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An American's Take on Brexit

Being an American, much of the news from across the globe is filtered out by mainstream news sites and channels unless it is something that has a direct correlation to American culture, politics, safety, etc. Because of that, I do my best to diversify the sources from which I get my news - using BBC World News, CNN, NBC, my local stations, and a few other category specific news outlets in order to get a grasp on the news from as many sources as possible and from as many diverse opinions as I can. Though this doesn’t prevent me from seeing some incredibly biased news broadcasting, it helps me filter out facts that are repeated from fallacies or  inferences made by the individual outlets. So naturally, when news broke about the United Kingdom leaving the EU, I immediately ran to my various apps and news outlets to understand what this meant. As the EU does not in any way govern the United States, it wasn’t surprising to see little to no information about what a “Brexit” is other than the…
Score: 1.32

Wall between Church and Individual, and the Freedom of Religion

by Makio

Strict controls of religion in England and Japan, and the Freedom of religion the US constitution guarantees   The histories of both England and Japan tell us that their national securities and independence had conflicted with the religious freedom of their people.  The history of US tells us that deciding and acting political issues independently from organized Church or religious institutions is essential to protect the religious freedom.   Declaration of Independence (1819), by John Trumbull from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia     Gain Political Independence from Religious Authority in England  As a Japanese living in the US, I view that the development of congressional politics in England as the political elites gradually limited the royal and religious authorities and gained own economic and political freedom while sacrificing the religious freedom and many lives of Catholics in their kingdom.  Let me explain in details.  In medieval Europe, Pope claimed the Papal supremacy and exercised…
Score: 1.31

Incident of Korean Navy Radar Lock-On, Japan's Future, Implication to the USA

 
    At the end of 2018, the South Korean Navy destroyer Gwanggaeto the Great  (KDX-I) irradiated the Japanese maritime SDF patrol aircraft (P-1) with a fire control radar (FC radar) within the Japanese EEZ of the Sea of Japan.  South Korean government has denied the radar irradiation, and never proposed any preventive measure even though the Japanese government has asked for from the beginning of this incident.  Why there is no productive cooperation between Japan and South Korean governments?    I think there are two reasons.   Strong anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea prevents the South Korean government from admitting the wrongdoing and apologizing to Japan South Korea signals China that it is strengthening the confrontational attitude against Japan.   Most Americans seem to think that it is only "Japan-Korea issue." However, a functional alliance between Japan and South Korea is also very important for the US.  A similar incident happened before. Chinese People's Liberation Army’s frigate ship…
Score: 1.25

A Day At The Zoo: 2020 US Democratic Presidential Candidates

  Us Democratic Party Vectors by Vecteezy    Has it been 4 years already? My, how time flies when your country is held in the iron grip of the new Nazi reich! Why, just a few ICE roundups ("The goal is to terrorize"), concentration camps, and blatant systematic sex trafficking barons, and it's like the first term of "I still can't believe he's president" Trump just flew by! Yet oddly, we have all aged a couple centuries in four years.  Which makes my job here as a political prophet this election season that much more dismal.  Our only hope in the United States is the Democrats. You can forget all the pretenses of party affiliation right now. "Republican" and "Democrat" mean nothing in terms of being conservative, liberal, or deciding how to run the country. As of now, Republicans are openly out to destroy the world in a giant apocalyptic fireball and Democrats are just the people mildly murmuring a token resistance. There's no such thing as political parties right now; there's just barely…
Score: 1.24

The Impeachment of Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States

  I don't volunteer to write about politics, you know. They make me here. I am of course glad to rave about the circus clowns as much as the next guy, I have my tweets and stand by them.  But in the big picture, I know it doesn't do any good. The United States has transcended politics now. Elections, primaries, democracy, laws, impeachment, parties, these things mean nothing in the United States. They mean nothing because that's what the people want them to do.  It doesn't matter at this point whether Donald Trump is removed from office or not.  Pretending that removing Trump would fix everything at this point is like pretending assassinating Hitler would have stopped World War II. A new despot would have simply risen to take Hitler's place. Hitler was nothing without the country that brought him to power. The same case is true of Kim Jong-Un, Rodrigo Duterte, Xi Jinping, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and of course Vlad Putin.  The United States has even proven this to itself before. We went into…
Score: 1.57

America's Two-Party Left-Right System Can't Last

    Where do you start talking about American politics?Where do you end?  You can enter and exit at any point in the vacuum of the space-time continuum like a neutrino, heard by nobody and affecting nothing.  The great wasteland of American politics in the 21st century is that way because of the polarized division of everything into two opposite parties. It is an extreme polarization because both parties and all of the politicians in them keep discovering that they can say and do anything and still get elected by their party. Given this off-the-rails behavior, the two parties have arbitrarily occupied the two most vapid niches that any political party in history has ever occupied. They are:   Anti-society (Republicans) Pro-society (Democrats)   Furthermore, nothing much changes no matter which party has the majority, since they hold everything in deadlock. Other countries stand in amazement at the state of the US, but they have to understand one crucial thing: it's all talk.  We just…
Score: 1.55

The Environmental Holocaust of Grass Lawns

    Hello, I'm "Penguin" Pete, the guy with the indignant rant about palm trees you all seem to love. I'm back today to talk about an even worse environmental blight, and even more pervasive intrusion on our living space: GRASS!  You don't notice grass. Those of you who live in cities are barely even accustomed to seeing plants anymore, so you never stop to think that our obsession to coat the Earth in a fuzzy layer of green micro-plants is anything abnormal. But we have all grown up used to suburban tracts of endless lawns around houses, married to the vision of the American dream of a white-picket-fence neighborhood, all made of ticky-tacky.        Here's a few reasons why your vision of suburbia is far creepier than you think:   Lawns aren't just an option. They are ENFORCED. You can go to jail for not having a perfectly manicured lawn. Lawns affect neighborhood real estate values, which is why they are enforced. The pathological degree of conformity in suburbia isn't just for an aesthetic. Its…
Score: 1.42