert a solution | Cartoon titled Obama Care By Arend Van Dam, source & courtesy – politicalcartoons.com on 3/26/2012 12:00:00 AM

And the Obama administration has passed a 2700-pages medical insurance law to cover these uninsured.

Three groups comprised the bulk of the uninsured in 2010, including foreign-born residents who are not U.S. citizens, young adults ages 19 to 25 and low-income families with an annual household income of less than $25,000.

The percentage of people who had health insurance through their employers fell to 55.3% in 2010 from 56.1% the year before, continuing a long, downward trend. In 2000, 64.1% of the population received health insurance through their employers.

The average health insurance premium for family coverage has more than doubled over the past decade to $13,770 a year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit which focuses on health care policy and issues.

With fewer Americans receiving health care coverage through their employers, government-funded programs like Medicare, Medicaid, military health care, the Children’s Health Care Program (CHIPS) and coverage offered by various states have had to pick up the slack.

In 2010, 31% of Americans relied on the government for health insurance, up from 24.2% in 1999.

Many of the new government beneficiaries are children, according to Gould. Still, Census reported that 9.8% of children under age 18 are uninsured despite the government programs targeting them like CHIPS and Medicaid, which is also open to their parents.

Adults without dependent children, however, are not eligible for Medicaid in most states under federal rules, said Rachel Garfield, a senior researcher on the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. It’s this group that accounts for a large portion of the increase in the uninsured.

Nearly one-in-four working-age adults are uninsured, said Gould. She said it won’t be until 2014, when Obama’s Affordable Care Act fully kicks in, that more people will be able to find affordable health care coverage.

Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, said the report is evidence that the Obama administration’s health care reform is already starting to work.

Citing a provision that went into effect last year that allows parents to keep their children on their health insurance policy until they are 26 years old, Sebelius noted that the percentage of young adults ages 18 to 24 who were insured increased to 72.8% in 2010 from 70.7% in 2009.

Number of people without health insurance in U.S. climbs – Sep. 13, 2011.

There are widespread expectations that the US Supreme Court may uphold a legal challenge to the latest Government proposal, on a rather simple count of a complexity. | Cartoon titled Death and Politics By Parker, Florida Today – 2/2/2011 12:00:00 AM

After a year of bitter and partisan wrangling, the Obama administration passed a law that will enable coverage of these uninsured /uncovered.

If it survives Supreme Court scrutiny, the landmark overhaul will expand coverage to about 30 million uninsured people, according to government figures. But an estimated 26 million Americans will remain without coverage — a population that’s roughly the size of Texas and includes illegal immigrants and those who can’t afford to pay out-of-pocket for health insurance.

Millions Still Go Uninsured If Obamacare Survives.

The US Government itself recognizes a figure that varies around 50 million. This excludes US residents who have been living in the US for several years – and there is an ongoing debate on how to legalize these residents.

The percentage of people without health insurance in 2011 decreased from 2010. In 2011, the percentage was 15.7%, compared to 16.3% in 2010. During 2011, an estimated 48.61 million people were without insurance, a statistically significant decrease of 1.34 million from the estimated 49.95 million uninsured in 2010. (via Overview of the Uninsured in the United States: A Summary of the 2012 Current Population Survey Report.

Related Articles

• Hospital Prices Vary Dramatically – ABC News (abcnews.go.com)
• High hospital bills go public, but will it help? (news.yahoo.com)
• New Report Shows Staggering Differences in the Cost of Medical Treatments (pbs.org)
• Hospital prices diverge wildly, U.S. data show (latimes.com)
• New hospital data shows giant swings in prices (vitals.nbcnews.com)
• Some hospitals charge vastly more for same care (cnsnews.com)

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Japan’s Child Pop. shrinks By 150,000 to a record low

India has more children than the total population of any country in the world – except China.

How about doing a few things just coz they are right? Mebbe not ‘necessarily’ ‘profitable’ | Joel Pett, Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, Cartoonists and Writers Syndicate, and was published on December 7, 2009 in USA TODAY

f people are becoming richer, more educated, in better living conditions, in a technologically superior time than any other in history, why can’t they afford children?

Earlier, when the father alone could raise a family of ten, today’s parents are afraid that, “even two incomes are no longer enough to make ends meet before pay day.”

You Pay For This …

The One Big reason that parents in the West and Japan are not having children is because of the cost.

Sheer economic costs.

A recent post in the Newsweek elicited much discussion and reactions – broadly falling into two categories.

Personal financial limitations and difficulties and social values on the other hand.

Apart from a sermonizing David Cameron, in UK, a recent report suggested that just one child, “a child from birth to adulthood will cost £140,000. This means the average couple works two years to fund each offspring – couples with children are twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as those without.”

The Other Big reason is, Western social and political leaders have made it uncool to have children.

Like this French woman-writer, Corinne Maier, who, disturbed at an exhibition of Belgian surrealists, decided, “at that point, I thought, ‘I really regret it, I regret having children.’ ” Her subsequent book, “40 Reasons for Not Having Children” in French, was also translated and sold well in English.

An American ‘comedian’ Adam Carolla was caught moralizing: “The best parenting of all is not shitting out the kids when you can’t afford the kids.”

The last word on this.

The Optimum Population Forum judges the price of a condom to have had a nine million per cent “return on investment” when set against the cost to the planet of having a child.

In such a moral atmosphere, which self-respecting set of parents would start a family?

It is a brave child, who dares to come into this kind of unwelcome society.

This over-production, over-waste, over-war model can change. How about a 2ndlook? | Cartoon by Steve Greenberg on Oct. 22, 1994. in Seattle Post Intelligencer. For an updated cartoon – http://goo.gl/r9HLa

Am I Backward?

Why is the ‘developed’ world choose to commit a ‘demographic’ suicide.

Beats me!

But then, by common consensus of the superior Western media and its Brown-American cheerleaders, I am from an under-developed country like India.

Can I even begin to understand ‘development’?

By the way, here are the latest stats on the self-inflicted genocide of Japan.

As the nation celebrated the national Children’s Day holiday on May 5, the number of children under 15 years of age fell 150,000 from a year earlier to a record low 16.49 million as of April 1, according to government estimates released on May 4.

The child population shrank for the 32nd consecutive year and hit the lowest level since statistics became available in 1950, the internal affairs ministry said.

The estimates, based on national population census and other surveys, were compiled for Children’s Day on May 5.

Those under 15 years of age accounted for 12.9 percent of the total population, one of the lowest levels in the world. The corresponding figure is 19.6 percent in the United States, 16.5 percent in China and 15.6 percent in South Korea.

According to the estimates, there were 8.44 million boys and 8.04 million girls. By age, 3.55 million were between 12 and 14; 3.4 million were between 9 and 11; 3.2 million were between 6 and 8; 3.17 million were between 3 and 5; and 3.16 million were between 0 and 2.

via Child population shrinks 150,000 to record low 16.49 million – AJW by The Asahi Shimbun.

Compelling logic, eh? First you impoverish people, then take away everything – and then blame them for all the problems! | Cartoon by Catherine Pain in a post titled Why are we surprised when we get what we pay for? on 24 April 2013; source & courtesy – open.ac.uk

By the way, the Indian children are nearly 31% of the gross population – and India has about 44 crore children.

India has more children than the total population of any country in the world – except China.

Related Articles

• Japan’s child population falls for 32nd year in row (english.kyodonews.jp)
• Lessons From Record Decrease in Japan’s Population (quicktake.wordpress.com)
• Over 2,000 fewer farmers every day (thehindu.com)
• Bogus ADHD diagnoses on the rise (douglassreport.com)
• Japan’s population falls by record level (japantimes.co.jp)
• Japan: The worst developed country to be a mother? (bbc.co.uk)
• Leave them alone (guardian.co.uk)
• China’s one-child policy increasingly being questioned (pri.org)
• Saving Japan: promoting women’s role in the workforce would help (japantimes.co.jp)

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Kilroy Was Here: National Shame Syndrome Hits China

While American graffiti has become a cult symbol – a subject of books, films, media coverage, one graffiti by a Chinese tourist has become a national shame.

Will Chinese copy the US – and paint graffiti across the world? | Cartoon by Stephens on Wednesday, 29 May, 2013, 6:16am in South China Morning Post

uring and after WWII, American soldiers were parts of invading armies that warred in more than 50 countries. With the British and Russians, Americans were victorious in WWII.

Colonialism to Neo-Colonialism

After WWII, American armies waged long and expensive wars against Asians in South East Asia to impose US hegemony over former French, Dutch and British colonies.

Using a Communist bogeyman, propped by Eisenhower’s Domino Theory, American forces killed more than 50 lakh Asians (5 million) in Cambodia, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam. After the Asian Wars and the collapse of the Soviet Union, American attention has turned to the Islamic world.

Self Goal? More than international media, it were the Chinese who declared this graffiti as a ‘national’ shame. | Harry Harrison on May 27, 2013 in South China Morning Post

American Chopsuey

These American soldiers made their presence felt in countries they invaded and in those countries where American bases were set up – temporarily (like in India) or permanently (like in Japan).

In India, an early impact was ice-cream. India’s Kwality (now Kwality Walls) ice-creams started by catering to the American military forces stationed in India during WWII. Coca-Cola became a global brand, accompanying American armies across the world.

More damaging than either Coca-Cola or ice-cream, was the explosion in prostitution in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, with the arrival of American soldiers – as a well-oiled machine.

As if this was not enough, these soldiers, to leave their indelible mark, left graffiti behind. One graffiti, that became a marker of this boorish American behaviour was the text and image of Kilroy Was Here.

American graffiti left behind at national monuments, historical sites – and on the bellies of pregnant women. Does the phallic overtones of this graffiti reveal the shallowness?

Graffiti itself goes back to ancient times. Graffiti is found in the ruins of Pompeii, on the walls of ancient Jerusalem, in ancient Egypt. Kilroy follows a long tradition, but was far more famous and all-present than any of them.

“Kilroy was here” emerged during World War II, appearing at truck stops, city restaurants, and in military boardrooms. However, the first appearances seem to have been on military docks and ships in late 1939.

“The mischievous face and the phrase became a national joke,” according to author Charles Panati. In theory, he was a soldier, probably American, who travelled all over the world scrawling his immortal phrase. Clearly, the graffiti were scrawled by thousands of different soldiers, not a single one named Kilroy.

During the Forties, Kilroy was everywhere. Panati comments, “The outrageousness of the graffit was not so much what it said, but where it turned up.” He cites the torch of the Statue of Liberty, the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the Marco Polo Bridge in China, huts in Polynesia, and a girder on the George Washington Bridge in New York. There were contests in the Air Force to beat Kilroy to isolated and uninhabited places around the globe.

The appearance wasn’t always of GI origin, although it was largely tied to the military services. More than once newspapers reported on pregnant women wheeled into the delivery room, with the hospital staff finding “Kilroy was here” written across their stomachs. Panati says, “The most daring appearance occurred during the meeting of the Big Three in Potsdam, Germany, in July 1945. Truman, Attlee, and Stalin had exclusive use of an opulent marble bathroom, off limits to everyone else. On the second day of the summit, an excited Stalin emerged from the bathroom sputtering something in Russian to one of his aides. A translator overheard Stalin demand, ‘Who is Kilroy?'”

SDSTAFF Mac suggests Panati is a better storyteller than a scholar, though.

via The Straight Dope: What’s the origin of “Kilroy was here”?.

Low Self Image

China is whipping itself into a frenzy.

A graffiti by a Chinese teenager, discovered by another Chinese at the Egypt’s Luxor site, was taken up with a frenzy by ‘shamed’ Chinese. While American Graffiti has become a cult symbol – a subject of books, films, media coverage, one graffiti by a Chinese tourist has become a national shame.

Much like India scored a self-goal by making itself look like a country of rapists, when in fact, it has one of the lowest rape ratios in the world.

Does international media need anything more than these self-goals by the Chinese and Indians?

SHANGHAI—Parents of a Chinese junior high school student apologized on May 25 after their son’s name and graffiti were discovered defacing a wall of the ruins of the sacred Luxor Temple in Egypt, which ignited a storm of criticism on the Internet.

“My son understands that he did a bad thing,” his weeping mother was quoted by the Xian Dai Kuai Bao, a newspaper in Jiangsu province in coastal China, as saying.

“I am asking everyone to generously forgive my son (so that) this incident will not adversely affect his future,” his father was also quoted as saying.

The graffiti, written along with the student’s name in Chinese, reads, “I came here for sightseeing.”

Another Chinese tourist, who discovered the graffiti, wrote in Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter, on the night of May 24, “I tried to erase this shame by rubbing it off, but my effort was in vain.” He also posted a photo of the graffiti.

Immediately after that, one poster after another criticized the graffiti on the Internet. One comment read, “I am ashamed of the graffiti as a Chinese.” Other posters also disclosed the student’s birthday and year of birth, and revealed that he is a junior high school student in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

Parents of the student called the Xian Dai Kuai Bao on the afternoon of May 25 and met with its reporters. via Chinese student’s graffiti on Luxor Temple ignites Internet criticism – AJW by The Asahi Shimbun.

Related Articles

• Mandarin Graffiti (slate.com)
• French saw WWII GIs as thugs, book claims (warhistoryonline.com)
• Germany Uses Drones to Catch Graffiti Artists (on.aol.com)
• Dubai anti-graffiti campaign targets schools (gulfnews.com)
• Intel: Now your PC is a zombie (news.techeye.net)
• Intel shows first smartphone with Merrifield chip (pcworld.com)
• Computex: Intel flashes the first smartphone with Merrifield chip (homepremiumtorofessional.wordpress.com)

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Chinese Softpower: No Answer To Hollywood

Deng’s China has decided that China must give up its pre-Maoist past – and become ‘modern’. Result – China has become a huge market for Hollywood now.

China informs the world that Hollywood film Django is being released in China. Such an important event, no! | ‘#Django’ might get unchained in China’s theaters in May http://bit.ly/12LwGz5 | Twitter – globaltimesnews- ‘#Django’ might get unchained … 2013-04-26 09-06-57 | Click for original tweet.

hina has long wanted to lead in soft-power – a major force in global culture and arts.

However, this objective has eluded China.

Sun Yat Sen To Now

Modern China‘s pillars are all foreign – especially from the West. Communism from Europe, social media forums like Weibo is a Twitter clone. But possibly the biggest failure is in films.

India with Bollywood films has the largest number of productions and viewers. Africa has now jumped ahead of Hollywood – and China, in production numbers and viewership.

But it was not always like that.

Shaw Brothers had built, out of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, over the last 70 years, an enviable base of Chinese film narrative. This was based on Chinese themes – Buddhism, Boxer Revolution (China’s version of India‘s 1857 War), Kung Fu, Japanese colonialism in China. These ideas appealed not just to Chinese audiences, but even global audiences.

However, Deng’s China has decided that China must give up its pre-Maoist past – and become ‘modern’.

Result – China has become a huge market for Hollywood now.

What’s Language Got To Do …

When you ‘follow’ foreign culture, you also end up losing control over your culture. Like this recent post pointed out, how Hollywood with Kung Fu Panda-II is trying to define the future of India-China relations.

Africa’s adoption of Arabic, Jewish abandonment of their language, have made these cultures into peripheral entities in the world today. In India, government subsidies to English in higher education has extended the life of a colonial imposition to much beyond pragmatic usage.

English has become a sub-religion in India like cricket.

In India …

A very remarkable effect of this in India is the effect English has on Indian minds. For instance, Arvind Kejriwal’s Party, AAM AAdmi Party (AAP) has looked to the US for every inspiration. This inspiration-by-the-US ideas are not based on study of the US – but on the propaganda by US media.

For instance corruption.

Just one scandal in the US, is bigger than all corruption cases that have ‘allegedly’ happened in the last nearly 70 years of independent India. The nearly US$8 trillion of unaccounted /partially accounted hole in the US Department of Defense.

Yet a founder of the AAP tweets on US governance. Not surprisingly, it based on ‘optics’ – but on any critical appreciation of the US.

In the meantime, back to China. China’s prime English newspaper /website, Global Times has decided to inform the world that Chinese will be able to see ‘Django Unchained.’

A major event, I presume.

Two weeks after the Hollywood film Django Unchained was pulled from theaters on the day it premiered on the Chinese mainland, rumors began to spread on the Internet that the film had passed the country’s censorship requirements again and would return to Chinese screens.

Reliable sources said that the first film from director Quentin Tarantino to come to the Chinese mainland will be available for film lovers in May, popular movie information and ticket booking website mtime.com reported Thursday.

“The former edition to be released in cinemas is almost the same as the editions released overseas, which were edited by Quentin Tarantino. That edition had few problems generally, and after the suspension, only some nude scenes were cut from the film. I suppose it will be on screens after May Day,” sina.com.cn reported.

via ‘Django’ might get unchained in China’s theaters in May – CHINA – Globaltimes.cn.

Related Articles

 

• Hollywood Games In China (quicktake.wordpress.com)

• Hollywood yielding to China’s growing film clout (sfgate.com)
• Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained Suddenly Cancelled Due to ‘Technical Reasons’ (contactmusic.com)
• US kowtows to China’s artistic licence (theage.com.au)
• Hollywood’s China Solution: Two Versions Of Some Movies (forbes.com)
• Django Unchained get a second official release in China (guardian.co.uk)
• Troops still camped, but China denies LAC crossing (thehindu.com)
• ‘India, China have wisdom to defuse row’ (thehindu.com)
• China rejects reports on border incursion (thehindu.com)
• Can Hollywood Romance Chinese Film-Goers? (theatlantic.com)

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Is This The Intellectual Depth Of Aam Aadmi Party?

Aam Aadmi Party founders like @VinitaDeshmukh and @ArvindKejriwal derive inspiration from US governance. What lessons, if any, from the USA?.

Query to Vinita Deshmukh, brought no reply. Possibly, in her view, this message was axiomatic – what in Indian classical idiom will be called pratyaksh satya. | Tweet Text – My observation: Governance in USA revolves around Citizen Safety and Citizen Convenience. Just love it! | Twitter – VinitaDeshmukh- My observation- Governance … 2013-04-26 10-02-32 | Click to go to original message.

very remarkable thing in India is the effect English has on Indian minds.

For instance, Arvind Kejriwal‘s Party, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has looked to the US for every inspiration. This inspiration-by-the-US ideas are not based on study of the US – but on the propaganda by US media.

Out Of Our Minds

For instance corruption.

Just one scandal in the US, is bigger than all corruption cases that have ‘allegedly’ happened in the last nearly 70 years of independent India. The nearly US$8 trillion of unaccounted /partially accounted hole in the expenditure by US Department of Defense. US$ 8 trillion is nearly all the money that India has spent on defense in the last 65 years.

Yet a founder of the AAP tweets on US governance. Not surprisingly, it based on ‘optics’ – not on any critical appreciation of the US.

For instance, let us look at the US Supreme Court.

Slavery vs Freedom

In March, 1857.

About 1 month before India went up in flames, against the British Raj, the  Supreme Court of the USA (SCOTUS) covered itself in infamy. On  March 6, 1857 the US Supreme Court, in a complex judgement, upheld slavery (Dred Scott v. Sanford). This judgement closed the door of US judiciary and stopped any slave from approaching US courts for justice.

In March 1857, while Indians were preparing to battle the British for freedom and independence, the SCOTUS was busy finding new ways to keep slaves – stooped, shackled and in chains.

It took another 100 years of protests, assassinations of leaders like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, even a Civil War to change rampant discrimination in the US. But, above all, finally an acute shortage of factory labor and soldiers forced the US Government to withdraw its support to entrenched racism.

The SCOTUS just did not stop at slavery.

SCOTUS supported racism (United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923)), segregation by Plessy v. Ferguson 1896.

This tradition has continued. Most recently, SCOTUS stopped a vote recount that would have declared Al Gore the President – but instead, George Bush became the US President for the second term. Books have been written, news journals regularly compile their ‘favorite’ lists of Worst 10 SCOTUS judgements.

Unlike the SCOTUS, the Indian SC has not allowed such unjust judgements to escape its portals. The Indian Supreme Court, in its’ short history has been a remarkable body in juridical operations.

But …

I could repeat big data here

1. How the US imprisons more people than the next 10 biggest police States in the world.
2. How 1 in 3 Black Americans are imprisoned
3. How the US police are brutal force which tramples on US citizens’ rights, every minute, every day.
4. How the US secret police is bigger than any police State ever in the history of mankind
5. How the US prosecutes more than 1.4 crore people through its judicial system – which I have pointed out above is covered in tar.

If Arvind Kejriwal and Vinita Deshmukh of the Aam Aadmi Party will take a 2ndlook.

Having said all this, Arvind Kejriwal’s idea of a citizen police force for women safety is a step in the right direction. While the BJP, Communists were all clamoring for more police, more judges, more courts, more costs, Arvind Kejriwal differed.

We cannot have an expanding State. Do we want more and more brutal policemen.

Related Articles

• Who are you? asks the Indian SC (quicktake.wordpress.com)
• AAP proposes ‘citizen security force’ for women’s safety (vancouverdesi.com)
• Aam Aadmi Party to submit 6 lakh letters to Dikshit (thehindu.com)
• Aam Aadmi Party now a registered political party (thehindu.com)
• Civil society groups support Kejriwal’s campaign against “inflated” power bills (thehindu.com)
• Kejriwal’s indefinite fast fails to attract public (ibnlive.in.com)
• Condition of 5-year-old Indian girl who was raped improves as protests continue (theglobeandmail.com)

Elections In Pakistan: Why Arresting Pervez Musharraf Is A Mistake

How does removing a candidate from the election fray promote democracy?

Pakistan Electoral Alliances | Comic Wisdom – by Zahoor on December 3rd, 2012 – The Express Tribune

udicial vengeance is dish that is best served cold. It should never be served hot and steaming.

One Big Mistake

Pakistan‘s judiciary has made this, one fundamental mistake. Especially at a time, when restraint was needed. Remember, Pakistan is living up to the fact that for the first time an elected government has completed a full-term.

All the confusion in Pakistan is best captured by a confusing and ill-thought post in the WSJ.com. By my favorite journalist – Sadanand Dhume.

I especially favor him, because no other journalist of any globally or nationally relevant publication writes from a position of such ignorance and lack of understanding.

For one Dhume has not learnt that …

Well Begun Is Half Done

The post starts off with a contradiction.

How does removing a candidate from the election fray promote democracy?

The lesson from Indian democracy is that any one can stand for election. Dacoits, transgenders, actors, filmstars, mobsters – the full range of social strata.

Unlike most of the world’s democracies, especially in the West, that have just 2 parties.

It is only in India that the 2 main parties tend towards towards an arithmetic mean of 40%-60% of the parliamentary seats. The rest are controlled by various regional and fringe parties. Left, Right, Ruralist (Bharatiya Kisan Union), Urbanist (Shiv Sena)

This trend has become even more accentuated in the last 30 years. Remember that after 1980, no party has won an electoral majority on merit. Rajiv Gandhi’s 1984 electoral victory was clearly a sympathy vote.

This promotes a vibrant clash in ideologies, programs, values, actions. The resultant clamor leaves India’s English speaking urban chatteratti very dis-satisfied. Not to forget foreign observers.

India’s English speaking urban chatteratti would like to replicate 2-party system like the West.

Dhume asserts

Pervez Musharraf’s recent legal setbacks are Pakistan’s gain. Since Saturday, the country’s former military leader has found himself confined by police to a bedroom in his farmhouse on the outskirts of Islamabad. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.).

What is it that Parvez Musharraf is accused of?

Like how George Bush subverted the SCOTUS which stopped the recount of votes that would have declared Al Gore as the President – and not GWB, Jr. Every Pakistani politicians (and in all other parts of the world) have at some or the other subverted the judiciary.

Appointing pliable judges; cooperative judges who were elevated; ideological conformity, would all count as subversion. Has any politician in any country of the world not done this?

Going by this standard, no politician would be qualify to fight an election.

A smug Dhume continues

He faces charges ranging from complicity in the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 to wrongful dismissal of judges in the waning days of his unpopular rule, which stretched from 1999 to 2008. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.)

Being practical, since Musharraf was not going to win the election anyway, why not arrest him and throw the rule book at him? A sarcastic Dhume intones

Meanwhile, his quixotic hope of once again leading Pakistan was dashed after courts rejected his attempt to run for parliament. Pundits don’t expect Mr. Musharraf’s political party to claim a single seat in elections scheduled for May 11. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.)

Have You Thunk Of This?

Is it a crime, for any hack with any US publication to dream of winning the Pulitzer? How is it a crime for Musharraf to dream of winning the election?

Misplaced or otherwise?

Dhume has ‘thunk’ about this. And he determines that

A two-week house arrest is far from the welcome Mr. Musharraf expected on his return to Pakistan last month after more than four years of self-exile. In a stream of tweets and Facebook posts, the former commando had painted a picture of a grateful nation waiting to sweep him back to power with a popular mandate. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.)

The only delusions that exceed Musharraf’s are those of Western media outlets, who have written anything on Pakistan. All those well-trained, untrained, first-rate, third-grade journalists who have come, few have made sense of Pakistan.

Musharraf is not alone. Dhume repeats.

In addition to serving as a case study in political delusion. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.)

More than Islam, the problem with elections in the Islamic world is the US of A.

Countless cases of US agencies, NGOs, diplomats have indicted, identified responsible for subverting election processes. Starting with the murder of Mossadegh in Iran to the latest cases where US NGO bureaucrats were arrested in Egypt.

A memory-challenged Dhume pronounces

Should next month’s polls go off as planned, Pakistan will join Turkey, Bangladesh and Indonesia as countries that have defied those who doubt Islam’s compatibility with democracy. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.)

Does the US select mentally retarded people as generals, bureaucrats or Presidents. After 50 years of propping military dictators in Pakistan, Dhume thinks it is a lesson that US polity is yet to learn?

For the U.S., the general’s arrest should underscore a central lesson of the Musharraf era, that backing military leadership in Islamabad never pays off. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.)

After stopping Musharaff from electioneering, after fixing the ballot by engineering cases, the Pakistani establishment gets support from Dhume.

Only when Pakistan’s politicians grow confident that they won’t be jailed, exiled or executed for crossing the military will they be able to decisively reorient their country. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.)

Musharraf is an ex-general – and now a civilian politician. He deserves the same freedom that other politicians have, to contest elections.

House arrest for a once grandstanding general is one large step in this direction. (via Sadanand Dhume: At Home With Pervez Musharraf – WSJ.com.)

And in case, he wins the election, vox-populi, vox dei.(Voice of people is voice of Gods). In case, he loses the election, proceed with the prosecution of the case.

Judiciary Finding Its Feet

Judicial vengeance against Musharraf must wait. Just when Pakistan seemed to making this election work, they have gone ahead and shot themselves in their foot.

Pakistan’s judiciary and establishment must honor the promise of freedom that they gave Musharraf.

Any democracy that does not allow full freedom to contestants, is no democracy.

What is to stop other officials and rivals, tomorrow, from engineering cases against important (or otherwise) candidates.

Dhume seems to be clueless on how democracies are sustained. Instead of teaching, he should sit at the feet of some Indian Election Commission official.

And learn.

Related Articles

• Humiliation of Pervez Musharraf deepens as he is arrested and taken to court (independent.co.uk)
• Pakistani police defuse bomb near Pervez Musharraf house (guardian.co.uk)
• Musharraf does not trust bench hearing treason case: counsel (dawn.com)
• Musharraf’s arrest can jeopardize May elections, analysts fear (nation.com.pk)
• Pakistan’s Musharraf Appears Before Anti-Terrorism Court (voanews.com)
• Musharraf to appeal against arrest order (nation.com.pk)
• Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf arrested (ndtv.com)

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