*** 10-Jul-13 World View -- Large car bomb explodes in pro-Hezbollah area of Lebanon

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Afghan Taliban closes its Qatar office as negotiations fail
• U.S. is considering the 'zero option' for Afghanistan pullout
• Pakistan warns of protracted civil war in Afghanistan
• Japan accuses China of using military force over Senkaku islands
• Large car bomb explodes in pro-Hezbollah area of Lebanon
• Bond market appears to be collapsing

****
**** Afghan Taliban closes its Qatar office as negotiations fail
****


Afghan Taliban office in Doha, Qatar (Al-Jazeera)

On Tuesday, the Afghan Taliban finally closed its office in Doha,
Qatar, which was supposed to be used as the site of "peace
negotiations" with the U.S. and the government of Afghanistan. The
office opened on June 18, and negotiations were to start with a couple
of days. But the negotiations collapsed the next day, because Afghan
president Hamid Karzai was furious that the Taliban displayed a plaque
calling it the office of the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," and
displayed the Taliban flag. Qatari officials demanded that the plaque
and flag be taken down, but then the Taliban were angry. So now
the office is closed.

Recall that the U.S. Administration was so desperate to get the Afghan
Taliban to have peace talks, they dropped the preconditions announced
last year by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: They must
forego suicide attacks and violence, they must sever ties with
al-Qaeda, and they must accept Afghanistan's constitution, including
protections for women and minority. The Taliban rejected all of these
demands, and the Administration have acquiesced. So, while all this
talk about "peace negotiations" has been going on for the last few
weeks, the Taliban have been bombing innocent people in Kabul,
Afghanistan's capital.

As I've written dozens of times in the last few years, there is no
chance of a "peace process" in Afghanistan. The easiest way to see
that is a comparison with Iraq, where President George Bush's "surge"
was a factor in the successful peace treaty that allowed the U.S. to
withdraw. Iraq's last generational crisis war was the Iran/Iraq war,
climaxing in 1988 -- an EXTERNAL war, where the Iraqis, Sunnis and
Shias alike, united to fight the Iranians. But Afghanistan's last
crisis war was the genocidal civil war of 1992-96 -- an INTERNAL war,
pitting the Pashtuns in southern Afghanistan against the the Northern
Alliance, an alliance of Tajiks and Hazaras in northern Afghanistan.
Furthermore, the Taliban are Sunni Islamist Pashtuns, occupying a
large region starting in Afghanistan, through the tribal area, and
deep into northwestern Pakistan, which is in a generational Crisis
era. These are major differences that make an Afghanistan peace
process impossible, and the whole attempt to negotiate peace with the
Taliban a farce.

Nonetheless, the State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki made another
ridiculous statement on Tuesday:

<QUOTE>"We believe that misunderstandings that arose in the
context of the opening [of the office] should not stand in the way
of moving forward on reconciliation if the Taliban wishes to do
so. We'll continue to support and reiterate our call for that
process to move forward."<END QUOTE>

Well, Jen, you just go ahead and keep on reiterating that, and let's
see if the process moves forward. Al-Jazeera and VOA

****
**** U.S. is considering the 'zero option' for Afghanistan pullout
****

The White House says that President Barack Obama is considering the
"zero option," pulling all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan by the end
of 2014, rather than leave a small residual force behind to help
prevent a Taliban takeover. According to reports, Obama and Afghan
president Hamid Karzai are in such vitriolic disagreement that Obama
has decided to threaten the zero option.

As I wrote in "Barack Obama in Berlin calls for greater European militarism"
during his 2008 campaign,
Obama made a victory in Afghanistan a big part of his plan:

<QUOTE>"This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to
rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and
the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes
war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my
country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO's first mission
beyond Europe's borders is a success. For the people of
Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done.
America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops
and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the
Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them
rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back
now."<END QUOTE>

Well, it looks like we're going to turn back now. VOA

****
**** Pakistan warns of protracted civil war in Afghanistan
****

Unnamed Pakistan officials criticized Hamid Karzai's handling of the
so-called Taliban "peace negotiations," and warned that Afghanistan
would plunge into a prolonged civil war if the negotiations failed.

This is completely wrong. Afghanistan is entering a generational
Awakening era, and so a new crisis civil war is impossible or, if one
begins, it will fizzle quickly. Afghanistan had a crisis civil war
from 1991-96, and there are too many survivors who lived through the
massacres and atrocities committed to and by their families and
friends, and will not allow anything like that will happen again.

What appears to be on the horizon is a disaster similar to America's
withdrawal from Vietnam in 1974, when Viet Cong forces overran South
Vietnam, causing America's first defeat in war, and leading to the
massive "killing fields" holocaust in Cambodia. The situation in
Afghanistan is made worse by the fact that it's apparently going to be
impossible for America to remove ten years of weapons and supplies
from Afghanistan, because the country is land-locked, so some of those
weapons may well fall into the hands of the Taliban.

But there won't be a civil war. The Taliban will take over in
Afghanistan, and there'll be no one there to stop them. After that,
Afghanistan's war will become a proxy war, pitting fighters from
Pakistan and Central Asia. Pakistan Today

****
**** Japan accuses China of using military force over Senkaku islands
****

Japan's Defense Ministry issued a white paper for 2013 accusing China
of air and sea activities the Senkaku / Diaoyu islands that are
"dangerous actions that could cause a contingency situation." The
statement reflects widespread concern that a miscalculation by either
Japan or China could spark a nationalist response that could lead to a
wider war. The white paper also mentions the threats from North Korea
in the form of nuclear missiles that could reach Japan or the
U.S. mainland. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government is facing
elections in two weeks, and Abe is supporting revisions to Japan's
pacifist constitution to allow for a more aggressive Japanese
military. Japan Times

****
**** Large car bomb explodes in pro-Hezbollah area of Lebanon
****

Over 50 people were injured on Tuesday when a massive car bomb
explosion hit a pro-Hezbollah Shia suburb south of Beirut in Lebanon.
Sectarian Sunni versus Shia violence has been increasing in Lebanon,
ever since Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Iran-backed
Hezbollah terrorist group, announced that Hezbollah fighters would
aggressively support the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad
in the over two-year old civil war / proxy war. Nasrallah's
announcement has triggered rising sectarian Sunni versus Shia
throughout the Mideast. Daily Star (Beirut) and Al-Manar (Beirut)

****
**** Bond market appears to be collapsing
****


Bond market collapse (Bloomberg)

The above chart shows that money has been flowing out of stocks into
bonds for the last five years. But the red bar on the far right shows
that the bond market has been collapsing in the last month, but the
money is NOT going back into stocks. This reflects the fact that bond
yields (interest rates) have surged in the U.S. and in eurozone
nations since May 1.


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Afghanistan, Taliban, Doha, Qatar,
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai,
Jen Psaki, zero option, Pakistan, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Japan, China, Senkaku, Diaoyu, Shinzo Abe,
Beirut, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,
bond market

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I expect Japan to construct a nuclear deterrent.

*** 11-Jul-13 World View -- Russia tries a ridiculous sarin gas scam for Syria

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Egypt shifts Mideast power from Qatar to Saudi Arabia and UAE
• Russia tries a ridiculous sarin gas scam for Syria

****
**** Egypt shifts Mideast power from Qatar to Saudi Arabia and UAE
****

The ouster of Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi, along with the collapse
of Muslim Brotherhood, has also brought about a collapse of Qatar's
influence in the Mideast. Oil-rich Qatar has provided $7 billion in
aid to Egypt in the year of Morsi's presidency, and had also been
funding the Muslim Brotherhood faction in Syria of the rebels opposing
the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. In both cases, the
support has now backfired. In Syria, the opposition has elected a new
Saudi-linked leader. The Qataris have not said whether they will
continue to provide aid to Egypt under its new government (whatever
that turns out to be), but Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and
Kuwait have each promised to provide $4 billion in aid in the coming
months. AFP and Reuters

****
**** Russia tries a ridiculous sarin gas scam for Syria
****

The Syrian and Russian governments have told so many ridiculous lies
since the beginning of Syria's conflict over two years ago, that
almost anything either of them say is considered to be babbling
gibberish. The latest is a grand announcement by Russia's U.N. envoy
Vitaly Churkin that Russian scientific analysis had found that a sarin
gas attack on March 19, killing 26, had been launched by Syria's
opposition, rather than by the Bashar al-Assad regime. Unfortunately,
everyone but Russian "experts" were forbidden from visiting the site
of the sarin attack. In particular, United Nations experts were
forbidden from visiting the site. So the Russian "experts" went in
and collected their samples, took them back to Moscow, did some
"analysis" in their secret lab, and made their announcement.

I'm constantly criticizing the utter stupidity of policies in
Washington and Europe, but policies in Moscow are just as idiotic.
We're beginning to see the outline of disastrous consequences of the
Syria policy of Russia's president Vladimir Putin, which has been
motivated mainly by a desire to screw the West. The Syrian conflict
would have collapsed two years ago if Russia hadn't started supplying
all kinds of heavy weapons to the al-Assad regime's forces. There
have stories that I've reported that jihadists from the North Caucasus
(Russia's southern provinces) have been going to Syria to fight the
al-Assad regimes. So these Caucasian jihadists are getting training
and field experience fighting Russian weapons and probably Russian
military tactics in Syria, and they will return home and use these
same tactics to fight against the Russians at home, and blow up more
Russian opera houses and airplanes. This is where Putin's moronic
policy is leading, and silly scams about sarin gas only make him look
ridiculous. AFP

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Muslim Brotherhood,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait,
Russia, sarin gas, Vitaly Churkin, Vladimir Putin

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*** 12-Jul-13 World View -- Egypt's opposing factions plan rival demonstrations on Friday in Cairo

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Bosnia commemorates the 1995 Srebrenica massacre
• Egypt's opposing factions plan rival demonstrations on Friday in Cairo
• Paranoid Russian agencies are seeking old-style typewriters

****
**** Bosnia commemorates the 1995 Srebrenica massacre
****


A Bosnian Muslim survivor of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, mourns a relative in a casket buried on Thursday (AFP)

Over 15,000 people attended Thursday's commemoration of the 1995
Srebrenica massacre. During the commemoration, Bosnia buried 409
victims of the Srebrenica including a newborn baby. Srebrenica is
considered the worst genocide in post-war Europe (See "27-May-11 News -- Europe cheers the capture of Ratko Mladic, the butcher of Srebrenica"
) At least
8,300 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys who had sought safe haven
at the U.N.-protected enclave at Srebrenica were killed by Orthodox
Christian Serbs under the leadership of General Ratko Mladic. Mladic
is still considered a hero by many Serbs, who say that no crime was
committed, as he was just defending Serbs. Mladic coined the phrase
"ethnic cleansing" in the early 1990s to describe his program of
extermination of the Bosniaks. Mladic's genocide and war crimes trial
in The Hague was suspended indefinitely in 2012. former Bosnian Serb
leader Radovan Karadzic is also on trial in The Hague, facing 11
charges related to genocide and war crimes.

Genocidal acts like the Srebrenica massacre are the core events of
generational theory. These genocidal acts, which occur as the climax
of a generational crisis war, are so horrible, for both the
perpetrators and the victims, for both the victors and the losers,
that both sides are traumatized for life, and they vow to spend the
rest of their lives making sure that nothing like that happens again.
As the decades pass, there may be low-level violence, non-crisis wars,
riots and rebellions, but nothing on the level of the genocidal acts
that climaxed the previous crisis war. Finally, the survivors of that
war all die off, and there's a new crisis war, climaxing in a new act
of genocide, and the cycle repeats again.

People talk as if the Srebrenica massacre was unique since World War
II, but in fact there have been numerous genocides since then. Just
to name a very few, there was the Cambodian "killing fields" genocide
of millions in the late 1970s; there was the massacre of Palestinian
refugees in camps in Sabra and Shatila in 1982 in Lebanon; there was
the massacre of the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda in 1994; there was
the Iran/Iraq war that climaxed with WMDs in 1988; there was the
Darfur genocide of the 2000s decade, where the horrific climax is yet
to come. And let's not forget that Burma (Myanmar) is building up to
a mass genocide of Muslims by Buddhists, as we've been reporting
frequently.

Despite attempts to make genocide "illegal," and then to hold silly
"war crimes" trials, the fact is that genocide is really not so
strange. In fact, it's as much a part of being human as sex is. When
there isn't enough food to feed two nations, then they fight over
existing resources, often with the intent of each to exterminate the
other. Genocidal warfare and wars of extermination are necessary for
"survival of the fittest" in human evolution. Without both sex and
genocidal warfare, human beings would not exist today. That's the
cycle of life. AFP and CS Monitor

****
**** Egypt's opposing factions plan rival demonstrations on Friday in Cairo
****

It's Friday again, and that means Friday midday prayers in Muslim
countries, after which mobs of people pour out of the mosques with
plans either to go shopping or to hold demonstrations. On Friday, the
faction that opposed president Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim
Brotherhood part will hold demonstrations in one part of Cairo, while
those demanding a reinstatement of Morsi as president after his ouster
will be holding their own demonstrations in another part of Cairo.
These rival demonstrations have led to violence in the past, the worst
such incident being the deaths of 50 pro-Morsi demonstrators, mostly
from police live fire, on Monday earlier this week. All sides are
calling for peaceful demonstrations, and it's hoped that a repeat of
Monday's violence, or any violence, will be avoided. Al-Ahram (Cairo)

****
**** Paranoid Russian agencies are seeking old-style typewriters
****


Presumably a Russian agent typing on an electric typewriter (RT)

Russian agencies that guard president Vladimir Putin have ordered 20
electric portable typewriters, and related ink and supplies, for a
total cost of $15,000. The typewriters must have both Cyrillic and
English letter keys, and must be delivered by August 30. Many people
are assuming that this is a security measure triggered by the theft of
secret information by Edward Snowden, who is presumably still holed up
at the Moscow airport. The theory is that the Russians want to use
the typewriters for top secret memos and make sure that no one can
steal them electronically, particularly over the internet. However,
Russia's Ministry of Defense says that Russian agencies have been
using typewriters for years, and that the new order for typewriters is
to replace old equipment that was simply out of date.

Hey guys, you don't need typewriters. Have your technicians take an
ordinary computer and remove all the communications hardware and
software and all the ports, and then install an old-fashioned printer
port connected to a cheap printer. That should work. Russia Today and Spiegel


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Srebrenica, Bosnia, Ratko Mladic,
Cairo, Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood, Mohamed Morsi,
Russia, Vladimir Putin

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*** 13-Jul-13 World View -- Israel and Egypt cooperate against terrorists in Sinai

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Israel and Egypt cooperate against terrorists in Sinai
• War breaks out between anti-Assad rebel factions in Syria

****
**** Israel and Egypt cooperate against terrorists in Sinai
****


Map of Sinai (Economist)

Since the beginning of the Egypt's revolution and the overthrow of
Hosni Mubarak over two years ago, violence has been growing in Egypt's
Sinai region, on the border with both Gaza and Israel. There have
been numerous attacks on Egyptian security personnel, as well as
rocket attacks on Israel, fueled by Islamist terrorists coming from
Gaza, and by anger and discontent among the native Bedouins.
Whatever the political turmoil in Egypt or Israel, all of that is put
aside and the two countries are cooperating closely to fight Sinai
terrorism.

Hamas, which governs Gaza, have been bitterly disappointed by the
revolution. Mubarak had been kept the Gaza/Egypt border firmly under
control. Hamas had hoped that with Mubarak gone, the border would be
opened -- and it was for a while. These hopes were doubled when
Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, as Hamas was
originally an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. But the increasing
terrorist activity in Sinai has trumped everything. Except for brief
periods of reprieve, Egypt has closed the Rafah border crossing that
allows the passage of people and goods between Gaza and Egypt. Not
only that, but Egypt's army has closed more than forty major smuggling
tunnels along the border that Gazans have been using to smuggle people
and goods back and forth.

The Sinai situation has deteriorated significantly in the two
weeks since the ouster of Mohamed Morsi. Jihadists from
Gaza, as well as Salafi jihadists from Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood,
have been targeting Egyptian and Israeli assets, and Egypt's
new interim government has responded by firmly shutting down
all traffic between Gaza and Egypt. On Friday, an Egyptian
helicopter crossed over into Gaza airspace -- supposedly by
accident, but quite possibly as a show of force against
Hamas.

Egypt opened the Rafah crossing two days ago, but closed it again on
Friday for security reasons. There are 1.7 million Palestinians
living in Gaza, and the closing of the Rafah crossing and the
smuggling tunnels has led to an acute shortage of food and goods in
Gaza, particularly fuel. The increasing violence in Sinai makes it
just one more of the many Mideast flash points that could spiral out
of control at any time. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Debka and Jamestown and Economist

****
**** War breaks out between anti-Assad rebel factions in Syria
****

As the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, allied with
Iran-sponsored by the Hezbollah terror group and supplied with an
unending stream of heavy weapons from Russia, continues its bloody
assault on the people of Syria, a conflict is breaking out between two
of the opposition rebel factions. A Syrian rebel commander with the
Free Syrian Army (FSA) has been shot and killed by another rebel group
consisting of jihadists from al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra. There
has been escalating violence between the two groups, fighting over the
spoils of war. However, it looks increasingly like an al-Assad
victory is approaching, and in that case neither of the rebel groups
will get its way. Al-Jazeera and BBC


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Israel, Egypt, Sinai, Mohamed Morsi,
Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Gaza, Hosni Mubarak, Bedouins,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Jabhat al-Nusra,
Free Syrian Army, FSA

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*** 14-Jul-13 World View -- War between Syria's rebel groups threatens wider proxy war

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Unnamed U.S. officials name Israel as Latakia, Syria, attacker
• War between Syria's rebel groups threatens wider proxy war
• Russia stages largest military drills in post-Soviet era

****
**** Unnamed U.S. officials name Israel as Latakia, Syria, attacker
****


Smoke rises in the city of Latakia.(Reuters)

On Friday, July 5, mysterious explosions struck a big Syrian arms
depot in Latakia, destroying large supplies of Russian weapons,
including advanced radars and cruise missiles. The explosions are a
big setback to the regime of Bashar al-Assad and its planned attack on
Aleppo. However, the source of the explosions was unknown, and some
suspected a terrorist group aligned with al-Qaeda.

Israel has remained quiet about the explosions, but now unnamed
U.S. officials have leaked to CNN that the explosions were caused by
Israeli airstrikes. Israel is denying the U.S. reports, saying, "It
has been a long time that we are not intervening in Syria's bloody
war."

Israel has struck Syrian weapons supplies in the past, and has been
warned by the al-Assad regime and by Hezbollah that any further
attacks would risk drawing retaliation in the form of a new warfront
against Israel through the Israeli border in Golan. CNN and Debka

****
**** War between Syria's rebel groups threatens wider proxy war
****

The unexpected assassination of a Free Syrian Army (FSA) commander by
the al-Qaeda linked Jabhat al-Nusra, and threats of revenge by FSA
leaders, is signaling a kind of "side war" between rebel groups in
Syria that almost guarantees a victory by the regime of president
Bashar al-Assad.

But the dithering by the West in general and the U.S. in
particular in making a decision to provide arms to the FSA
and other secular rebels in Syria has had an ironic effect:

• The FSA is the ONLY rebel group without weapons.
  
• The al-Nusra front has been receiving weapons from al-Qaeda in
  Iraq, and from Qatar.
  
• Of course the al-Assad regime has received huge quantities of the
  deadliest and most advanced weapons from Russia, which has been freely
  supplying these weapons to Syria and lying about them, while using its
  U.N. Security Council veto to prevent even a simple condemnation of
  al-Assad from being adopted.
  
• The Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, which has been actively
  fighting alongside the al-Assad army and was crucial to al-Assad's
  victory in Qusair, has been receiving arms and supplies from Iran, and
  according to reports has even received some of the weapons delivered
  to Syria by the Russians.

So the reason that the West has given for not supplying weapons
to the FSA and other secular rebels is that some of the weapons
might fall into the hands of al-Nusra, but since al-Nusra
is already receiving arms from outside Syria, the net result
of the Western policy is to make sure that the secular
Syrians are the ONLY group not receiving any outside weapons.

As I've written many times, Syria is in a generational Awakening era,
and there are many survivors of the massive slaughter of Sunnis by
Alawites in the extremely bloody civil war that climaxed in 1982 that
want no part of another civil war. If it were up to the Syrians
alone, then this war would have collapsed long ago. But every time it
came close, the Russians stepped in and provide a new massive supply
of heavy weapons to the regime, so that the psychopathic al-Assad
could use them slaughter and massacre innocent Sunni women and
children in the bedrooms.

So, the war is turning more and more into a true proxy war, being
fought by foreign fighters -- Hezbollah and Iranian fighters
supporting al-Assad, and al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra fighter opposing
al-Assad, with both sides being supplied with weapons by outside
countries. And according to the previous story, Israel is also
getting more heavily involved.

I blame the Russians and Vladimir Putin for this. This has been one
of the stupidest foreign policy mistakes that Putin has made. Thanks
to Putin, Syria has become a magnet for outside forces on both sides,
including al-Nusra and Hezbollah. And according to recent reports,
al-Nusra is being joined by foreign fighters from Chechnya and
Russia's Northern Caucasus, and after fighting the Syrian government,
those fighters will return to Russia and fight the Russian government.
AP and Turkish Weekly

****
**** Russia stages largest military drills in post-Soviet era
****

Russia's president Vladimir Putin has doubled the size of military
exercises to take place in Russia's Eastern Military District. There
will be 160,000 servicemen, 1,000 tanks and armored vehicles, 130
aircraft and 70 ships from the Pacific Fleet. Putin ordered the snap
drills on Friday evening, as part of a major shake-up in the military
establishment. Since the Eastern Military District is close to Syria,
some analysts have suggested that Putin called for the snap drills
because of the revelation that last week's Latakia explosions were
caused by Israeli air strikes, as described in a previous story.
However, the Russian's point out that similar drills have been held in
other military districts. Itar-Tass (Moscow) (Trans) and Ria Novisti (Moscow)

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Latakia, Israel,
Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah, Lebanon,
Free Syrian Army, FSA, Jabhat al-Nusra,
Eastern Military District
Russia, Iran, Qatar, Vladimir Putin

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*** 15-Jul-13 World View -- WHO meets to discuss MERS virus pandemic threat

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• WHO emergency meetings discuss MERS virus pandemic threat
• Pakistan Taliban sends hundreds of fighters to Syria
• Islamic State of Iraq launches multiple attacks in Ramadan

****
**** WHO emergency meetings discuss MERS virus pandemic threat
****


The Hajj, to take place in October, is considered a serious danger for triggering a MERS pandemic

The World Health Association (WHO) is meeting in emergency session
last week and this week over concerns that the Middle Eastern
Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has been showing increased
signs of spreading from human to human, and because there are
apparently a large but unknown number of relatively mild cases of MERS
that are going undetected. There have been a total of 80
lab-confirmed cases, with 44 deaths, almost all in Saudi Arabia. A
particular concern is the long incubation period -- about 12 days --
which means that someone could contract the disease and spread it to
other people for 12 days without showing any symptoms.

The Muslim world is currently celebrating Ramadan, which brings a
small number of pilgrims to Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. Of
greater concern is the Hajj, which will bring millions of Muslims from
around the world to Saudi Arabia in October for their once in a
lifetime pilgrimage. It's possible that MERS will spread among these
huge crowds of people, without the victims even realizing it until
several days after they've returned home and possibly infected other
family members. Saudi officials are advising everyone who visits
their country to wear masks, and are discussing with WHO what measures
should be taken to cope with this global threat. Dubai Chronicle and Recombinomics

****
**** Pakistan Taliban sends hundreds of fighters to Syria
****

Thanks to the stupid policies of Russia's president Vladimir Putin in
prolonging the Syria war by providing an unlimited supply of heavy
weapons to the regime of the psychopathic president Bashar al-Assad,
Syria has become a magnet for radical Sunni jihadists, anxious to
fight against al-Assad and his supply of Russian weapons. We've
reported how jihadists from Russia's southern (North Caucasus)
provinces have been going to Syria to get training and experience that
they can take back to Russia and use to attack Putin's government.
Now, new reports indicate that Pakistan's Taliban are doing the same
thing. They've set up training camps and sent hundreds of men to
Syria to join the Islamist rebels fighting against al-Assad, in a
strategy aimed at cementing ties with al-Qaeda's central leadership.
A Taliban commander says that they'll soon issue videos to describe
their victories in Syria. Reuters

****
**** Islamic State of Iraq launches multiple attacks in Ramadan
****


In the southern city of Nasriya, two car bombs left one dead and 12 injured (Reuters)

Ramadan only began on Wednesday, but since then dozens of people have
been killed in deadly attacks across Iraq. On Sunday alone, three
roadside bombs near markets in Basra killed at least 28 and left 98
others. Almost 30 more people were killed in attacks in other Iraq
cities on Sunday. There were 25 killed on Saturday. The attacks have
been launched by Sunni terrorists in the Islamic State of Iraq.
Sectarian tensions have been inflamed by the sectarian proxy war in
neighboring Syria, as sectarian Sunni vs Shia conflict spreads around
the entire Mideast. Iraq is getting closer to sectarian collapse.
Al-Jazeera


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, World Health Organization, WHO,
Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, MERS-CoV,
Ramadan, Saudi Arabia, Mecca, Medina, Hazz,
Pakistan, Taliban Syria, Bashar al-Assad,
Russia, Vladimir Putin, North Caucasus,
Islamic State of Iraq, Iraq, Nasriya, Basra

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*** 16-Jul-13 World View -- The fall of Morsi in Egypt is significant blow to Turkey

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Taliban involvement in Syria threatens Turkey's security
• The fall of Morsi in Egypt is significant blow to Turkey
• Survey finds increasing political corruption around the world
• JP Morgan advisor defrauds 82 year old grandmother

****
**** Taliban involvement in Syria threatens Turkey's security
****


Morsi supporters rally in Istanbul on Sunday (Zaman)

The new announcement that the Pakistan Taliban is sending hundreds of
fighters to Syria to join with the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra front is a
threat to Turkey's security, according to a Turkish analyst. Turkey
blames the rapid growth of al-Qaeda in Syria on the U.S. and the West
for repeatedly failing to support the secular opposition to the Bashar
al-Assad regime back in the early days of al-Assad's bloody slaughter
of women and children, when supporting the opposition might have done
some good. Instead, the West sat back and watched as Russia to
provide an unlimited supply of heavy weapons to Syria, and as
Iran-backed Hezbollah invaded Syria to support al-Assad.

But the build-up of al-Qaeda linked terrorists in Syria presents a
threat to Turkey and its more moderate Islamist government. It also
complicates Turkey's support for the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Syria,
because there's a three-way looming in Syria, with al-Assad, the FSA
and the al-Qaeda militias all opposing each other. Zaman (Ankara)

****
**** The fall of Morsi in Egypt is significant blow to Turkey
****

Will millions of people in Egypt protesting for and against the
now-ousted president Mohamed Morsi, Turkey's president Recep Tayyip
Erdogan has been concerned for months that those protests would spread
to Turkey. But the concerns grew much greater when Erdogan's ally,
Morsi, was ousted, and his Muslim Brotherhood party was driven from
power by the army. Since the ouster, Egypt's army arrested numerous
Brotherhood officials, including Morsi, froze Brotherhood funds, shut
down Brotherhood television stations, and killed dozens of Brotherhood
protesters last week in a confrontation.

For Erdogan, the problem is that none of the remaining power groups in
Egypt is a potential partner for Turkey. Erdogan's Justice and
Development Party (AKP) is considered an ally of the Muslim
Brotherhood, and so also an enemy of Egypt's army. Egypt's al-Nour
and other Salafists parties distrust Turkey for not being "Islamic"
enough, while the revolutionary and democratic forces are more allied
with the Erdogan's political opponents.

In fact, the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt has resulted in
loss of influence by Brotherhood-allied political parties throughout
the region, with the result that Erdogan has also lost influence
throughout the region.

Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned on Monday that if
"the old system" returns to Egypt, then the same thing could happen in
other countries, in a "reverse domino effect":

<QUOTE>"People or institutions from the old system could say
"in some way, the army staged a coup and it has been justified by
foreign countries – or at least they have remained silent about
declaring it illegitimate – so we can do the same then."

There are some elements that have remained from the old system in
Yemen, Tunisia and Libya. Our foremost mission is to eliminate the
possibility of making a reverse domino effect over external
legitimacy. If we all allow something wrong in Egypt, there will
be a reverse domino effect."<END QUOTE>

Davutoglu did not indicate what steps Turkey would take to accomplish
this "foremost mission."

Erdogan has seen his dreams of Turkish regional leadership go down the
drain, as Turkey now has good relations with only two of its
neighbors: Hamas in Gaza and Israel. Al-Monitor and Hurriyet (Istanbul)

****
**** Survey finds increasing political corruption around the world
****

60% of Americans say corruption has increased in the past two years,
with political parties perceived as the most corrupt institutions.
More than three-quarters of Americans say that political parties are
the most corrupt, followed by the legislature, the media, public
officials and businesses. Those surveyed said that the military,
non-governmental organizations and the education system were the least
corrupt. The survey by Transparency International found majority of
people around the world believe that their government is ineffective
at fighting corruption and corruption in their country is getting
worse. 114,000 people were surveyed in 107 countries.
Transparency International and US News

****
**** JP Morgan advisor defrauds 82 year old grandmother
****

Long-time readers of Generational Dynamics will not be surprised by
the above report that corruption is increasing in politics.
Politicians in Washington and analysts on CNBC openly lie all the
time, as I've reported frequently. But it takes a story
like this, posted in the Generational Dynamics Forum, to really bring the concept
home:

<QUOTE>"Had dinner with Mom last night. She's 82 years old
and slowly dying of skin cancer and congestive heart failure. She
was feeling fine last night. After dinner she asked me to look at
something. She shoves a Chase Bank (JP Morgan) account statement
in front of my face and asks if it looks right. I serve as her
financial advior and executor of her estate. Didn't even know she
had this account. She had rolled over a CD paying zero interest
and the bank thief rep had advised to her to put into a JPM bond
fund to "get a better yield". Since beginning of year bond fund
had lost principal due to rising interest rates, but here is the
kicker... These guys had been consistently charging her $50 a
month, yes, that's right $50 a MONTH, to "manage" her measley
account. Current balance $13,500. $600/year (4.4%) in management
fees for the privilege of losing her hard earned money? ... The
boldness of these thieves is extraordinary."<END QUOTE>

As I've been writing for years, the same people who caused the
financial crisis are still in the same jobs in JP Morgan and other
banks finding new ways to defraud people, especially older people.
Those tens of trillions of dollars in fraudulent subprime mortgage
backed synthetic securities didn't just grow out of thin air, you
know. They were created by the banks, and then sold to investors,
like this grandmother, by advisors who said that they were AAA-rated.
The Obama administration has adamantly refused to investigate and
prosecute even the most obvious of these crimes, because these same
criminals donate large sums of money to him. So none of these crooks
have gone to jail or have even lost a night's sleep. The people who
created and sold those fraudulent securities are still in the same
jobs in the same banks, finding news ways to defraud people. And why
not? Since no one is going to even investigate their crimes, they can
defraud as many people as they want, and just sit back and enjoy their
winnings and laugh at the suckers they defrauded.

If there's an older person in your life with some investments, you
should make sure that you warn that person, and provide as much
support as you can.


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Syria, Pakistan, Taliban, Turkey,
al-Nusra front, al-Qaeda, Bashar al-Assad,
Free Syrian Army, FSA, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi,
Muslim Brotherhood, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Justice and Development Party, AKP, Ahmet Davutoglu,
Hamas, Israel, corruption, JP Morgan

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*** 17-Jul-13 World View -- EU imposes sanctions on Israel for West Bank settlements

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Greece on strike amid plans to cut 25,000 civil service jobs
• Wall Street professional survey reveals widespread misconduct
• EU imposes sanctions on Israel for West Bank settlements

****
**** Greece on strike amid plans to cut 25,000 civil service jobs
****


Anguished Athens protester (Kathimerini)

Thousands of private sector employees joined civil service workers in
a 24-hour strike across Greece under the slogan, "General Strike - We
are people, not numbers." Greece is being required to cut thousands
of employees from civil service payrolls, if they're to continue to
receive bailout payments from Europe and the International Monetary
Fund. 12,500 public workers are to be placed in a so-called "mobility
pool" by September this year, giving them eight months to find work in
another department or lose their jobs, despite the fact that the Greek
unemployment rate stands at nearly 27 percent, which is double the EU
average. Greece’s two-party governing coalition faces a stern test on
Wednesday night, when MPs will vote on more than 100 articles
contained in a multi-bill of reforms that paves the way for sackings
and job transfers in the civil service. Kathimerini (Athens) and Deutsche Welle

****
**** Wall Street professional survey reveals widespread misconduct
****

According to a survey of 250 industry insiders from financial services
firms, 23% reported that they had observed or had first-hand knowledge
of wrongdoing in the workplace, 28% felt the industry does not put the
interests of clients first and 24% admitted they would engage in
insider trading if they could get away with it.

"Surprisingly," according to the survey, younger professionals on Wall
Street were significantly more likely to be aware, accept and engage
in illegal or unethical conduct than their more senior colleagues.
Among people with less than 10 years experience, 38% said they
would commit insider trading for $10 million if they wouldn't be
caught.

So here you see confirmation of several major issues that I've been
writing about for years.

First, Wall Street, like Washington, has a huge population of
people who have no ethical or moral standards whatsoever.

Second, young people -- that is, Generation-X, are substantially more
lacking in ethics and morals than older people.

Let's review briefly: Generation-X grew up at a time when feminists
were telling mothers to dump their husbands, and then go to court and
lie about domestic violence, in order to get as much money as
possible. These children grew up without fathers, except for a stream
of men in their mothers' beds, some of whom would beat or abuse them.
They would have loved to have their real fathers in their lives, but
they knew that their mothers were lying, and they saw how their
mothers lied to the divorce court and got away with it. They said to
themselves, "Hey, I can do that too!" And they grew up, went into the
financial services industry, and created tens of trillions of dollars
in fraudulent subprime mortgage backed securities, and then sold them
to older investors, the same men who had been in their mothers' beds
when they were children.

Now we have a survey that says that 38% of them are lacking in morals
and ethics, and that's not the least bit surprising. And, as I keep
pointing out, the same people are in the same jobs, still looking for
new ways to defraud people.

The third point is that they would commit these crimes "if they
wouldn't be caught," and that's exactly the situation. None of these
criminals who caused the financial crisis have been prosecuted and
sent to jail, and the young people in the survey are well aware of
this. They know that they can defraud anyone they want, just like
their mothers did, make a ton of money, laugh at the suckers they've
defrauded, and get away with it.

And why are they not being investigated and prosecuted by the Obama
justice department? Because they've used a fraction of the money they
obtained through fraud, and donated it to Obama as campaign
contributions, and Obama is returning the favor.

According to Jordan Thomas of Labaton Sucharow, which funded the
survey:

<QUOTE>"Many in the financial services industry appear to
have lost their moral compass, and younger professionals pose the
greatest threat to investors. Wall Street needs to take the first
step toward recovery and admit that it has a corporate ethics
problem, or Main Street should brace itself for more
scandals."<END QUOTE>

Well, Wall Street is not going to admit anything, and neither are any
Washington politicians. (As an aside, no one has even been fired
among the IRS employees who used taxpayer information to target
political enemies and, for all we know, personal enemies as well.)

Let's hope that there are more scandals, and it would very nice to see
some of these criminals on Wall Street and in Washington go to jail.
Labaton Sucharow and NY Times

****
**** EU imposes sanctions on Israel for West Bank settlements
****

A furious Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday angrily
rejected European Union sanctions imposed because of West Bank
settlements. The sanctions will bar any EU funding projects for
Israel in the West Bank. The guidelines require that in all signed
agreements with Brussels a clear distinction be made between Israel
and the territories it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day war -- the Golan
Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank including mainly-Arab east
Jerusalem. The aspect which has most angered Israel is the
"territorial eligibility" clause which means that from 2014, only
territories within the 1967 borders will be considered eligible for EU
funding.

According to Netanyahu's statement:

<QUOTE>"We shall not accept any external dictates on our
borders. That is an issue that will be decided only in direct
negotiations between the sides. ...

I would expect those who concern themselves with peace and
stability in the region to only debate such an issue after
resolving problems which are slightly more urgent, such as the
Syrian civil war or Iran's race to obtain nuclear
weapons."<END QUOTE>

However, Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including annexed east
Jerusalem, are viewed as illegal under international law. According
to Sweden's foreign minister: "It should not come as a surprise that
the EU supports international law in Middle East peace efforts."
AFP and Jerusalem Post


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Greece, bailout,
Wall Street corruption, Generation-X,
Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, European Union, West Bank

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*** 18-Jul-13 World View -- Russia seeks military air and naval bases in Cyprus

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Russia seeks military air and naval bases in Cyprus
• Assad supporters under attack in Lebanon
• Greece votes to lay off 27,500 civil service workers
• Iran uncovers a western 'Wall of Fire' anti-revolutionary plot

****
**** Russia seeks military air and naval bases in Cyprus
****


Russia's 'Admiral Panteleyev' destroyer moored at port of Limassol, Cyprus

As we reported on June 29, Russia
has been withdrawing all its military personnel from Syria, including
the naval base at Tartus, for months, and it was claimed that there
are no Russian military servicemen remaining in Syria, for fear of an
incident involving the Russian military that could have larger
consequences.

To make up for the potential loss of its bases in Syria, Russia is
asking Cyprus officials to set up a naval base at Limassol and an air
base at Paphos. This agreement would mark a serious escalation of
Russian capabilities in the Mediterranean, as the bases would serve as
launching ground for Russian air and naval missions throughout the
region. However, some officials are raising concerns that Russian
bases in Cyprus would be incompatible with Cyprus’ obligations
regarding cooperation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO), and Cyprus's long-time enemy Turkey is raising objections.

Cyprus and Russia have long had friendly relations. Russia has used
the naval base at Limassol for refueling in the past, and many Russian
oligarchs had stored billions of euros in Cyprus banks to take
advantage of the high interest rates. But relations between the two
countries soured earlier this year, when Cyprus accepted a bailout,
and was forced to confiscate 60% of large depositors' bank accounts,
particularly the accounts of Russian oligarchs. However, Cyprus
officials say that there is no relationship between the military and
financial issues of the two countries. Jamestown and Cyprus Mail

****
**** Assad supporters under attack in Lebanon
****

Ever since Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced that the
Lebanon terror group would be openly supporting and fighting alongside
the army of the regime of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, al-Assad
supporters in Lebanon, and even ordinary Shia civilians, have come
under attack by anti-Assad forces, causing Lebanon to experience an
"unprecedented" level of political violence. Hezbollah's military
supply routes are coming under attack, and even Hezbollah strongholds
are subject to terrorist bombings and assassinations. On Wednesday,
Mohammad Jemo, a staunch supporter of al-Assad, was shot about 30
times by an assault rifle while he was in his own home. A Syrian
national was arrested. Hezbollah officials accuse Saudis and al-Qaeda
of operating within Lebanon. Daily Star (Beirut)

****
**** Greece votes to lay off 27,500 civil service workers
****


Municipal police officers take part in anti-austerity rally outside the Greek parliament in Athens on Wednesday (AP)

Greece's parliament narrowly approved a new law early Thursday morning
that, if implemented, will lead to layoffs of 27,500 public sector
workers, mostly teachers and municipal workers, by the end of 2014.
About 5,000 Greeks holding black balloons protested outside the
parliament, chanting, "We will not succumb, the only option is to
resist." The layoffs are demanded by Europe and the IMF in return for
240 billion euros in bailouts, despite Greece's 27% unemployment rate.
The new law will put 25,000 workers into a layoff scheme by the end of
2013, giving them eight months to find another position or get laid
off. Kathimerini and AP

****
**** Iran uncovers a western 'Wall of Fire' anti-revolutionary plot
****

The Iranian Nuclear Program Strategic Studies Base has uncovered a
plot by four Western countries about a "Wall of Fire" project against
Iran. A wave of hundreds of Iranians who left the country after the
bloody crackdown on peaceful protesters in 2009 would return to Iran
to undermine President-elect Hassan Rouhani's administration and the
Principalists. The revealed plot involves three countries in Europe
and other Western countries, working with a network of the BBC and
other foreign media, along with over 100 web sites and some human
rights organizations, all of which are working against the revolution.
Critical Threats and Iran Nuclear Reports (Trans)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Cyprus, Limassol, Paphos, Russia,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah,
Turkey, Greece, Iran, Wall of Fire, Hassan Rouhani

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*** 19-Jul-13 World View -- U.S., Israeli forces on alert as Egypt begins major military action on Israel's border

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Egypt launches a major military action into Sinai on Israel border
• Israel and U.S. forces go on alert over fear of wider war
• Palestinians ask for an airport as Kerry pursues farcical 'peace process'
• Thousands of Russians protest over conviction of Putin opponent
• Espionage suspect Edward Snowden may be trapped in Russia

****
**** Egypt launches a major military action into Sinai on Israel border
****


Egyptian forces in northern Sinai (AFP)

Egypt's army is launching a major military offensive, dubbed Fattah 2
(Conquest 2) against a coalition of aggressive Salafists, Muslim
Brotherhood operatives, Hamas and Jihad Islami groups conducting
terrorist attacks in Egypt's Sinai region, on the border with Gaza and
Israel. The security situation in Sinai has been getting increasingly
unstable since the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi. In the
past two weeks, 39 terrorist attacks have occurred. In the resulting
clashes between armed groups and security forces, 52 gunmen and
civilians and six security personnel have died. Tensions have also
flared at the illegal smuggling tunnels on the border with Gaza, with
one Central Security conscript killed by smugglers on Thursday. The
tunnels, which are considered a lifeline for Gaza, are being blocked
or destroyed by the Egyptian army.

Muslim Brotherhood sources claim that the army is fabricating
terrorist attacks in Sinai in order to label the Brotherhood
"terrorists." However, most Sinai tribal leaders believe that the
sudden surge in violence is linked to the ouster of Mohamed Morsi.
New groups have sprung up, with such names as as "The Legitimacy
Brigades" or "The Legitimacy and Victory Brigade," where "legitimacy"
refers to the Egypt's first free election, and it's victory for Morsi.

There's evidence that the situation in Sinai is attracting jihadist
fighters from North Africa (Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb or AQIM)
and from al-Qaeda in Pakistan. In that sense, the Sinai is competing
with Syria, which is also attracting jihadists from locations
throughout Asia. Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Debka

****
**** Israel and U.S. forces go on alert over fear of wider war
****

Israel is increasingly uncomfortable with the buildup of Egyptian
military forces near its border in the Sinai. These forces violate
the 1979 peace treaty between the two countries, but Israel has been
compelled to give permission because of the increasing security
issues.

Israeli forces along the Egyptian and Gaza borders are on alert; so
too are the 2,600 US Marines aboard two amphibious helicopter carriers
anchored opposite the Red Sea shores of Southern Sinai and the Gulf of
Suez since the start of the Egyptian crisis.

Israeli defense officials are concerned about an escalating war, and
the army is preparing for scenarios where violence spreads across the
border into Israel. There is also concern that Egypt's armed forces
will enter Gaza, as the interim government has already accused Hamas
of contributing to the unrest in Sinai. YNet

****
**** Palestinians ask for an airport as Kerry pursues farcical 'peace process'
****

The so-called Mideast "peace process" has been a farce for years, but
that doesn't prevent U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry from flying
around the Mideast declaring that he's going to be the one to bring
the sides together and create a wonderful peace between Israel and the
Palestinians for now and forever. Kerry met with Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, Jordan, on Wednesday, and apparently
Abbas gave Kerry a new message: Abbas will not agree to new "peace
process" talks unless Israel approves the building of an airport in
Palestinian capital Ramallah in the West Bank. The airport would
serve helicopters and light planes. It's unlikely that the Israelis
will go along with this, presumably because terrorist attacks could be
launched from an airport. YNet

****
**** Thousands of Russians protest over conviction of Putin opponent
****

Thousands of Russians protested in Moscow on Thursday, as opposition
leader Alexei Navalny was led off in handcuffs after a court convicted
him and sentenced him with five years in jail for allegedly embezzling
money from a timber firm where he had served as an advisor. It's
widely believed that there is no evidence supporting the conviction.
The EU said the verdict posed "serious questions" about the state of
Russian law, while the US said it was "deeply disappointed."

Starting in 2008, Navalny began blogging about government corruption,
and by 2011 he was inspiring mass protests against president Vladimir
Putin, calling his United Russia party the "party of crooks and
thieves." He was arrested and imprisoned for 15 days in December of
last year, and then went on trial for embezzlement this year,
receiving a conviction on Thursday. He appeals to Russian
nationalists by referring to migrants as "rotten teeth" and
"cockroaches." It's widely believed that the prosecution
and conviction of Navalny originated from Putin's office.

Long time web site readers may recall that back in 2004 I followed
the situation with Russian energy firm Yukos pretty closely.

In 2003, Yukos supplied 11.4% of all the oil in the whole world. By
the end of 2004, Yukos was defunct.

At the beginning of 2004, Putin was denying that he had any evil
intentions toward Yukos. Putin began by jailing Yukos CEO Mikhail
Khodorkovsky on trumped-up political charges. (He's still in jail,
incidentally.) By the end of the year, Yukos had been dismantled and nationalized
by means of the most
bizarre series of steps imaginable.

At the beginning of 2004, I was wondering what Putin had in mind. By
the end of the year, it was obvious that Putin had lied about his
intentions, and that he was willing to use any means available to him
to get what he wants, while still retaining personal deniability. The
situation with Navalny seems to indicate that's still true. Ria Novosti (Moscow) and BBC

****
**** Espionage suspect Edward Snowden may be trapped in Russia
****

Some Russian officials are suggesting that U.S. traitor Edward
Snowden, who committed anti-American espionage, fled to Hong Kong and
then to Moscow, will not be permitted to leave Russia, and that he's
no longer in the airport, but is in a safe house control by the
security police.

Initially, Russia's president Vladimir Putin said:

<QUOTE>"We told him [Snowden], he may stay [in Russia] if he
stops hindering our relations with the US, but he
refused."<END QUOTE>

Snowden refused these terms, but his attempts to flee to an
anti-American Latin America country have been repeatedly thwarted.
Thus, on July 12 he finally changed his mind, and requested "Temporary
political asylum," which does not exist in Russia, so he's apparently
given temporary refugee status, "because of humanitarian
considerations." Under the terms of his refugee status, an official
announced, "We warned Snowden that any activity that may undermine
US-Russian relations is unacceptable." Putin added: "I do not
understand why Snowden decided to stay all his life in Russia, but
that is his choice."

I've actually thought for a long time that Snowden would never
be permitted to leave Russia. The reason is that if Snowden
has all this intelligence information, then there must a lot
of it pertaining to Russia and to Putin himself. If Snowden
fled to Venezuela, then the politicians there would gleefully
expose Putin's secrets, as well as U.S. secrets.

But there's a second reason as well. The U.S. is holding
a Russian defector who has disclosed the names of a number
of Russian spies. The U.S. is in a position, if it desired,
to publicly disclose information about Russia spying on
its own neighbors, including the countries in the former Soviet
Union. This would be extremely embarrassing to Putin.

So the traitor who thinks the U.S. is so awful that he decided to
betray his country out may now be trapped in the wonderful (formerly)
socialist paradise of Russia, where he can contemplate the differences
between the two countries. Gee, I hope they don't waterboard him.
(wink wink) Jamestown


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Egypt, Sinai, Fattah 2,
Hamas, Gaza, Jihad Islami, Mohamed Morsi,
Muslim Brotherhood, Israel,
Mahmoud Abbas, John Kerry, Ramallah, West Bank,
Russia, Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin,
Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Edward Snowden

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

So here you see confirmation of several major issues that I've been
writing about for years.

Yeah, it's getting fucking stale.

First, Wall Street, like Washington, has a huge population of
people who have no ethical or moral standards whatsoever.

No shit Sherlock. It goes way , way back to Sodom and Gohmmorah . I trust neither, FWIW.

Second, young people -- that is, Generation-X, are substantially more
lacking in ethics and morals than older people.

Yes, basically, this is why I decided to drop in today. This is the moldy-stale part we're talking about. John discusses GenX's faults ad nauseum whilst never, ever discussing his own generations' faults. Here, let me help. Hows about a post on stuff relating to radcal 1960's groups like Patty Hearst and the SLA and how that has mutated over the years? John also adds tawdry "yellow journalism" stuff like [traitor] Edward Snowden. Essentially what we have here is Boomer inability to keep opinions out of what should pass for journalism. I'm assuming you are doing journalism and refrain from subjective content. Here's my example of subjective content as an example. Note, I learned stuff from Boomers as a kid as well, say like referencing authority figures I hate with the term, "pig" or "fascist pig".
Care to discuss, also stuff like the Weather Underground?

[The pig thugs at the NSA all need to lose their jobs because they're fucking fascists who have no damn business messing with my privacy. NSA, eat shit and die mutherfuckers.] The adjectives pig/thug are of Boom origin. The other adjectives are Anglo-Saxon, except for "damn", which derives from Latin. ]

According to Netanyahu's statement:

<QUOTE>"We shall not accept any external dictates on our
borders. That is an issue that will be decided only in direct
negotiations between the sides. ...

Yeah, that is stupid on Benjamin Netanyahu's part. There are no free lunches, sorry. You have to choose settlements or those fundies. Hmmm.... Why the fuck is the EU dishing out money when they're all bankrupt? I think this is stupid also.
It's sort of like the US dishing out fundies to Egypt. We're just as bankrupt as they are and we're doing what? We're dishing out money, I guess borrowed from China and handing it over. Gee, we (USA) are stupid.


Fun city below , man. I'll do some keys.
KEYS: Boomers, 1960's radical groups, cuss words, bankrupt, NSA, privacy,
Wall Street corruption, Generation-X, Weather Underground, Patty Hearst,
Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, European Union, West Bank, Stale

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

> John discusses GenX's faults ad nauseum whilst never, ever
> discussing his own generations' faults.

I've expressed contempt for the Boomer generation and Boomer officials
many times. Most of the people who lie constantly on CNBC about stock
valuations are Boomers, for example, and I write about them ad
nauseum. And I've written many times that Boomer bosses must
have known that their Gen-X financial engineers were committing
fraud. Instead of stopping it, they joined in and helped sell
the fraudulent synthetic securities to Boomer investors.

In the particular article you're referencing, I blamed the root cause
of the problem on the Boomer generation -- Boomer feminist policies
that told women to dump their husbands and then lie in court about
domestic violence. Gen-Xers who defrauded the courts and the public
were simply mimicking their mothers' behavior. Patty Hearst is just
one individual, but what I'm describing is massive Boomer behavior
that's had disastrous results for the whole country and the whole
world.

John

*** 20-Jul-13 World View -- John Kerry announces new Mideast peace talks

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Al-Jazeera in chaos in Egypt, as it prepares for big U.S. debut
• Secretary of State John Kerry announces new Mideast peace talks
• Israel deploys 'Iron Dome' as Egypt launches Sinai operations

****
**** Al-Jazeera in chaos in Egypt, as it prepares for big U.S. debut
****


Al-Jazeera's Friday coverage of Egypt: Supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood pray for the reinstatement of Mohamed Morsi (EPA)

Last week, al-Jazeera reporters were thrown out of a press conference
in Cairo, Egypt. However, they weren't thrown out by any government
officials. They were thrown out by furious Egyptian reporters at the
press conference, who were expressing their anger at al-Jazeera's
Arabic network for pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias in its reporting. At
around the same time, 22 members of al-Jazeera's staff in Egypt
resigned, alleging biased coverage. And now, reports emerged on
Friday that Al Jazeera Network channels, which include Al Jazeera
English, Al Jazeera Arabic, and Al Jazeera Mubashr Misr, are
intermittently being jammed by Egyptian authorities.

Al-Jazeera (which means "the peninsula" in Arabic) is owned by the
royal family in Qatar. As we recently reported,
the ouster of Egypt's president Mohamed Morsi
has brought about a collapse of Qatar's influence in the Mideast,
which had strongly supported Morsi and the Brotherhood, and provided
$7 billion in aid to Egypt in the year of Morsi's presidency.
This has spilled over into al-Jazeera's coverage of Egypt,
which has polarized the staff and the people.

This comes as Al-Jazeera America, an expanded replacement of Al
Jazeera English, is to debut in August on cable television networks
reaching approximately 50 million U.S. households, thanks to its $500
million dollar purchase of the defunct Current TV cable channel from
climate change saint Al Gore in January.

Al-Jazeera Arabic has been vitriolically anti-American since
its founding in 1996, and it provided open support for Osama
bin Laden following the 9/11/2001 attacks. Even in recent
years, al-Jazeera Arabic has continued to promote "a jihad
ideology."

Is Al-Jazeera biased? Of course it is. But it's no more biased
than the New York Times or NBC News. The BBC was vitriolically
anti-American during the George Bush presidency, but now
they're totally in the tank for President Obama.

As I've written in the past, the interesting thing about al-Jazeera's
biases is their attitudes towards the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
Hamas is tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, so al-Jazeera loves Hamas,
and hates the Palestinian Authority. In fact, my perception is that
al-Jazeera hates the Palestinian Authority and Mahmoud Abbas even more
than it hates Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu.

So, over the past ten years of writing about Generational Dynamics,
I've become pretty familiar with the biases of all the different news
services, and I try to take them into account when I use them or
reference them, in order to give as balanced a picture as possible to
my readers. But the bottom line is that professional journalism is
pretty much a thing of the past, and each of the mainstream media
outlets just uses its news reporting to promote its own ideological
viewpoint. That's true of al-Jazeera, the BBC, the NY Times, and so
forth. All you can do is what I try to do, which is to read as many
viewpoints as possible, until you figure out what's really going on.
Camera and NPR and al-Jazeera

****
**** Secretary of State John Kerry announces new Mideast peace talks
****

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that Israeli and
Palestinian negotiators will meet in Washington within "the next week
or so" to resume peace talks. According to Kerry:

<QUOTE>"I'm pleased to announce that we've reached an
agreement that establishes a basis for resuming final status
negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

This is a significant and welcome step forward. The agreement is
still in the process of being finalized so we are absolutely not
going to talk about any of the elements now."<END QUOTE>

According to some reports, the Israelis have agreed to a partial
freeze on West Bank settlements, and the Palestinians postponed their
threat to push anti-Israeli measures through UN and other
international institutions during the talks.

This almost makes my head explode.

It was in May, 2010, that President Obama's last special Envoy for the
Mideast resigned, after two years on the job, accomplishing
nothing. ( "15-May-11 News -- Mideast envoy George Mitchell resigns, ending one more grand peace process"
)

The previous Mideast envoy was Tony Blair, who was appointed by the
Middle East Quartet (United Nations, Russian Federation, United
States, European Union) on the day in 2007 when he resigned as prime
minister of Britain. He accomplished nothing.

In 2005, the Quartet appointed James Wolfensohn to be Mideast envoy.
He actually accomplished quite a bit. He negotiated several
agreements between the parties. And, as former President of the World
Bank, he used his formidable list of contacts to get investors to
purchase dozens of greenhouses left behind by Israeli settlers when
they left Gaza, so that Palestinians could use them right away to get
hard currency by growing food for exports. Unfortunately, the
greenhouses were destroyed by the Palestinians, for which Wolfensohn
blamed both the Israelis and the Palestinians, and by the time he
resigned in 2006, he'd accomplished nothing.

And then of course there was President George Bush's "Mideast Roadmap
to Peace," was was my first major Generational Dynamics analysis.
("Mideast Roadmap - Will it bring peace?".)

In that article, I pointed out that Generational Dynamics predicts
that the Mideast was headed for a major new war between Jews and
Arabs, refighting the genocidal war between Jews and Arabs that
followed the 1948 partitioning of Palestine and the creation of the
state of Israel. There have been four wars since then -- the war
between Israelis and Hezbollah, fought largely on Lebanon's soil in
2006; the war between Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in Gaza in
2008, that led to Hamas control of Gaza; Operation Cast Lead, the war
between Israel and Hamas in Gaza early in 2009; and the war between
Israel and Hamas in Gaza in November, 2012.

So let's look at the recent record of the U.S. administration
and Secretary of State John Kerry:

• Early in June, Kerry was running around begging Russia to stop
  supporting Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and to return Edward Snowden to
  the United States.
  
• Then he announced peace talks with the Afghan Taliban, but said
  that it would be OK for the Taliban to continue killing Afghans in
  Kabul with terrorist attacks, and they have. The peace talks fell
  apart within 24 hours after they were announced.
  
• So now Kerry has somehow bribed or extorted Israeli and
  Palestinian negotiators to come to Washington and "talk" about peace,
  and he's calling it a "significant achievement," even though Hamas is
  opposed, Israeli settlers are opposed, and most Palestinians are
  opposed.

Isn't there some point where we're allowed to say, "Really, this joke
isn't funny any more. Could you please stop?" AFP and USA Today

****
**** Israel deploys 'Iron Dome' as Egypt launches Sinai operations
****

As Egypt's army launches a large-scale operation in the Sinai near the
border with Israel, Israel is deploying its "Iron Dome" anti-missile
system in the southern city of Eilat, near the border with Sinai, for
fear that Sinai militants would launch rockets into southern Israel.
The system is being deployed at the height of the tourist season. The
Iron Dome system was used successfully in November of last year during
Israel's war with Gaza, to intercept rockets coming from Gaza before
they could reach populated areas. Ynet


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Al-Jazeera, Egypt, Qatar, Muslim Brotherhood,
Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Current TV, Al Gore,
John Kerry, Israel, George Mitchell, Tony Blair,
James Wolfensohn, Mideast Roadmap to Peace,
Afghanistan, Taliban, Iron Dome, Sinai

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I've expressed contempt for the Boomer generation and Boomer officials
many times. Most of the people who lie constantly on CNBC about stock
valuations are Boomers, for example, and I write about them ad
nauseum.

OK. I'll buy that. Anyhow, let's explore the Generation-X question.

1. Essentially, a defining characteristic Generation-X has which , granted is known by few "outside the circle" is that it has well defined boundaries [probably growing up without them] of [insert nouns here] which are inside or outside of their mental space. If [insert noun here ] is inside, then it is trusted and respected. Conversely, if [insert noun here] is outside of said space, it is not trusted and can be disrespected in some manner if given the proper circumstances.
2. Their family or a "clan" of friends is an inside group for example.
3. I'd say in my case that [Fannie Mae,Freddie Mac, NSA, BATF, DEA, Department of Education, BIS, NATO, Defense department (due to wars of choice), Congress, Executive Branch, IRS, Federal Reserve, and World Bank] are certainly outside of my zone of trust and are therefore disrespected and I'd like them to all go away/changed/abolished as the case may be. The Social Security Administration and NOAA are just fine, so it's not a general "The Federal Government sux thing". Anyhow, wrt DEA, if I saw a growhouse, I would not report it since the DEA/War on Drugs is just stupid. Likewise wrt Snowden, OK, well, his only mistake was the location of doing leaks. I think this is an iterative process. He did better than Manning who did it within the US jurisdiction and he may be getting waterboarded or somesuch. Snowden has to deal with whatever Putin has going on. However, this state of affairs has not gone to waste! We now know that since assorted EU countries disrespected some Latin American Leader (Columbia's prez), IIRC, we now have a nice list of asylum countries for future leakers. All that's needed now is for some constitution watchdog organization to get in touch with these countries and get the asylum details worked out. We'd need to know what they'd want from future leakers so said leakers can get the info beforehand as a quid quo pro and smooth out the process. By "we", I'm referring to those of us who have say NSA on outside zone of trust. Simple. Rationale: Violation of the 4th and 5th amendments of the higher law, the Constitution of the USA. You know, the thing oaths are taken for. Essentially for me, [insert nouns here] which violate the higher law, deserve to get screwed in some manner. As a Joneser, I can also play a Boomer card by stating that [insert nouns here] which violate the higher law are EVIL. So here, I think I made my attitudes clear for Boomers. NB. I do not "Boomer Bash".

And I've written many times that Boomer bosses must
have known that their Gen-X financial engineers were committing
fraud. Instead of stopping it, they joined in and helped sell
the fraudulent synthetic securities to Boomer investors.

Yes, Boomers screwing Boomers does strike me as odd though. I was thinking [no sarcasm intended] Boomers have some sort of internal set of idealistic "values". Of course these values may or may not translate into financial transactions and how they affect other folks and how future events unfold. I would think that it is the Idealist Generation that sets the "moral tone" so to speak of how a nation proceeds. Obviously, one should not have nomads do this. Nomads can be amoral, cynical, pragmatic, and nihilistic. Those traits , while good for implementation of ideals, don't make good ideals unto themselves.

In the particular article you're referencing, I blamed the root cause
of the problem on the Boomer generation -- Boomer feminist policies
that told women to dump their husbands and then lie in court about
domestic violence. Gen-Xers who defrauded the courts and the public
were simply mimicking their mothers' behavior. Patty Hearst is just
one individual, but what I'm describing is massive Boomer behavior
that's had disastrous results for the whole country and the whole
world.

John

To add, there is a thread here called "Men on strike". Here's my take. I blew off marriage because I think it's a one way ticket to having my assets stripped and as you mentioned that's from feminism run amok. Blowback's a bitch you know.Now as to the proponents of feminism, I tend to blame the Silents/GI's more than Boomers on that one. Gloria Steinem , Silent, Bella Abzug GI (ughhh, she's just disgusting. ) , and Betty Friedman another GI , also disgusting. I'm not saying Boomers or subset therof didn't go for this stuff, they did. Simple, Boomers also get dumb ideas from older generations.

*mimmicing mother's behavior, interesting take.Nobody else have even brought that thing up.


Anyhow in other news


It's official, Detroit files for bankruptcy

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/us....html?hp&_r=1&

KEYS: Generation-X,Boomers,Feminism,blowback,debt,bankrupcy,Detroit ,Putin,Constituion of the United States,
War on Drugs,Fraud,Silent Generation,GI Generation

*** 21-Jul-13 World View -- Australia to send 'boat people' to Papua New Guinea

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Australia to send 'boat people' to Papua New Guinea
• EU's threat to Syria's Assad was an empty bluff

****
**** Australia to send 'boat people' to Papua New Guinea
****


Australian ad warning boat people to stay away (AFP)

Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that any asylum
seeker who arrives by boat without a visa will have "no chance" of
being resettled there as a refugee. Instead, they will be sent
directly to neighboring Papua New Guinea and its Manus Island
detention center. According to Rudd:

<QUOTE>"From now on, any asylum-seeker who arrives in
Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in
Australia as refugees. ... If they are found to be genuine
refugees they will be resettled in Papua New Guinea — an emerging
economy with a strong future, a robust democracy which is also a
signatory to the United Nations refugees convention."<END QUOTE>

The number of boat people that arrived from Sri Lanka, Indonesia and
other southeast Asian nations has totaled 15,610 so far in 2013,
almost approaching the 17,202 that arrived in the entire year in 2012.

Kevin Rudd has only just become prime minister, having ousted Julia
Gillard, the country's first female prime minister, who offended a lot
of people by calling anyone who disagreed with her policies a
"misogynist," in the same way that President Barack Obama's supporters
call anyone who disagrees with his policies a "racist." However, Rudd
ousted Gillard within their own party, Australia's Labor Party,
largely on the issue of dealing with the flood of boat migrants, and
he's wasted no time announcing this new, highly controversial refugee
policy.

Rudd said that Australia would pay the government of Papua New Guinea
an unspecified sum of money under a so-called "Regional Settlement
Arrangement," and that the deal would be reviewed after 12 months.

On Saturday, Australian authorities intercepted the first boat
smuggling refugees since the law was passed. It was sailing near the
Christmas Islands and was crammed full with 81 people, who will be
taken to the sparsely populated jungle island of Manus, which is a
part of Papua New Guinea. Global Post and CNN and International Business Times

****
**** EU's threat to Syria's Assad was an empty bluff
****

At the end of May, the EU removed the law preventing individual
countries from sending weapons to the opposition rebels to the regime
of Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. (See
"28-May-13 World View -- EU lifts weapons embargo to Syria's opposition militias"
) It was thought that
Britain and France would take advantage of the changes, and
supply weapons to rebels.

Well, it now turns out that the whole thing was a bluff. According
to one analyst:

<QUOTE>"Britain and France seemed, naively, to believe that
by simply threatening to arm the rebels, that would alter Assad's
behavior."<END QUOTE>

Unfortunately, almost nothing comes out of either Washington or
Brussels these days, except empty bluffs. The National (UAE)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Australia, Kevin Rudd, Papua New Guinea,
Manus Island, Julia Gillard,
Syria, Bashar al-Assad, Britain, France, EU

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*** 22-Jul-13 World View -- Shinzo Abe wins landslide electoral victory in Japan

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Shinzo Abe wins landslide electoral victory in Japan
• Pakistan's army becoming increasingly radicalized
• Kurds in Iraq's army mutiny as level of violence increases
• Riots near Paris over France's ban on Muslim face veils
• New York City bans food donations to the homeless

****
**** Shinzo Abe wins landslide electoral victory in Japan
****


Shinzo Abe answering questions on Sunday (Nobuhiro Shirai)

Japan has had six prime ministers in six years, and so the landslide
re-election victory by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling Liberal
Democratic Party is significant. The victory may prompt the
nationalist prime minister to take several major steps related to
foreign affairs:

• He has long wanted to amend Japan's pacific constitution to
  permit the establishment of a national defense military. Japan's
  constitution was written by the United States after WW II, and Abe
  considers it to be humiliating.
  
• He may take further steps to assert control over the
  Senkaku/Diaoyu islands that are in dispute with China, and over
  which the two countries have frequent naval confrontations.
  
• He does not appear to have any plan to hold talks with the South
  Koreans or Chinese over the issue of "comfort women" used by Imperial
  Japanese Army soldiers for sex before and during World War II.
  
• On August 15, the date that marks the end of World War II for
  Japan, he may resume personal visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which
  contains Japanese dead from WW II, including 14 convicted or accused
  Class A war criminals.

However, now that the election is over, he may reverse himself and
move in the opposition direction, being a lot more conciliatory
towards Korea and China, and abandoning all of the above plans, and
focus on Japan's faltering economy. The Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo) and BBC

****
**** Pakistan's army becoming increasingly radicalized
****

The repercussions of the 2011 capture of Osama bin Laden from under
the noses of Pakistan's Army are still growing. OBL felt secure
enough to stay in Pakistan for nine years. Was the Pakistan Army
complicit in hiding him, or were they oblivious and incompetent not to
notice him, despite numerous signs?

Thus, it's not surprising that as younger generations join the Army,
the Army is becoming increasingly radicalized, according to an Indian
analysis. Most of the recruits come from Punjab province, which was
the heart of the huge genocidal war between Hindus and Muslims that
followed Partition, the 1947 partitioning of the Indian subcontinent
into India and Pakistan. Punjab is a terrorist haven, and an
extremely radical population, as was apparent after the assassination
of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer. Taseer had opposed Pakistan's
blasphemy law, which permits capital punishment for saying anything
that defines the Quran of the prophet Mohammed. He was killed by his
own bodyguard, and the bodyguard is considered to be a hero by much of
Punjab province. A survey of Punjab youth in elite universities in
2010 showed these students to be highly radicalized. As these
students are recruited into the Army, this explains why the Army is
unable to do anything about the vicious and repeated anti-Shia attacks
that have occurred in western Pakistan. Recently, Punjab-based
militant outfits have been concentrating their attacks in the triangle
between Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar, with Karachi being the terror
capital of Pakistan.

Generational Dynamics predicts that India and Pakistan will be
re-fighting the genocidal 1947 war, with Sunnis opposed to Hindus and
Shias. Hindustan Times

****
**** Kurds in Iraq's army mutiny as level of violence increases
****

Bombings and shooting continued in Iraq into Sunday after over a dozen
coordinated car bombings exploded across Baghdad on Saturday evening,
target crowded cafes and hangouts in mostly Shia neighborhoods. At
least 70 people killed and more than 150 injured in a series of
attacks across Iraq over the last two days. There's been a huge surge
in violence since Ramadan began earlier this month, with at least 284
deaths. And in a new development, over 1,000 Kurdish soldiers have
essentially mutinied from the Iraq army, with the support of the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), after refusing to fight Sunni
Arabs for fear of exacerbating already tense relations. The mutiny is
significant, because it may fuel the Kurdistan independence movement,
possibly with the support of Turkey. Al-Jazeera and AFP and Dawn (Pakistan)

****
**** Riots near Paris over France's ban on Muslim face veils
****

Some 20 cars were set ablaze on Saturday night in a second night of
violence in the suburbs of Paris, as people clashed with police. The
violence began Friday after a group of residents gathered at the
police station to protest the arrest of a man whose wife was ticketed
Thursday for wearing a face veil. The regional prosecutor said the
husband tried to strangle the officer who was doing the ticketing.
France has barred face veils since 2011 in a so-called "burka ban."
Proponents of the ban argue the veil oppresses women and contradicts
France's principles of secularism, which are enshrined in the
constitution. Wearing crosses or other religious attire is also
barred in public schools and buildings. AP

****
**** New York City bans food donations to the homeless
****

As someone who's had a weight problem and had to diet his whole
life, I can tell you that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's
war on large-size containers of Coca-Cola and other sodas is
so ridiculous that only a politician would be stupid enough
to suggest it. In fact, many studies have shown that overweight
people drink a lot more diet soda, so maybe he should be banning
that instead. It would make just as much sense.

Now CBS news is reporting that NYC is banning food donations to
homeless shelters. Places like restaurants and synagogues, which have
donated surplus food to homeless shelters for decades, are no longer
permitted to do so. The CBS news reporter was told that the reason
for the new policy is that the City wants to keep track of the salt,
fat and fiber content in all food eaten at homeless shelters, and they
can't do that with donated food. CBS News (New York)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Japan, Shinzo Abe,
Liberal Democratic Party, Korea, China, comfort women,
Yasukuni Shrine, Senkaku, Diaoyu,
Pakistan, Osama bin Laden, India, Punjab,
Salmaan Taseer, Partition, Karachi,
Iraq, Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG,
Paris, France, burka ban,
New York City, Michael Bloomberg

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Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

> Anyhow, wrt DEA, if I saw a growhouse, I would not report it since
> the DEA/War on Drugs is just stupid. Likewise wrt Snowden, OK,
> well, his only mistake was the location of doing leaks. I think
> this is an iterative process. He did better than Manning who did
> it within the US jurisdiction and he may be getting waterboarded
> or somesuch. ... We now know that since assorted EU countries
> disrespected some Latin American Leader (Columbia's prez), IIRC,
> we now have a nice list of asylum countries for future
> leakers. All that's needed now is for some constitution watchdog
> organization to get in touch with these countries and get the
> asylum details worked out. We'd need to know what they'd want from
> future leakers so said leakers can get the info beforehand as a
> quid quo pro and smooth out the process. By "we", I'm referring to
> those of us who have say NSA on outside zone of
> trust. ... Essentially for me, [insert nouns here] which violate
> the higher law, deserve to get screwed in some manner. As a
> Joneser, I can also play a Boomer card by stating that [insert
> nouns here] which violate the higher law are EVIL.

I'm very familiar with your concept of "higher law," since it's
the sort of thing that I write about all the time:

• Sunni jihadists in Pakistan are following a "higher law"
  when they blow up a mosque full of Shia worshippers and turn
  it into a bloody mess.
  
• Anders Behring Breivik was following a "higher law" when he
  slaughtered dozens of children in camp
  
• Nazis were following a "higher law" in the Holocaust
  
• Gen-Xers were following some kind of "higher law" when
  they caused the financial crisis.

You also say, "Essentially for me, [insert nouns here] which violate
the higher law, deserve to get screwed in some manner."

I'm pretty sure that you violate some other people's higher law. By
your own logic, you deserve to go bankrupt or have your home
foreclosed, or have you friends' and family members' heads blown off
by terrorists. Tough luck, buddy, but as you say, you deserve to be
screwed when you violate someone's "higher law."

Originally Posted by John X

New York City bans food donations to the homeless

WTF?


I know, salt.

NaCl.

But really WTH?

Originally Posted by herbal tee

WTF?


I know, salt.

NaCl.

But really WTH?

-Is there some reason you didn't use a clickable quote bar? I can't find it, although I'm already familiar with Bloomberg's war on common sense.

Originally Posted by JDG 66

-Is there some reason you didn't use a clickable quote bar? I can't find it, although I'm already familiar with Bloomberg's war on common sense.

No reason to delete 94.78563% of a post just to comment on one sentence.


Besides, the name John X looks pretty cool to me.

*** 23-Jul-13 World View -- EU nations decide unanimously on sham condemnation of Hezbollah

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• EU nations decide unanimously on sham condemnation of Hezbollah
• Hamas commemorates the death of Helen Thomas
• Howdy Doody may be for sale

****
**** EU nations decide unanimously on sham condemnation of Hezbollah
****


Hezbollah army saluting (EPA)

The fallout is continuing following the open support by Lebanon's
terrorist group Hezbollah fighting on the side of the regime of
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad. The announcement of this support,
made last month by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has
tremendously polarized the entire Mideast along sectarian lines, and
has now driven the European Union, by a unanimous vote of the foreign
ministers of the 28 nations, to declare Hezbollah's military arm a
terrorist group.

The announcement supposedly means that Hezbollah can no longer raise
money in Europe, assets can be frozen, and visas can be denied.
However, the announcement is pretty much a sham, since it doesn't
apply to Hezbollah's "political wing," which is indistinguishable from
its military wing. According to a Hezbollah official:

<QUOTE>"We don’t have a military wing and a political one.
We don’t have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on
the other. Every element of Hezbollah, from commanders to members
as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the
resistance and we have nothing but the resistance as a
priority."<END QUOTE>

So if you want to donate to a terrorist organization, then just donate
to Hezbollah's political wing, and your money will go right into the
terrorist's pockets.

Hezbollah was formed in 1982 to oppose Israel's occupation of Lebanon
at that time. The organization grew to be respected throughout the
Arab world because it's a leader of the "resistance" to Israel's
occupation of the Palestinian homeland. Even many Europeans refused
to condemn Hezbollah until now, for exactly the same reason - they
admired and supported Hezbollah's "resistance" to Israel. Hezbollah
became a tool in the wet dream of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iran's
hardcore leadership to become the new leader of the entire Mideast,
and Iran has poured money and weapons into Hezbollah's hands, as well
as into Hamas's hands.

Iran's wet dream could never possibly have been realized, as I've been
saying for years, because there is no way that a Sunni group like
Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood would ever agree to be led by Shia
Iran. But Iran, Hezbollah, and Bashar al-Assad's Alawite/Shia faction
in Syria formed what has been called a "Shia Crescent," that was
admired in the Mideast because of its resistance to Israel.

Hezbollah itself perpetrated acts that caused many in the Mideast to
hate Hezbollah more than they hate Israel. A major game-changer was
the 2005 assassination of Lebanon's beloved former prime minister
Rafiq Hariri, in which Syria and Hezbollah were implicated. (See
"Massive Beirut explosion killing Rafiq Hariri puts Lebanon into state of shock"
from
2005.)

For many Arabs, Nasrallah's announcement that Hezbollah would openly
fight on the side of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria was the last
straw. Al-Assad's regime has, for over two years, targeted innocent
Syrian women and children in their beds and dormitories, making
al-Assad himself a psychopath. Al-Assad's attempts to exterminate
Sunni Syrians has caused a major split throughout the Mideast along
Sunni/Shia sectarian lines, and then Nasrallah's announcement made
Hezbollah a hated enemy of almost all Sunni Arabs, even those who
opposed Israel.

Today, Hezbollah's militias are far more powerful than Lebanon's army,
and Hezbollah is a powerful political force in Lebanon's government.
But Nasrallah's announcement is also bringing sectarian violence into
Lebanon itself, as we've been reporting in the last few weeks.
Nonetheless, many of Lebanon's politicians, both for and against
Hezbollah, are opposed to Monday's EU announcement because they fear
that it will mean the end of European funding to any of Lebanon's
projects, and will not stop Hezbollah's fund-raising at all. Daily Star (Beirut) and Al-Jazeera

****
**** Hamas commemorates the death of Helen Thomas
****

Lots of American reporters are mourning the loss of 92-year-old Helen
Thomas, who covered the White House for 49 years. But she will also
be missed in Gaza, where Hamas mourned her death for her strong
pro-Palestinian anti-Israel views. When asked in 2010 whether she had
any comments about Israel, she said, "Get the hell out of Palestine.
Remember, the Palestinian people are occupied, and it's their land."
She followed up by saying that all Jews should return to Germany and
Poland, where they belonged. Ezzedeen AL-Qassam Brigades (Gaza)

****
**** Howdy Doody may be for sale
****


Howdy Doody puppet on display at Detroit Institute of Arts

The bankruptcy of Detroit, Michigan, is forcing the city to sell its
assets, and one of those assets is the collection of puppets in the
Detroit Institute of Arts. It's estimated that the original Howdy
Doody marionette puppet, which was acquired in 2001, could sell at
auction for $400,000-500,000, though that would hardly make a dent in
the city's $18 billion debt. The Howdy Doody show, which was one of
my own favorites, ran on NBC from 1947 to 1960, and in fact for one
show I was in the Peanut Gallery. "Let's give a rousing cheer, cause
Howdy Doody's here. It's time to start the show, so kids let's go!"
CNN


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Hezbollah, European Union,
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Syria, Bashar al-Assad,
Rafiq Hariri, Israel, Iran, Shia Crescent,
Hamas, Gaza, Helen Thomas, Detroit, Howdy Doody

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*** 24-Jul-13 World View -- U.S. approves sending arms to opposition fighters in Syria

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Over 500 al-Qaeda militants escape from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison
• U.S. approves sending arms to opposition fighters in Syria
• IRS continues constructing massive Obamacare database

****
**** Over 500 al-Qaeda militants escape from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison
****


Abu Ghraib prison

A military-style attack by the terrorist group known as the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant resulted in the escape of between 500 and
1,000 prisoners, including many Islamist militant terrorists, from
Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. Suicide bombers drove cars with
explosives into the prison gates on Sunday night, while gunmen
attacked guards with mortar fire as well as rocket propelled grenades.
Fighting continued until early Monday. This release of hundreds of
terrorists cannot possibly help Iraq's security situation, which has
been deteriorating badly since the withdrawal of American forces in
December 2011.

Analysts are beginning to talk again of a civil war in Iraq. That's
just as impossible today as when they were talking about it following
the 2003 ground invasion. Iraq is in a generational Awakening era,
during which a sustained civil war is impossible. In this case, there
are still many survivors still alive from the genocidal Iran/Iraq war
of the 1980s, and those survivors will prevent anything like that from
happening again. The same is true in Syria, where the civil war would
have fizzled two years ago if it hadn't been for the aggressive
support by Russia, and more recently Hezbollah, in providing weapons
and fighters, making Syria's war less a civil war than a proxy war.
Russia Today and Reuters

****
**** U.S. approves sending arms to opposition fighters in Syria
****

The Obama administration has set numerous red lines for the regime of
Syria's president Bashar al-Assad, and then ignore violations of the
red line, except to issue a statement of outrage and set a new red
line. But now, on Tuesday, the House and Senate intelligence
committees approved President Obama's request to use money already in
the CIA's budget to be used to send weapons to the Free Syrian Army.
The weapons will include small arms, ammunition and perhaps anti-tank
weapons. However, this development comes just three days after the EU
admitted that a May promise to send arms to the Free Syrian army was
just a bluff,
and that there was
never any intention to fulfill the promise. CNN and
Washington Post

****
**** IRS continues constructing massive Obamacare database
****

A massive database of personal information about almost all Americans,
known as the "Federal Data Services Hub," is under construction for
Obamacare. The data base will include name, birth date, Social
Security number, gender, ethnicity, family size, Indian status,
incarceration status, veteran status, Peace Corps status, membership
in a “recognized religious sect or health care sharing ministry,”
email addresses, telephone numbers, health records, health insurance
and premium information, and income, including IRS tax return
information and Social Security income, as well as financial
information from other third-party sources

Access to the data will be given to a wide range of people, including
“agency contractors, consultants, or grantees” who “need to have
access to the records” to help run Obamacare, as well as law
enforcement officials to “investigate potential fraud,” will have
access to this information, “without the consent of the individual.”
Among those who will have access will be a huge new pool of unionized
"Navigators," who will be paid to promote Obamacare and help people
sign. Almost anyone can become a Navigator, and they will not be
subject to a background check. The Beacon


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Iraq, Abu Ghraib,
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Russia,
Syria, Free Syrian Army,
Federal Data Services Hub, IRS, Obamacare, Navigators

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Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

****
**** IRS continues constructing massive Obamacare database
****

A massive database of personal information about almost all Americans,
known as the "Federal Data Services Hub," is under construction for
Obamacare. The data base will include name, birth date, Social
Security number, gender, ethnicity, family size, Indian status,
incarceration status, veteran status, Peace Corps status, membership
in a “recognized religious sect or health care sharing ministry,”
email addresses, telephone numbers, health records, health insurance
and premium information, and income, including IRS tax return
information and Social Security income, as well as financial
information from other third-party sources

Access to the data will be given to a wide range of people, including
“agency contractors, consultants, or grantees” who “need to have
access to the records” to help run Obamacare, as well as law
enforcement officials to “investigate potential fraud,” will have
access to this information, “without the consent of the individual.”
Among those who will have access will be a huge new pool of unionized
"Navigators," who will be paid to promote Obamacare and help people
sign. Almost anyone can become a Navigator, and they will not be
subject to a background check. The Beacon

-Some people figure out that NSA has a database where you can see who called who when, but only with a warrant, in the interest of national defense, and they claim that with descended into Fascism. But this, which is not a legitimate function of government as laid out by the US Constitution, seems to be OK with most Americans.

Whatever.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

No reason to delete 94.78563% of a post just to comment on one sentence...

-What did I delete?

I found the story anyway.

No thanks to you.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

...Besides, the name John X looks pretty cool to me...

-I can't possibly argue with that, but how about

Poster X...

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

I'm very familiar with your concept of "higher law," since it's
the sort of thing that I write about all the time:

• Sunni jihadists in Pakistan are following a "higher law"
  when they blow up a mosque full of Shia worshippers and turn
  it into a bloody mess.
• Anders Behring Breivik was following a "higher law" when he
  slaughtered dozens of children in camp
• Nazis were following a "higher law" in the Holocaust
• Gen-Xers were following some kind of "higher law" when
  they caused the financial crisis.

1. I wouldn't say GenX (gratuitous GenX bashing, btw) was following any "higher law". I would find it odd to consider nihilism and cynicism as "laws".

2. How about adding Mother Theresa's "higher law" to the list?

3. I basically stated I use the US constitution as one of several higher laws. I also use the laws of the universe (as I understand them) as higher laws. I follow the law of gravity for example. I'm perfectly free to step off a ledge of The Grand Canyon and fall 2000 feet. I choose not to since that decision has a very negative consequence. I know it's the process of falling isn't what will do me in, but the sudden deceleration that happens when I hit the canyon floor.

You also say, "Essentially for me, [insert nouns here] which violate
the higher law, deserve to get screwed in some manner."

1. See above as example of stuff that happens when one ignores the law of gravity.
2. Yes, people who pry into my private life do indeed deserve to be screwed. Sorry, privacy is one of my pet peeves.

I'm pretty sure that you violate some other people's higher law. By
your own logic, you deserve to go bankrupt or have your home
foreclosed, or have you friends' and family members' heads blown off
by terrorists. Tough luck, buddy, but as you say, you deserve to be
screwed when you violate someone's "higher law."

Really? If I lived in say Saudi Arabia, I'd have to decide to follow whatever higher laws they have there or face the consequences. You left out the part about choosing whether or not to abide by the cultural norms of where I <<<choose>>> to live. Think of it this way, I'm not going to go around naked here in the USA. That's indecent exposure. Now for this foreclosure stuff, I own my house free and clear. Now I'll admit that perhaps Wall $treet worships Mammon. Here's a hymn for you to enjoy wrt Wall $treet worship services. (Lyrics included just for you, so the thing is clear.)