The whistleblower, Karthryn Bolkovac

isbn: 9780230108028 is the very much delayed tale of Croatia in 1999 which the lawyers failed to suppress and this book saw its first printing in 2011 which is a bit of a wait, it became news for a few days (my blog) and then the press forgot it..

This is a book about the the more sleazy american members of staff of the un** (my blog).  a us corporation called dyncorp (see dyn-intl.com), and one too bright* us policewomen who had a connection to Croatia so things are just going to end badly and require a barrister or two and some sleaze pointed at the un and dynacorp..

Ms Bolkovac appears to have been honest and when serving in Nebraska got her fair share of interesting events that a country with guns can provide as either news or something that is not reported, and a change of scenery from battle scared Nebraska to Croatia then post civil war after the breakup of Yugoslavia into bonus countries that even i know exist but do not ask me to draw them on a map..

Alarm bells or sirens should have been going off when Ms Bolkovac describes her fellow americans who applied for policing duties***, she appears to have been the only one who was there with the requirements with a then 71 year old southern gentleman makes you wonder if the money meant more than the job.  That is the too bright for her own good problem.

Once there the fun begins and it would have been nice to have names to these people who began not to like Ms B in the beginning of the book as it seems once your in the un you never can do wrong even if it is sexual abuse.  Whether the un hates women or that the people are plain backward is an interesting point.  Whether you deem the un trustworthy, or its suppliers seems to be an issue that there good is better than the reason they are supposed to be in an location.

4/5 bananas

* intelligent police are a curse on police organisations ** usually African peacekeeping troops and the majority of americans contracted  *** the us does not have a national police force, it appears that some of dynacorp stole from american bases too.

The despotic leader and the london school of economics

Economics is one of those subjects where extremes are brilliant – say a country with no frogs (my blog) is an interesting place to try policies out on. The Freidmans (my blog) of this world did that in south america and so i understand the reasons as to why the lse might be critical of somebody else borrowing there ‘karma’  being secretive to start with. Although with it awarding iffy qualifications to the sons of dictators its academic rigor is a moot point, although others do the same  (my blog) thing perhaps on orders of the foreign office.

With so many arrangements and management of facts perhaps the concept of knowing is a dangerous subject and one economics professionals wish to curtail.  After all if one can experiment and help starve to death a nation while students safety comes numero uno, perhaps we all should be shooting dead all economics degree holders for crimes against humanity after all with a successful economy in north korea there record speaks for itself .

A defence of the liberals in coalition.

Liberals are at times plain odd, they see all wrong, and no right.  Being in partnership comes at a cost but then if more liberals voted liberal may be they should be a force to be reckoned with. However with a labour and conservative bias within it ranks it is at times hard to be worthy of voting for them. .

Nick Clegg might not be the parties favourite leader or those that have been junior partners in government since 1918 but he has seen the sense to block the snoopers charter which is a sensible act whatever your views but one conservatives or banana modelling (labour party) would be totally ok with..

 

Newspapers and not wanting news or delaying it.

Journaliss are morons

Imagine you have some information, it is newsworthy. You also observe that laws are being abused and you report this to an in charge person.  Nothing happens.  You then contact a newspaper and despite these people being ‘very important’ they cant be arsed to do anything and later have the cheek to complain that newspapers and journalists do not get respect.

Your name is Bradley Manning.

Quite where this leaves the newspaper industry as being honest and worthy of the forth estate is perhaps an uncomfortable place and perhaps wikileaks is the real home of openness that the newspapers and journalists seem unable to collect and even report.  Mr Manning perhaps has shown up a few home truths that people who we assume are neutral perhaps are not.

Its only an exclusive and not even the Washington Post wants them. Bradley 1, Newspapers 0.

Bananas likes to know both sides of an issue and it seems that critical voices are being suppressed for a long time. Wikileaks got suppressed by Visa international on the request of the American government and the un has done as impressive time delay of twenty years to The whistle-blower : sex trafficking, military contractors, and one woman’s fight for justice which was published in 2011..

As with any thing – things can go tits up, and the bigger the scope the larger mess   But there are two things going wrong here – a lack of msm interest that points to failure of the 4th estate in its job and that the compromising view of things seems to be of historical interest rather than contemporary and something changeable.

 

Love or loathe her we all have to say she made an impact

Keeping the madder Argentines or Friedman economics and haters of democracy at bay.  Margaret Thatcher had her faults but influence on the world stage is something nobody can deny.  One can speculate that while the catholic church and latest pope did nothing while people went skydiving without parachutes* in argentina that perhaps she had more moral high ground.

* you only do it once

fun with acsm

Book publishers are stupid, having handed the keys to amazon and adobe i find that acsm files [xml location files] dont work and that my library tells me that the kindle cannot read them, not that the monkey house has a kindle.

It would just take either to decline it the publishers of its services and if you bought drm eBooks then some stage down the line its a non book.

These publishing people are idiots.  Oh i never got further than discovering what an xml file contained, and then found for my os to read one, i would have emulate another os, and then crack the drm.

I stuck with paper books since i would have compile a lot of stuff and lets face it i ould rathe rnot have to bother with that much crap just to read fiction.  Richard Stallman is more right than wrong and will make fools of many like in the publishing business.

rip inspector gadget

wenlock a policeman

You will be missed.

Censored by Murdoch the book Murdoch’s Pirates

ISBN: 9781743311806 by Neil Chenowets is a book called Murdoch’s Pirates and Rupert Murdoch has super injunctioned this book.

This raises an interesting point – how would a regulator assess the influence of somebody like Murdoch when a book about them is censored by his evil empire.

It is a interesting question about ethics or lack of them in news international.  .

Debt, David Graeber

isbn: 9781933633862 bravely attempts to suggest that economics as we know is a flawed creation from myths of barter to coins and forward progress.  It argues that those myths used by Adam Smith  have made bankers and economics people top of the tree and ignores the social grouping in humanity.

Goods have always had a value, but if you do not eat bread and other foods you soon become a dead human.  Money in past had a value to temples and kings but if you where a sheep farmer the king would a take a sheep and call it quits.

Some interesting reading can be seen in this (my blog)  Although money tied to a object also has issues  – in this (my blog) the lack transport or fear or piracy in war meant that should you have been a rich american in france in ww1 then your money or assets in a bank would have been deemed very risky.  The beginnings of gentlemen bankers agreements saved the day and made sure that money that had value before was paid at a later stage.

His interpretation of debt along biblical and slavery lines is interesting although most right wing bible basher’s would probably consider him a communist and on the slavery aspect he forgets that both greeks and romans learned this from arab traders although being fair going back 300 years is lot easier than 3000 from a records perspective.

The book explores the meanings of words too which is informative especially on the use of slavery and roman citizenship in todays world.

5/5 bananas provoking

professor and the loyalty card

The loyalty card for the cinema is an interesting concept – used by them to convict people [cinemax] and give minor benefits  its a double edged sword this.  Anyhow professor and wife went to see a film and he forgot the card – he knew he had one and so the games began…

To be clear it is his second card after breaking the first in a quest for a pin number he tells me, and a new account and card is being sent whom i imagine was instigated by the cinema.  Since the monkey house here in the zoo distrusts these censoring bastards i refuse to have a card and i no doubt delight the staff by telling them i have no desire for one or have one when we go an see tarzan films on the odd occasion.

The desire and quest for consumer information as observed here is slightly creepy and perhaps identifies them too closely with there internet censoring goals.