Nobody beats the Biz at saluting the next prime superpower. From the hugely under-appreciated Weekend Warrior LP.

— By Akira The Don on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2013

From The Onion:

WASHINGTON—Following the fatal shooting this morning at a Connecticut elementary school that left at least 27 dead, including 20 small children, sources across the nation shook their heads, stifled a sob in their voices, and reported fuck everything. Just fuck it all to hell.

All of it, sources added.

“I’m sorry, but fuck it, I can’t handle this—I just can’t handle it anymore,” said Deborah McEllis, who added that “no, no, no, no, no, this isn’t happening, this can’t be real.” “Seriously, what the hell is this? What’s even going on anymore? Why do things like this keep happening?”

Continued McEllis, before covering her face with her hands, “Why?”

Despairing sources confirmed that the gunman, armed with a semiautomatic assault rifle—a fucking combat rifle, Jesus—walked into a classroom full of goddamned children where his mother was a teacher and, good God, if this is what the world is becoming, then how about we just pack it in and fucking give up, because this is no way to live.

I mean, honestly, all 315 million Americans confirmed.

“Well, I suppose we have to try to pick up the pieces and make some sort of sense of this tragedy and—you know what? Fuck it, I can’t do this,” said Connecticut resident Michael Zaleski, his remarks understandable given the circumstances, because, holy shit, what else can one say? “I’m sorry, but I can’t fucking do this. Can you? Can anyone?”

Witnesses said the gunman fired at least 100 rounds during his deadly rampage, which, according to children in the school—goddamnit, how? How? Twenty children. Dead. In a fucking school.

No. No, no, no.

“I just feel so [why does it even matter what this person said when no words can bring 20 dead kids back to life?]” said some person who, just like everyone else, is completely unable to process or handle any of this. “It’s awful. Just too awful to bear.”

Americans reported feelings of overwhelming disgust with whatever abhorrent bastard did this and with the world at large for ever allowing it to happen, as well as with politicians, with the NRA, and above all with their own pathetic goddamn selves, sitting in front of a fucking computer instead of doing fucking anything to help anyone—Christ, as if that were even fucking possible, as if anyone could change what happened, as if the same fucking bullshit isn’t going to keep happening again and again and fucking again before people finally decide it’s time to change the way we live, so what’s the point? What the hell is the goddamned point?

“I…” said Tom Miller, 27, after reading an article about the tragedy online. “I just…”

“…” he added.

At press time…screw it, there’s nothing else to say.

— By Akira The Don on Saturday, December 15th, 2012

From The Telegraph:

Around 150 Chinese workers at Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, threatened to commit suicide by leaping from their factory roof in protest at their working conditions.

The workers were eventually coaxed down after two days on top of their three-floor plant in Wuhan by Foxconn managers and local Chinese Communist party officials.

Foxconn, which manufactures gadgets for the likes of Apple, Sony, Nintendo and HP, among many others, has had a grim history of suicides at its factories. A suicide cluster in 2010 saw 18 workers throw themselves from the tops of the company’s buildings, with 14 deaths.

In the aftermath of the suicides, Foxconn installed safety nets in some of its factories and hired counsellors to help its workers.

The latest protest began on January 2 after managers decided to move around 600 workers to a new production line, making computer cases for Acer, a Taiwanese computer company.

“We were put to work without any training, and paid piecemeal,” said one of the protesting workers, who asked not to be named. “The assembly line ran very fast and after just one morning we all had blisters and the skin on our hand was black. The factory was also really choked with dust and no one could bear it,” he said.

Several reports from inside Foxconn factories have suggested that while the company is more advanced than many of its competitors, it is run in a “military” fashion that many workers cannot cope with. At Foxconn’s flagship plant in Longhua, five per cent of its workers, or 24,000 people, quit every month.

“Because we could not cope, we went on strike,” said the worker. “It was not about the money but because we felt we had no options. At first, the managers said anyone who wanted to quit could have one month’s pay as compensation, but then they withdrew that offer. So we went to the roof and threatened a mass suicide”.

The worker said that Foxconn initially refused to negotiate, but that the workers were treated reasonably by the local police and fire service.

A spokesman for Foxconn confirmed the protest, and said that the incident was “successfully and peacefully resolved after discussions between the workers, local Foxconn officials and representatives from the local government”.

He added that 45 Foxconn employees had chosen to resign and the remainder had returned to work. ”The welfare of our employees is our top priority and we are committed to ensuring that all employees are treated fairly,” he said.

— By Akira The Don on Saturday, March 17th, 2012

A post by barracuda from the R.I. board:

It doesn’t really make sense to me to discuss the repurcussions of 911 in terms of nations. In the same way that it was a shadow transnational crime, the winners and losers were shadow transnational entities. They are the only real players on the board. Terms like “the United States” and “China” are irrelevant in many ways now and have been for some time.

The wars which followed in the wake of the crime involve perhaps the largest material expenditures in the history of the planet. Two trillion dollars spent to prosecute the wars, but where did it go? Not to a particular nation, that much is certain. The money went to private entities.

The Chinese now own 800 billion treasury bills. Thanks for that, Hu Jintao. We owe you, or somebody does. Actually, everyone knows those T-bills will simply be endlessly laddered, with the primary dealers taking their cut at each auction.

The Afghan opium trade is worth roughly 100 billion dollars per year. It has now been controlled by a cartel consisting of U.S. and British intelligence networks along with god only knows who else for the last ten years at some of the highest heroin prices in history. There’s another cool trillion.

The money from this enterprise, as well as the transactions surrounding many aspects of the war, are laundered by our friends in the banking system who have made unimaginable sums off of this illegal service as well as through the global financial meltdown which was largely occasioned by the financial stresses of these wars.

Then there’s the staggering wealth of the natural resources being stolen or bought out from under these middle east victims. Who makes that money? Not a nation.

This was a game played by groups whose self-identities have nothing to do with flags and states. Remember the “primary forces of nature” speech in Network?

Quote:
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

Only that’s not quite right anymore, because above that layer of systems, there are the banks and the financial entities who deal in sums which provide cause to move corporations as if they were pawns. And above the banks are the lawless transcorporate drug cartels and mercenary financial units without which the markets and the banks could no longer survive. And above the transcorporates are…? Probably the truely invisible assassins, who care little for money, but play for different stakes entirely, ruthless long-thinkers, black budget masterminds, sorcerers, and low-orbit dwellers. I don’t know, for this realm is conjecture entirely. Fortunately, their existence or non-existence matters as little to us as ours might to them in practical terms.

Anyway, you know all this already.

— By Akira The Don on Sunday, September 11th, 2011

The story on which this show was based is here.

— By Akira The Don on Monday, January 17th, 2011

From Gizmodo:

As if carnival games weren’t already addictive enough, someone in Guangzhou, China decided to create a real life version of Angry Birds. Time to quit my day job and become a carny.

Crap, I’m nearly done with the seasons pack as well… I might have to run away to China.

— By Akira The Don on Tuesday, January 4th, 2011