Made in China
March 31, 2007
In an about turn of U.S. trade policy and friendly international hugs, the Bush administration has decided to raise tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the United States. However, this appears to be a test run to experiment on the ways that such tariffs will affect U.S.-China relations and the market. A protective tariff-an artificial fee placed on international products exported to one’s country in order to protect the domestic market (a very truncated definition)-is being put in place because the Chinese government has been subsidizing their exports. To begin with, the U.S. has decided to put these tariffs on high quality paper. The tariffs will be placed on two Chinese manufacturers at 10.9 percent and 20.4 percent respectively for the privilege of exporting their fancy papyrus to the U.S.
Crazy Old Ladies
March 27, 2007
When you think you’ve heard everything.
Two women, Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt were arrested on Thursday on the charge of insurance fraud. These two seventy-five and seventy-three year old women are being accused of becoming friends with transient homeless men and then brutally killing them. These women would buy the homeless men places to live, food to eat, and-most importantly-life insurance. Then, in hit-and-run car accidents-they would kill the men and collect the insurance money.
Link to a description of their actions and indictment.
This kind of psychopathic behavior is outrageous to the Curious Mechanism. Not only did these women abuse the trust that these two men placed in them (Paul Vados and Kenneth McDavid), but they were cruel and weird and obviously nuts. These women received $2.3 million after the men were hit in seemingly unrelated hit-and-run accidents. At the moment, the two women are only charged with fraud, but the FBI is trying to build cases against them.
Perhaps it is just me, but I believe in the general good of humans. However, these crimes appear to be devoid of human empathy-and at the same time are creepily rational. Perhaps Nietzsche would have a field day with this kind of action (the will to power, master morality, whatever), but it appears simply to be a morally wrong and corrupt action.
If you seem to have a sweet old woman living in the apartment across the hall from you, keep one eye on her. Who knows when she might run you over with her car. Which is the perfect excuse because old female drivers seem to do that to people all the time.
Terrorists Wielding Bananas
March 20, 2007
Do you like bananas? I know that I do. They are simply delicious. However, I was unaware that I happened to be funding terrorism every time I bought a bushel of bananas from the supermarket.
This past Wednesday, the Department of Justice and the Chiquita Brand International Company (the ones who sell those delicious bananas) settled a plea agreement after getting caught funneling $25 million to the Colombian terror organization FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia).
In court documents filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors said several unnamed high-ranking corporate officers at the Cincinnati-based company paid about $1.7 million between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia
Now, the AUC has been on the U.S. Terror Watch List since 2001. That’s a lot of time for the Chiquita Banana Empire execs to figure out that this probably wasn’t a good idea. Their lawyers even told them not to do it. Then why would they continue to pay off drug barons, criminals, and kidnappers from 1997 up to mid-2003?
Executive purges seem to evoke thoughts of Stalinist Russia or Peter Best being forced from the position as the Beatles’ drummer. However, when these purges occur in a democratic republic with the phrase “separation of powers” in its Constitution, people begin to worry. As of December ‘06, the Curious Mechanism’s favorite Supreme Court failure/White House legal counsel/Golden Girl/personal friend of President Bush, Ms. Harriet Miers, is back! And this time, she’s taking the whole Justice Department down with her.
Unfounded Paranoia has a Face
March 6, 2007
So it appears that a little problem has appeared back on the global radar: bird flu.
Avian Influenza A(H5N1) is a Type A Influenza virus. Type A viruses are most commonly found in animals: pigs, birds, whales, heffalumps, etc. When Type A viruses are in humans, they are deadly pandemics such as the 1918 flu (A(H1N1)), which had a mortality rate 2.5% and killed more people than WWI. It might have been the deciding factor that lead to the untimely death of President Woodrow Wilson. He was a pretty good guy.
UPDATE: We recieved a comment that needed moderation for this entry. When we attempted to approve the comment, it disappeared, and we can’t seem to get it back, so we’re just cut and pasting it below. Thanks to the commenter, as all the feedback and information we’re recieving is appreciated. We’re just trying to learn, we don’t pretend to be experts, and we’re always grateful for clarification and correction. Here’s the comment, in full:
Author : starlight (IP: 24.115.216.22 , 24.115.216.22.res-cmts.sth.ptd.net)
E-mail : w3iiy@ptd.net
Comment:
Not all type A influenza viruses cause pandemics. Most of the seasonal flu that we are plagued with each year is caused by influenza A.
Influenza A viruses can spread from birds to pigs to humans, but they can also spread directly from birds to humans. This is what we are seeing right now in H5N1. Many of the patients who have contracted H5N1 had contact with infected birds.
It can also spread from person to person.
There have been clusters where the H5N1 virus has been spread from person to person. So far it appears that this hasn’t happened on a widespread basis. Once that does happen on a widespread basis, there will be a pandemic.
One of the main reasons to be very, concerned about H5N1 in particular, is that the current fatality rate is 76%. Over the past six months 76% of the patients who contracted the disease died in spite of hospital care, ventilators, anti-viral drugs, etc.
Most of the patients who have been infected with H5n1 and who have died have been healthy children, teens and young adults.
Our supply of anti-viral drugs is very small - we have enough for less than 5% of our population.
We cannot begin to make a vaccine until the virus mutates to pass easily from person to person. Scientists need the actual virus before they can begin to manufactor the vaccine. It will take at least 6-9 months after a pandemic begins before vaccine will be produced. At that point there will be only small quantities that will be used for healthcare workers, firemen, police, public health, etc.
There are things that people can do to protect themselves and their families.
Officials have said that we will be asked to stay in our homes to reduce the spread of the disease. We should have non-perishable food, water, baby food, pet food, medicine, cleaning products, etc.
Schools will be closed so it will be a good idea to have activities to keep children busy.
There are websites that have information about preparation for pandemic flu:
Hypocrisy and Politicians, just another day in Washington
February 27, 2007
Mr. Thursday is not a fan of hypocrisy. In fact, we find it especially irredeemable by politicians (we’re so frequently disappointed). So, when John McCain hired Terry Nelson to be his campaign manager, we were upset.
Remember that Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry? John Kerry, a decorated veteran, was accused of anti-American sentiments for his statements opposing the continuation of the Vietnam war upon his return from service. This campaign John McCain called “dishonest and dishonorable” and contributed to the 2004 presidential campaign defeat of John Kerry? Well, Terry Nelson was the political director behind the strings for that one.
More recently, Nelson placed the infamous ad against Harold Ford Jr. in the Tennessee Senatorial campaign? This ad played off of the latent racist fears in the South that are still under the skin of political life there. Walmart, a notably conservative outlet chain (a survey found 76% of their customers voted for Bush in 2004) was so distraught by the firestorm of publicity caused by the ad that they were forced to drop one of their most successful conservative consultants for his lack of ethics — Terry Nelson, again.
And because the Curious Mechanism loves a hat trick, we present a third case. Nelson has been connected to yet another one of the most fantastically outrageous political scandals of the decade: Tom DeLay’s Texas money laundering scheme. In this little escapade, Nelson helped DeLay circumvent Texas law by laundering money from corporate donors through the RNC in order to manipulate the Texas senate legislative campaign. After his gerrymandering of the Texas state house, this was obviously the next best step. Guess who was personally responsible for funneling the funds through the RNC. That’s right, Mr. Terry Nelson.
Mr. Thursday just finds it simply amazing that a presidential candidate so well known for his campaign finance reform legislation and devotion to the military would allow a man into his exploratory committee (with the title “Senior Aide”, no less!) who so blatantly ignores the law and mocks soldiers for personal and political gain. There is a certain irony that in the fact that a man so noted for his morality would hire a campaign advisor so known for his lack of it; however, this new-found moral ambiguity is more than should be tolerated by a candidate for the highest office in the United States.
Actually, perhaps moral ambiguity is the rule rather than the exception.
We like John McCain, for the most part. Here’s hoping this only diminishes his appearance, and not his reality.
Man-hugs to the Feb. 12th edition of The New Republic for bringing this to our attention.
The Orange Revolution Reversed
November 28, 2006
Former KGB agent and government critic/super hero Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned and killed recently by using polonium 210, a favorite killing method among Cold War spies, at the Itsu sushi restaurant in London. Mr.Thursday condemns the public poisoning of ex-KGB agents active in the robust years of the Cold War. Not only do such acts deter such “whistle blowers” from revealing secrets (although possibly damaging to a state’s reputation) that the public has a compelling interest to discover, e.g. the war in Chechnya.
However, Litvinenko’s polonium 210 poisoning is not the first to occur in an Eastern European state. In fact, poison has long been the method of choice for offing political rivals. President Victor Yushchenko of Ukraine’s Nasha Ukrayina (Our Ukraine) Party was poisoned with dioxin, which left his face deformed and destroyed his intestines. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident who expressed his criticism of the Bulgarian communist regime through radio, novels and plays, was poisoned with ricin in 1978 (also by the KGB) with the poison injected into his system through the tip of an umbrella.
So why is it that Eastern European states, many working together with the KGB, employ poisoning as an effective means of eliminating political opponents?
Perhaps it is the old world flair of a good, covert poisoning that unearth’s memories of Rasputin, Dostoevsky and collective farming. Maybe it’s a lingering derivation of the Cold War mentality to prefer secret murders to avoid public embarrassment and controversy rather than democratic transparency advocated by Mr.Thursday. The KGB and Eastern European block are not alone in this trend, even if the methods of other worldly powers receive less attention in the press.
Perhaps it is derived from the bleak nature of Eastern Europe. Not only does a secret poisoning create an agonizing death for the victim, but it also provides intimacy for the killer reflecting the tumultuousness of nature and weather. They’re a fatalistic people anyway.
However, Mr.Thursday holds the position that Eastern European political poisonings are based out of a desire to kill the political opponent without directly involving the sponsoring government.
The late Litvinenko now continues a long history of poisoning by European war lords leading back to the days of Socrates. Eastern Europe is proud to be sponsoring autocratic regimes and military coup d’etats in Her states for years to come. It’s quite a distinguised tradition; however, we will not be eating at Itsu sushi restaurants for some time.
