Day: April 16, 2025

Does Anyone Remember Agent Orange?

If you are a Vietnam veteran then this term is well know to you and/or your family…..I remember it well.

This is for the young ones out there…..

Agent Orange was a herbicide mixture used by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. Much of it contained a dangerous chemical contaminant called dioxin. Production of Agent Orange ended in the 1970s and is no longer in use. The dioxin contaminant however continues to have harmful impact today. As many U.S.Vietnam-era veterans know, dioxin is a highly toxic and persistent organic pollutant linked to cancers, diabetes, birth defects and other disabilities.

The Red Cross estimates that three million Vietnamese have been affected by dioxin, including at least 150,000 children born with serious birth defects. Millions of Americans and Vietnamese are still affected, directly and indirectly, by the wartime U.S. spraying of Agent Orange and other herbicides over southern and central Vietnam.

Agent Orange was sprayed at up to 20 times the concentration the manufacturers recommended for killing plants. It defoliated millions of acres of forests and farmland. Large tracts of that land remain degraded and unproductive to this day. The chemical dioxin in Agent Orange can remain toxic in the soil for decades. Soil samples have now been analyzed from both the areas that were heavily sprayed and the former American military bases where Agent Orange and other chemicals were stored and handled. In almost all instances measured dioxin levels were below Government of Vietnam threshold standards. However some soils at three of the former military bases did have very high concentrations of dioxin. To prevent dioxin from entering the food chain and affecting both adults and children in surrounding areas, these chemical “hot spots” are now being cleaned up.

What is Agent Orange?

Why dredge up this ugly bit of history right now?

Great question and it has to do with the Trump Administration…..

In mid-February, Trump administration leaders received a desperate warning from their diplomats posted in Vietnam, one of the most important American partners in Asia.

Workers were in the middle of cleaning up the site of an enormous chemical spill, the Bien Hoa air base, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio abruptly halted all foreign aid funding. The shutdown left exposed open pits of soil contaminated with dioxin, the deadly byproduct of Agent Orange, which the American military sprayed across large swaths of the country during the Vietnam War. After Rubio’s orders to stop work, the cleanup crews were forced to abandon the site, and, for weeks, all that was covering the contaminated dirt were tarps, which at one point blew off in the wind.

And even more pressing, the officials warned in a Feb. 14 letter obtained by ProPublica, Vietnam is on the verge of its rainy season, when torrential downpours are common. With enough rain, they said, soil contaminated with dioxin could flood into nearby communities, poisoning their food supplies.

Hundreds of thousands of people live around the Bien Hoa air base, and some of their homes abut the site’s perimeter fence, just yards from the contaminated areas. And less than 1,500 feet away is a major river that flows into Ho Chi Minh City, population 9 million.

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-halted-agent-orange-cleanup-dioxin-vietnam-poison-risk

It is good to see t5hat the idiots in the Donny Show have not let empathy get in the way of their ultimate goals….

Just another example of the lack of accountability of the US for the mistakes they made against other nations.

This situation is disgusting on so many levels….but what did I expect from a group of disgusting idiots?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Just Who Are These Cheating Bastards?

Donny came to power with the promise of making all the trade partners that US has that are not treating us fairly….then he took the throne and the retaliation started and has continued since January….that is about100 days of so….

We know who he has targeted the likes of China, Mexico, Canada, etc…..but now that it has started I would like to knbow just who the cheating bastards are…..how about you?

If you listen to President Donald Trump and his allies discuss his sweeping tariff plans, one word pops up a lot: “Cheating”.  (That is the common theme)

When he unveiled his initial tariffs plan, Trump said, “For nations that treat us badly, we will calculate the combined rate of all their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating.”

Over the next few days, other administration figures echoed the “cheating” accusation.

“Our leaders allowed foreign countries to rig the rules of the game, to cheat, to steal, to rob, to plunder,” White House adviser Stephen Miller said on April 4 on Fox News. “That has cost America trillions of dollars in wealth. … They’ve stolen our industries.”

The White House didn’t provide any evidence.

While cheating on trade does happen – genuine accusations of it can be adjudicated at the World Trade Organization – the White House’s formula for calculating tariff rates leaned on how much of a trade imbalance a country has with the US, not on evidence of cheating.

Trump and his allies “tend to use the term ‘cheating’ as any action by a foreign country that leads to a bilateral goods trade deficit with the US”, said Kent Jones, professor emeritus of economics at Babson College, who specialises in trade policy. “On the face of it, this definition has no economic validity, since bilateral trade balances are generally determined not by trade and other government policies, but by specific patterns of trade by commodity.”

Our analysis of the 10 countries with the highest announced tariff rates on April 2 showed they are largely poor and small – and it is these factors, rather than unfair trade practices, that made them susceptible to the highest rates. Such countries export the resources they have and are too small and too poor, or both, to buy much from the United States.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/4/10/fact-check-are-other-countries-cheating-the-us-on-trade

 

Why Greenland?

Has anyone considered why Greenland is such a big deal to the trump Administration?

Donny and his butt boyz have been trying to provoke some sort of response for the island of Greenland…..there have been many theories on why Donny wants Greenland so bad…..the natural resources or as a base for protection of the US or….like I said many theories but the only one that makes sense to me is the concept of “Freedom City”….

Just what is ‘Freedom City’….and the Robber Barons that are pushing the idea….

A handful of wealthy, politically connected Silicon Valley investors are reportedly eyeing Greenland’s icy shores as the site for a techno-utopian “freedom city.”

That’s according to a report from Reuters, which details a proposed effort to establish a new, libertarian-minded municipality characterized by minimal corporate regulation and a focus on accelerating emerging technologies like AI and mini nuclear reactors. Supporters of increased economic development in Greenland argue its frigid climate could naturally cool massive, energy intensive AI data centers. Large deposits of critical and rare earth minerals buried beneath the island’s ice sheets could also potentially be used to manufacture consumer electronics.

The so-called “start-up city”—which bears similarities to another ongoing venture in California’s Solano County—reportedly already has the backing of PayPal founder Peter Thiel and Ken Howery, President Donald Trump’s pick for Denmark ambassador. If confirmed by the Senate, Howery would lead US discussions to acquire Greenland. In that role, Howery could potentially act as a bridge linking the audacious freedom city investors with the US government.

…

The Reuters report cites claims Howery, Thiel, and prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreesen are amongst the most prominent names backing the Greenland effort. Howery, who still needs the US Senate to confirm his position as ambassador to Denmark, is reportedly a long-time friend of billionaire Elon Musk and formerly founded a venture capital firm with Thiel. Thiel, meanwhile, has emerged as one of the loudest supporters, both vocally and financially, of the “Seasteading” movement, which is trying to build floating, stateless utopia cities in the ocean. Andressen, notably, is also part of a tech-investor consortium California Forever looking to build the city in Solano County.  Each of these efforts—along with others like the already existing city Próspera in Honduras—are united by libertarian political ideals, a focus on technological development, and lots of money.

Rumors around the proposed Greenland city date back at least to November 2024 when Praxis co-founder Dryden Brown fired off a series of tweets explaining how he had tried to purchase land in Greenland. Praxis is a self-described “internet-native nation” crypto startup with a stated goal of “restor[ing] Western civilization,” and has reportedly received over $525 million in funding to start building out new cities. Brown told Reuters he has since been approached by several companies to explore establishing a new city on Greenland.

https://www.popsci.com/technology/billionaire-freedom-city-greenland/

There you have it….just another way for rich bastards to make more and more money while not having to worry about regulations, laws, taxes, on and on….this is not about enriching the nation in some way but rather doing so for their wealthy butt-lickers.

I say fuck’em….  these d/bags should be paying their way through the system and not being allowed stop using the US as their private ATM.

Time for people to realize that these slugs are not in it to help the working people but rather to milk all the energy out of the nation and use their ill-gotten gains to buy a yacht…we mean nothing to these parasites….we are lower than the lowest to them.

Wake up!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”