Posts Tagged ‘Government’

11 items.

Radiation in the Land of Milk (and Honey)

by Seraphine Khorana on April 1st, 2011
Posted In: Comics
Radiation in the Land of Milk (and Honey)

The Japanese government conceded yesterday that they can’t contain the radiation at Fukushima Dai-Ichi’s damaged nuclear reactors. The likely solution will be to entomb the reactors with sand and concrete. Water around the reactors is currently emitting a deadly 1,000 millisieverts of radiation per hour. Small levels of radiation have been observed in milk as far away as California.

The ongoing health impacts of Chernobyl has had a devastating effect on survivors: damaging immune and endocrine systems, leading to accelerated aging, cardiovascular and blood illnesses, psychological illnesses, chromosomal aberrations and an increase in foetal deformations.
Quotation from Greenpeace, Chernobyl death toll grossly underestimated.

They have concluded between themselves that it is inevitable some of them may die within weeks or months. They know it is impossible for them not to have been exposed to lethal doses of radiation.
Quotation from the mother of a 32-year-old worker at Fukushima Dai-Ichi, according to Fox News.

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Whistleblower

by Seraphine Khorana on March 17th, 2011
Posted In: Comics
Whistleblower

A whistleblower is one who exposes wrongdoing in their workplace. Things don’t usually go well for whistleblowers. They get branded as “troublemakers” by their employers, or worse. Canadian Duncan Edwards reported a strip club breach of security by his Defence Minister employer and was fired for his diligence. Iranian doctor Ramin Pourandarjani died of “salad poisoning” shortly after reporting the use of torture against political prisoners by his government. Christoph Meili, the bank guard who reported the destruction of Holocaust victim’s savings records by UBS bank, had to be given political asylum in the United States after Swiss authorities attempted to arrest him. Being a whistleblower is not an easy decision to make.

Even if I thought that our printers killed baby seals, I would not be a whistleblower. The Bernards, for generations, have silenced whistleblowers. It’s how we made all our money.
Quotation from television character Andy Bernard on The Office

It was a crisis of conscience. I had to be cognizant of what could happen to my family as well as to me. I was confident I wouldn’t be able to get a job in a corporation again, certainly not in the insurance industry.
Quotation from Wendell Potter, former executive at Cigna

P.S. My heart goes out to the people of Japan in the wake of this week’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear melt-down. Don’t give up!

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Makeup and Marijuana

by Seraphine Khorana on October 24th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Makeup and Marijuana

I’m embarrassed that it has been too long between Encore Seraphine updates. I spent a few days at Lake Tahoe on holiday and then I’ve been learning how to use an HTML Editor for an advanced markup/css class I’m taking. I haven’t been slacking off, honestly!
I voted this weekend. In California, we’re allowed to do ‘absentee’ balloting, which essentially means I can vote by mail. I voted against the initiative to legalize marijuana in California because anyone who wants to partake can already get a doctor’s prescription to legally do so. Did I do the right thing? The elections are November 2nd.

We’re kind of like anti-Wal-Mart and anti-McDonald’s. So for them to try to sneak in and turn cannabis into a corporation, that’s disgusting.
Quotation from Dragonfly de la Luz, supporting Stoners Against Prop 19

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Shouldering all the World’s Problems

by Seraphine Khorana on July 24th, 2010
Posted In: Comics
Shouldering all the World’s Problems

I can’t do it alone. The poor can’t, the rich can’t. What’s needed is universal agreement on basic needs such as education, healthcare, housing, justice, resource management, fairness and human rights. We can no longer afford the hatreds of war, racism, sexism, intolerance and other inequities. It has been 65 years since the formation of the United Nations to promote economic development, social progress and world peace. Nothing of cooperative substance has happened since. Perhaps it is time to move the United Nations from New York City to East Jerusalem, making Jerusalem an international city accessable to all. If we put our minds together, even the most vexxing world problems could be solved.

“Freedom from fear” could be said to sum up the whole philosophy of human rights.
Quotation from Dag Hammarskjold

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Avoiding the Crash Wall

by Seraphine Khorana on October 21st, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Avoiding the Crash Wall

President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
Let us wish him well for all our sakes.

I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn’t torture. And I’m gonna make sure that we don’t torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.
Quotation from President Barack Obama

If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.
Another Quotation from President Obama

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Cash for Clunkers

by Seraphine Khorana on August 10th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers is a government program offering “cash” towards the purchase of a new car in return for junking an older automobile. The purpose of the program is to stimulate the economy and to encourage the purchase of more fuel-efficient automobiles.

Some of the folks who drive a beater all the time are unlikely to get a new car loan.
Quotation from Art Spinella, CNW Research

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Government by the Peephole, for the People, shall not Perish

by Seraphine Khorana on July 13th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Government by the Peephole, for the People, shall not Perish

It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself— anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: Facecrime.
Quotation from George Orwell, 1984

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Dad, You HAVE To Help Me Out

by Seraphine Khorana on May 14th, 2009
Posted In: Comics
Dad, You HAVE To Help Me Out

Domestic auto sales are expected to drop another 24 percent this year, after an 18 percent decrease in 2008. General Motor’s restructuring plan involves building cars in China and shipping them to America. No recovery in demand for U.S. vehicles is expected before 2010 or 2011.

General Motors Reportedly To Bring China-Built Vehicles to U.S. by 2011 (Edmunds.com)

Executive vice president, F. Alan Smith, outlined a gloomy picture. From 1980 through 1985, GM spent $45 billion in capital investment, yet increased its worldwide market share by only 1 percentage point, to 22 percent. Until mid-1986, the capital-spending plan called for an additional $35 billion through 1989, but that had been reduced. “For the same amount of money,” he told the GM managers, “we could buy Toyota and Nissan outright,” instantly increasing the market share to 40 percent.”
Quotation from Maryann Keller, Rude Awakening. GM has been losing market share since 1962.

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The Obama Honeymoon

by Seraphine Khorana on November 6th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
The Obama Honeymoon

I have great expectations for you, Mr. President-elect Obama. I hope I’m not being unreasonable. I believe in equal opportunity and equal rights for all people, including equal protection under the law. I don’t believe government can (or should) do everything, but I think government should be honest and balanced and measured to be inclusive of individuals rather than exclusive of them. I wish you bon voyage and a happy honeymoon.
P.S. Please invite me to the rehearsal dinner.

I do not want a honeymoon with you. I want a good marriage.
Quotation from President Gerald Ford to the U.S. Congress

Your mind now, moldering like wedding-cake,
heavy with useless experience, rich
with suspicion, rumor, fantasy,
crumbling to pieces under the knife-edge
of mere fact. In the prime of your life.
Poem by Adrienne Rich, Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law

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Insolvent But Too Big to Fail

by Seraphine Khorana on July 12th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Insolvent But Too Big to Fail

The Ancient Greeks had a word for it: Akrasia. It means lack of
self control. Acting against one’s sense of good judgement. What
do we do when our parents, or our government, can no longer
bail us out? Growing up is a bitch, but being insolvent is worse.

“A worst-case taxpayer bailout of mortgage-market giants Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, whose plummeting stock prices caused consternation in early
June, could cost as much as $1.1 trillion, according to Standard & Poor’s.”
Time Magazine, The Not-Quite Bailout

“To avoid taking responsibility, I become unresponsive
but hang on until the other person leaves me.
Quotation from Mason Cooley, City Aphorisms

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Shipwrecked: O Captain! My Captain!

by Seraphine Khorana on May 28th, 2008
Posted In: Comics
Shipwrecked: O Captain! My Captain!

China is on the verge of surpassing Germany as
the world’s third-largest economy. Meanwhile, the
United States is stuck on the sand because of
mismanagement by government and financial leaders.

China’s push praised and censured in Mauritius (International Herald Tribune)
Clinton could face uneasy return to Senate (International Herald Tribune)

“For what is happening is a huge shift of
economic gravity from West to East. Or,
if you take the extremely long view, a return
to global balance of 200 years ago, when
China and India between them accounted
for roughly half of the world’s economic activity.”
Quoted from Jonathan Gregson,
The Elephant and the Dragon (Global Finance)

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