Johanna Faust, a mixed race Jew, prefers to publish pseudonymously. She is committed: first, to preventing war, ecological disaster, and nuclear apocalypse; last to not only fighting for personal privacy & the freedom of information, but, by representing herself as a soldier in that fight, to exhorting others to do the same. She is a poet, always. All these efforts find representation here: "ah, Mephistophelis" is so named after the last line of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, whose heretical success flouted the censor for a time.

Surveillance:
Orwell Is Surprised
At How Much Is Legal (Video)


Think you know about the state of surveillance today? You may be surprised to find you are still behind the times: watch "Naked Citizen," the video, below, to catch up.  As an added treat, in it is featured a certain Professor, who, keen on helping his cameras recognize and flag ordinary behavior, is notwithstanding hella surprised when he becomes the Person Of Interest.... 

Professor ..... what did you say your name was?  Professor...  Or-well.  Orwell? (To quote Bill Hicks, in his piece (or here in its entirety) about one of the policeman who was aquitted of all charges in the Rodney King incident --  Officer Coon Koon, "Is life too fucking funny or what?")

....in this very interesting and highly educational video from Journeyman Pictures:


Be seeing you.




A Poetic Interlude Of Surprising Relevance | By A Female Faust


A revision of last month's poem in Let's Do And Say We Did, where this Faust's verse is slowly being archived.  If you visit, tell me of which you are more fond.

This one is glossed, by popular request; I hope the notes do not interfere with the experience.


if it does not display properly (and prettily) view it here.

Be seeing you.

Japanese Police, Coast Guard, Hold "Drill" At Fukushima "To Prepare For A Possible Terrorist Attack" DON'T YOU FEEL SAFER NOW?



from Kyodo News --
& worry not if hard to read:
herein the Gentle Reader may find
a line-by-line exegesis (of sorts).
The following exercise interleaves the Japan Times article, screenshot to your left, with my comments.  Of course all credit for the article goes to the unnamed author.  The article is quoted in blue, for ease of reference.  

A staged anti-terror "drill."  Where have I heard that before? The Japanese Coast Guard, defacto a wing of their military, teamed up with a souped-up (and, from the looks of it, amped-out) police recently to put on a bit of security theatre. No mention is made of why they chose, or for how long they planned, this particular response, or even if it had been practiced before.  I have a theory or two, suitable only for private consumption; interested individuals may be delighted with certain provocative links, if appended.

Not to be nosy or anything, but didn't someone forget to mention the new information that served to trigger this response? (Intelligence gathered via covert methods of technological surveillance, perhaps?) Was there evidence introduced that would lead someone -- presumably someone sane -- to conclude that, now, two years later, the risks were so great that such practice was needed, posthaste?  

Why is the risk of terrorist attack so much greater for Fukushima Daiichi in particular, as opposed to at a (please, for the sake of argument) 'normal,' 'functioning' plant?  Had these risks increased recently -- and if so, how -- such that warranted so specific a response?  

In the absence of any new information? Really?
About 150 officers and other people, including members of a special assault team of the police, participated in the drill at the Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant, about 10 km from Fukushima No. 1. Both plants are operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.
A terrorist attack, supposedly immanent for Fukushima Daiichi, is what we're talking about here.  Daiichi.  Where the meltdowns happened, you know the one.  Now I suppose the radioactive environment is at present prohibitive at Daiichi, considering the risk that even brief exposures pose to human health.  Makes perfect sense, except that over the length of this crisis, proof abounds that rather grave risks posed to human health have not appeared to bother TepCo very much.  At. All.

.... So..... why was the drill was held at Daiini?  You know, Daiini, the one down the coast ten klicks that they thought had sustained some damage, but obviously it had not, since everyone stopped talking about it.
The National Police Agency fears the stricken Fukushima No. 1 could make for a tempting target for terrorists because the cooling systems there are still highly fragile.
 The terrorist objective appears to be obtaining, tampering with, or releasing, the nuclear material.  And for reasons that are rather underwhelmingly and insufficiently provided by this article, this objective is assumed to be better served by Fukushima than by any other facility.  Even though the radioactivity encountered would be far in excess, and far less predictable, at Daiichi. 
Meaning that even if one assumes terrorists have no instinct for self-preservation (which I do not think is a valid assumption), still, dealing with the mess that is Fukushima Daiichi would severely impact their ability to see the job through, for all nefarious purposes to which such material would be put, except, of course, those with the most immediate implementation.  
In other words, only blowing the shit up on site would really be feasible, given the off-the-charts radioactivity that has been detected throughout the plant, often in unpredictable areas.  
Futhermore, as one of the intrepid members of EnergyNews points out in a comment, all nuclear power plants have "highly fragile" cooling systems. One would conclude that this imaginary evil terrorist, who most likely is sporting a surname that sounds foreign to your average American citizen as well as your average Japanese (why not have him in a face mask while we're at it), would, if he had any sense, find the Daiichi parameters not exactly conducive to the success of his evil plans.  One would think almost any other, more 'normal' plant to be preferable. One where the people around it were not already evacuated. Call me crazy.
The drill was conducted on the assumption that three terrorists were hiding in a cargo ship berthed at a pier at the facility.
Consider the following comment, by one m a x l i (and a hat tip, again, to the community at EnergyNews) :
Have a look at the pictures in the Kyodo News source! I'm not sure this is the way to deal with real terrorists who might have explosives strapped to their bodies. It looks to me this is rather the welcome they have in store for peaceful demonstrators against any restarts


got to love the Jolly Roger, above.

Members of a coast guard antiterrorism team boarded the ship from a helicopter and held two of the three attackers while police captured the third terrorist inside the plant’s compound.
 No doubt throwing up.
Under another scenario, members of a special assault team and other officers blocked terrorists who were attempting to storm into the nuclear plant in a vehicle with weapons and explosives.
So the immediate re-purposing of the nuclear material is assumed to be the terrorist objective?  Otherwise why the explosives?  Certainly not to lay hands on the fuel.  With any other nuclear plant on earth, even my local Rancho Seco (shut down by citizen demand two decades ago), the explosives would be necessary to get at the fuel.  
With the possible exception of Tchernobyl.  
At Daiichi, well, this would not be the case, now would it.  Assuming the fuel can be found, of course.
All of which, taken together -- and what is yet to be sussed -- makes for a certain disquiet, all-too-familiar of late. (Somebody way in the back ought to cough the word "Boston" into their hand right about now).  As this grew, I began to think I ought to balance it out somehow.  This slowly but surely became a somewhat half-hearted determination not use the words "false flag" anywhere in the body of this post.  
Snaps fingers. Oh well.


Provocative Links for further reading:
ah, mephistophelis.: FUKUSHIMA: POSSIBLE CAUSES & COVER ... 
ah, mephistophelis.: SECRET Nukes? No, Not Israel - SECRET. Not ... 
VicFromOregon
Once again, i'd like to suggest that this is the section where the transport tunnel was located. Follow the link and it will become immediately obvious. It's to Nature magazine and i haven't read the article. I just wanted an earlier photo to show the comparison. This is just one photo of many all over the web of this wall. Just Google "Fukushima Unit 4 images" to find historical photos.
See earlier photo of this view of the building -
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/04/new_evacuations_announced_as_e.html
Removing the tunnel left a sizable gap in the wall large enough for a truck to pass through. It is also the passageway that TEPCO said they took the SFP 4 fuel rods out through for testing a couple months back. Why obscure it, i don't know since simply setting up a board or tarp would conceal the hole if leaving a gap there is the issue. Back then,TEPCO said they obscured the photo for national security reasons (emphasis mine) since there would be open fuel rods during the transport. Finished laughing everyone? K. Another thought is that they may also be constructing something such as "the new improved passageway" and consider it propriety information, just like their sarcophagus for Unit 3 was concealed until TEPCO revealed it, in large part, i think to go with Chernobyl's new facelift. There are companies making small fortunes in radiation remediation and Japan plans to be at the top in that field. Fukushima has become their bonanza.




Be seeing you.

M.W.K.P.A. | "When The Lie's So Big" by Frank Zappa


This edition of Music What Kicketh Political Ass is dedicated -- in support of our troops -- to the thirteen members of the Bush Administration who have so determinedly made torture legally possible.

Makes you think about poetic justice.

And is any of you are reading this: while you are alive, it is not too late to recant.  Just saying.





 


Be seeing you.

Torture, Bush: Recent Statements by Condoleeza Rice Surprise... No One


thanks to badattitudes.com.

Lest we confuse justice with jurisprudence.  The Romans had the same word for both*; I think that's where the mixup started.  Speaking of which, here's a woman whose name, smartly displayed, no doubt makes all the other oil tankers** jealous***: Condoleeza Rice.




 Notes:

*ius, iura, among others:

from the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Roman Law [1953]

**from Wikipedia:


Because she would have been ineligible for tenure at Stanford if she had been absent for more than two years, she returned there in 1991. She was taken under the wing of George P. Shultz (Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State from 1982–1989), who was a fellow at the Hoover Institution. Shultz included Rice in a "luncheon club" of intellectuals who met every few weeks to discuss foreign affairs.[20] In 1992, Shultz, who was a board member of Chevron Corporation, recommended Rice for a spot on the Chevron board. Chevron was pursuing a $10 billion development project in Kazakhstan and, as a Soviet specialist, Rice knew the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. She traveled to Kazakhstan on Chevron's behalf and, in honor of her work, in 1993, Chevron named a 129,000-ton supertanker SS Condoleezza Rice.[20]Transamerica Corporation (1991) and Hewlett-Packard (1992). 

***and also, albeit perhaps putting the above on less stable footing, from the same article:

Rice headed Chevron's committee on public policy until she resigned on January 15, 2001, to become National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush. Chevron, for unspecified reasons, honored Rice by naming an oil tanker Condoleezza Rice after her, but controversy led to its being renamed Altair Voyager.[36]

I think I know what my next post will be...

Be seeing you.