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Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts

Monday, February 13, 2017

Life in Syria, Why the JSF isn't Worth It, and More

Given what has happened wanted to see what has been happening inside Syria:
- complicated colonial history with both British and French. Has had limited conflict with some of it's neighbours including Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. Has obviously had trouble with internal political dissent from time to time. Clear that the conflict inside of Syria is 'complicated'
syria history
Syria profile - Timeline
Russian naval battle group returns from Syria mission in the Mediterranean
Battle for Deir ez-Zor airport - Syrian army repels ISIS assault
3 Turkish soldiers accidentally killed in Russian airstrike in Syria, Moscow confirms
- it's impossible to gauge the economy because of the war that is currently on which has resulted in sanctions on the country... We'll have to go on a mix on what has happened before and now. Main industries for economy of Syria are agriculture, oil, industry and services. Main train partners are Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, UAE, Iran, China, and Libya. Smallish economy and population... Has economy that feels to be typical of region. Semi-managed with some liberal aspects
syria economy
- can't really get a good handle here because of the state of things inside of the country... Mostly Arabic based media. Limited freedom (though that seems to be the case when they're trying to rebuild stability)
syria media
- obviously, the place has been demolished. In spite of this life style seems to continue no matter who is currently running things (Assad, ISIS, Kurds,  etc...)? The impression that I get from local citizens is that once a time the place wasn't that much different from Europe? If you're honestly interested in what's happening in Syria you'll need to do your own legwork. It's clear that the same story can produce 'alternate facts/fake news' which means that either journalists are really slack or else they are politicising the situation. It's clear that the current conflict has a lot of players involved including other nation states, terrorist groups, internal political actors, etc...
life in syria
I’m Sameer from Damascus. Life in Syria’s capital through the lens of a local cameraman
Syria Before The War And After
Syria DRAW MY LIFE
Stolen childhood - Syrian children growing up with war
A day in the life of Syria's civil war - Truthloader
Syria - My Life Before the War
Exclusive report - Raqqa's Rebel, the Syrian woman who dared film life under the IS group
Life of a Syrian Family in Islahiye Camp, Turkey
Syria - The Syrian daily life
The War in Syria - Life in Idlib regains some normality with truce
War in Syria - how my life has changed
What Is Life Like In Aleppo, Syria
At Home in Zaatari - Life in a Syrian Refugee Camp
Caught on camera - Life under IS rule in Raqqa - Syria
- clear that it has allegiances with the former USSR and now Russia
Lavrov - It’s right to invite US to Syria talks in Astana
Inside Story - Can talks in Astana be a turning point to end the war in Syria
- one of the huge ironies of the Middle East is that whether you talk about an ally or not they seem to perceive the US/West as troublemakers?
- food is typical Middle Eastern food. Feel is slightly different and unique to Syria though. Definitely has a European influence to it
syria food recipes
- the Assad's are both clearly well educated and have spent time in the West. Find it very difficult to believe some of the stories about them. Some individuals and countries are saying that the war in Syria isn't about 'freedom and democracy', it's about geo-politics in the region? Russia is interested in running a pipeline through Syria. Iran is interested in maintaining a friendly neighbour. Israel is interested in breaking it down to weaken it and reduce it's threat to itself and also gaining the 'Golan Heights'. US is interested in created a new ally in the Middle East...
assad family
Assad - West is telling Russia that Syrian Army went too far in defeating terrorists (FULL INTERVIEW)
Syria Special - Is Assad winning, Amnesty Intl Allegations & MSM myth-busting (Going Undergroud)
Assad informs Japan, the Truth about Syria (1-19-17 Rare interview) in English
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad interview  _ November 15th 2016
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad interview _ February 7th 2017
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad interview _ October 6th 2016
Bashar al-Assad speaks to Swiss television
Bashar al-Assad Yahoo News Interview (full version) _ February  9th, 2017
Assad Pre War interview 2006, consistent as ever (60 Minutes)
Syria rejects Amnesty’s report of mass jail hanging
'The EU is supporting the terrorists in Syria from the very beginning' - Assad
EXCLUSIVE - Assad says some refugees are 'definitely' terrorists
Interview with the Syrian first lady Asma al-Assad _ October 18th 2016
- most interesting looking animal is probably the 'Marbled polecat'. The rest of the flora and fauna is interesting but not really that 'unique'
syria animals

On the JSF:
- if you're using it as a way of making money the numbers aren't really stacking up at the moment...
- the main reason why countries give up on wars is due to (air wars in particular) are due to significant pilot losses. Drones don't have pilots. The JSF definitely does and these pilots leave their bases from time to time, their bases sometimes lack good security, etc... If you read throughout history pilots have been a target for kidnapping, murder, extortion and blackmail, even on their own soil. Either way, the unmanned option looks better then the manned option especially when you factor in the fact that an unmanned drone can is cheaper, can achieve tighter maneuvers because they are machines and not biological in origin, are stealthier because no space is required in order to support a human, etc...
The Secret History of Silicon Valley
- the JSF makes no difference against the non-peer threats that the US/West faces. One could even argue that it is even detrimental because other weapons platforms can get the job done less expensively. What's the point in having aircraft that are more likely to bankrupt you in order to get the same job done? Moreover, people in the US/West are becoming generally disenchanted by their political systems. In the meantime billions of dollars are being spent on distant wars so that a tiny few can profit. The enemies of the US/West are even saying that they'll leave them alone if leave other parts of the world alone (Taliban in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, etc...). If they've been fighting for continuously since 9/11 and haven't been making any inroads how does this change the equation?
- the US generally has a history of not necessarily backing it's allies to the extent that it would want when it doesn't suit it's needs. Highly centralised, computerised systems (such as ALIS which is integral to the JSF projet) such do this to any potential purchaser of the JSF. Unless you are a 'core partner' I'd try to have a backup plan in case the interests of the US and your state 'diverge' at some point... Purchase of the JSF or any US equipment effectively forces you into a de-facto alliance with them (for good or worse)

He said there was a better chance of resolving the escalating conflict through diplomacy. 

He reiterated his earlier statement that the United States could not be relied upon to defend the Philippines if an armed confrontation n developed with China. 
“America will not die for us,” Duterte said, pointing out the US did not lift a finger when China was building structures recently on the disputed islands. “Now they’re there. [The US] allowed them to be finished,” he said. 
President Franklin D. Roosevelt: How long is America going to pretend, that the world is not at war? From Berlin, Rome and Tokyo, were have been described as a nation of weaklings and playboys who hire British or Russian, or Chinese soldiers, to do our fighting for us. We've been trained to think we're invincible, and our people think Hitler and his Nazi thugs are Europe's problem.
Pearl Harbor [2001] 
Pearl Harbor (2001) Quotes 
- given the size of the intelligence community in both Russia and the US (relative to their economy) you wonder just how important they are to their countries? Whether or not hybrid warfare is going to play a much larger role then conventional warfare (such as those likely to be fought by the JSF)
- pretty much everyone has concluded that the only genuine deterrent against the US/West are WMD such as 'nuclear weapons'. The JSF is unlikely to be a game changer against any state that is willing to deploy WMD such as nuclear weapons against the US/West especially in the day and age of stealth weapons, MIRV, mass decoys, hypersonic weapons, etc... which render any defensive capabilities such as missile shields completely useless. At the other end of the spectrum are players non-peer threats who are extremely annoying but can't really justify a full fledged conflict
Next Generation Chaff: Brite Cloud
http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=52809&p=362956#p362956
- robotics is going to play an increasingly great role (we have much of the technology now anyhow). These are much cheaper then the JSF as well while doing the same role. You could argue that they can be jammed and that a human is required to get the job done. With the increasing advances in AI and guidance systems (this relates mostly to the genuine military powers. They often have guidance systems that are based on inertia, star systems, existing known EM phenomena, etc... A final fallback position for them is just manual navigation) this seems to be an irrelevant argument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_nEUROn
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Systems_Taranis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-45
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRDO_AURA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiG_Skat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_Polecat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Taranis
https://sputniknews.com/military/201610251046725511-air-force-zaps-daesh-drone/
http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2016/12/explaining-prophets-fake-news-and-more_26.html
- advances in optical, Quantum Entanglement, infra-red, long wavelength RADAR, stealth satellites, etc... based sensor systems renders the entire field of conventional stealth technology redundant especially when run in tandem with laser and particle weapons systems which can take out any incoming conventional projectile based weapon and any weapons delivery platform associated with it (such as the JSF)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misty_(satellite)
Stealth weapons?
PLAF gets initial Su-35s
Can lift coefficient be stacked additively?
- the US/West in particular defines virtually everything as a threat even if it isn't which means that they may be spending money for nothing
- if it's honestly as good as they say it is then they won't need that many of them. That said, if it's anything like the B-2, F-22, F-117, V-22 Osprey, etc... and every other stealth aircraft before it will likely be the exact same and have a litany of problems related to cost (running and acquisition), reliability/availability (already having issues with this), etc... Stack on top of this greater computerisation and centralisation means that they can more easily be hacked and turned (think of the RQ-170 stealth drone which is one of the US's latest drones and which was successfully 'captured' by Iran). In a real war against a near peer threat you don't want something that is overly complex, likely to have reliability/availability issues, etc... The JSF (in it's current form) seems to epitomise all of these
- they never, ever should have turned defense into a purely money making exercise. The bigger it is the more difficult it is to maintain security (the only reason why the B-2, F-117 project were able to maintain their relative secrecy was because they were basically low scale, size projects but for the most part a lot of the secrets behind that technology has been found out by others if you look around, http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2015/10/defense-podcasts-mh17-background-jsf.html). Other countries have already stolen pretty much everything that is of any worth related to the JSF project. If they honestly want to save money, make certain that the 'core' of the project is as solid as possible. Then let other countries modify the aircraft to suit local/geographical conditions to save money and to make for a better aircraft itself
- there are heaps of methods/techniques against current stealth. Tactics against stealth are becoming better and better understood which is blunting their genuine ability to make an impact on the battlefield
- advances in long range weapons platforms which attack the backbone infrastructure required to push the JSF back are becoming more widespread. For instance, think about China and it's assortment of Anti-Ship Missile capabilities. Think about both Russia and China when it comes to weapons which have long reach and are designed to take out aircraft carriers, support ships, support aircraft such as the tankers, AWACS, airfields etc... which are required in order to extend the JSF's range. While it could be argued that drop tanks could be used the JSF would instantly lose it's stealth capability and would visible to most existing RADAR systems
- it's clear that part of the reason for so much of the mis-information against the JSF may be to figure out arguments against the project so that they can iron them out prior to deployment and things get of LIRP (Low Initial Rate Production)
- who the hell is the enemy? Obviously no one wants to be caught by surprise but it's clear that alternate power blocks are forming no matter what the US/West may want and everybody sees the logic having better relations with Russia and China. If relations are better between the US, EU, China, and Russia it's clear that the case for the JSF goes out the window and everyone can re-direct spending towards things that they need more (such as public infrastructure, education, healthcare, etc...)
Top Trump Adviser Has Shifting Views on Russia, Eurasia
- jack of all trades, master of none argument. Many different compromises had to be made to achieve the current form. We tried this in the past with projects such as the F-111 (which ultimately failed and there were only two purchasers for it. Namely, the US and Australia). This time things are slightly stranger still because of a single engine which has made the platform a lot less attractive for some other nations who want the reliability/redundancy that is inherent to a twin engine aircraft
- we've basically already tried the high end. If you're weapons platforms are so expensive that you can't fly then it's pointless. If I were on the opposite side of anyone who was acquiring high end weapons platforms I would be thinking the same thing as over purveyors of hybrid warfare advocate. Drag them to the brink of warfare but never step over that line
- there's a general aircraft pilot shortage. It's pointless purchasing manned variants of the JSF if there is no one to pilot them (am aware that the could conscript if the need arises and that the JSF has a side project to turn it into an autonomous drone though)

Random Stuff:
- funny videos of the Swedish Chef and the Cookie Monster and other 'Muppets'
- free music sample pack from Primeloops for those who are interested
- life is stress...
- a neat piece of FOSS software for managing some MPC sampling devices
- free web hosting is a neat way trial your ideas...
free web hosting online
free web hosting cgi perl
Best free web hosts?
- extracting from a JAR file
- there are some very strange aspects of Russian and Japanese culture from time to time?
- something I really don't understand about the USSR/Russia in general is how so many people could think it was a bad thing and good thing at the same time? If you look at all of the statistics/surveys they look like people preferred life in the USSR?
jokes about kgb
Top Ten Communist Jokes
jokes about fsb

Random Quotes:
- Lechner gave up a job in design to found his company, Kaffeeform, about a year ago with around 40,000 euros ($44,717) in private financing. He now employs eight staff and is “almost breaking even”, he says. At present, the company collects 500 kg (1,102 lbs) of used coffee grounds a month for free, from cafes within walking distance of their premises in the trendy Berlin neighbourhood of Kreuzberg.

“Six servings of coffee are enough for us to make another coffee cup,” he says. “As we make more volume we will lower the price [of the cups] step by step. For the future we’d like to go into mass production. There’s a lot of coffee waste out there.”
- Tiny particles of pollution have been discovered inside samples of brain tissue, according to new research.

Suspected of toxicity, the particles of iron oxide could conceivably contribute to diseases like Alzheimer's - though evidence for this is lacking.

The finding - described as "dreadfully shocking" by the researchers - raises a host of new questions about the health risks of air pollution.

Many studies have focused on the impact of dirty air on the lungs and heart.

Now this new research provides the first evidence that minute particles of what is called magnetite, which can be derived from pollution, can find their way into the brain.

Earlier this year the World Health Organisation warned that air pollution was leading to as many as three million premature deaths every year.
- "When you look at the lethality of the battlefield that we face in the future, you wouldn't want to be sending people in manned helicopters into that environment. The unmanned vehicle is the way to go … because you're not going to last very long in the lethal battlefield that we envisage for the future," he said.

Defence Industry Minister Christopher Pyne told the conference this week that "remotely operated platforms" - another term for drones - was going to be a priority of the government's $640 million Defence Innovation Hub.

Colonel Jones said the government was currently operating about 20 American-made Wasp AE small drones, which are backpack-sized, weigh 1.3 kilograms and can fly for up to 50 minutes at a range of five kilometres while streaming live colour and infrared video back to soldiers on the battlefield.
- KYIV, Ukraine—My brother Drew, a former Air Force captain, told me one of the worst stories I’ve yet to hear from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He was riding in a convoy from Bagram Air Base to Kabul during a deployment to Afghanistan in August 2010.

This particularly dangerous stretch of road was known as “suicide alley” due to the frequency of Taliban improvised explosive device attacks. Most of the IEDs the Taliban used in this area were physically connected to detonators by a thin copper “piano wire,” which made them immune to jamming.

These hard-wired IEDs required precision from the attacker to time the explosion with passing vehicles. So the best defense was to drive fast and not stop—no matter what.
- Wells Fargo’s aggressive sales tactics were first disclosed by The Los Angeles Times in an investigation in 2013 . The story series prompted the Los Angeles City Attorney office to sue Wells Fargo over its tactics.

In a statement, Wells Fargo said: “We regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request.” Wells Fargo said they’ve refunded $2.6 million in fees associated with products that were opened without authorization.

Despite the L.A. Times investigation, Wells Fargo is still known for having aggressive sales goals for its employees. Wells Fargo’s executives highlight every quarter the bank’s so-called “cross sale ratio,” which is the number of products the bank sells to each of their individual customers. The ratio hovers around six, which means every customer of Wells Fargo has on average six different types of products with the bank.
- World War II witnessed the infamous introduction of horrifying new weaponry to modern warfare, but the latest out of the American archives has been kept secret until now.

According to The Times, declassified American archival material has revealed that Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE) planned to disrupt German and Japanese officers by "spraying them with stinking fluid," that was contained in perfume bottles or gel-grenades and designed to cover enemies with a "highly persistent smell suggestive of personal uncleanliness." The weapon was known as "S liquid" with the S being short for "stench."

S liquid was based on a bacterial compound called skatole, which reeks of feces, The Times reported.

"Up to the present, our employment of evil-smelling substances has been mainly for the purpose of contaminating individuals' clothing," British Wing Commander TR Bird wrote in a letter to the American pre-CIA intelligence organization the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). "Since the air in any ordinary public meeting room is generally free from smell, almost any strange smell which cannot readily be accounted for would arouse suspicion which might easily culminate in fear or even panic."

In the end, America chose to develop its own stink bomb, which they code-named "Who, Me?" and mixed the smells of vomit, goat, and smelly-feet. However, The Times noted, a few weeks before it was to be deployed against the Japanese, America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The documents were discovered by American science writer Mary Roach, who discusses the stink bombs and more in her book Grunt.
- This is not the first time a public official has acknowledged that HAARP and weather control is not only possible, but has been and continues to be, used as a “super weapon,” as evidenced by a statement in 1997 by former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, where he said “Others [terrorists] are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves… So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations…It’s real, and that’s the reason why we have to intensify our [counterterrorism] efforts.”

Is it still just a conspiracy theory if public officials admit it is true?
- Fairfax photographer Meares says if we lose this Senate fight over press freedom the gallery will take it to the High Court. I'll join them.

But we won't lose – and it's not just because I don't play Candy Crush.

Footnote: Last week's poignant photo of Malcolm in a muddle, walking alone through the sea of green leather in an empty chamber, will surely win a Walkley award. Bizarre isn't it that a similar snap could not have been taken in the upper house.
- According to a report by the Russian State Duma: ‘The US plans to carry out large-scale experiments under the HAARP programme [and] create weapons capable of breaking radio communication lines and equipment installed on spaceships and rockets, provoke serious accidents in electricity networks and in oil and gas pipelines, and have a negative impact on the mental health of entire regions.’*

An analysis of statements emanating from the US Air Force points to the unthinkable: the covert manipulation of weather patterns, communications and electric power systems as a weapon of global warfare, enabling the US to disrupt and dominate entire regions. Weather manipulation is the pre-emptive weapon par excellence. It can be directed against enemy countries or ‘friendly nations’ without their knowledge, used to destabilise economies, ecosystems and agriculture. It can also trigger havoc in financial and commodity markets. The disruption in agriculture creates a greater dependency on food aid and imported grain staples from the US and other Western countries.

HAARP was developed as part of an Anglo-American partnership between Raytheon Corporation, which owns the HAARP patents, the US Air Force and British Aerospace Systems (BAES).

The HAARP project is one among several collaborative ventures in advanced weapons systems between the two defence giants. The HAARP project was initiated in 1992 by Advanced Power Technologies, Inc. (APTI), a subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield Corporation (ARCO). APTI (including the HAARP patents) was sold by ARCO to E-Systems Inc, in 1994. E-Systems, on contract to the CIA and US Department of Defense, outfitted the ‘Doomsday Plan’, which ‘allows the President to manage a nuclear war’.Subsequently acquired by Raytheon Corporation, it is among the largest intelligence contractors in the World. BAES was involved in the development of the advanced stage of the HAARP antenna array under a 2004 contract with the Office of Naval Research.

The installation of 132 high frequency transmitters was entrusted by BAES to its US subsidiary, BAE Systems Inc. The project, according to a July report in Defense News, was undertaken by BAES’s Electronic Warfare division. In September it received DARPA’s top award for technical achievement for the design, construction and activation of the HAARP array of antennas.
- Just like during the last economic crisis, homeless encampments are popping up all over the nation as poverty grows at a very alarming rate.  According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than half a million people are homeless in America right now, but that figure is increasing by the day.  And it isn’t just adults that we are talking about.  It has been reported that that the number of homeless children in this country has risen by 60 percent since the last recession, and Poverty USA says that a total of 1.6 million children slept either in a homeless shelter or in some other form of emergency housing at some point last year.  Yes, the stock market may have been experiencing a temporary boom for the last couple of years, but for those on the low end of the economic scale things have just continued to deteriorate.
- Much more significant than Yellen’s latest suggestion of a rate increase was her call for the Fed to think outside the box in developing responses to the next financial crisis. One of the outside the box ideas suggested by Yellen is increasing the Fed’s ability to intervene in markets by purchasing assets of private companies. Yellen also mentioned that the Fed could modify its inflation target.

Increasing the Federal Reserve’s ability to purchase private assets will negatively impact economic growth and consumers’ well-being. This is because the Fed will use this power to keep failing companies alive, thus preventing the companies’ assets from being used to produce a good or service more highly valued by consumers.

Investors may seek out companies whose assets have been purchased by the Federal Reserve, since it is likely that Congress and federal regulators would treat these companies as “too big to fail.” Federal Reserve ownership of private companies could also strengthen the movement to force businesses to base their decisions on political, rather than economic, considerations.

Yellen’s suggestion of modifying the Fed’s inflation target means that the Fed would increase the inflation tax just when Americans are trying to cope with a major recession or even a depression. The inflation tax is the most insidious of all taxes because it is both hidden and regressive.

The failure of the Federal Reserve’s eight-year spree of money creation via quantitative easing and historically low interest rates to reflate the bubble economy suggests that the fiat currency system may soon be coming to an end. Yellen’s outside the box proposals will only hasten that collapse.

The collapse of the fiat system will not only cause a major economic crisis, but also the collapse of the welfare-warfare state. Yet, Congress not only refuses to consider meaningful spending cuts, it will not even pass legislation to audit the Fed.
- I, for one, would like to see Trump vs. Bernie. Socialist vs. Capitalist. They could do three debates on Globalism and its horrendous effects on America, at which point the public would realize they both claim to perceive the gargantuan threat, albeit from different angles.

Hillary was the unabashed queen bee of Globalism.

At any rate, you can bet that, as we speak, media giants are taking private briefings on how the election season would proceed if she drops out. They’re preparing their talking points and tall stories and outright lies. All somehow culminating in a Democrat Party victory this November, come hell or high water.

“After Congressional leaders begged President Obama to stay on for several months, he reluctantly agreed, saying: ‘Well, I do have sixty or seventy executive orders drawn up and ready to go, so perhaps I could bring the country a little closer to the future we envision. We’re all in this together.’”
- Hillary was seen wearing the blue sunglasses during the 9/11 memorial in New York City where she later collapsed from complications stemming from her numerous health issues.

Given her lack of fashion concerns – she’s regularly seen wearing pantsuits everywhere she goes – it’s unlikely her blue sunglasses were meant as a fashion statement.

Epileptic patients often wear Zeiss Z1 blue lenses in particular because they are effective at treating photosensitive epilepsy.

“The Z1 lens is highly effective in controlling photoparoxysmal response in a very large number of photosensitive epilepsy patients irrespective of their epilepsy or antiepileptic drug treatment,” according to a 2006 study published in Epilepsia. “The lens might become a valid resource in the daily activity of any clinician who cares for patients with epilepsy.”

Hillary experiences seizures from flashing lights, such as camera flashes at public events, according to sources inside the Secret Service who spoke to Infowars.

Additionally, a 2006 YouTube video shows a man suffering from uncontrollable convulsions put on blue sunglasses to obtain immediate relief from his symptoms, which were more severe yet still similar to Hillary’s odd, epileptic behavior at the Democratic National Convention.
- Opposition candidates have won seats in parliamentary elections in Belarus for the first time since 2000, though critics of the ruling regime said they had been “appointed” to appease the west, and independent observers reported widespread vote-rigging.

Anna Konopatskaya, of the United Civic party, won a district in Minsk, and Yelena Anisim, of the Belarusian Language Society, also won a seat. Anisim’s opponent, Yelena Zhuravlyova, a regime loyalist, unexpectedly withdrew from the race last month.

Leading critics of the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for 22 years, were unimpressed.

“Lukashenko is trying to show that he is creating possibilities [for the opposition], but nothing is actually happening, he just wants money from the west because the economy is headed towards a cliff,” said Andrei Sannikov, an activist who challenged Lukashenko in the 2010 presidential race and was imprisoned for two years in a violent crackdown on protests that arose after the flawed vote.

Nikolai Statkevich, another imprisoned 2010 presidential candidate, who was released in 2015, called the elections a “farce” and asked Belarusians to gather in Oktyabrskaya Square in Minsk on Monday night to “demand real elections”.
- The second UN Secretary-General, Dag Hammerskjold, said that the UN "was created not to lead mankind into heaven, but to save humanity from hell." And yet the very institution that helped re-establish Israel as a Jewish state after 2,000 years of colonization by outsiders now gives voice to rabid anti-Semites who call for Israel's destruction. The same organization that is based out of New York City finds itself ignoring the blatant atrocities and evil agendas perpetrated by anti-American terrorist organizations and regimes, whether Iran's missile testing, Syria's bombing of civilians, or Somalia's harboring of al-Qaeda terrorists. It gives anti-democratic regimes in Moscow, Riyadh, and Beijing a larger voice than they deserve in a body that's dedicated, supposedly, to the equal rights of all peoples. Like the European Union and many NGOs, the UN has been hijacked by radical, corrupt, and often racist individuals or coalitions that make a mockery out of what the organization used to stand for and what its founders believed in. It proves what some figures in the 2016 election cycle in the USA have been saying: no organization is too big to fail. Rather than countries wasting billions of dollars on the UN, which accomplishes nothing nowadays but sowing discord, the organization should be dismantled step-by-step. The billions of dollars spent on the UN could be spent domestically in developing countries like China and India to better the lives of their citizens; in the USA to improve the lives of  communities of color that remain impoverished and lag behind Whites in many aspects of life; and in Israel to bolster its military. Some smaller branches of the UN, like UNICEF, can be transformed into individual NGOs and can receive donations that otherwise would've gone to the United Nations. UNICEF and similar branches do a lot of good and often have very little, if anything, to do with the corrupt agendas espoused and given a platform in the General Assembly. Often we hear in American politics the argument of "big government vs small government". In this case, the "big government" of the UN has failed and become corrupt and bigoted; a "small government" approach by more regional-specific or case-specific organizations like UNICEF, or a certain body that focuses on infrastructure development in rural Latin America, for example, would probably be a better approach. 
- They were mystified by what had happened to the post-second world war notion of “shared prosperity”; puzzled by the ways in which ever more wealth has gone to the rich and super-rich; vexed that hedge-fund managers pull in billions of dollars, yet pay taxes at lower rates than their secretaries; curious about why politicians kept slashing taxes on the very rich and handing huge tax breaks and subsidies to corporations that are downsizing their work forces; troubled that the heart of the American dream – upward mobility – seemed to have stopped beating; and dumbfounded that all of this could happen in a democracy whose politicians were supposed to serve the greatest good for the greatest number. So Hacker and Pierson set out to find out “how our economy stopped working to provide prosperity and security for the broad middle class”.

In other words, they wanted to know: “Who dunnit?” They found the culprit. With convincing documentation they concluded, “Step by step and debate by debate, America’s public officials have rewritten the rules of American politics and the American economy in ways that have benefitted the few at the expense of the many.”

There you have it: the winners bought off the gatekeepers, then gamed the system. And when the fix was in they turned our economy into a feast for the predators, “saddling Americans with greater debt, tearing new holes in the safety net, and imposing broad financial risks on Americans as workers, investors, and taxpayers”. The end result, Hacker and Pierson conclude, is that the United States is looking more and more like the capitalist oligarchies of Brazil, Mexico, and Russia, where most of the wealth is concentrated at the top while the bottom grows larger and larger, with everyone in between just barely getting by.

Bruce Springsteen sings of “the country we carry in our hearts”. This isn’t it.
- The FBI will be able to hack into computers anywhere in the world if changes to the US Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure are allowed to become law, as they will on December 1.

Democrat Senator Ron Wyden has drafted a one-line bill that would prevent the organisation from getting these powers through the changes to rule 41.

These changes would give judges the power to grant warrants to search and seize electronic media outside their own jurisdictions if information was "concealed through technological means", according to the Tor Project.

This would include the use of Tor.

A Tor Project blog post said the broad warrants obtainable under the changed rules would apply to people using Tor in any country.

"The FBI will be permitted to hack into a person’s computer or phone remotely and to search through and remove their data. The FBI will be able to introduce malware into computers. It will create vulnerabilities that will leave users exposed," the post said.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an American non-profit that fights for digital rights, said in an analysis: "Make no mistake: the Rule 41 proposal implicates people well beyond US borders. This update expands the jurisdiction of judges to cover any computer user in the world who is using technology to protect their location privacy or is unwittingly part of a botnet."

It said people both inside and outside the US should be equally concerned about the proposed changes.

"The change to Rule 41 isn’t merely a procedural update. It significantly expands the hacking capabilities of the United States government without any discussion or public debate by elected officials.

"If members of the intelligence community believe these tools are necessary to advancing their investigations, then this is not the path forward. Only elected members of Congress should be writing laws, and they should be doing so in a matter that considers the privacy, security, and civil liberties of people impacted," the EFF said.
- Russian researchers at the Karadag Nature reserve say they have recorded a conversation between dolphins – specifically a pair of bottlenoses called Yasha and Yana – using a special underwater microphone that can distinguish between the animals’ voices properly for the first time. This has revealed that they talk to each other just like humans do.

Apparently the animals alter the frequency and volume of their clicks to form little clumps of sounds like words and wait til the other has finished delivering stretches of said clumps (sentences, one might almost reckon) before embarking on their own.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/12/dolphins-can-talk---and-this-is-what-they-are-talking-about/
Since 2012 Assange, WikiLeaks’ founder and leader, has been confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London fighting extradition to Sweden on sexual-assault charges. The inner workings of WikiLeaks—effectively a one-man operation even before its leader’s isolation—can be opaque. In some matters Assange has maintained WikiLeaks’ secrets but he has also made certain positions perfectly clear over the years: his loathing for Hillary Clinton, his increasing alignment with the Russian government’s positions, and his interest in electoral politics.

Assange’s antipathy for Clinton is well established and seems to be a hatred he came to honestly. It’s a view hardly unique to Assange that sees the former Secretary of State as uniquely corrupt and bellicose even among her peers.

Back in 2010 Assange suggested Clinton should resign after his organization leaked diplomatic cables that showed her sanctioning spying on foreign diplomats.    

Assange wasn’t the only one to call for Clinton to step down in the wake of “cablegate,” some respected American journalists did as well, but his assertion that at WikiLeaks “we don’t have targets” made in the same interview where he called for her resignation just doesn’t hold up. Clinton has been a repeated target of both WikiLeaks and Assange himself. In his book When Google Met WikiLeaks, Assange detailed the Clinton State Department’s questionable collusion with Google. And there are clear signs that WikiLeaks’ dump of nearly 20,000 hacked emails taken from the Democratic National Committee was timed to do maximum damage to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Additionally, both U.S. officials and private cybersecurity experts have pointed to the Russian government’s likely involvement in hacking the DNC emails.

In a statement posted to WikiLeaks’ Twitter account and in interviews, Assange has responded to the charge of Russian co-option. Clinton, according to Assange, “palled up with the neocons responsible for the Iraq War and she’s grabbed on to this sort of neo-McCarthyist hysteria about Russia, and is using that to demonize the Trump campaign.”
- ERA is essentially made up of "bricks" of explosive sandwiched between two metal plates arranged in such a way as to rapidly move sideways when the explosive detonates.

This forces an incoming projectile to cut through more armor than the thickness of the plating itself, since "new" plating is constantly fed into the penetrating body. This significantly reduces the penetrating capabilities of the projectile, since the penetrating force will be dissipated over a larger volume of armor.
- "The goals of the engine's designers are ambitious," the journalist emphasized. "They want to capture over 10% of the market share for turbofan engines with a thrust class between 7 and 18 tons, and to reduce fuel consumption at cruising speed by 10-15% compared with contemporary engines of similar class." Moreover, engineers developed the engine to reduce operating costs by 14-17%, and to reduce maintenance costs during the engine's lifecycle by 15-20% compared to competitors.
at
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Sunday, November 29, 2015

Israeli/Palestinian Conflict, Counter-Terrorism, and More

- sometimes it feels as though the media makes light of conflicts around the world. Often, they have little idea of the background behind it. Hence, we're left with a sensationalist, biased report/summary of the circumstances based on whomever they've been able to conjur. Once upon a time (a long time ago) Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived side by side in peace in the Middle East
Living under occupation - Daily Life in Occupied Palestine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osocIWakOp4
History of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Q_8ZrYku4
Israel and Palestine the truth [BBC ducumentry]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxBhPbabVSE
Why US and Israel wants to ban this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pLXMGtW64k
Palestine vs Israel Conflict - Conflict In The West Bankhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjVWvcmzqF0
Israel and Palestine Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r1EmEni2Rw
Al Jazeera World - Palestine Divided
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW0O0KIfsxs
Documentary on Israel _ Palestine - Occupation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuI5GP2LJAs
Israel_Palestine - The Gaza War From Ground Level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywjMZTVMr7k
Palestinian Terrorism Against Israel - The Beginning _ Israeli-Palestinian Conflict _ Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdkMH7Aavu4
Rick Steves' The Holy Land - Israelis and Palestinians Today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wg1unr6eNpQ
War Between Israel and Palestine - THE GAZA CONFLICT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfVAQrob-cs
- one of the great ironies is that people often portray the West as being the epitomy of what society should be like (peaceful, prosperous, secular, accepting, etc...). Despite this, the 'narrative' that is used by non-Westerners is that we're 'unclean' in the eyes of God. There's no doubt that this is true. If you were to think about life in the West it's almost impossible to live without sin. Along the way, the West has diverged one way while the other parts of the world have stayed and held true to a more interpretation of (supposed) covenants/agreements with God. Basically, divergences in opinions a long time ago (hundreds and thousands of years) has led to very different levels and types of development across our civilisations. If you to be honest with yourself though, most of us know in our heart of hearts there is no way that a lot of what we do is in accordance with God's teachings...
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/27/can-a-dying-civilization-defeat-isis-and-radical-islam/
http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151123/1030598158/western-governments-terrorism-syria-isil-alqaeda.html
http://www.smh.com.au/world/china-cuts-veteran-journalist-gao-yus-sentence-to-five-years-in-prison-20151126-gl8s3s.html
- people keep on having a go at Islamists saying that they are out to take over the world. If they were actually more attune, basically every single one of the major world religions says exactly the same thing. At some moment in time, when the world is in trouble there will be a 'Second Coming' and that particular religion will 'reign' over the entire world. Everyone will be converted to that religion... The only reason why we don't talk about radical Buddhists, Jews, Christians, etc... is that relatively speaking there aren't as many (yes, they engage in some similarly desctructive activities as well (in the past as well as present))
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Coming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_violence
https://www.quora.com/Which-religion-is-responsible-for-the-greatest-number-of-deaths-of-infidels-over-its-entire-history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war
London's Holy Turf War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1tEpjmFH9g
- it's obvious that some of the people who have left the intelligence services and have gone on to 'whistle-blow' are 'false flag' operations (forget about the links below. Just stories interesting stories...). They are simply there to confuse the enemy as to the current local capabilities. It's similar to the old Soviet practice of sending through one counter-defector after another to confuse the enemy. Other times they are there to sure up public opinion to make them think that the current incumbent government are more/less competent then they seem, etc... 'Doctored intelligence' is probably more normal than you would like to believe (I remember there were stories about an entire section of the KGB dedicated to this a long time ago. I wouldn't be surprised if this practice still continues). To anyone outside of this 'atmosphere/environment' you would think that they were insane. To people who are used to it, that's life...
http://www.wnd.com/2015/08/ex-dia-chief-obama-willfully-allowed-rise-of-isis/
http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/its-official-there-will-be-no-iranian-icbm-2015-14424
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/23/how-the-united-states-helped-create-the-islamic-state/
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/11/23/exclusive-islamic-state-threat-united-states/
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/23/politics/state-worldwide-travel-alert-paris-terrorist-attacks/
http://www.politico.eu/article/viktor-orban-putin-has-no-personality/
http://www.politico.eu/article/viktor-orban-interview-terrorists-migrants-eu-russia-putin-borders-schengen/
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/troublemakers-and-traitors--its-no-fun-being-a-whistleblower-20151122-gl50n3.html
- almost always there are those who fail to integrate when they are forced to leave their homelands. Should we pay/give them a chance to migrate elsewhere (as long as it's economically viable, things are stable elsewhere, etc...)?
- I wanted to know more about 'Sharia Law'. The one thing that is obvious is that the media only tends to focus on the most extreme/bad examples (I assure you that if you have some time you look you can make any society in any part of the world look absolutely rediculous). Obviously, there are some aspects of 'Sharia Law' that are really interesting and elegant (no apparent concept of 'financial interest' which results in a much simpler financial system, explicit rules to force wealthy people to give back to the poor, etc...) while others seem shocking given how lenient our lives seem (relatively) in the West (it will help a lot if you some Arabic and want to view some of these lectures... It becomes very confusing if you don't) There are some radically different interpretions of what Islamic life/religion/culture should be like as well... The term 'Jihad' can be interpreted as both 'violent resistence' as well as another one that revolves around spiritual interpretation and doing your best to make the world a better place in the future....
Islamic Legal Philosophy  (Yasir Qadhi, Jasser Auda & Tariq Ramadan)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InkPIsyzxNE
The Battle for British Islam full Documentary HD 2015 !! 720p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19TUwHmgKTE
Sharia Law 101 - the essential statistics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYHGDBC19qo
London's Holy Turf War
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1tEpjmFH9g
Documentary on Islam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4wHiDDAnlQ
SHARIAH LAW Myths vs Facts - Explaining Sharia Law to non-Muslims _ Dr. Sabeel Ahmedhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KValbyHyJIM
How Is Sharia Law Dangerous for Western Society
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcpfZvt7iPY
Debate - Does Sharia Law Negate Human Rights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47suJ62KgN0
Ahmadi Muslims Debate Sharia Law with One Law for All (Maryam Namazie) at UCL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTYrjFE6Rcg
Are You Afraid of Sharia Law - Haroon Moghul
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99i-y_CLUf0
What is Islamic Sharia Law by Sh. Abdool Rahman Khan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1JROcCLlbk
Sharia and Other Religious Laws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h80c7tntK2w
Your fatwa does not apply here _ Karima Bennoune _ TEDxExeter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLi6iYnnsGc
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-dug-network-tunnels-under-conquered-iraqi-city-sinjar-n469366
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel,_2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict
- one obvious (and probably already used) mechanism to break the propaganda cycle may be to promote alternative/peaceful preachers and/or religions (feeds into propaganda by being biased though...). Also, to break the cycle of enmity around the world by using commercial media networks to occasionally (but regularly and with minimum standards/criteria based on international standards. Could simply be re-broadcast online documentaries by random journalists. Minimal cost to everyone involved) give an idea of what life for people and things are really like on the other side of the world as opposed to what some people would like us to believe... Possibly, even consider opening the doors of all religions to all (within reason. There are already some programs like this)? Get to understand one anothers problems and help to fix them locally. Kill the problem further up the chain if at all possible?
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/world/asia/indonesia-islam-nahdlatul-ulama.html
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/what-its-like-to-be-a-muslim-woman-living-in-the-united-states/news-story/ef042feb6318d17698b201504115a2fb?from=google_rss&google_editors_picks=true
The Islamic State (Full Length)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUjHb4C7b94
ISIS Tilting the Chess Board - The Dawn of a New Middle East Balance of Power - H. van Lynden lecture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWGz6OJSZJ8
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/opinion/john-bolton-to-defeat-isis-create-a-sunni-state.html?_r=0
- if you're honest our problems are very minor when compared to elsewhere
Q and A 22 June 2015 ep21 Shaky Zaky Mallah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4Et3Piw0Qo
- it's obvious that a lot of people favour 'enforced peace' where a military force is permanently required in order to maintain the peace. I'm on the other side (though I obviously have low neo-con desires). Long term deployment requires resources, lives, etc... It also means that you can afford not to build systems/structures to help maintain peace without an external force
- it's clear that ISIS have already 'dug in' and established means of countering 'aerial bombing'. The irony here is that Russian style 'carpet bombing' has been portrayed as 'inhumane' but it's probably the quickest way of 'clearing territory' (Note stats in previous blog post which indicate numbers may be similar between percentage of dumb vs guided bombs between US/Allies and other forces). They (and others including the US and it's allies) have been dropping leaflets/communicating their intentions prior to bombing. Thereafter, hopefully the people in question leave and bombers run through the area. If you 'carpet bomb' (or close to) you can clear more areas/structures quickly then precision bombing where foot soldiers are needed and intelligence to 'clear' building after building individually... A line of advancement for ground troops is easier... and there are less places to hide which could lead to a higher likelihood of longer term guerilla warfare. This strategy comes at an obvious cost. Massive, possibly un-required property destruction... Once you clear through the territory, you herd people into areas where you can 'clear' their status (rebel/terrorist or not. I know, easier said than done). You can rebuild buildings, it's much more difficult to bring people back to the world of the living
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/isis-terror/isis-dug-network-tunnels-under-conquered-iraqi-city-sinjar-n469366
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/world/middleeast/isis-grip-on-libyan-city-gives-it-a-fallback-option.html?_r=0
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/world/europe/anonymous-hackers-fight-isis-but-reactions-are-mixed.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/25/us/us-muslim-extremists-terrorist-attacks.html?_r=0
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/11/17/US-Hopelessly-Outclassed-Cyber-War-Against-ISIS
http://www.smh.com.au/business/paris-attacks-war-on-islamic-state-brings-us50-billion-defense-boost-20151125-gl7dkb.html
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/what-america-can-learn-from-russias-cheap-but-deadly-t-1540829820
http://www.smh.com.au/national/what-australia-has-not-done-well-since-the-911-attacks-20151120-gl44fu.html
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/whos-isis-anonymous-opparis-campaign-against-islamic-state-goes-awry/
http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/some-geo-politicsintelligence-some-jsf.html
- a non-lethal/destructive version of this could just involve sonic (and other non-lethal) weapons or other crowd control mechanisms. Keep on using them until you flush all people out of an area. Herd them, clear their status, etc... Another alternative is to use sleeping aides on the local water supply (or use it in aerosol form (perhaps even seed clouds). Time delayed release agents or micro/nano-capsules with no advance warning to reduce chances of precautionary measures. Woudl break down naturally after a period of time to ensure water supply is not permanently contaminated. Guessing Soviets/Russians and US would have strong research expertise in this area based on some information that has leaked about some of their intelligence/defense/medical research). Obvious problem is dosage and getting it mixed with civilian presecriptions which could create complications, etc... Easier to 'clear' areas when people are asleep/dozed off. Practicallity, cost, etc? Decentralise distribution it so that local citizens have non-lethal means of defending themselves and finding an exit route? Obvious possible, big issues here with responsible distribution
The Drug Fueling Conflict In Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ke13JNlpBQ
- the irony is that technically the 'sourge of terrorism' isn't that large. More people die from car accidents, unhealthy food, etc... I think these people are looking at the problem too simplistically. Think about the number of people who have been displaced in Syria alone from a relatively small number of terrorists...Cameron to set out Syria strategy to MPs within days
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34893585
http://thefederalist.com/2015/11/19/barack-obama-worst-president-ever/
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/11/20/the-threat-is-already-inside-uncomfortable-truths-terrorism-isis/
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/u-s-had-mali-terror-crosshairs-siege-n467261
http://nypost.com/2015/11/22/isis-is-inherently-cowardly-to-defeat-it-hit-it-hard/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/us/politics/military-reviews-us-response-to-isis-rise.html?_r=0
http://nypost.com/2015/11/22/obamas-isis-strategy-only-increases-risk-of-a-us-attack/
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/02/1054406130502.html
http://www.nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/lot-what-we-think-we-know-about-world-war-ii-terribly-wrong-14275
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/the-godless-delusion-20120414-1x0ee.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2013/06/23/chinas-maoist-vision-a-city-of-260-million-people/
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/civic-pride-a-lost-cause/story-e6frg6z6-1226668451596
http://thetacticsofterror.org/
- one obvious problem with China's rapid rise rise is that they've had to adapt so quickly/learn so much in such a short space of time. Even if they don't want to interfere in the affairs of other countries they may have to. Think about how the various empires have had naval escorts of civilian trade. Should other countries be forced to protect Chinese trade even if the Chinese are economically and militarily stronger in future? In future, China may be forced to live up to it's responsibilities as global player in spite of what it may want to do...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/world/asia/china-terrorism-xinjiang-paris-christina-lin.html?_r=0
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/28/uk-troops-discredited-after-iraq-and-afghanistan-says-ken-livingstone
http://airwars.org/index.html
http://www.chinafile.com/document-9-chinafile-translation
Xi calls for structural reform of military by 2020
http://english.cntv.cn/2015/11/27/VIDE1448577962028670.shtml
China Nato Anti-Piracy Drills
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/27/china-nato-idUSL3N13M1OR20151127
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/24/china-isis-uighurs-xi-jinping-xinjiang
http://www.afr.com/news/world/china-announces-military-overhaul-to-make-pla-more-combat-ready-20151126-gl9amm
- if you listen some people it feels as though we create the problem ourselves at times. The reason for some of the strangeness in policy is sometimes down to political acceptablity. Some of it seems completely crazy though. One former intelligence officer I've heard said that a group of people meeting with a truck, arms, is enough to warrant a drone 'signature attack' (they could be farmers given the remoteness of some of territories we're talking about here). Where/should you draw the line? Shouldn't this be a public disussion? At times, it feels like the US/Allies were fooled into bombing Libya, Yemen, Iraq, etc... (if you know something of military strategy this could also be to cause instability in the enemy (Iran, Syria, Russia, etc...)) so that ISIS could gain a foothold. Hence, the carefulness in deployment of military force in Syria... Information from operators/troops in the area doesn't match up with what you hear/see in the media (listen to the relevant episodes on SOFREP Radio. It's interesting that there were a lot of clues to indicate that troop training wasn't going well in Iraq, that accounts by the US administration provided and that by troops are different, etc...)...
https://soundcloud.com/sofrep-radio
The CIA, NSA, and DHS and Counterterrorism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJyhsCBQzcc
Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn_qthkxQAw
Unmanned - America's Drone Wars • FULL DOCUMENTARY FILM • BRAVE NEW FILMS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpzk7OdbjBw
Counter-terrorism - Terror Technology - HISTORY DOCUMENTARY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmIXb8PMmzo 
International Perspectives on Terrorism and Counterterrorism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWWNDhq2I1M 
http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/the-pitfalls-good-guy-bad-guy-foreign-policy-14415
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/hilary-clinton-and-the-is_b_8627042.html
Ignoring U.S. Destabilization of Libya, GOP Benghazi Hearing Asks Clinton All the Wrong Questions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-d8C_8swWo
- it's easy to be critical in every one of these circumstances here. The obvious question, what would you do? How would it stack up against what is currently happening (and being done) throughout the world?

- the Soviets/Russia and the US have engaged in what feel like crazy experimentation at times. The MK Ultra program was basically research into 'mind control'...
MKULTRA Documentary  CIA Mind Control Research   Human Experiments in the United States
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5ybWK8gbKM
America's Secret War - MKULTRA Mind Control
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I4yILk7UHk
More Proof the CIA Tried to Use Subliminals to Brainwash America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h6FNbiYRJg
Alex Jones Documentary HD State Of Mind No Ads The Science of Ultimate Social Mind Control 720p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKKU9SzT78Q

- didn't realise there were so many skydiving animals nowadays
Skydiving cats cause uproar
http://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com.au/2015/11/some-geo-politicsintelligence-some-jsf.html

- automated conversion of webpages to PDF software options
http://www.cyberciti.biz/open-source/html-to-pdf-freeware-linux-osx-windows-software/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/176476/how-can-i-automate-html-to-pdf-conversions
http://linuxandfriends.com/wkhtmltopdf-convert-webpage-to-pdf-in-linux/

- interesting facts/statistics about our 'heart rate'
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/fitness/expert-answers/heart-rate/faq-20057979
http://www.topendsports.com/testing/heart-rate-resting-chart.htm
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/MyHeartandStrokeNews/All-About-Heart-Rate-Pulse_UCM_438850_Article.jsp
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/features/5-heart-rate-myths-debunked
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_rate

- promising new technologies to increase energy density
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/168288-folded-paper-lithium-ion-battery-increases-energy-density-by-14-times
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/126745-ibm-creates-breathing-high-density-light-weight-lithium-air-battery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium%E2%80%93air_battery
http://cleantechnica.com/2013/11/18/lithium-air-batteries-get-big-boost-genetically-modified-viruses/
http://www.bio-logic.info/potentiostat-electrochemistry-ec-lab/accessories/rotating-electrodes/
http://www.ips-jaissle.de/en/rotating_electrodes.html

- how much did mathematical patterns play in the works of Bach?
http://www.education.com/science-fair/article/mathematical-patterns-johann-sebastian-bach/
http://www.education.com/science-fair/article/math-patterns-in-js-bach/
http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/Article/356061,deconstructing-the-genius-of-bach.aspx
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/16/science/j-s-bach-fractals-new-music.html

- getting image metadata from the Linux CLI
http://hacktux.com/read/remove/exif
http://gnutips.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/view-image-file-metadata-from-the-command-line/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2654281/how-to-remove-exif-data-without-recompressing-the-jpeg

- fixing Pioneer CDJ DJ Deck problems
https://forums.pioneerdj.com/hc/communities/public/questions/203094009-cdj-900s-freeze-when-using-external-hard-drive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDJ
https://forums.pioneerdj.com/hc/communities/public/questions/203088489--SOLVED-CDJ-850-wave-display-Major-issues-when-playing-CDs
http://www.fixya.com/support/t14755059-pioneer_cdj_850_ejecting_disc_not
http://www.leafdigital.com/articles/cdj800-replacing-cd-drive-dxa-da114.html

- Ableton Live keyboard shortcuts
https://www.ableton.com/en/manual/live-keyboard-shortcuts/
http://www.abletonlivekeyboardshortcuts.com/ableton-live-9-keyboard-shortcuts/#
http://blog.liveschool.net/essential-keyboard-shortcuts-in-ableton-live-9/

- benchmarking Joomla performance
http://joomlaseo.com/blog/templates-performance-comparison
http://www.yottaa.com/blog/application-optimization/bid/301605/Benchmarking-Performance-of-8-CMS-Platforms-Who-Is-Slowest
http://magazine.joomla.org/issues/issue-apr-2014/item/1820-10-tips-for-a-fast-joomla-website


- Every day Jews are stabbed, slashed, shot, and murdered on the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Beersheba. And every day the world lies about “violence on both sides,” as if Netanyahu and Israel are inciting Jews to take knives and stab Palestinians the way that Palestinian clerics on the PA payroll and Mahmoud Abbas are doing about Jews.

There can be only one conclusion. Jewish blood is cheap and getting cheaper by the day. I know of no other ethnic or religious group on earth who face daily incitement to genocide with the world making not even a peep of protest.
http://observer.com/2015/11/obama-and-booker-iran-deal-already-falling-apart/
- The United States' top fighter jet, the Lockheed Martin F-22, has recently required more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000, a far higher figure than for the warplane it replaces, confidential Pentagon test results show.

The aircraft's radar-absorbing metallic skin is the principal cause of its maintenance troubles, with unexpected shortcomings -- such as vulnerability to rain and other abrasion -- challenging Air Force and contractor technicians since the mid-1990s, according to Pentagon officials, internal documents and a former engineer.

While most aircraft fleets become easier and less costly to repair as they mature, key maintenance trends for the F-22 have been negative in recent years, and on average from October last year to this May, just 55 percent of the deployed F-22 fleet has been available to fulfill missions guarding U.S. airspace, the Defense Department acknowledged this week. The F-22 has never been flown over Iraq or Afghanistan.

Sensitive information about troubles with the nation's foremost air-defense fighter is emerging in the midst of a fight between the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress over whether the program should be halted next year at 187 planes, far short of what the Air Force and the F-22's contractors around the country had anticipated.

"It is a disgrace that you can fly a plane [an average of] only 1.7 hours before it gets a critical failure" that jeopardizes success of the aircraft's mission, said a Defense Department critic of the plane who is not authorized to speak on the record. Other skeptics inside the Pentagon note that the planes, designed 30 years ago to combat a Cold War adversary, have cost an average of $350 million apiece and say they are not a priority in the age of small wars and terrorist threat
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070903020.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/09/AR2009070903020_pf.html
- “Putin thinks he is God, who can not only rule over people’s fates around the world but also control the flow of time and the expansion of space,” Parkohomenko said. “He is above all the concerns we have here on the ground, I believe that this is incurable.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/03/putin-was-missing-in-action-after-plane-crash.html
- The irony here is that Putin’s intervention has changed the strategic calculus in Syria precisely because it is happening on a scale that Barack Obama or Cameron do not contemplate, because they are not wanton warmongers. They are mindful of public opinion and hesitate to put soldiers’ and civilian lives at risk. They run their interventions past freely elected legislatures. If the prime minister has chosen to abandon his plan to ask parliament for permission to bomb Isis, knowing he would lose the vote, it can be read as a symptom of democracy working properly. If the result is a spur towards more rigorous diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the Syrian conflict, all the better.

But we can hardly congratulate ourselves for sidestepping the quagmire. The opposite of western assertiveness in this case has turned out to be a policy of inviting despots and terrorists to fight each other to a standstill, while leaving the civilian population to fend for itself. It may feel safe to be a bystander at such a scene, but it does not feel innocent.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/03/david-cameron-syria-airstrikes-assad
- "We believe that there should be no extension of British military action into Syria unless there is a coherent international strategy that has a realistic chance of defeating ISIL and of ending the civil war in Syria," the MPs concluded.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/australia-us-alone-on-syria-air-strikes-after-british-change-of-heart-20151104-gkqrke.html
- The United States and Russia are the only two countries who maintain a triad. We’re about to spend scads of money modernizing that triad, including replacing the most advanced bomber in the world with the next more advanced bomber in the world. We don’t need to reinvest in a nuclear program meant to destroy Soviet air defenses in 1985. How large a deterrent we need is an argument worth having, but in the meantime, let’s stop trying to refight the Cold War. That mission’s already been accomplished.
http://www.nationalinterest.org/feature/the-1980s-called-they-don%E2%80%99t-need-their-cruise-missiles-back-14236?page=2
- "If the trend to smaller and smaller numbers of weapon system prime contractors continues, one can foresee a future in which the department has, at most, two or three very large suppliers for all the major weapons systems that we acquire," the Pentagon's acquisition chief, Frank Kendall, told reporters. "The department would not consider this to be a positive development and the American public should not either. ... With size comes power, and the department's experience with large defense contractors is that they are not hesitant to use this power for corporate advantage."
http://www.sunherald.com/news/business/article38027925.html
- “Good morning, ma’am,” a member of the uniformed Secret Service once greeted Hillary Clinton.
“F— off,” she replied.
That exchange is one among many that active and retired Secret Service agents shared with Ronald Kessler, author of “First Family Detail,” a compelling look at the intrepid personnel who shield America’s presidents and their families — and those whom they guard.
http://nypost.com/2015/10/02/secret-service-agents-hillary-is-a-nightmare-to-work-with/
- Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Wednesday that he hoped his tax plan would turn the United States into a tax haven.

In an interview with CNBC, the former neurosurgeon said he would drastically cut the U.S. corporate tax rate to between 15 and 20 percent. "I want us to become a tax haven for people because it also becomes an opportunity haven for people," Carson said.

Praising tax havens as engines of opportunity is bizarre. The purpose of tax havens isn't to invest in the local economy -- it's to park large sums of often ill-gotten money and do as little as possible with it. The economies of tax havens are a lot like the bank vaults they are built on -- stagnant. There's a reason that the Cayman Islands and havens like it are not centers of innovation and opportunity.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/ben-carson-tax-policy_5616a91be4b0e66ad4c6d9a0?section=australia&adsSiteOverride=au
- The thing is, we need as many Syrians in the country to pick up and AK-47 and fight a war with ISIS. If all those people run away, especially young healthy men who can fight, then we have no soldiers to oust Assad & ISIS & Al Nusura & anybody else.

We need soldiers on the ground to do the work. If all those Syrians who want to run away and not fight for their country, I'm sorry but I have no sympathy for them. The US was founded in a trial by fire and blood. Every great country needs to oust their corrupt & evil government by force before they can make a solid new government. You can't expect the West to clean up after the Middle East all by itself, we need boots on the ground, even if they are just regular civilians trained to be a conscript army.
http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=27885&p=308317#p308317
- You always hear of the celebrity defectors. They write best-selling books and appear on television. They can earn tens of thousands of dollars for an evening at a speaking engagement. They are eloquent as they tell their harrowing stories of dangerous flights from extreme oppression.

But there is sometimes a darker side to the stories of those who flee their homeland.

In South Korea, the statistics reveal a truth. The country's unification ministry says that 15% of the defectors who die each year kill themselves - more than three times the suicide rate for the population in general, and this is a country that consistently has the highest suicide rate of all the 34 industrialised countries in the OECD.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34710403
- It is generally accepted that the cost of the aircraft and crew of a carrier are roughly equal to the ship's purchase price.
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/naval/2015/11/03/congress-forbes-courtney-stackley-moore-navy-naval-aircraft-carriers-ford-kennedy-enterprise-gap-middle-east-centcom-pacom/75119168/
- WASHINGTON — A now-defunct Defense Department office tasked to build a compressed natural gas automobile filling station in Afghanistan spent an "exorbitant" $43 million on the facility, according John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR).

DoD awarded Central Asian Engineering a contract to build the station for just under $3 million, but SIGAR found that between 2011 and 2014 the Task Force for Stability and Business Operations (TFBSO) had spent nearly $40 million extra.
...
"One of the most troubling aspects of this project is that the Department of Defense claims that it is unable to provide an explanation for the high cost of the project or to answer any questions concerning its planning, implementation, or outcome," he wrote.
...
The SIGAR report states that no evidence exists that TFBSO conducted a feasibility study before diving into the project. If TFBSO had done so, Sopko says, "they might have noted that Afghanistan lacks the natural gas transmission and local distribution infrastructure necessary to support a viable market for CNG vehicles."

The average Afghan likely can't afford the cost of converting a car to run on compressed natural gas, which can cost about $700 per car. The average annual income for an Afghan is about $690, the report notes.
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense-news/2015/11/02/sigar-dod-spent-43m-on-ill-conceived-gas-station-in-afghanistan/75035348/
- “While Russia’s little green men in Crimea are widely known, insufficient attention has been paid to China’s little blue men in the South China Sea,” he said. “It’s so different from what the US does. People aren’t familiar with it, it’s hard to wrap their heads around it.”
...
“This is not a type of force we understand well enough,” Erickson said. “They could conceivably achieve some advantages through elements of surprise and confusion. Then even if we know who they are and what they’re doing we might have great difficulty dealing with them because of our rules of engagement. China could go out of its way to mis-portray some of these personnel as random patriotic fishermen, as vocal ‘residents’ of these ‘islands’ in the Spratlys. They’re very good at that kind of propaganda warfare.”
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/naval/2015/11/02/china-lassen-destroyer-spratly-islands-south-china-sea-andrew-erickson-naval-war-college-militia-coast-guard-navy-confrontation-territorial-dispute/75070058/
- “The enemy has started its work,” Jafari told a crowd at an event billed as the first anti-American event after the nuclear agreement. “We must understand the threat of infiltration and prevent certain actions.”

Marking “Fight Against International Arrogance and Imperialism Day” on Nov. 4, the Revolutionary Guards followed Jafari’s warning with their own statement on the dangers of “infiltration” and “sedition.”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/04/iran-hardliners-trying-to-kill-nuke-deal-arrest-western-infiltrators.html
- At least 196 U.S. service members fighting in Iraq were killed directly as a result of Iranian-made explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, according to Cruz and congressional sources familiar with Centcom’s mostly classified report.

The deaths took place between 2003 and 2011. The Iranian explosive devices wounded another 861 U.S. soldiers, and a total of 1,534 attacks were carried out on U.S. military members over this period, according to sources familiar with the report, which was provided to Cruz’s office.

The explosive devices are a “hallmark weapon” of Iran’s Quds force, a paramilitary group that operates outside of Iran’s borders, according to sources familiar with the report. It has been determined that only Iranian-backed operatives use these weapons in Iraq.

U.S. military leaders disclosed in testimony before the Senate that Iranian terror activities have claimed the lives of around 500 U.S. soldiers, which accounts for at least 14 percent of all American casualties in Iraq from 2003 to 2011.
...
“Is it sound policy to give money to a terrorist nation that is at war with us?” Stethem asked, referring to the more than $150 billion in cash assets that will be released to Iran as a result of the recent nuclear accord.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-responsible-for-killing-14-percent-of-u-s-troops-in-iraq/
- “The spread of a shallow understanding of Islam renders this situation critical, as highly vocal elements within the Muslim population at large — extremist groups — justify their harsh and often savage behavior by claiming to act in accord with God’s commands, although they are grievously mistaken,” said A. Mustofa Bisri, the spiritual leader of the group, Nahdlatul Ulama, an Indonesian Muslim organization that claims more than 50 million members.

“According to the Sunni view of Islam,” he said, “every aspect and expression of religion should be imbued with love and compassion, and foster the perfection of human nature.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/27/world/asia/indonesia-islam-nahdlatul-ulama.html
- The CIA-led policy in the Middle East works like this. If a regime is deemed to be unfriendly to the U.S., topple it. If a competitor like the Soviet Union or Russia has a foothold in the region, try to push it out. If this means arming violent insurgencies, including Sunni jihadists, and thereby creating mayhem: so be it. And if the result is terrorist blowback around the world by the forces created by the US, then double down on bombing and regime change.

In rare cases, great presidents learn to stand up to the CIA and the rest of the military-industrial-intelligence complex. JFK became one of the greatest presidents in American history when he came to realize the awful truth that his own military and CIA advisors had contributed to the onset of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The CIA-led Bay of Pigs fiasco and other CIA blunders had provoked a terrifying response from the Soviet Union. Recognizing that the U.S. approach had contributed to bringing the world to the brink, Kennedy bravely and successfully stood up to the warmongering pushed by so many of his advisors and pursued peace, both during and after the Cuban Missile Crisis. He thereby saved the world from nuclear annihilation and halted the unchecked proliferation of nuclear arms.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-sachs/hilary-clinton-and-the-is_b_8627042.html
- If the research is successful, the scientists said that such a high energy density will be comparable to gasoline, enabling an electric car with a battery that is a fifth the cost and a fifth the weight of those currently on the market to drive from London to Edinburgh on a single charge.

However, the researchers said that, while the results are promising, there is still a lot of work to do, and that practical lithium-air batteries are still at least a decade away.

"While there are still plenty of fundamental studies that remain to be done to iron out some of the mechanistic details, the current results are extremely exciting," said Grey. "We are still very much at the development stage, but we've shown that there are solutions to some of the tough problems associated with this technology."
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2433554/lithium-oxygen-battery-breakthrough-to-extend-life-of-smartphones-and-electric-cars

- as usual thanks to all of the individuals and groups who purchase and use my goods and services
http://sites.google.com/site/dtbnguyen/
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