Pikatto

It looks like I may have found a nice alternative to Flickr. I’ve been wanting to drop Flickr since they were acquired by Yahoo. Yahoo’s cooperation with the Chinese government, which has already led to the imprisonment of a Chinese man who simply wanted to express himself freely, absolutely disgusts me. I’ve never had a pro account with Flickr so up to now I’ve justified it to myself. I may not have to do that any longer thanks to Zooomr.

Here’s a photo of Nobuko and Ken I took while we were visiting relatives this week. It’s the first photo I uploaded to Zooomr.

NobukoAndKen Hosted on Zooomr

It is unbelievable that even after North Korea launched seven missiles directly over Japan that the U.N. Security Council will not agree to the use of Chapter VII in the sanctions against them. This is of course due to the Chinese and Russian threats to veto any resolution which contained Chapter VII. The Russians and Chinese claim that this is to prevent any further destabilization in the region. The real reason of course is that the Russians and Chinese want North Korea to remain the same as it now is so that they can continue to sell arms to the rogue nation.

This is just another instance that shows how the U.N. has become – or always was – a defunct organization. U.N. member states will almost to a whole always look to their own interests first, not to what is right. That is why Russia,China, and France opposed military action in Iraq – they wanted to keep their secret oil deals going and to keep selling weapons to Saddam. That is why no U.N. military presence exists in Sudan even though genocide is being committed – China voted against it because of their oil deals with the Sudanese government. And that is why tougher sanctions were not imposed against North Korea. The U.N. is and has been a paper tiger for a number of years, and North Korea realizes this. It is time for the United States to forgo the U.N. and look to other solutions to deal with this regime.

North Korea has kidnapped the citizens of sovereign states – many of which are still forced to remain in North Korea against their wishes – , fired missiles directly over Japan, constantly threatened those who opposed it with nuclear annihilation, and even counterfeits U.S. currency. When will the U.S. take action? When will we defend our ally Japan from the agression and threats from this bully of a nation? When will we impose international law upon this rogue state? The time for us to stop talking and start acting is now!