Christopher Blackwell's past comments

  • 1

    Christopher Blackwell

    Now just have to raise the levels of what amount of strontium-90 that is acceptable in your drinking water. End of problem, except for those drinking the water. Why not bottle the water and send to the former officials of TEPCO and the former government officials that okayed everything over the years and the present officials of TEPCO. I am sure that they won't mind storying it at home.

    Posted in: TEPCO finds highly toxic strontium in Fukushima plant groundwater

  • 0

    Christopher Blackwell

    We do need whistle blowers. Otherwise we might never find out what our government is doing to us. Might I point out that he did not make any money of of this that I know of and he knew the danger to himself. In all governments national security usually means hiding the illegal things he government is doing to its own citizens. Only rarely is it about any so called enemies,

    Posted in: Is Edward Snowden who blew the whistle on vast surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency that trawl through telephone and Internet records a hero or traitor?

  • -1

    Christopher Blackwell

    I have known about government spying most of my life. They did it back in the fifties and sixties, not as fancy as they do now, but they kept spying on people for twenty or more years, sometimes even put out false stories to hurt people that it was spying on. Just because the government uses words like democracy and republic does not mean you actually live in one just because they tell you how free you are does not mean you get to use any of that alleged freedom. As to the non Americans here, yes they can and do spy on you as well as do a great many countries. No way you can hid anything on the Internet, nor by E-mails, nor even within you computer. Most computers have back door built in here in the Untied States just so the government can take a look inside anytime they want to. Sorry that it disappoints to discover that big brother is watching, but he has been doing it all my life.

    Posted in: Facebook reveals details of U.S. data requests

  • 1

    Christopher Blackwell

    Just waiting for the right wing alarmist headline, "Japanese Troops Invade California!" [Grin]

    Posted in: Japan to hold unprecedented military exercise in U.S.

  • 4

    Christopher Blackwell

    Well on film, both can have super powers. It was nifty film clip, great fun. and I am sure it will remain special to the man whose dream it was. I am very glad he got his dream.

    Posted in: Ordinary man's dream of acting with Jackie Chan realized in Kirin beer’s latest commercial

  • 0

    Christopher Blackwell

    Yes but where use can you get the NSA and the CIA to actually listen in on you. As an American I feel that it is my duty to fill up all those spy computers, so occasionally I add an interesting word. Jihad. But the I suspect they also read all my letters here and to other countries as well. I just hope my messages don't bore them. [Grin]

    Posted in: Facebook users in Japan losing interest

  • 0

    Christopher Blackwell

    Well with all the data they are pulling in, I think American citizens have the duty to make their communications interesting by adding interesting words. I think personal nuclear weapons would sound interesting. [Grin]

    Posted in: Is Big Data turning government into 'Big Brother'?

  • -2

    Christopher Blackwell

    Deregulation will lead to more disasters in industry, more corruption in investment firms and just about everything else. Whenever we allow business to do anything that they want without overseeing them for the protection of everyone else we get more corruption and more damage for the rest of the community. We have learned the hard way that business never can be trusted to regulate themselves nor to worry about safety and quality without outside watch dogs. If you want things far worse then they are and total economic meltdown deregulation is the way to bring it about. So history shows us in every county in the world.

    Posted in: Abe stresses deregulation is priority for growth

  • 4

    Christopher Blackwell

    Few industrial countries have as many railroad collisions or derailments as we have in the United States. Few countries have near as many road grade crossings on their railroad corridors, and American drivers of all size vehicles routinely cross ignoring on coming trains and even worming their way around crossing gates. The truly amazing thing is that we don't have worse accidents and more often, considering some of the dangerous products we carry on our railroads.

    I am a great fan of railroads but we desperately need a revamping of all our major lines to get rid of all road crossings on major lines, and perhaps on most of of lesser lines in towns and cities and to prepare them for modern high speed trains that will be required in the near future. Upgrading Infrastructure is what we tend to avoid at all costs. Not what you would expect from what used to be the most advanced country in the world.

    Just replacing archaic out dated infrastructure of all kinds would keep Americans employed for decades and do more to secure our future than anything else that we might do. You can't build a secure future on infrastructure that is fifty to a hundred years out of date, including most of the infrastructure under our cities.

    Posted in: Huge explosion as freight train derails near Baltimore

  • -1

    Christopher Blackwell

    When people want to spend so much time running everybody else's life, you wonder if they have any time left to run their own lives. Personally I find that running my own life does not leave me any time left over to run anybody else's life.

    Posted in: 150,000 protest in Paris against gay marriage

  • -1

    Christopher Blackwell

    To be honest I don't think it is possible to get the legal system to apologize regardless of what country. The judge, the prosecuting attorney and the police are never going to admit that they made a mistake, particularly if they benefited from conviction politically or got a promotion because of it. That is turn here in the United States as well.

    Posted in: Wrongfully convicted Nepali man asks for apology from the Japanese government

  • 2

    Christopher Blackwell

    I can recall the first mile wide tornados and thought they were huge, but this one was two miles wide in some reports. So I begin to wonder just how big a tornado can get. I begin to wonder when we will see our first three mile wide tornado, then five mile wider and perhaps even a ten mile wide one.

    Meanwhile while people argue about if climate change is happening, or who to blame, no one seems to be asking how are we to adapt to this new situation. We literally have millions f people at risk for various change s taking place and we are not yet discussion were should we move those people out of harms way, nor are we discussing how will we finance the move and new towns where needed.

    Evolution and survival of any species is based on how great and how fast can they adapt to changing considerations. That requires thinking and planning going beyond the present disaster and considering what we may face in the future and beginning to prepare ourselves to change whatever we have to change in our way of living. I just don't see that anyone is planning for the long term, so many milions of people may pay the cost with their lives.

    Posted in: At least 91 dead in Oklahoma City tornado

  • 1

    Christopher Blackwell

    The hard part will be keeping the vultures away. The next part will be to figure out a way of life that can be maintained long term.The last part will be maintaining sanity and important relationships.

    Posted in: Winning ticket for $590.5 million Powerball lottery sold in Florida

  • 1

    Christopher Blackwell

    Counter accuse the woman of groping you and sound indignant. [Grin]

    Posted in: Guilty and never proven innocent – every male train rider's nightmare in Japan

  • 2

    Christopher Blackwell

    Most of us would be more than happy to have the career that she had. She is one smart and one tough lady, and a lot of women journalist own their careers to inspiration from her early work.How many of the men here make near as much money, or have near as much influence as she has. I would suspect none of us do.

    Posted in: Pioneer U.S. TV anchor Barbara Walters to retire

  • 0

    Christopher Blackwell

    As always, when trying to understand what a politician is doing, check first who is paying how much money to do what. Then the rest is easy to understand.

    Posted in: LDP to pledge to restart nuclear reactors in policy platform: Nikkei

  • 3

    Christopher Blackwell

    The only war s the war that the NRA leadership is fighting against its own members that have said they want full background checks on all gun sales. But perhaps the members should be aware that their alleged organization has been take over by the gun manufacturers that care nothing about the members but only in increasing semiautomatic sales to everyone, including criminals. As the gun manufacturers put more money into the NRA than all 4,000,000 members the Leadership feels it is their duty to puppet any line that the gun manufactures want . Ironically for years the NRA has supported full back ground checks on all gun sales so this counter view is against what the 73% members want. Time to pull membership money out and put it into a lobby for gun owner and not gun manufactures. The NRA has been stolen from its members and their concerns.

    Posted in: NRA kicks off annual convention, saying it is fighting 'culture war'

  • 0

    Christopher Blackwell

    Look at it this way, the sharks and large mackerels were very happy with the special treat. Nothing like a good feast to put them in a good mood.

    Posted in: Newly released sardines disappear after 2 days in Kobe aquarium

  • 0

    Christopher Blackwell

    What is it about young people needing to tell everyone what they are doing or have done, even if it is a crime? Of course I admit the authorities must appreciate the help and making their work a bit easier.

    Posted in: 3 men charged with obstructing Boston bombing probe

  • 2

    Christopher Blackwell

    Sorry but we have never had a democracy. A democracy would require every American to vote on everything the government does, every policy and every law.

    We claimed to be a republic, that is with elected representatives to did what their citizens wanted. Of course we have never really had that either.

    As stated elsewhere we have had a plutocracy where what laws get passed depends on who bribes the most congress people. As often said we have the best government that money can buy. The bribes make the $300,000+ salary we pay them look like pocket change. Money comes to our politicians by box full. If you have not bribed you congressman , then he doesn't listen to anything that you say. It has bee this way for at least 150 years, if not longer.

    Note in the original constitution, if you were not a white male landowner, you were not allowed to vote. Most Americans did not own land back then. If you owned slaves each of your slaves gave you a 2/5 of a vote more. So if you owned 2,000 slaves that gave you an extra 200 votes. So slave holders out voted everyone else. don't worry though they don't actually teach real history any more, nor even the theory of how government works, and certainly never taught how it actually works. Instead we just spout the mantra of Democracy, without the slightest idea what that would actually be.

    Note that the government successfully ignores what the majority of the citizens say that they want.

    Posted in: Is American democracy dysfunctional?

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