Opportunity Herzog

Son of Israeli General (later President) Chaim Herzog, grandson of Israel's first Chief Rabbi Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, little "Buji" Herzog promises moderate new leadership in The Promised Land.

The election's now 19 days away. Can Buji displace massive "Bibi" Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel?  Does it matter?


The world will be surely safer when Avigdor Lieberman and his ultra-right goons depart government. Along with Tzipi Livni and the Zionist Union, Herzog promises to make new friends & alliances for a struggling Israel. He'll also surely be a tough leader. One day Buji will be on the steps of Jerusalem's new Hurva Synagogue (בית הכנסת החורבה)... doing something positive.

PM Yitzhak (Isaac) "Buji" Herzog
10th Prime Minister of Israel from 2015

Choosing a Warlord: Antibiotics

Too many people must work when sick, and use assorted medicines to carry on... "Antibiotics" increase the proportion of resistant bacteria. So-called antibiotics nurture resistant & non-targeted bacterial colonies (link).

Infection can quickly kill anyone...
One treatment option uses bacteriophages, a form of bacterial parasites. Better-developed phage treatments are important.

Some links to resources:

Johns Hopkins University Phage Hunters

"Beyond Antibiotics" by Max Sherman


Sellano Phage Therapy

DSMZ possibilities

Biochimpharm

Novomed

PolymerPharm

Politicians for Hire?

To what extent are politicians willing to whore their experience & contacts in exchange for cash?

Recent "sting" efforts by UK media highlight two senior British members of Parliament: former Secretary of State for Justice / former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, MP (Labour), and Former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind, KCMG, QC, MP (Conservative).

The men discussed how they could help a Chinese company based in Hong Kong as paid consultants.

Sir Malcolm was reportedly recorded stating "I am self-employed - so nobody pays me a salary. I have to earn my income." -- In fact, he's a salaried government employee: a sitting Member of Parliament who now serves as Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee. His committee oversees British intelligence services MI5 and MI6.

Neither man had yet arranged access to any privileged or secret information (link).

The Americans and other allies will surely pay attention to these reports, if only to note how cheaply and easily British politicians become more friendly. Perhaps this ain't news...

Pocket Espionage

Big companies such as Google are increasingly concerned by eroding trust.

Edward Snowden confirmed many improprieties by government & the mega-corporations (Thank You Ed!). Most recently we read of sweeping infiltration of hard drive firmware (link), spyware on USB minidrives, and British government infiltration of Dutch-French firm Gemalto to compromise SIM encryption (link). (Gemalto SIMs are used in billions of mobile phones). More crimes surely remain unknown.

Oversight by external national authorities, or others such as the EU, help keep some mega-corporations from the worst dishonesties. More oversight is necessary, and accountability.

While major corporate apps and computer programs are increasingly & carefully scrutinized, their programs often require pairing with other apps by tiny firms demanding all access. The process is not accidental. The result -- curious noses of pigs up your arse.

Backdoor weaknesses, and info gathering generally, is liable to exploitation in unforeseen ways. We've all become spying targets. This spying weakens otherwise competitive corporations and destroys trust.

Bush League

I've not met Jeb Bush. But his brother crippled the USA, tortured blindly, and rightly should be in prison for crimes against almost everyone. Their sinister father was no better. Should we give Jeb a chance?

Hell no. It would be best if we could ship the whole creepy clan to Somalia -- or anywhere that would take 'em -- along with Hilary & America's other professional politicos ...

These dancing weasels, and the rare reformer, are a distracting sideshow to the systematic rape of our nation (and the world) by profit-hungry militarists without scruple or morals.

Greek Fete

The Greek government & people have borrowed a lot, and now hope to avoid repayment. Who'll be left with the bill? Of course they hope to escape their debts without pain.

Are the Greeks being reasonable?  Should all debts be forgiven?

Korea's "ilbe" illusions

일베저장소 (Ilbe Jeojangso) is a strange phenomenon in South Korea. Young disaffected people are doing odd & crazy things. The "anything OK" bulletin board is typically labeled libertarian or right-wing, but ILBE is a kind of anarchy - and the ILBE tribe follows a disturbing trend that reaches to the top of Korean society.

People in Korea see flim-flam in action. They followed how the government bolstered one party and undermined its opponent in an election farce far dirtier than Watergate. Anything is OK. It's unethical and corrupt, a soulless crony capital system.

There is dynamic democracy in Korea - partly stifled by authoritarian rigidities and corrupt leadership. Populism thrives. Local people feel outmaneuvered, and hit-out at those weaker. Chauvinistic popular feeling regularly condemns non-Korean businesses: unreasonable attacks are justified by the rubric that "Koreans are emotional." Ultimately, everyone is either connected & protected, or an outsider without influence.

We're all encouraged to hurry. Why?  Perhaps that's a root of  일베 ...

ILBE is best translated to English as "WTF" or "whatevah..."

Those who understand what's happening often believe it's sick, sick, sick. But so is the sham government of President Park: sick, sick, sick... Outsiders not invested in Korea see rot and corruption, and understand anarchist sentiments - where the unconnected are food for the fishes. Korea is unhealthy! So sad...

Unregistered Humans!

Japan has an estimated 10,000 unregistered citizens - people who've lived all their lives amidst society. Without family registry, they're official outsiders.

Read Japan's sordid story by Tomoko Otake here (link)

Both America & Japan have far more unregistered non-citizens -- illegal alien residents. President Obama this week was attempting to grant clemency & amnesty to many young foreigners illegally in the USA. Those plans are now waylaid by court order.

Nobody likes bureaucratic red tape. It's most horrible when entangled. But social services reasonably collect details to fuel their activities & for auditing oversight. Otherwise our taxes only disappear. We've yet to develop wholly robust systems, and poor systems discourage our investments in social services. Illegal aliens may have forced their way into our living room, and pushed aside those  invited, but gate crashers haven't right to remain. If not inviting everyone, we need controls.

Honoring Others

If we each honor the ideas & opinions of others, there can be no conflict.

Some people are pushy, some are rude. Some people wish us harm, to take our property or use us maliciously.

We cannot and perhaps should not seek to ignore such people. Recognize their ignorant and threatening malevolence.

The militarists in our midst are deeply dangerous. They speak of "acceptable error" with air strikes. But killing or maiming a single innocent person is horrible and inexcusable. In harming innocent children and non-combatants, we who fund violence target ourselves.

Our militarism is out of control, and deeply dangerous.

Torture Volunteers

Unit 731 was a Japanese wartime research facility responsible for experimenting on people: prisoners-of-war and local Chinese (link). Gruesome experiments on living humans and large scale germ-warfare trials were carried-out by medical personnel under control of the Japanese occupying military authority.

We don't know as much as we should about the horrors of Unit 731, Surgeon General Shirō Ishii, and superiors in Tokyo (731部隊と石井四郎) because of huge postwar cover-up when the blood-soaked data was bartered to the American military. (Some background here - link)

Now Japan would have us believe Unit 731 victims "volunteered" for sacrifice - without anesthesia or ceremony. Sure...

Scandal Nuts

Cho Hyun-A (조현아, Heather Cho) has been heavily denounced and condemned for nutty behavior at Korean Air (땅콩 회항 or "nut rage"). The heiress has now apologized, but only after triggering great outrage over abusive behavior among Korea's wealthy families. Today she was sentenced to a year's detention with no parole... with the judge stating "human dignity was trampled upon"... Was the tantrum truly as described? Did Cho's family & colleagues suffer such antics for 40+ years? Or is Mrs. Cho a vendetta victim from the ruling class?