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Demeter

(85,373 posts)
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 05:53 PM Aug 2015

Weekend Economists Consider the Kurds August 7-9, 2015

Who are the Kurds, and why do they have no friends in high places?

The Kurds are one of the world's largest peoples without a state, making up sizable minorities in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Their history is marked by marginalization and persecution. Yet some Kurds may be on the verge of achieving their century-old quest for independence in a Middle East undergoing the convulsions of Syria's civil war, Iraq's destabilization, and conflict with the self-proclaimed Islamic State...

http://www.cfr.org/middle-east-and-north-africa/time-kurds/p36547?gclid=COjVrdz2l8cCFdgZgQodrXwMiw#!/?cid=ppc-Google-grant-kurds_infoguide-072715


Who are the Kurds?

The Kurds are one of the indigenous peoples of the Middle East and the region's fourth-largest ethnic group. They speak Kurdish, an Indo-European language, and are predominantly Sunni Muslims. Kurds have a distinct culture, traditional dress, and holidays, including Nowruz, the springtime New Year festival that is also celebrated by Iranians and others who use the Persian calendar. Kurdish nationalism emerged during the twentieth century following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of new nation-states across the Middle East.

The estimated thirty million Kurds reside primarily in mountainous regions of present-day Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey and remain one of the world's largest peoples without a sovereign state. The Kurds are not monolithic, however, and tribal identities and political interests often supersede a unifying national allegiance. Some Kurds, particularly those who have migrated to urban centers, such as Istanbul, Damascus, and Tehran, have integrated and assimilated, while many who remain in their ancestral lands maintain a strong sense of a distinctly Kurdish identity. A Kurdish diaspora of an estimated two million is concentrated primarily in Europe.



Kurds have a long history of marginalization and persecution, and, particularly in Iraq and Turkey, have repeatedly risen up to seek greater autonomy or complete independence.

At the outset of the twenty-first century they have achieved their greatest international prominence yet, most notably in Iraq. Iraqi Kurds were an important partner for the U.S.-led coalition that ousted Saddam Hussein from power in 2003. Even while asserting their autonomy, Iraqi Kurds are still considered by policymakers as the "glue" that holds the country together amid sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shia Arabs.

The Iraqi Kurdish fighting force, known as peshmerga (Kurdish for "those who face death&quot , and Syrian Kurdish fighters have played a significant role in fighting the self-proclaimed Islamic State, a jihadi group that has exploited the ongoing civil war in Syria and instability in Iraq to take control of large territories in both countries. Other Kurdish fighters, including Turkish guerrilla fighters of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, have also been instrumental in warding off Islamic State advances in the region. Meanwhile, the Turkish government has been attempting to resolve its thirty-year conflict with the PKK through a negotiated peace process and increased rights and recognition for the country's Kurdish population.

The role of Kurdish forces in the fight against the Islamic State in particular has raised their international profile. Some countries, including Germany, have directly armed and trained Iraqi Kurdish forces, while the U.S.-led coalition to fight the Islamic State has supported Kurdish ground operations with air strikes.





Mahabad Republic flagThe Kurds are the descendants of the Medes, who helped Persia defeat Babylon. Their history since then is one of subjugation by other nations. In the 8th century they were conquered by the Arabs, who introduces Islam. They were also subdued by the Mongols in the 11th century and later by the Ottoman Turks, under whose rule they remained until the collapse of the Ottoman empire following World War I. Their homeland was then divided between the nations of the area. In 1920 the treaty of Sévres established the principles for the creation of a Kurdish state, but it was never implemented.

Ever since the Kurds have been cruelly oppressed in most countries. Turkey, Iran and Syria all prohibited the Kurdish languages to varying degrees, with Turkey illegalising even everyday speech in Kurdish until recently and performing systematic ethnic cleansing of vast areas, transferring the Kurdish populations to urban centres with a Turkish majority. During insurrections the Iraqi government poisoned thousands of Kurds with chemical weapons. Ironically, only in the Soviet Union did the Kurds remain unmolested, and the Soviet authorities even supported the last but short lived Kurdish independent state, the Mahabad republic, crashed by Iran in 1946.

Despite such a tragic history their own petty arguing has prevented any unified attempt to gain independence, with different factions fighting against. Kurds have religious differences, with numerous competing sects of Islam, and language differences with mutually unintelligible dialects.

The Kurdish language is Indo-European from the same group as Farsi (Indo-Iranian), not Altaic as Azeri or Turkish. The most widely spoken dialect is Kurmanji, which is used by Kurds in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and parts of Iran and Central Asia. The other main dialects are: Kurdi, Dimili, Herki and Shikaki. A pan-Kurdish alphabet has been developed, based on the Latin script. Armenia has become an important cultural centre for the Kurds, there are radio broadcasts in Kurmanji dialect and there is a Kurdish publishing house.

Nearly all Kurds are Muslim, most being Shafiite Sunnis. However religion has created deep rifts among the Kurds. Many of the dispossessed Kurd minorities outside the former USSR have become associated with the secret and unorthodox sects of Islam.

http://www.azerb.com/az-kurd.html


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Weekend Economists Consider the Kurds August 7-9, 2015 (Original Post) Demeter Aug 2015 OP
So, when the Middle East played "musical chairs" the Kurds lost Demeter Aug 2015 #1
Wikipedia says Demeter Aug 2015 #2
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Why Chrysler's car hack 'fix' is staggeringly stupid Demeter Aug 2015 #6
Power-Mad Erdogan Launches War in Attempt to Become Turkey’s Supreme Leader By Mike Whitney Demeter Aug 2015 #7
Turkey Says Comprehensive Battle Against ISIS to Be Launched Soon Demeter Aug 2015 #8
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Demeter

(85,373 posts)
1. So, when the Middle East played "musical chairs" the Kurds lost
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 06:06 PM
Aug 2015


But they haven't a unified front to present to the world, either.


And of course, there's the oil....and the neighbors!

There is deep-seated hostility between the Turkish state and the country's Kurds, who constitute 15% to 20% of the population.

Kurds received harsh treatment at the hands of the Turkish authorities for generations. In response to uprisings in the 1920s and 1930s, many Kurds were resettled, Kurdish names and costumes were banned, the use of the Kurdish language was restricted and even the existence of a Kurdish ethnic identity was denied, with people designated "Mountain Turks".

In 1978, Abdullah Ocalan established the PKK, which called for an independent state within Turkey. Six years later, the group began an armed struggle. Since then, more than 40,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.

In the 1990s the PKK rolled back on its demand for independence, calling instead for greater cultural and political autonomy, but continued to fight. In 2012, the government and PKK began peace talks and the following year a ceasefire was agreed. PKK fighters were told to withdraw to northern Iraq, but clashes have continued....

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29702440




SO, THEY LIKE LINE DANCING....
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
2. Wikipedia says
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 06:14 PM
Aug 2015

The exact origins of the name Kurd are unclear. The underlying toponym is recorded in Assyrian as Qardu and in Middle Bronze Age Sumerian as Kar-da. Assyrian Qardu refers to an area in the upper Tigris basin, and it is presumably reflected in corrupted form in Arabic (Quranic) Ǧūdī, re-adopted in Kurdish as Cûdî.

The name would be continued as the first element in the toponym Corduene, mentioned by Xenophon as the tribe who opposed the retreat of the Ten Thousand through the mountains north of Mesopotamia in the 4th century BC.

There are, however, dissenting views, which do not derive the name of the Kurds from Qardu and Corduene but opt for derivation from Cyrtii (Cyrtaei) instead.

Regardless of its possible roots in ancient toponymy, the ethnonym Kurd might be derived from a term kwrt- used in Middle Persian as a common noun to refer to "nomads" or "tent-dwellers", which could be applied as an attribute to any Iranian group with such a lifestyle.

The term gained the characteristic of an ethnonym following the Muslim conquest of Persia, as it was adopted into Arabic and gradually became associated with an amalgamation of Iranian and Iranicised tribes and groups in the region.

It is also hypothesized that Kurd could originate from the Persian word gord (see Shahrekord), because the Arabic script lacks a symbol corresponding uniquely to g (گ .

Sherefxan Bidlisi in the 16th century states that there are four division of "Kurds": Kurmanj, Lur, Kalhor and Guran, each of which speak a different dialect or language variation. Paul (2008) notes that the 16th-century usage of the term Kurd as recorded by Bidlisi, regardless of linguistic grouping, might still reflect an incipient Northwestern Iranian "Kurdish" ethnic identity uniting the Kurmanj, Kalhur, and Guran.

Language


The Kurdish language (Kurdish: Kurdî or کوردی refers collectively to the related dialects spoken by the Kurds. It is mainly spoken in those parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey which comprise Kurdistan. Kurdish holds official status in Iraq as a national language alongside Arabic, is recognized in Iran as a regional language, and in Armenia as a minority language.

The Kurdish languages belong to the northwestern sub‑group of the Iranian languages, which in turn belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family.

Most Kurds are either bilingual or multilingual, speaking the language of their respective nation of origin, such as Arabic, Persian, and Turkish as a second language alongside their native Kurdish, while those in diaspora communities often speak 3 or more languages.

According to Mackenzie, there are few linguistic features that all Kurdish dialects have in common and that are not at the same time found in other Iranian languages.

The Kurdish dialects according to Mackenzie are classified as:

Northern group (the Kurmanji (Ezdiki) dialect group)
Central group (part of the Sorani dialect group)
Southern group (part of the Sorani dialect group) including Kermanshahi, Ardalani and Laki

The Zaza and Gorani are ethnic Kurds, but the Zaza–Gorani languages are not classified as Kurdish.

Commenting on the differences between the dialects of Kurdish, Kreyenbroek clarifies that in some ways, Kurmanji and Sorani are as different from each other as English and German, giving the example that Kurmanji has grammatical gender and case endings, but Sorani does not, and observing that referring to Sorani and Kurmanji as "dialects" of one language is supported only by "their common origin...and the fact that this usage reflects the sense of ethnic identity and unity of the Kurds."

Population

The number of Kurds living in Southwest Asia is estimated at close to 30 million, with another one or two million living in diaspora. Kurds comprise anywhere from 18% to 20% of the population in Turkey, possibly as high as 25%; 15 to 20% in Iraq; 10% in Iran; and 9% in Syria. Kurds form regional majorities in all four of these countries, viz. in Turkish Kurdistan, Iraqi Kurdistan, Iranian Kurdistan and Syrian Kurdistan. The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic groups in West Asia after the Arabs, Persians, and Turks.

The total number of Kurds in 1991 was placed at 22.5 million, with 48% of this number living in Turkey, 18% in Iraq, 24% in Iran, and 4% in Syria.

Recent emigration accounts for a population of close to 1.5 million in Western countries, about half of them in Germany.

A special case are the Kurdish populations in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia, displaced there mostly in the time of the Russian Empire, who underwent independent developments for more than a century and have developed an ethnic identity in their own right. This groups' population was estimated at close to 0.4 million in 1990.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
4. Even jail can't stop China tycoon from tainting stocks
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 07:02 PM
Aug 2015
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/even-jail-cant-stop-china-tycoon-from-tainting-stocks-20150729-gimyef.html

China's epic ploy to convince the world its stock market is safe is no match for the Huang Guangyu caper.

Skepticism greeted news this week that the billionaire and one-time richest man of China had somehow pulled off a deal to consolidate control of Gome, the electronics retailer he founded in 1987.

Shares plunged as Huang boosted his stake to as high as 55.3 per cent after Gome announced plans to buy another company he owns.

The problem? Huang is in a Chinese prison until 2024 for bribery.

MORE GOSH AT LINK

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
5. Chinese Military Paper Warns A Corrupt Army Does Not Win Wars
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:25 PM
Aug 2015
http://www.ibtimes.com/chinese-military-paper-warns-corrupt-army-does-not-win-wars-2034991

The Chinese military's official newspaper warned on Sunday that a corrupt army would not win wars, three days after the government announced a former senior officer would be prosecuted for graft.

Serving and retired Chinese military officers as well as state media have questioned whether China's armed forces are too corrupt to fight and win a war.

President Xi Jinping has made weeding out corruption in the armed forces a top goal and several senior officers have been felled, including two of China's most senior former military officers, Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong.

The government said on Thursday that it would prosecute Guo for corruption. Xu died ofcancer in March.

"If we allow the growth and spread of corruption, the guns will rust, the pillars will collapse," the People's Liberation Army Daily said in a front-page editorial.

"History has repeatedly proven that if corruption is not eliminated, we will defeat ourselves even before a war."


High-ranking officers such as Xu and Guo affected the morale of the people and had a severe impact on the soldiers' beliefs and convictions, the paper said.

State media had previously focused on how corruption was a key reason for China's defeat to Japan in the waning years of the Qing dynasty....


CORRUPTION---IT'S THE NEW WORLD ORDER
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
6. Why Chrysler's car hack 'fix' is staggeringly stupid
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:28 PM
Aug 2015
http://www.zdnet.com/article/chryslers-response-to-car-hack-was-slow-and-incredibly-stupid/

More than a million Chrysler vehicles, including Jeeps, Ram pickups, and Dodge vehicles, are vulnerable to a major vulnerability that could drive them -- literally -- off the road. Last week, the company recalled 1.4 million vehicles at risk of a remote hijack vulnerability, which, as detailed by Wired, can result in a hacker remotely operating the brakes, interfering with the driver's visibility by switching on the windshield wipers, and even shutting off the engine.

The company's response, however, has been staggeringly naive and ill thought-out, potentially putting its customers at risk for a second time.

Chrysler, unable to patch the core software flaw automatically over-the-air, gave its customers three options to update their vehicles. Either the owner can download the security update onto a flash drive and install it manually, or owners can also drive to a local dealership to have the update installed there -- which, granted, puts the inconvenience on the vehicle owner. THEN, There is a third option: Chrysler is mailing out USB sticks to customers directly.

"That is the dumbest move I have heard of in a long time," said Khalil Sehnaoui, founder of Krypton Security, in an email. "It's like if after surgery the doctor forgets a pair of scissors in your stomach, and when you find out, he just sends you a scalpel to fix it yourself."

"It's like Chrysler is telling its customers, 'you know where you can stick it'," said Sehnaoui.


This isn't the first time Chrysler has recalled a vehicle, nor is it the first time it's been for a software issue. However, this is the first time (which a Chrysler spokesperson confirmed) it's dished out USB sticks to more than a million vehicle owners as part of a recall. And that's a problem both logistically and from a security standpoint. Not only does it assume the vehicle owner knows how to download, build, and install the patch -- of which there are more than a dozen separate steps to follow in the tutorial -- but it also assumes nothing will go wrong in the process. The bigger question remains: How do vehicle owners know that what they're plugging into their cars is what they think it is?

"Plugging in a USB device to one's computer without some strong sense of its origin is a bad idea," said Tod Beardsley, research manager at Rapid7. "Training users to simply trust that a device they get in the mail ... sets a dangerous pattern of behavior, opening the door for criminals to take advantage of that trust."


MORE
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
7. Power-Mad Erdogan Launches War in Attempt to Become Turkey’s Supreme Leader By Mike Whitney
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:36 PM
Aug 2015
THIS IS WHY UNDERSTANDING THE KURDS, WHERE THEY CAME FROM, WHAT THEY WANT, IS SO IMPORTANT ALL OF A SUDDEN...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/31/power-mad-erdogan-launches-war-in-attempt-to-become-turkeys-supreme-leader/

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lost his bid to become Turkey’s supreme leader in last month’s elections. So he’s taken the country to war to increase his popularity and improve his chances of victory in snap elections in November.

Turkish bombers continued to pound Kurdish positions in Northern Iraq early Thursday after killing an estimated 100 Kurds a day earlier. Erdogan broke off peace talks with the Kurdish militias and launched this latest assault after failing to win enough seats in Parliament to change the constitution. The ambitious Erdogan needed 330 deputies to make sweeping changes to the constitution that would give the president unlimited executive power making Erdogan de facto emperor of Turkey. His plan was frustrated by the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) that won an unprecedented 13 percent of the vote. The HDP is determined to prevent Erdogan from realizing his dream of becoming Turkey’s imperial sultan. The current war against the Kurds in Syria and Iraq is designed to whip up nationalist sentiment in order to put Erdogan “over the top” in elections that could come as early as this Fall.

Here’s more from Huffington Post:

“Last month, only after losing his party’s parliamentary majority, President Erdogan realized that there are dangerous terrorists in neighboring Syria who are a threat to Turkey’s security … Rather than intending to fight ISIS terrorists or cooperate with United States military operations in Syria and Iraq, Erdogan’s real purpose is to consolidate his own hold on power and accomplish the following self-serving objectives:

1) Turkey’s President realizes that should his ruling party fail to form a coalition government by the end of August, he would be obliged to call a new round of parliamentary elections in November. Therefore, by taking bold actions against ISIS and Kurdish fighters, Erdogan hopes that Turkish voters would give his party the few extra seats needed to regain a majority in Parliament.

…The Turkish President’s self-serving fake war against terrorism could have the tragic consequence of escalating the violence throughout Turkey and neighboring countries. If Ankara is truly interested in countering the Jihadists, it should have done that long ago, instead of arming and abetting ISIS and other terror groups.” (Erdogan Is Pursuing Turkish Self-Interests, Under the Guise of Fighting ISIS, Harut Sassounian, Huffington Post)


Here’s more from Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, David L. Phillips:

“Erdogan is angling for new elections. He is trying to discredit the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), a pro-Kurdish party which received 13.1% of the votes and will be seated in parliament for the first time. Erdogan is furious with the HDP for its strong showing, which denied the AKP enough support to change the constitution and establish an executive imperial presidency. In retaliation, Erdogan is threatening to lift the parliamentary immunity of HDP legislators. He’s even intimated at closing the HDP for supporting the PKK.” (Turkey’s Dark Future, David L. Phillips, Huffington Post)

Are we saying that Erdogan has started a war with the Kurds with the sole intention of enhancing his own political power?

Yes, that’s exactly what we’re saying. This is a story about a power-hungry megalomaniac, not a struggle against Kurdish militias and certainly not a war against ISIS. In fact, Erdogan has been ISIS greatest friend as this blurb from the UK Independent points out:

“There is no doubt that ability to move backwards and forwards across the 550-mile long Syrian-Turkish border has been crucial to the growth of the jihadi movements in Syria since 2011. The thousands of foreign volunteers who have flooded into Syria have almost all come from Turkey. Even those unable to speak Turkish or Arabic have had little difficulty in making their way across. In many respects, Turkey has provided a safe sanctuary for Isis and Jabhat al-Nusra, playing a similar role as Pakistan does in support of providing safe haven for the Taliban in Afghanistan.” “A Syrian rebel offensive led by Jabhat al-Nusra was allegedly masterminded from an operational headquarters inside Turkey and was the outcome of a closer understanding between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.” (Suruc suicide attack: Bombing shows Turkey is being sucked into the violence in Syria, Patrick Cockburn, Independent)


And then there’s this from the Front Page:

“Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s claim that “Turkey and AKP governments have never had any direct or indirect connection with any terrorist organization” flies in the face of last November’s report from the U.N. Security Council’s Analytical Support and Monitoring Team, which identifies Turkey as the primary route for weaponry smuggled to ISIL and the Al-Nusrah Front.

The State Department’s briefing at the beginning of June also stated Turkey is the main route for more than 22,000 fighters who have flocked to Syria to join extremist organizations, mainly ISIL. There are numerous other sources” (Turkey into the Abyss, Robert Ellis, Front Page)


Erdogan has pulled out all the stops in his attempt to consolidate his power and become Turkey’s supreme leader, which is why he’s trying to have pro-Kurdish members of parliament (HDP) stripped of immunity and prosecuted as criminals under Turkey’s stringent terrorism laws. (So far, more than 1,300 mostly Kurdish nationalist supporters and leftists have been swept up in a massive government dragnet since the bombing in Suruc two weeks ago. None of these people have yet been charged with a crime. The government has dropped all pretense that it is carrying out a war on ISIS. The roundup is clearly politically motivated.)

In an article that appeared in the Turkish daily, Hurriyet, statistician Emer Deliveli asks “Is Erdoğan warmongering for political power?” Here’s what he says:

“After showing that “political stability indicators at an all-time low”, Deliveli says, “my analyses showed that, indeed, support for the AKP (Erdogan’s party) increased after episodes of rising political violence.”… “one cannot prove that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is warmongering for political power … However, both conspiracy theories are in fact variants of the same theme- Erdoğan doing all it takes to become an all-powerful president. And when evidence piles up like this, one cannot help but think, “what if.” (Is Erdoğan warmongering for political power?, Hurriyet)


Erdogan wouldn’t be the first leader to start a war to boost his popularity at home, or the last. But it’s a risky strategy all the same, especially since his erratic and self-serving policies have already alienated a broad cross-section of the electorate that used to comprise his base. Check out this blurb from Foreign Policy magazine:

“Erdogan’s weakness in perceiving and acting on the militant Islamist threat has not won him extra friends on the security-first right. His autocratic Islamist style is losing him support on the left. And as for the Kurdish vote, well, he can just forget about it. History has also shown that seemingly invincible leaders can be forced to go gently — or not so gently — into that good night. The mighty Ottomans, after all, did not last forever. There’s no reason why a neo-Ottoman would either.” (The Sultan of Swing’s Dangerous Gamble, Leela Jacinto, Foreign Policy)


The biggest threat facing Erdogan in the short-term is that the Turkish people will see what he’s up to and cast their ballots accordingly in the November elections. But that will require restraint on the part of the Kurdish militias who will have to silence their guns to win the support of the people.

The only way the Kurds can beat a power-drunk, right-wing fanatic like Erdogan, is by giving peace a chance. Until the votes are counted, that is.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press). Hopeless is also available in a Kindle edition. He can be reached at [email protected].
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
8. Turkey Says Comprehensive Battle Against ISIS to Be Launched Soon
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:38 PM
Aug 2015

Turkey said on Wednesday a U.S.-led coalition will soon launch a "comprehensive battle" against Islamic State militants from Turkish air bases, but Syria said any military action not coordinated with Damascus would breach its sovereignty.

NATO-member Turkey formally agreed to open its air bases to U.S. and coalition aircraft last month, a major policy change after years of reluctance in taking a frontline role against the Islamist fighters pressing on its borders. Ankara and Washington have been working on plans to provide air cover for a group of U.S.-trained Syrian rebels and jointly sweep Islamic State from a strip of territory stretching about 80 km (50 miles) along the Turkish frontier.

"As part of our agreement with the U.S. we have made progress regarding the opening up of our bases, particularly Incirlik," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told state broadcaster TRT, referring to a major air base near the southern city of Adana.

"We're seeing that manned and unmanned American planes are arriving and soon we will launch a comprehensive battle against Islamic State all together," he said during a trip to Malaysia.


Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem was quoted by state television on Wednesday as saying Syria supported efforts to combat Islamic State provided they were coordinated with Damascus.

"For us in Syria there is no moderate opposition and immoderate opposition. Whoever carries weapons against the state is a terrorist," he was quoted as saying during a visit to ally Iran, adding Damascus had been informed about the presence of the U.S.-trained rebels.

"The United States contacted us before they sent in this group and said they are fighting against Daesh (Islamic State) and not the Syrian army at all," he said.

"We said we support any effort to combat Daesh in coordination and consultation with the Syrian government, otherwise it will be a breach of Syrian sovereignty."


Diplomats familiar with the coalition plans say cutting off Islamic State's access to the Turkish border, over which foreign fighters and supplies have flowed, could be a game-changer in the fight against the insurgents.

The core of the U.S.-trained rebels, who number fewer than 60, will be highly equipped and be able to call in close air support when needed, they say... MORE


read more: http://www.haaretz.com/beta/1.669670


AND IF YOU BELIEVE THAT, THERE'S A LOVELY BRIDGE OVER THE DARDANELLES FOR SALE...
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
10. Pentagon: U.S. launches 1st Syria airstrike from Turkey
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:42 PM
Aug 2015
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pentagon-u-s-launches-1st-airstrike-into-syria-from-turkey/

The United States launched its first airstrike into Syria from Turkey, the Pentagon confirmed on Wednesday. It was carried out on Tuesday by a remotely piloted aircraft which took off from Incirlik Air Base near the Syrian border.

It is the latest step in a bolder U.S. campaign of engagement against militants inside Syria, particularly the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS.)

The Pentagon said Monday the military for the first time conducted armed drone missions out of Turkey last weekend, and is planning to conduct manned aircraft flights from Incirlik Air Base.

The use of the Incirlik base comes as the U.S. expanded its combat in Syria, launching airstrikes on Friday to defend rebels under attack by the Nusra Front, al-Qaeda's branch in Syria...

MORE WAR--MORE DRONES---MORE BLOWBACK--MORE AT LINK
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
11. Texas soldiers to be deployed to Kuwait to fight ISIS
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:44 PM
Aug 2015
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Texans-to-help-fight-ISIS-in-September-6427056.php

Hundreds of soldiers will ship out of Texas to help fight the Islamic State group next month.

The U.S. Army announced Wednesday that 450 members of III Corps at Fort Hood will spend one year in Kuwait, helping orchestrate ongoing fighting in the Middle East.

"We are trained and ready to perform our mission and we thank our Central Texas community partners for their unwavering support as we answer the call once again," said Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, commanding general of III Corps at Fort Hood.

The troops will work at central command of the Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve and will help lead the international coalition in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Navy Capt. Jeff Davis called the deployment a routine rotation to replace U.S. troops on the ground.

In June, the White House authorized the deployment of up to 450 American troops to the fight against ISIS, despite previously claiming the U.S. would put no boots on the ground.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
12. The Fake War on ISIS: US and Turkey Escalate in Syria By Eric Draitser
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:50 PM
Aug 2015
http://journal-neo.org/2015/08/02/the-fake-war-on-isis-us-and-turkey-escalate-in-syria/

It is late July 2015, and the media is abuzz with the news that Turkey will allow US jets to use its bases to bomb Islamic State (ISIS) targets in Syria. There is much talk about how this development is a “game-changer,” and how this is a clear escalation of the much ballyhooed, but more fictional than real, US war on ISIS: the terror organization that US intelligence welcomed as a positive development in 2012 in their continued attempts to instigate regime change against the Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad.

The western public is told that “This is a significant shift…It’s a big deal,” as a US military official told the Wall Street Journal. What the corporate media fail to mention, however, is the fact that Turkey has been, and continues to be, a central actor in the war in Syria and, consequently, in the development and maintenance of ISIS. So, while Washington waxes poetic about stepping up the fight against the terror group, and lauds the participation of its allies in Ankara, the barely concealed fact is that Turkey is merely further entrenching itself in a war that it has fomented.

Of equal importance is the simple fact that a “war on ISIS” is merely a pretext for Turkey’s military engagement in Syria and throughout the region. Not only does Turkey’s neo-Ottoman revanchist President Erdogan want to flex his military muscles in order to further the regime change agenda in Syria, he also is using recent tragic events as political and diplomatic cover for waging a new aggressive war against the region’s Kurds, especially Turkey’s longtime foe the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK).

In this way, Turkey’s recent moves should be seen as merely a new phase of its engagement in the regional war that it has helped foment. Contrary to western corporate media talking points, Turkey has not just recently become actively engaged in the conflict; Ankara has merely shifted its strategy and its tactics, moving from covert engagement to overt participation....

... Within hours of announcing the new phase of the war, Turkish forces were bombing Kurdish targets in Syria and Iraq, effectively declaring war on both countries, in blatant violation of international law, to whatever extent such a thing still exists....

MORE
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
13. Does Obama Have Legal Right to Defend Syrian Rebels With Air Force? State Dept. Can’t Answer By RT
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:52 PM
Aug 2015

IF YOU HAVE TO ASK THE QUESTION---THE ANSWER IS "NO!"



“I frankly don’t know what the legal authority is,” Toner said, adding that the situation in Syria remains “complex and fluid.”

Critics are questioning what exact authority the White House has to go ahead with the mission after minimal consultation with the UN Security Council?
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
14. The Brookings Institute Plan to Liquidate Syria By Mike Whitney
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:55 PM
Aug 2015
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/05/the-brookings-institute-plan-to-liquidate-syria/

Here’s your US foreign policy puzzler for the day: When is regime change not regime change?

When the regime stays in power but loses its ability to rule. This is the current objective of US policy in Syria, to undermine Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s ability to govern the country without physically removing him from office. The idea is simple: Deploy US-backed “jihadi” proxies to capture-and-hold vast sections of the country thereby making it impossible for the central government to control the state. This is how the Obama administration plans to deal with Assad, by making him irrelevant. The strategy is explained in great detail in a piece by Michael E. O’Hanlon at the Brookings Institute titled “Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war”. Here’s an excerpt:

“…the only realistic path forward may be a plan that in effect deconstructs Syria….the international community should work to create pockets with more viable security and governance within Syria over time… The idea would be to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able. American, as well as Saudi and Turkish and British and Jordanian and other Arab forces would act in support, not only from the air but eventually on the ground via special forces. The approach would benefit from Syria’s open desert terrain which could allow creation of buffer zones that could be monitored for possible signs of enemy attack. Western forces themselves would remain in more secure positions in general—within the safe zones but back from the front lines—at least until the reliability of such defenses, and also local allied forces, made it practical to deploy and live in more forward locations.

Creation of these sanctuaries would produce autonomous zones that would never again have to face the prospect of rule by either Assad or ISIL….

The interim goal might be a confederal Syria, with several highly autonomous zones… The confederation would likely require support from an international peacekeeping force….to make these zones defensible and governable, to help provide relief for populations within them, and to train and equip more recruits so that the zones could be stabilized and then gradually expanded.”

(“Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war“, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings Institute)

Isn’t this the basic gameplan that is unfolding in Syria today?

Notice how O’ Hanlon never considers the moral implications of obliterating a sovereign nation, killing tens of thousands of civilians, and displacing millions of others. Those kinds of things simply don’t matter to the pundits who concoct these imperial strategies. It’s just grist for the mill. Notice, also, how the author refers to “buffer zones and “safe zones”, the same terms which have been used repeatedly in relation to Turkey’s agreement with the US for the use of Turkey’s Incirlik air base. Turkey wants the US to assist in the creation of these safe zones along Syria’s northern border to protect it from attack and to create a sanctuary for the training so called “moderate” militants to be used in the war against ISIS. As it happens, these prospective safe zones are a vital part of O’Hanlon’s broader plan to break the state into a million disconnected enclaves ruled by armed mercenaries, al Qaida affiliates, and local warlords. This is Obama’s dream of a “liberated Syria”, an anarchic failed state sprinkled with US military bases where massive resource extraction can take place unimpeded. What Obama wants to avoid at all costs, is another embarrassment like Iraq where the removal of Saddam created a security vacuum that led to a violent and protracted revolt that cost the US dearly in terms of blood, treasure and international credibility. That’s why he’s settled on the present strategy which he thinks is a smarter way to achieve the same objectives. In other words, the goals haven’t changed. The only difference is the methods. Here’s more from O’Hanlon:



“The plan would be directed not only against ISIL but in part against Assad as well. In a bow to reality, however, it would not explicitly seek to overthrow him, so much as deny him control of territory that he might still aspire to govern again. The autonomous zones would be liberated with the clear understanding that there was no going back to rule by Assad or a successor. In any case, Assad would not be a military target under this concept, but areas he currently controls (and cruelly bombs) would be. And if Assad delayed too long in accepting a deal for exile, he could inevitably face direct dangers to his rule and even his person.”

(“Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war”, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings Institute)


What does this mean?

It means that Syria is going to be the testing ground for O’Hanlon’s new regime change strategy, a strategy in which Assad is going to be the number one guinea pig. And just so there isn’t any misunderstanding about the real aim of the operation, O’ Hanlon makes this rather stunning admission:

“This plan would differ from current strategy in three main ways. First, the idea would be plainly stated as the avowed goal of the United States….. It would also help dispel the lurking suspicion that Washington was content to tolerate the Assad government now as the lesser of two evils.”

(“Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war”, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings Institute)


So the administration should abandon the pretense that the US is conducting a war on ISIS and just admit openly that ‘Assad’s got to go.’ According to O’ Hanlon that would help to smooth things over with other members of coalition who are confused about Washington’s real intentions. Here’s more from O’ Hanlon:

“…multilateral support teams, grounded in special forces detachments and air-defense capabilities as needed, would be prepared for deployment into parts of Syria once opposition elements were able to seize and reliably hold strong points…..This last part would of course be the most challenging, and the actual deployment of any such teams the most fraught. It need not be rushed….But it’s a necessary part of the effort.” (“Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war”, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings Institute)


Translation: There’s going to be US boots on the ground in Syria. You can bet on it. While it’s okay to deploy the jihadi cannon fodder to lead the charge and “soften up” the enemy; eventually, you have to send in the A Team to seal the deal. That means special forces, a countrywide no-fly zone, forward operating bases, and a ginned-up propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the sheeple that Syria must be destroyed in order to defend US national security. All of this will unfold in Phase 2 of the Syria war fiasco which is about to intensify by many orders of magnitude.

MORE
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
9. Russia files UN claim over vast swathe of Arctic
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:41 PM
Aug 2015

MIGHT BE THE ONLY WAY TO ENSURE THAT NO NATION CLAIMS IT....

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-files-un-claim-over-vast-swathe-arctic-135134141.html

Russia pressed a claim at the United Nations Tuesday for an additional 1.2 million square kilometres (463,000 square miles) of Arctic shelf, stepping up a race for the region's hydrocarbon and mineral wealth.

In a submission to back a 2001 claim at the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, Russia said research showed it had rights over the swathe -- an area the size of South Africa.

This would include the North Pole and potentially give Russia access to an estimated 4.9 billion tonnes of hydrocarbons, according to government estimates.

The Arctic has become a theatre for rival claims over a sea floor believed to be rich in minerals, oil and gas.

Under international law, a country has exclusive economic rights over the continental shelf within a 200-nautical-mile (370-kilometre) radius from its coast.

However Arctic nations have been jostling to claim greater areas.

They have been spurred by the shrinkage of Arctic sea ice, which opens up the potential for new transport routes and mineral and energy exploitation.

Russia says extensive research spanning several years proves its continental shelf extends far beyond the 200-nautical-mile radius.

Its claim includes the Mendeleev Rise as well as the Lomonosov Ridge, which Denmark and Canada also say is theirs. Russia argues they, like the North Pole, are part of the Eurasian continent.

Russia previously submitted a claim to the UN commission in 2001 but was told it lacked supporting scientific data. MORE

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
15. Europe Moves to Cut Risk in $505 Trillion Derivatives Market
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:57 PM
Aug 2015

DID THE VAMPIRE SQUID SUCK THE WRONG FACE?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-06/europe-moves-to-reduce-risk-in-505-trillion-derivatives-market

Banks and investors in the European Union will have to send trades of some interest-rate swaps to a third party under new rules intended to make financial markets safer.

The banks and major investors that hold the derivatives will have to use a third party called a clearinghouse to process their trades, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement on Thursday.

“There’s been quite a long delay in getting the European Union to the end point in mandatory clearing,” said Emma Dwyer, a partner at law firm Allen & Overy LLP in London. “People should be reasonably content with this. It hasn’t changed the scope of contracts that are covered and the compromises that were worked out along the way have been largely observed.”

The Group of 20 nations in 2009 mandated clearing for many swaps contracts in an attempt to reduce the damage that would be caused by a major financial institution defaulting on its payments.

“Today we take a significant step to implement our G-20 commitments, strengthen financial stability and boost market confidence,” said Jonathan Hill, the EU commissioner for financial services. “This is also part of our move toward markets that are fair, open and transparent.”

Banks have traditionally traded interest-rate swaps between themselves in over-the-counter, or off-exchange, transactions. By redirecting these transactions to a clearinghouse, the derivatives market should become safer. If a counterparty goes bust, the clearinghouse will spread the losses incurred between all its member firms. Companies have to post collateral with clearinghouses to use them.

MORE

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
16. Why American Teens Aren't Working Summer Jobs Anymore
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 10:00 PM
Aug 2015
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-07/why-american-teens-aren-t-working-summer-jobs-anymore


This was supposed to be a better year for teenagers to land summer jobs, and July has always been the peak month for such positions. Things haven't worked out that way, according to the Labor Department's latest jobs report.

On an unadjusted basis — which is probably fairer given the question is seasonal jobs — there was a 1.2 million increase in teen employment last month compared with the average for the school months of January through May. That was close to last year's tally, yet well below all but two years since the 1950s.

Worse yet, at 41.3 percent, the July labor force participation rate of teens was the lowest for the month in the post-World War II period.

The teenage summer job has been going the way of telephone booths and the cassette tape for decades. The length of the downward trend has been masked by the fact that it's hard to tease apart teen summer jobs from teen employment more generally.

Looking at the jump in the labor-force participation of teens in July over the average for the school months, it's clear that summer jobs peaked in the mid-1960s and have been sliding since.

What gives?

1. This generation is lazy

Or, as Northeastern University labor economist Alicia Modestino puts it: "Some teens are doing other stuff" like coding camp, foreign travel or beaching it. Modestino said that the Census Bureau regularly asks teens who aren't working or looking for work whether they want a job. She said the share who answered "yes" fell to 9.5 percent in 2012 from 12.6 percent in 2000.

This is only a partial explanation, however. There are only so many families affluent enough to afford to have their kids not work.

2. Typical teen jobs are drying up

"Think Blockbuster," said Modestino. The movie rental stores employed a lot of teenagers, but have been crushed by competition from Netflix Inc. and on-demand video.

At the same time, other businesses that traditionally provided summer jobs for teens are on the rise. For instance, the latest jobs report shows restaurant and bar employment has climbed by 376,000 over the past year.

3. Teens face competition

Modestino and other labor economists believe that the single-biggest explanation for the decline is that teenagers face stiff competition for what were once summer jobs from other workers, especially immigrants.

A 2009 Federal Reserve study concluded that, for every 10 percent increase in the number of immigrants, the work hours of native teenagers fall by as much as 3.5 percent.

"Employers can choose from a larger pool of relatively unskilled adults with more job experience than teenagers and that's what they're doing," said Gary Burtless, a labor economist with the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

YEAH, HARD TO BEAT OUT YOUR GRANDPARENTS IN THE LABOR POOL....
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
17. Folks, in the face of yet another stupid, senseless and doomed to failure war
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 10:07 PM
Aug 2015

I cannot do any justice to Nagasaki. Please forgive me, long-departed ancestors of my Japanese exchange student daughters....

MattSh

(3,714 posts)
18. $60 Trillion of World Debt in One Visualization - Visual Capitalist
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 02:46 AM
Aug 2015

Two weeks ago, we published a post showing the world economy in one visualization. In the corresponding comments section, a user asked us if we could put together a similar visualization but instead honing in on world debt.

Today’s visualization breaks down $59.7 trillion of world debt by country, as well as highlighting each country’s debt-to-GDP ratio using colour. The data comes from the IMF and only covers public government debt. It excludes the debt of country’s citizens and businesses, as well as unfunded liabilities which are not yet technically incurred yet. All figures are based on USD.

The numbers that stand out the most, especially when comparing to the previous world economy graphic:

The United States constitutes 23.3% of the world economy but 29.1% of world debt. It’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 103.4% using IMF figures.

Japan makes up only 6.18% of total economic production, but has amounted 19.99% of global debt.

China, the world’s second largest economy (and largest by other measures), accounts for 13.9% of production. They only have 6.25% of world debt and a debt-to-GDP ratio of 39.4%.

7 of the 15 countries with the most total debt are European. Together, excluding Russia, the European continent holds over 26% of total world debt.

Combining the debt of the United States, Japan, and Europe together accounts for 75% of total global debt.


Complete story at - http://www.visualcapitalist.com/60-trillion-of-world-debt-in-one-visualization/

NOTE: The percentage number is not the all important factor. The debt-to-GDP ratio is. So the more intense the color, the higher the debt-to-GDP ratio. So the ones in most trouble are Greece and Japan, followed closely by the USA.

"

MattSh

(3,714 posts)
19. Americans have forgotten what we did to North Korea - Vox
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 03:07 AM
Aug 2015

Perhaps no country on Earth is more misunderstood by Americans than North Korea. Though the country's leaders are typically portrayed as buffoonish, even silly, in fact they are deadly serious in their cruelty and skill at retaining power. Though the country is seen as Soviet-style communist, in fact it is better understood as a holdover of Japanese fascism.

And there is another misconception, one that Americans might not want to hear but that is important for understanding the hermit kingdom: Yes, much of its anti-Americanism is cynically manufactured as a propaganda tool, and yes, it is often based on lies. But no, it is not all lies. The US did in fact do something terrible, even evil to North Korea, and while that act does not explain, much less forgive, North Korea's many abuses since, it is not totally irrelevant either.

That act was this: In the early 1950s, during the Korean War, the US dropped more bombs on North Korea than it had dropped in the entire Pacific theater during World War II. This carpet bombing, which included 32,000 tons of napalm, often deliberately targeted civilian as well as military targets, devastating the country far beyond what was necessary to fight the war. Whole cities were destroyed, with many thousands of innocent civilians killed and many more left homeless and hungry.

For Americans, the journalist Blaine Harden has written, this bombing was "perhaps the most forgotten part of a forgotten war," even though it was almost certainly "a major war crime." Yet it shows that North Korea's hatred of America "is not all manufactured," he wrote. "It is rooted in a fact-based narrative, one that North Korea obsessively remembers and the United States blithely forgets."

And the US, as Harden recounted in a column earlier this year, knew exactly what it was doing:

"Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — 20 percent of the population," Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, told the Office of Air Force History in 1984. Dean Rusk, a supporter of the war and later secretary of state, said the United States bombed "everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another." After running low on urban targets, U.S. bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops.

Complete story at - http://www.vox.com/2015/8/3/9089913/north-korea-us-war-crime


The North Korean capital of Pyongyang. At bottom, the city in 1953, after an estimated 75 percent of it was destroyed by US bombing. At top, the city in 1964 after reconstruction. (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty)
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
22. I'm feeling a bit faint at that report
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 07:52 AM
Aug 2015

I was born shortly after the Korean war, and never heard much of anything about it. (None of my family participated.) Now I know why. Not only did the US not win, it violated everything the patriots fought for, for themselves....and treated Koreans like they did the American Indians.

It is this inability to see other humans as human, with human rights, that is the downfall of this Great Experiment called America. It is a failure rooted in the culture, not in the government system. It is a basic failure of personality.

It takes great leadership to fix a culture...and we are sorely lacking in that.

MattSh

(3,714 posts)
25. Yep...
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 08:19 AM
Aug 2015

And the current system is designed to weed out potential leaders from participating in politics, leading to the current clown car debacle and Hillary, the preordained.

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
34. So true
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 09:07 AM
Aug 2015

The whistleblowers who do speak out about fraud and corruption, are marginalized and sent to prison. No politician is going to do that.

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
35. It isn't just North Korea
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 09:27 AM
Aug 2015

The U.S. empire has bombed many countries around the world killing thousands, maybe millions of innocent people. I doubt these countries have forgotten what our nation has done to them. Yet, all we hear is USA, USA, USA.

MattSh

(3,714 posts)
20. And you thought Greece had a problem? | Collapse of Industrial Civilization
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 03:33 AM
Aug 2015

While we might think of money as supporting our economy, only energy can support the solvency of a nation, and only surplus energy can fulfill the aspirations of its rulers and the desires of its citizens. Until the advent of the industrial revolution, and in particular the universal availability of cheap oil, that energy could only come from territory that could produce sufficient food and other essentials for any level of civilized living. We might ‘demand’ that our leaders provide new hospitals, schools, roads and all the other things that make life comfortable, but without the necessary surplus energy to do it, it is impossible. No political posturing or promises or taxation can change that.

Most deny it, but we live in an energy economy, not a money economy. Without the continually increasing forward thrust of energy input, no economy can exist in the context that we have become used to.

Not just the Greeks, but those charged with governing every nation on Earth, have lost sight of the fundamental law of collective survival: if a nation doesn’t produce enough indigenous surplus energy to support the demands of its people, they must beg, buy, borrow or steal it from somewhere else, or face eventual collapse and starvation until their numbers reach a sustainable level.

Our lifestyle support system has been based on that premise since prehistory. Nomadic tribesmen, probably in the region of present day Iraq, had the bright idea of fixing borders around land, then growing their food supply instead of chasing after it. Fences and borders meant land could be owned and given value that could be measured in energy terms.

What we know as civilization is based on that simple concept. Land and its potential energy became capital, and our genetic forces ensured it was exploited to the full. Primitive farmers knew nothing of calorific values, or capitalism; only that too little food meant starvation, sufficient food averted famines, and surplus food offered prosperity. No one wanted to starve, few were content with sufficient, so the drive for surplus became relentless. It still is; only the scale has changed, it has become the profit motive in everything we do. Everybody wants a payrise, few refuse one. We are all capitalists, we differ only by a matter of scale.

Enclosed land needed strong control and the will to fight for it. Strength prevailed while weakness went under as resource competition ebbed and flowed across tribal territories. If land produced enough spare food and other necessary commodities, it was possible to equip and feed an army, and use it to occupy more territory. In that way collective energy could rapidly roll up small territories into a nation or an empire, create warlords and kings, and give credence to gods who were invariably on the winning side.

Complete story at - http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2015/07/29/and-you-thought-greece-had-a-problem/

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
23. There are two paths to energy surplus: Production and Conservation
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 07:57 AM
Aug 2015

and this country doesn't do enough of either. If we did use the sunlight, wind and water that falls upon us by virtue of location, and didn't waste it on stupid things like:

Indy 500 and other pointless sports
Advertising
Excessive, mindless Paperwork
Rentiers of Financial Pirate class
Profiteering in what should be public utilities: transport, health care, banking, etc
and WAR

we would be the richest, most advanced nation on earth. Instead, we are in the thrall of looters who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

MattSh

(3,714 posts)
21. Pope Francis’s ‘attendance’ at GOP debate is going to help sink the party - MarketWatch
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 04:49 AM
Aug 2015

This is page 2 of the article. The link below takes you to page 1.

by Paul Farrell

Pope’s 10 new commandments are direct threat GOP’s conservative values

So why’s his agenda so threatening? Based on the pope’s Vatican Climate Summit, he’ll reaffirm “human-induced climate change is a scientific reality,” which the GOP categorically denies. But most important, he’ll reinforce his 10 anticapitalist commandments from his core “Apostolic Exhortation.” Here’s the core message driving Pope Francis’s global revolution to save the world from “the dung of the devil,” out-of-control capitalism. So it’s time for Congress to listen closely to the man in the white suit:

1. Capitalists ... are new worshipers of the biblical golden calf
Pope: “Money must serve, not rule, yet we calmly accept its control over us. Money originated in a profound human crisis, the denial of the primacy of the human person. The worship of the ancient golden calf has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money.”

2. Invisible hand of God ... replaced by greedy hands of capitalism
Pope: “Never trust in the so-called ‘invisible hand’ of the markets and economic remedies like cutting workers to increase their profits. The world needs a better distribution of income.”

3. New Tyranny ... capitalists are destroying democracy worldwide
Pope: “Ideologies increase the wealth of a minority exponentially, increasing the inequality gap, separating the most humans from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. A new tyranny is thus born, unilaterally and relentlessly imposing its own laws and rules.”

4. Trickle-down economics ... is a total capitalist disaster
Pope: “Free market trickle-down economics causes injustice. A naïve trust in the culture of prosperity and those wielding economic power deadens society.”

5. Inequality ... is the root cause of all ‘social ills’ in the world
Pope: “Inequality is the root of social ills. Help the poor, reject markets and speculation, attack the structural causes of inequality, or you will never solve the world’s problems.”

6. Consumerism ... is out-of-control, destroying family/social values
Pope: “Today’s economics promotes inordinate consumption, increases inequality, damages the social fabric, increases violence and serious conflicts. Blaming the poor and poorer countries for their troubles is misplaced, solve the corruption spreading at the top.”

7. Competition ... capitalist addiction to profits is killing morality
Pope: “The laws of capitalist competition, the survival of the fittest rule. The powerful feed upon the powerless, the vast majority are marginalized: No work, No opportunities. No escape. News is a two-point loss in stocks, but not the death of elderly homeless?”

8. Conservatism ... encourages free destruction of natural resources
Pope: “In a world where everyone has their own subjective truth, citizens cannot develop common solutions that transcend personal ambitions. We need a new way of living and thinking that’s more humane and noble, that brings dignity to all humans on this earth.”

9. Exploitation ... treating humans as mere economic commodities is sin
Pope: “Yes, humans are now consumer goods, used then discarded in our widespread throwaway culture. It is no longer about oppression and exploitation. Today, the excluded ones are no longer society’s underside, no longer even a part of it, but outcasts, leftovers.”

10. Capitalism has lost its moral compass, turned its back on God
Pope: “Behind capitalist economics lurks a rejection of ethics and God that debases humans. This lack of morality and ethics results in God calling for solutions outside marketplace economics, to make it possible for a more balanced and humane social order.”

Bottom line: Pope Francis is now the world’s moral conscience, as well as leader of a new peoples revolution. Francis is seen by billions worldwide as a revival of the moral values missing in today’s world because of our obsessive consumerism, self-centered wealth-building, and an out-of-control capitalist ideology with no moral conscience ... so Rush isn’t the only conservative going bonkers ... because Pope Francis’s new commandments really are an historic game-changing challenge to the core conservative values if the Republican Party.

Complete story at - http://www.marketwatch.com/story/pope-franciss-attendance-at-gop-debate-is-going-to-help-sink-the-party-2015-08-05

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
24. I cannot argue with him
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 08:00 AM
Aug 2015

Which is a great relief, to have someone with power on the good side of an argument...even if his power is more honored in the breach than accepted and respected.

Thing is, is he setting himself up for crucifixion?

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
26. RETURN OF THE LOCUSTS
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 08:26 AM
Aug 2015

Sounds like the title of a B movie? Alas, it is all too true.

Locust swarms plague southern Russia

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/04/europe/russia-locust-swarms/

VIDEO CLIP AT LINK OF LOCUST SWARM AT LINK

Millions of locusts have descended on farmlands in southern Russia, devouring entire fields of crops and causing officials to declare a state of emergency in the region.

A vast area of at least 800,000 hectares is currently being affected as the swarms of insects, each measuring about 8 centimeters long, annihilate fields of corn and other crops.

It's been more than 30 years since this part of southern Russia suffered such a dense plague of locusts, according to local officials.

Officials say at least 10% of crops have already been destroyed, and the locust feeding frenzy is far from over, threatening to devastate the livelihoods of local farmers...


IS THIS THE PROGRESSION OF THE SWARM IN ISRAEL 2 YEARS EARLIER?

Locust swarm of biblical proportions strikes Egypt, Israel before Passover

http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/04/17185324-locust-swarm-of-biblical-proportions-strikes-egypt-israel-before-passover?lite

VIDEO CLIP AT LINK

Three weeks before Passover, a plague of locusts is swarming from Egypt to Israel, sparking fears among farmers in the region.

The timing of the insect invasion is eerie, because the Bible's Book of Exodus tells of 10 plagues that hit Egypt before Moses and the Jews were allowed to leave for the Promised Land. A plague of locusts was the eighth on the list — but Pharaoh didn't relent until the 10th plague, which killed off all of Egypt's firstborn sons. Every year at Passover, Jews commemorate how they were spared.

This time, even the Israelis are worried that the locusts are out to get them. "They may not have ruined Pharaoh, but they could ruin us," one farmer, Tzachi Rimon, told Israel's Channel 10 TV.

Locust swarms have the potential to wipe out agricultural crops, and it's been eight years since such a serious assault has hit Egypt's Cairo region and Israel, said Keith Cressman, the senior locust forecasting officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's headquarters in Rome....


HERE'S A PRACTICAL SOLUTION...

Eating locusts: The crunchy, kosher snack taking Israel by swarm

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21847517

Israel is in the grip of a locust invasion. Farmers are seeing their crops gobbled up in minutes - and some people are taking a novel approach to pest control. Eating them.

Rabbi Ari Zivotofsky's children have been busy in the kitchen. On the menu… breaded locust, and chocolate-covered locust. Mmmmmm.

Israel is dealing with a locust emergency. For the last two weeks, the skies in the south have been swathed in a moving carpet of the swarming insects. Locusts eat their bodyweight in food every day. And they have been chomping their way through fields of potato and maize. They are showing little sign of letting up. And a few, like Zivotofsky's unlucky locusts, are now landing up in heavily populated areas, like Tel Aviv.

Call it revenge, or just a practical killing of two birds with one stone - whatever the motivation, many Israelis have decided to cook them up, and eat them.

They taste very nice, I can tell you!
Arnold van Huis, Scientist


Locust is the only insect which is considered kosher. Specific extracts in the Torah state that four types of desert locust - the red, the yellow, the spotted grey, and the white - can be eaten...


THE US HAD LOCUST SWARMS...REMEMBER LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE? FROM 2 WEEKS AGO...

Weather radar detects swarm of bugs over Texas

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/23/us/feat-weather-radar-bugs-texas/

Nothing seemed unusual Wednesday when the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Norman, Oklahoma, picked up what appeared to be rainclouds over western North Texas.

Nothing unusual ... except the clouds weren't rain.

"We didn't have any clouds yesterday to form anything like that," said Jonathan Kurtz, a meteorologist at the Norman Forecast Office. "Our first indication was some kind of biological feature."

What the radar was picking up was bugs, lots and lots of them. Grasshoppers and beetles were flying between the ground and 2,500 feet, covering an area of about 50 miles...


WHY? AND WHY NOW?

Locust Swarms Switched On by Brain Chemical

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090129-locusts-swarm_2.html

...In the laboratory, Rogers and colleagues tickled the hind legs of insects in solitary mode with paintbrushes for two hours, which simulated jostling from fellow locusts.

As the bugs became gregarious—a term to describe swarm tendency—scientists found the amount of serotonin in their bodies spiked. Though serotonin has a wide range of roles in animals and plants, Rogers said, it generally impacts how animals perceive and interact with their environment. In humans, for instance, low serotonin levels are linked to depression.

Because locusts usually avoid each other, it's only dire circumstances that bring them together in buzzing hordes. For instance, unpredictable desert rains cause vegetation blooms, which in turn makes locust populations skyrocket. But as the rains abate and fertile land shrivels up, locusts crowd together in the remaining green patches. Eventually, the swarm trigger goes off and the locusts take to the skies—"a strategy of desperation driven by hunger," said Rogers, whose study appears tomorrow in the journal Science.

The weakened insects are largely carried by the wind, which takes them to regions of low atmospheric pressure where it's more likely to rain again.

Not Black and White

Rogers and colleagues don't know if other locusts, or other swarming species, experience the same serotonin spike. But the new study may help countries most devastated by crop swarms to develop more effective control methods, Rogers pointed out.

The current strategy for most countries is to observe locust behavior, wait for them to become gregarious, and then kill them with pesticides. Based on this new discovery, people could instead spray a compound on the gathering locusts that blocks their serotonin receptors and thus prevents them from swarming, the study authors note.

"I think there is wide appreciation for having something more specific to locusts than indiscriminate application of pesticides," Rogers said.

But simply thwarting gregariousness is not so black and white, said Keith Cressman, senior locust forecasting officer for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, Italy. That's because locust-control teams will actually have more difficulty killing off locusts if they're not in organized swarms. ...


AND THERE ARE OTHER TECHNIQUES IN DEVELOPMENT

Nitrogen fertiliser 'could prevent locust swarms'

http://www.scidev.net/global/earth-science/news/nitrogen-fertiliser-could-prevent-locust-swarms-.html

A surprising finding promises a cheap and environmentally friendly way of controlling locust swarms, a major plague that devastates crops around the world.

Land erosion caused by heavy livestock grazing promotes locust swarms by lowering the nitrogen content in plants that locusts feed on, according to a study published in Science today (27 January).

Conversely, the study also found that locusts do not thrive on nitrogen-rich food, as previously thought, but are in fact hampered by it.

"Nitrogen fertiliser — which plants use to make protein — may be an inexpensive, more environmentally friendly pest control solution for this species," said the lead author Arianne Cease, a researcher at Arizona State University, United States.

Most herbivores, including insects, are thought to be limited by the availability of nitrogen-rich protein in their diets. But scientists were surprised to find that this is not the case for Oedaleus asiaticus, a dominant locust of the north Asian grasslands and a close relative of the common African pest O. senegalensis.

The Chinese–US team studied the locusts at the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Field observations found that locusts were less likely to survive in fields that were fertilised with nitrogen, and their density was highest in the most heavily grazed fields — which were dominated by plants with low nitrogen content. Laboratory experiments showed that locusts preferred to eat plants with low nitrogen content.

"This is the first time it has been shown that Oedaleus locusts strongly prefer to consume low- nitrogen plants from heavily grazed plots," Kang Le, a locust expert at CAS's Institute of Zoology and a co-author of the study, told SciDev.Net.


Since heavy livestock grazing in Mongolia leads to a loss of topsoil and nitrogen, this also means that overgrazing may promote locusts outbreaks, according to the study. "With enhanced soil erosion, locust swarms could become more common," Cease said.

The habitat studied by the researchers is typical of the Eurasian grasslands that cover much of Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, and some of northern India. But researchers say that their findings might also apply in other regions with locust swarms...


AND OF COURSE, THERE ARE THE USUAL "CLIMATE CHANGE" ACCUSATIONS OF CAUSATION..

OTHER RESOURCE LINKS:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_locust

http://www.fao.org/ag/locusts/en/info/info/faq/
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
27. Tougher Rules Can't Repair Banking's Broken Culture By Clive Crook
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 08:40 AM
Aug 2015
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-03/tougher-rules-can-t-repair-banking-s-broken-culture?cmpid=yhoo

Successful economies need healthy banks. In 2008, the errors of the U.S. banking system crashed the global economy. Seven years later, the recovery in the U.S. and elsewhere is still tepid -- and the failure to get the financial system working as it should is one reason why.

Financial rule-makers haven't been idle, but that might be part of the problem. In the U.S., it's argued that the Dodd-Frank Act's financial reforms have increased the regulatory burden -- especially on smaller banks -- so much that lenders can't support new businesses the way they should. There's probably something in this. Another criticism, also plausible, is that the post-crash financial reforms have failed to mend the banking industry's defective culture and hence repair its reputation. Banks can't do what they're supposed to unless they're trusted. Reputational capital matters, both for the banks' long-run success as businesses and for the wider economy.

A study just published by the Group of Thirty looks in some detail at this question. (The G30 is a club of financial luminaries including former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker; former European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet; William Rhodes, for many years a top executive at Citigroup; and Roger Ferguson, President of TIAA-CREF and a former Fed Vice Chairman.) Discussions about banking culture are hard to push beyond platitudes about high standards and integrity, but the study is concrete about where banks are falling short and what managers and supervisors need to do. The problem, according to the study, isn't so much in stating the goal. Most banks understand, or say they understand, the concept of reputational capital; most are trying, or say they are trying, to reverse the collapse in trust in their industry that followed the crash. Yet banks often treat these efforts as separate from their main job -- an add-on, rather than a critical task. The study contrasts two approaches to raising standards:

The first positions the challenge as core to the economic viability of the institution, rather than a regulatory issue. The second views the challenge as defensive, with the aim of minimizing future client redress, regulatory fines and costs of compliance. This study finds that no more than a third [of banks reviewed] are in the former category.

Fostering trust demands a pervading culture of doing the right thing even if the rules don't require it. When serious money is at stake, that's a tall order. Leaders therefore have to live that principle, not just talk about it. Exhortation won't suffice, least of all from mid-level managers marking time while the most talented bankers are assigned to more important work. CEOs need to set up systems to watch for behavior, especially by senior executives, that might harm the bank's reputation; when they see such behavior, they must punish it -- and visibly. The report draws on research and interviews and offers practical advice for setting up such systems.

What about outside oversight? The report stresses the distinction between supervision and regulation. You need both, but they can often be at odds. Relying too much on rules rather than principles can create a narrow compliance mindset: If something isn't explicitly forbidden, it's all right. The result is perverse. Finding ways to get around the rules becomes praiseworthy.

Culture, says the report, is crucial -- but it can't be regulated, rule by rule. However, it can be monitored and guided.

YEAH, SURE...WHY NOT JUST MAKE BANKING A PUBLIC UTILITY, WHERE THE DRUG OF HIGH REWARDS AND THE JOLT OF GAMBLING IN STOCKS IS REMOVED AND CIVIL SERVICE STANDARDS ARE SET?
MORE AT LINK
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
28. Berkshire profit falls 37 percent on investment, insurance slump
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 08:49 AM
Aug 2015

NOW THAT EVEN WARREN BUFFETT ISN'T MAKING MONEY--CAN WE CALL IT A DEPRESSION?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/07/us-berkshire-results-idUSKCN0QC29G20150807?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc said on Friday its second-quarter profit fell 37 percent, reflecting a significant decline in investment gains and an underwriting loss from insurance operations, which include Geico. Net income for the Omaha, Nebraska-based insurance and investment company fell to $4.01 billion, or $2,442 per Class A share, from $6.4 billion, or $3,889 per share, a year earlier. Operating profit dropped well below analysts' forecasts, declining 10 percent to $3.89 billion, or $2,367 per share, from $4.33 billion, or $2,634 per share, despite improvements at the BNSF railroad and Berkshire Hathaway Energy units. Analysts on average expected operating profit of about $3,038 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Revenue rose 3 percent to $51.37 billion. Book value per share, Buffett's preferred measure of growth, rose 2 percent from the end of March to $149,735.

Net investment and derivative gains plummeted 94 percent to $123 million from $2.06 billion a year earlier, when Berkshire shed its 40-year stake in former Washington Post publisher Graham Holdings Co. The most recent quarter included losses on contracts betting on long-term gains in major stock market indexes. Accounting rules require Berkshire to report investment and derivative gains and losses with earnings. Buffett considers the amounts in any given quarter irrelevant, and not reflective of Berkshire's business performance.

GEICO WEAKENS

Earnings from insurance, Berkshire's best-known operating sector, fell 39 percent to $939 million, and included a $38 million underwriting loss versus a year-earlier $411 million profit. Much of that weakness stemmed from the Geico car insurance unit. Its pretax underwriting gain fell 87 percent to $53 million, as it paid out more of the premiums it collected to cover losses from accidents. Berkshire is boosting premium rates as a result.

Meanwhile, a Berkshire business that insures against major catastrophes suffered a $411 million pretax underwriting loss, reflecting currency fluctuations and a storm loss in Australia. Berkshire has been paring back in some insurance areas, particularly reinsurance, as new investors enter the industry, reducing the premiums that Berkshire can charge.

"Everyone is chasing the business," said Jeff Matthews, a principal at the hedge fund Ram Partners.

"Outside of insurance," he added, "things look fine."

KRAFT HEINZ

Profit from BNSF rose 5 percent to $963 million as improved operating performance offset lower demand to ship petroleum products, reflecting lower crude oil prices, and fertilizer.

Berkshire Hathaway Energy, a utility mostly owned by Berkshire, saw profit rise 34 percent to $502 million, helped by higher retail rates and a lower income tax rate.

Berkshire has more than 80 operating businesses in such sectors as insurance, energy, food, industrial products and railroads.

As of June 30 it also owned $117.7 billion of stocks such as Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) and Coca-Cola Co (KO.N). It bought $3.09 billion of equities in the quarter, without identifying the companies.

The company estimated it will take a $7 billion non-cash pretax gain in the third quarter related to its 26.9 percent stake in Kraft Heinz Co (KHC.O). Berkshire took that stake in early July after backing the purchase of Kraft Foods Group Inc by H.J. Heinz Co, which Berkshire and Brazilian private equity firm 3G Capital acquired in 2013. The stake is worth about $25.5 billion, more than double what Buffett has said was Berkshire's $9.5 billion investment.

Berkshire has the ability to make more big acquisitions, having ended the quarter with $66.59 billion of cash.

The company also has dozens of smaller businesses that sell, among other things, Benjamin Moore paint, Borsheim's jewelry, Dairy Queen ice cream, Fruit of the Loom underwear, Johns Manville insulation and See's candies.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
29. Cyprus church 'disposes assets' to pay 100 mn euro loans
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 08:53 AM
Aug 2015
http://news.yahoo.com/cyprus-church-disposes-assets-pay-100-mn-euro-190931238.html

The Church of Cyprus, heavily hit by the country's financial crisis two years ago, will dispose of assets to help pay off 100 million euros owed to banks, its head said Friday.

Archbishop Chrysostomos II told state radio: "We made deals with the banks, and we are ready to give them some property, so that we can repay our debts and... start investing."


He did not say what banks were involved, nor did he explain whether the assets he referred to were collateral against loans or property that would be sold in order to pay them off. The church, part of the worldwide Orthodox communion, is the largest landowner on the eastern Mediterranean island, and it has business interests that range from the hotel industry to beer and wine-making. Chrysostomos said the church got into debt because of its heavy investment in the Cypriot banking sector, which had to be rescued in 2013 as part of a 10-billion-euro ($10.9 billion) international bailout of the nearly bankrupt country.

"We believed in the banks. We invested in banks continuously, and in the end they collapsed,” Chrysostomos said.


The church's businesses have also suffered from a three-year recession, with an official saying it has lost income from various sources such as rent and dividends, making it harder to fulfil its loan obligations.... Chrysostomos said the church is focusing on investing its wealth in the key tourism industry. This would include enlarging a hotel in the popular coastal party resort of Ayia Napa from November. It is also eyeing much larger projects in other areas and needs to raise liquidity.

I DON'T KNOW ABOUT YOU, BUT I THINK THIS CHURCH IS RIPE FOR A MARTIN LUTHER....
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
30. Incurable American Excess BY Roger Cohen NYT COLUMNIST
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 08:57 AM
Aug 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/07/opinion/roger-cohen-incurable-american-excess.html

A few years ago, Americans and Europeans were asked in a Pew Global Attitudes survey what was more important: “freedom to pursue life’s goals without state interference,” or “state guarantees that nobody is in need.” In the United States, 58 percent chose freedom and only 35 percent a state pledge to eradicate neediness. In Britain, the response was the opposite: 55 percent opted for state guarantees and just 38 percent for freedom. On the European Continent — in Germany, France and Spain — those considering state protection as more important than freedom from state interference rose to 62 percent.

This finding gets to the heart of trans-Atlantic differences. Americans, who dwell in a vast country, sparsely populated by European standards, are hardwired to the notion of individual self-reliance. Europeans, with two 20th-century experiences of cataclysmic societal fracture, are bound to the idea of social solidarity as prudent safeguard and guarantor of human decency. The French see the state as a noble idea and embodiment of citizens’ rights. Americans tend to see the state as a predator on those rights. The French ennoble the dutiful public servant. Americans ennoble the disruptive entrepreneur...

AND NEITHER IS A SOLUTION...THEY HAVE THE EUROZONE, WE HAVE WALL ST BANKSTER ELITES

NEITHER OF US HAS DEMOCRACY
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
31. Opinion: Why Donald Trump is rich and you’re not
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 09:02 AM
Aug 2015
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-donald-trump-is-rich-and-youre-not-2015-07-27?siteid=YAHOOB

Donald Trump is rich. Really, really rich. And you’re not. And there’s a very simple reason.

No, it’s not because he works harder than you. It’s not because he’s smarter, tougher or better informed either. It’s not because he has mastered “the art of the deal.” It’s not because he dreams bigger than you. It’s not because he’s a “winner” and you’re a “loser.” It’s not even that he had a rich daddy, and you didn’t (although that helps).

Donald Trump is rich, and you’re not, because he knows one the biggest secret to making a fortune, and you don’t. The secret? Other people’s money. The fastest and surest way make money these days is by getting your hands on other people’s money — and then putting it to work for you. It’s really that simple.

Trump borrowed billions from bankers and used the money to put up buildings like Trump Tower and open casinos like the Taj Mahal. In his books, Trump says that by the early 1990s he owed more than $9 billion. When things turned sour his companies filed for bankruptcy. Twice. The lenders had to eat the losses. Too bad. What a bunch of losers!

He then raised more money from bankers, bondholders and even stockholders along the way. On two more occasions his companies filed for bankruptcy. Lenders and investors got hosed...

YUP, IT'S THE LOOTER'S GAMBIT
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
33. The Hurrieder I go, the Behinder I get
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 09:06 AM
Aug 2015

and I am really behind, this week. See you all tonight! Demeter

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
36. Went to the farmer's market
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 03:31 PM
Aug 2015

with friends...girls' afternoon. Came home, made 2 qts strawberry-rhubarb compote, 3 strawberry pies, and a lb of fried mushrooms. Did dishes, laundry, cat box, the outside of the stove (Kid poured chicken gravy all over it), and the floor underneath it. I am tired.

Only half of what I wanted to do. Sigh.

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
39. I wish I could do the Kurds justice
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 03:37 AM
Aug 2015

They have lived under such conditions of domination, disunity and dispersal as to be under the radar for centuries, struggling to survive as empires raged around them. They never had permanence anywhere in land, leadership, or any social construct, even religion or language.

Read through this wiki post for the best material I've found so far...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurds

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
40. American Storyteller Helping Preserve Kurdish Tales
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 03:42 AM
Aug 2015
http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/turkey/07012014

In southeast Turkey, in some of Kurdistan's oldest villages, time-honored tales of warriors, heroes and princesses are at risk of being lost forever.

Legends like the one about the Herculean Rostem-e-Zal have been around for centuries, but aren't widely known outside small communities.

A ban in Turkey preventing Kurds from reading or writing their own language was only lifted in 1992 and has put the Kurdish storytelling tradition at risk. As the elder Kurds who once told the stories pass away, and without new generations of Kurdish speakers and readers, fables like Shahmaran -- half snake, half woman -- will disappear.

American Diane Edgecomb is working to preserve these rich, vivid tales through an oral history project. Edgecomb, an author and master storyteller based in Boston, tours the US, performing at schools, universities and festivals and has even woven her own stories. Her interest in the Kurdish culture began in 1999, while accompanying a colleague on a project in Italy...


 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
41. Greece and Oil And America: And you thought Greece had a problem?
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 03:51 AM
Aug 2015

READ THE WHOLE THING...IT IS ILLUMINATING AND THOUGHT-PROVOKING!

http://collapseofindustrialcivilization.com/2015/07/29/and-you-thought-greece-had-a-problem/

...Not just the Greeks, but those charged with governing every nation on Earth, have lost sight of the fundamental law of collective survival: if a nation doesn’t produce enough indigenous surplus energy to support the demands of its people, they must beg, buy, borrow or steal it from somewhere else, or face eventual collapse and starvation until their numbers reach a sustainable level....

Possession of land and what it produces is the hidden support of what we now understand as our economy and the viability of our infrastructure. Conflict makes that economy even more profitable and one that is built on power and aggression provides the potential for endless resource warfare, whether bloody or political. In 1941 Germany invaded Greece using the bloody version. In 2015 Greece is experiencing the political version. As a small weak country Greece lacks the resource strength to resist...

Who needs oil? Keynesian economics says that perpetual growth will come through passing bits of coloured paper or plastic from hand to hand at an ever-faster rate. The leaders of every advanced industrial nation are driven to promise this kind of ‘growth’ to their people, for no better reason than because there has always been growth, so our future will be growth driven too; they and we know no other way. We believe the lie that money itself has taken on an intrinsic worth of its own.

The Greeks fiddled their accounts, joined the EU and accepted the common currency of the Euro and the collective certainty of the money-driven nature of growth, at a time when oil was $25 a barrel. With oil so cheap, any concern about indigenous energy sources was irrelevant. They had a world class (oil dependent) shipbuilding and sea transport industry, and (oil dependent) tourism was booming. In the late 90s, when oil had fallen to $18 a barrel, they borrowed $11 billion to buy still more energy to burn in order to stage the 2004 Olympic games. Greek prosperity depended on infinite supplies of hydrocarbon fuel, but they followed the common belief in infinite money. When the price of oil peaked in 2008, the crash was inevitable. The certainty that money represented wealth was destroyed by the price of oil, but they borrowed billions more to try to prove it hadn’t. Any reason was better than reality: that you can’t run a cheap energy economy on expensive energy.

The latest clutch of Greek politicos got themselves voted into office because they told the Greek people what they wanted to hear
: that prosperity could be voted into office, as if the availability of indigenous energy within their borders was a matter of political choice. Alexis Tsipras believed the Keynesian fantasy and convinced himself that borrowed money put into endless circulation will generate wealth and ‘growth’. $11 billion spent on the now derelict Olympic stadium should have served as a warning, but it didn’t...

The Greeks are not money-bankrupt, they are energy-bankrupt. But so is every other nation, to a greater or lesser degree. Saudi Arabia is in a worse state of energy bankruptcy than the poverty stricken Greeks, they just don’t know it yet.

MORE

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
42. Another post on the same theme of Energy and Civilization
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 04:00 AM
Aug 2015
The Cimmerian Hypothesis, Part Three: The End of the Dream

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-cimmerian-hypothesis-part-three-end.html

There are any number of ways to sort out the diversity of human social forms, but one significant division lies between those societies that don’t concentrate population, wealth, and power in urban centers, and those that do. One important difference between the societies that fall into these two categories is that urbanized societies—we may as well call these by the time-honored term “civilizations”—reliably crash and burn after a lifespan of roughly a thousand years, while societies that lack cities have no such fixed lifespans and can last for much longer without going through the cycle of rise and fall, punctuated by dark ages, that defines the history of civilizations...


I THINK IN THIS THOUGHTFUL OPINION PIECE, A GLIMPSE OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE KURDS AND THE EUROPEANS IS STARKLY DELINEATED:

THE KURDS WERE NOMADIC, UNSETTLED, LIVING OFF THE LAND AND CLOSE TO THE LAND.

THEY DIDN'T HAVE THE INTEREST OR RESOURCES TO BUILD A NATION/CIVILIZATION/FOOTPRINT.

AND PEOPLES THAT DID, LIKE THE TURKS, HAVE BEEN TRYING TO SUBSUME OR WIPE THEM OUT FOR GENERATIONS, AND MAY FINALLY SUCCEED.
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
44. Chinese Textile Mills Are Now Hiring in Places Where Cotton Was King
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 04:53 AM
Aug 2015

THE US IS BEING RECOLONIZED--BY CHINA!

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/business/chinese-textile-mills-are-now-hiring-in-places-where-cotton-was-king.html

Twenty-five years ago, Ni Meijuan earned $19 a month working the spinning machines at a vast textile factory in the Chinese city of Hangzhou.

Now at the Keer Group’s cotton mill in South Carolina, which opened in March, Ms. Ni is training American workers to do the job she used to do.

“They’re quick learners,” Ms. Ni said after showing two fresh recruits how to tease errant wisps of cotton from the machines’ grinding gears. “But they have to learn to be quicker.”

Once the epitome of cheap mass manufacturing, textile producers from formerly low-cost nations are starting to set up shop in America. It is part of a blurring of once seemingly clear-cut boundaries between high- and low-cost manufacturing nations that few would have predicted a decade ago....

THERE ARE NO WORDS, AND NO PUNISHMENT SEVERE ENOUGH FOR THIS

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
45. KURDS UNDER ATTACK: The U.S. picked the wrong ally in the fight against Islamic State
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 05:41 AM
Aug 2015

THE CYNIC WITHIN ASKS: "DID THEY REALLY? OR IS THERE SOMETHING WE DON'T KNOW ABOUT AT PLAY?" AFTER ALL, TOO MUCH INCOMPETENCE FOR SO MANY YEARS AT STATE DEPT. BEGINS TO LOOK LIKE A CONSPIRACY...INTENTIONAL, I MEAN.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/08/03/the-u-s-picked-the-wrong-ally-in-the-fight-against-islamic-state/

When Turkey finally agreed to join U.S.-led efforts to fight Islamic State, Ankara was supposed to make the battle against the extremist group more effective. Yet within days, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, bombed not just Islamic State forces but also, with even greater fervor, the one group showing some success in keeping them at bay: the Kurds.

The United States miscalculated by bringing in Erdogan. Turkey’s embattled and volatile leader looks far less interested in combating Islamic State than in reclaiming his power at home. Erdogan’s personal agenda, however, cannot be allowed to alienate U.S. partners and prolong the conflict.

Washington’s first priority here should be to preserve its constructive alliances with Kurdish groups in the fight against Islamic State. It must also prevent Turkey from further undermining the key strategic goal of defeating the jihadists.

So U.S. officials should be taking a far stronger stance against Erdogan’s attacks on the Kurds. One complicating factor is that both Ankara and Washington have labeled the target of Turkish operations — the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — a terrorist organization. But there are related Kurdish organizations that U.S. leaders can and should approach, publicly reassure and privately work with to maintain their cooperation against Islamic State...

BETCHA IT DOESN'T HAPPEN

 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
46. Going Bankrupt Like Trump Did Is for High Rollers, Not Homeowners
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 06:13 AM
Aug 2015
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/08/07/going-bankrupt-like-donald-trump-high-rollers-homeowners/

Donald Trump took advantage of the nation’s bankruptcy laws four times in the last 24 years, and if ordinary Americans in this country were allowed to do the same, the country would be in markedly better shape economically, with a far stronger post-recession recovery.

Asked during Thursday night’s Republican presidential debate whether his four corporate bankruptcies were a black mark on his economic stewardship, Trump sounded a bit defensive. “I have never gone bankrupt,” he said, making a distinction between a personal and a corporate bankruptcy, and anyway it was only four times among “thousands” of deals.

But he said flatly: “I have used the laws of this country just like the greatest people that you read about every day in business have used the laws of this country, the chapter laws, to do a great job for my company, for myself, for my employees, for my family, et cetera.”

Trump is absolutely correct. Every lending contract in America has the potential for bankruptcy lurking in the background. Lenders — who as Trump said “aren’t babies” but “total killers” — are sophisticated enough to know about this option when they lend people money. In fact, they not only assume the risk of bankruptcy, but price it into the deal when they lend Donald Trump or anyone else money....
 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
47. US pledges $68mn NATO investment into Estonian military bases
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 06:15 AM
Aug 2015

US pledges $68mn NATO investment into Estonian military bases

DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
48. How Closely Connected are the Most Powerful Corporations in America?
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 07:16 AM
Aug 2015

another interesting graphic from the Visual Capitalist





8/4/15 How Closely Connected are the Most Powerful Corporations in America?
Conspiracy theorists allege that the world’s most rich and powerful people have secret meetings at places like Bilderberg or Bohemian Grove, or that one can find rooms on Wall Street or in DC where world-changing deals go down amidst a cloud of cigar smoke.

While there is still debate as to the true extent of the above claims, even the most skeptical of us can agree that the most powerful executives between Wall Street and the biggest corporations in America are intimately connected. Government officials are also in that web, but that’s a project for another day.

The above visualization looks at the directors of 30 of America’s largest publicly traded corporations on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Of this group, there are a grand total of three companies that do not share board members with other companies in the index.

All other companies have board members like Ronald Williams or Kenneth Chenault, who connect the dots. Williams used to run Aetna, but now sits on the boards of Boeing, Johnson & Johnson, and American Express. Chenault is the CEO and chairman of American Express, but also sits on the boards of IBM and Procter & Gamble.

Looking at the company-level, one can easily see a corporation such as Exxon Mobil having two connections with American Express, or single connections to JP Morgan, Walmart, Merck, Caterpillar, and Traveler’s Insurance.
http://www.visualcapitalist.com/how-closely-connected-are-the-most-powerful-corporations-in-america/





DemReadingDU

(16,000 posts)
49. When A Train Wreck Is No Accident
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 07:41 AM
Aug 2015

8/8/15 When a Train Wreck Is No Accident by Jeff Thomas

Never in history have the economic and political structures been so manipulated by those who are responsible for their safekeeping; never has so much been at stake, in so many countries, and facing collapse, all at the same time.

The great majority of people in the First World recognise that the world is passing through an economic crisis. However, most are under the impression that there are some pretty smart fellows running the show and all they need to do is tweak the system a bit more and we’ll return to happy days.
Not so. The “smart fellows” who are in charge of fixing the problem are in fact the very same people who created it.

Understandably, this a hard concept for most people to even consider, let alone accept, as the very idea that those in charge of the system might consciously collapse it seems preposterous. So, we might wish to back up a bit here and present a very brief history of the system itself, in order to understand that the eventual collapse of the economic system was baked in the cake from the very beginning.
.
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The End Game

The next step in getting ready for the collapse is an all-out effort to confiscate the wealth of the public. This can be seen in the effort to push investors away from solid forms of wealth protection such as gold and silver and into stocks, bonds and bank deposits. More recently, we’ve seen the emergence of an effort to end the use of safe deposit boxes and a push to end the use of paper currency in making transactions.

The end objective is to force as much money as possible into deposits in banks, then take it. The US, EU and a few other countries have passed confiscation legislation, allowing the banks carte blanche to confiscate and/or refuse to release deposits.

Of course a reset of these proportions will not be without its fallout. The public will be horrified at the outcome, at the realisation that the very institutions they thought had been created to protect them had never been intended to serve their interests at all.

Once they realise that the world’s greatest Ponzi scheme has been foisted on them, they will be hopping mad and justifiably so. Those who had not had the foresight to internationalise themselves, to remove themselves as much as possible from the system, will most certainly want to get even in some way.

And this makes clear why governments, particularly that of the US, are working so hard to create a police state. Unless a totalitarian state can be created, those who are presently taking the wealth may not be able to fully realise their objectives.

The coming train wreck is no accident. It has long been planned. That the “smart fellows in charge” will somehow save the day is therefore a vain hope indeed.

It’s still possible to back out of the system, but it’s getting more difficult every day. The window is closing, and the time to internationalise is now.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-08-08/when-train-wreck-no-accident
or
http://www.internationalman.com/articles/when-a-train-wreck-is-no-accident


 

Demeter

(85,373 posts)
50. Life is what takes you by the throat and drags you off into the brush to be eaten alive
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 10:14 AM
Aug 2015

and so it goes....don't think I'll be back before SMW. Enjoy the Sunday!

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