@mimi

Good to know that you're immune to crap, there is a lot of it about. Not too sure about sheep and Texas - I believe they had some wars between cattlemen and sheepmen there back in the day.

Glad you like the tunes.
be well and have a good one

my body is immune to crap and my guts so sensible to crap that nothing can crap me out anymore. Thanks for all the music offerings. As always I like them very much.

Feed my Sheep - of course I would feed my friends. Goes back to Texas?

Have all the best Monday there is.

@OLinda

Not sure about the logo or the origin or that phrase, which I too like a lot. Among other things, I almost never come in through the front page and nearly never see it, and that's been the case for my whole time here.

be well and have a good one

Good morning, everybody.

Thank you for the Open Thread, e l.

A sad holiday, but I hope C99ers are enjoying a day off or long weekend. Or just a nice day today. I am retired, so every day is a holiday.

Noticed the tagline by the C99 logo: ”free-range politics, organic community.” I don't recall it from when I was here a long while ago. Maybe I have just forgotten, or maybe it is new. Anyway, I love it! Very smart and creative.

@soryang @soryang

things Asian and all the goings on there. Sorry to hear that

Our family has had some difficulties with the legal and administrative CYA approach of gastroenterologists and their organizations.

.

FWIW, I'm a long time ulcerative colitis sufferer, and my much younger sister, after I had left for college, learned she had Crohn's from the family doctor who told her "I'm sorry to say this, but we have absolutely no idea how to treat what you've got". I'm lucky in that my health care provider really tries to be one, and, specifically, works closely with the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation.

Be well and have a good one

Here's a good way to get into my archives. Search my website for stories marked 'Asia' and you will find years of my reporting. You can support the site and my work at my Patreon, described and linked to below. My contribution to Memorial Day. https://t.co/l49WpYaJkA https://t.co/9nCwlbPyhF pic.twitter.com/OAh4WLAmmf

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) May 27, 2023

Tim's memorial day contribution. The latest article on his web site appears to be blocked, but I'm getting free access to some others. I read his presentation on the Rise of Japan's Self Defense Forces, and his article The NSA Four on NSA whistle blowers which had 911 ramifications as well as the domestic surveillance network in the US. In his article on the SDF, he quotes a passage from Sterling and Peggy Seagrave's book Golden Warrior about the looted Asian gold collected from Japanese conquered territory on behalf of the Emperor's family by Yushio Kodama. This gold, served as a get out of jail free card for Japanese war criminals. Tim said at the time he wrote this that he would have a forthcoming article referring to James Bamford, who is an authority on Japanese military campaigns but didn't find it.

Such arrogance. "U.S. military stages 'Elephant Walk' training with F-16 fighters." https://t.co/W2VEWrgers

— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) May 28, 2023

Looks like Osan.

Is this the Korean version of Russiagate?

SEOUL, May 25 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the United States should step up their cooperation to counter disinformation and cyber operations by China and Russia, a former U.S. nuclear negotiator said Thursday.

Joseph DeTrani made the remarks during a conference hosted by the Korean Association of Area Studies via video link, saying Moscow and Beijing have engaged in information operations against Seoul on any issue that is "not in sync" with their interests.

"Over the decades, Moscow has pursued an aggressive, active measures program to sow dissent and chaos in free democratic societies with a program of disinformation to erode trust in our democratic institutions, attempted to control the foreign press, forging documents, disseminating rumors and lies, altering facts, and working with front organizations," DeTrani said.

He added Russia has exploited such information systems with the advent of social media platforms to sow chaos and discord within the U.S., and cautioned that it will use these "malicious tools" to attack any country not supportive of its policies.

https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230525009800325

Haven't seen any empirical evidence to support this contention. This Yonhap article doesn't provide any either. The suggestion is that active South Korean domestic opposition to the Yoon administration's policies are directed by foreigners. This is little more than the contemporary version of McCarthyism. Yoon is unpopular because the South Korean public by and large don't believe his policies are in the best interest of South Korea and its people.

The Hiroshima venue served to camouflage Japan's other main objective at the G7 to seek international approval or at least acquiescence to begin dumping Fukishima meltdown cooling water contaminated with radioactive particles into the Pacific Ocean in the near future. US pressure to get South Korea to "improve relations with Japan," has as a subtext, to assist the Kishida regime by putting the South Korean mark of approval on this controversial "resolution" of one of the accumulating residual manifestations of the Fukishima nuclear disaster there. This is a raging controversy in South Korea. The dumping will go on for thirty years as I understand the reports. The underlying US-Japanese motive is to present the appearance of solidified opposition to China, by removing this troubling ongoing Japanese issue, with the appearance of international approval.

(Source- Fact TV 5.28 youotube) Professor Emeritus Nuclear Engineering Seo Kyun-ryeol.

The Yoon government has arranged for, allegedly with Japanese cooperation, to have a "team of experts" travel to Japan to investigate the health and safety ramifications of dumping millions of tons of irradiated water into the Pacific. Allegedly, this water has been purified in a process called ALPS, to remove all the radionuclides except for tritium. I'm not a nuclear scientist or engineer. But I've been listening to an expert in South Korea who is emeritus professor of nuclear engineering at Seoul National University. It is his opinion that the ALPS process as it currently stands most likely will not consistently remove all radionuclides. His proposal is that the storage capacity in water tanks at Fukishima be doubled or tripled while scientists examine on how to make the filtration processes more effective. He says this could give the world one or two more years to safeguard environment, ecology and health. Naturally, this professor's views, who may be the most qualified nuclear engineer in South Korea, is anathema to the political, economic, and industrial interests who oppose any question or skepticism by the scientific community or the public interests who will be potentially affected by a hasty and reckless disposition of nuclear contaminated water. The Japanese government and TEPCO prefer to refer to the water as processed water rather than contimated water.

One of the points the professor makes which should be a familiar one to all of us who have just gone through the covid debacle, is the characteristic dissimulation and denial by public officials and many "experts" with a vested interest bias in government and industry policy outcomes. Professor Seo portrays the same kind of unscientific approaches by TEPCO, the government of Japan, the IAEA, and now, the current South Korean administration. The IAEA is nominally the ultimate authority on the efficacy and safety for the proposed release. Ostensibly they will function as independent outsiders verifying measurements by Japanese authorities monitoring the radiation levels of contaminated and later processed water released into the Pacific. There will also be environment radiation monitoring outside nuclear reactor site at Fukishima. Yet IAEA admits they have no legal authority over TEPCO, MITI or Japan's NRA. His point is that these institutions cannot be trusted under the circumstances.

The current South Korean administration has sent their expert team to inspect the process by which the water discharge will be undertaken. Curiously, the South Korean press has been denied access to the group (by the Japanese police) and the identity of the team members has not been released. Further, the team's experts will not be allowed to take samples so as to facilitate conducting their own evaluations randomly or otherwise from the stored processed water. The role of team is only that of observers, who will visit the facility, look at some documents, and hear some presentations from Japanese authorities and experts. In a word, the entire effort by the current South Korean administration to portray that it is protecting the health and welfare of its people, environment and foodstuff markets is regarded as worthless by critics, like Professor Seo. Among his other credentials Professor Seo received his Phd in nuclear engineering from MIT.

I liked this most recent addition to Asia Pacific Journal Japan Focus which may be of some interest to anyone with an interest in Fukushima in which the author's private radiation monitoring is presented in a traditional Japanese historical context (somewhat lengthy book excerpt in English from not too long after the disaster).

An Introduction to Durian Sukegawa’s A Dosimeter on the Narrow Road to Oku

Durian Sukegawa and Alison Watts

May 15, 2023
Volume 21 | Issue 5 | Number 1
Article ID 5772

Abstract: In this introduction to an excerpt from Durian Sukegawa’s travel memoir A Dosimeter on the Narrow Road to Oku, I give an outline of Sukegawa’s biography, his reasons for undertaking a journey by bicycle in 2012 along Matsuo Basho’s route in The Narrow Road to Oku, and the reasons for my own particular interest in this text. The translation covers the section of his journey from Fukagawa to Nasu. It won the 2021 Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize in Japanese Literature, Thought, and Society.

https://apjjf.org/2023/5/Sukegawa-Watts.html

Saw this SCSPI tweet on Chinese South China Sea claims.

Although China has repeatedly reiterated its claims within the Dash Lines in the SCS, which have often fallen on deaf ears. At least, China's claims of sovereignty, just Naihai Zhudao in the SCS, are clear enough. Stop spreading rumors that China claims the sovereignty of SCS. https://t.co/keGzjpJXGD pic.twitter.com/CrCC6WKyLm

— SCS Probing Initiative (@SCS_PI) May 20, 2023

Periodically, I like to do research on this issue and found this "scholarly" article:

China’s Recent Invention of “Nanhai Zhudao” in the South China Sea (Part 1: The birth of “Nanhai Zhudao”, Part 2: Examining the “Nanhai Zhudao” legal basis)

On December 12, 2019, after Malaysia made the new Submission for the extended continental shelf, China sent a note to protest Malaysia. On this note, China announced a new concept, “Nanhai Zhudao,” that surprised many officials and scholars interested in the South China Sea dispute.

https://usvietnam.uoregon.edu/en/chinas-recent-invention-of-nanhai-zhuda...

Maybe this isn't for everyone. I found the thesis of the article to be a strawman. Footnote 4 in Part I, seems to undermine the foundation of the entire thesis. Looks like an attempt to harmonize US and Vietnamese interests in the SCS based upon an optional interpretation of one phrase. On the other hand, this doesn't mean that affected states in the SCS region should accept each and every Chinese asserted claim in particular, or the entire scope of its EEZ claims in the SCS. These should be matters for negotiation by the affected parties. However, I consider the 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration decision on the SCS dispute between the Philippines and China to be "playing with words" as well, and its findings actually useless as a legal or diplomatic starting point for resolution of the maritime disputes there.

As a practical matter there is no significant interference in freedom of navigation in the SCS, so why is the English language media always trying to pretend that there is?

The Real Risks of Military Encounters Between China and the U.S. in China’s Surrounding Waters
2022-09-13 | Hu Bo
http://www.scspi.org/en/dtfx/real-risks-military-encounters-between-chin...

Thanks for the OT EL. Our family has had some difficulties with the legal and administrative CYA approach of gastroenterologists and their organizations. Of course they need to conduct and interpret both invasive and non-invasive diagnostic procedures, and always uppermost in their considerations is devising means to avoid accountability for any mistakes they (may potentially) make or injuries they cause. Patients medical interests are secondary.

Wishing good health to everyone.

(edit) so far so good.

@Shahryar

remember its conversion to Veterans Day. As I have noticed elsewhere, we are a war economy and a warfare state, so, clearly, celebrating the outbreak of peace is truly fatuous. It is sad, but there it is.

As to Thanksgiving, it is laughable, there is nobody and nothing to thank and the history of the holiday is odious.

be well and have a good one

The establishment has redefined them all and not in a good way. I happened to be watching golf yesterday and in that tournament there was a moment of silence for those that died in wars. And then some jerks started chanting "USA! USA!" because Memorial Day is now another War Day. Yippee! War!

I remember way back when, in high school we had a special Memorial Day assembly and the oldest teacher would read the names of the kids who'd died, going back as far as World War I, people she'd known. It was pretty moving and a powerful condemnation of war.

But that was then. Now we have a violent society that's breaking down. Rudeness prevails. Get what you can, when you can, on a personal level and on a national level.

Here are our national holidays and what they now mean:

Martin Luther King Jr's birthday - get rid of affirmative action because the Rev. King didn't want to see skin color as an issue.

President's Day - (yuck...no longer Lincoln's birthday or Washington's birthday but a day to respect all Presidents) accept the authority of whoever gets put into power

Memorial Day - support the troops and war

Independence Day - set off fireworks in an aggressive way that emulates war

Labor Day - please ignore this as being for workers' rights, just see it as a 3 day weekend

Columbus Day - uh...yeah.

Veterans Day - was Armistice Day, was Peace at Last Day, now more war supporting.

Thanksgiving - well, questionable anyway, what with the actual history, but I've seen people getting irate because not enough other people were "thanking the troops!"

Christmas - Because Jesus wanted only to reform the banking system and make it easier for people to afford to buy presents

Today would be a good day, I think, to get off the internet!