The significance of the annexation of Crimea by Russia goes far beyond land territorial claims. Here are a couple of maps that show how Crimea affects oil rights in the black sea. Black Sea Claims Before Crimea Annexation
Black Sea Claims After Crimea Annexation…
This post was published at Global Economic Analysis on September 01, 2014.
While the U. S. reels from the triple bombshells of this week that have left the Superpower nearly impotent to act, an astonishing occurrence is taking place in diplomatic circles as Washington no longer feels it has the authority to simply impose economic sanction on Russia, but must beg to Europe to stand with them in a move where they hope will allow them to restrict the use of the SWIFT system by Russia.
Earlier this week, the U. S. faced three critical events in which President Obama appeared stunned and without the fortitude to act against. First, Russia placed several more chips on the table by cracking the decades long petro-dollar system, and will now allow for oil to be purchased directly in the markets with either Roubles or Yuan. Secondly, the President was cornered by the media on what the U. S. intends to do regarding ISIS, and what plans Obama is ready to implement to contain or destroy the Muslim Caliphate. In a press conference where Obama wore a taupe suit and grey tie instead of his normal blue power suit and red ensemble, the leader of the free world acknowledged that they had no plan ready to go, and as yet have no idea on how to confront the Muslim terrorists.
Finally, the worst fears for NATO and the U. S. appear to have happened as Ukrainian soldiers failed in their attempts to crush the Eastern rebels, and signs indicate that Russia is now going on the offensive to shut off Kiev from their vital energy links and ports by seeking control over Mariupol.
This post was published at The Daily Sheeple on August 31st, 2014.
While Americans were barbecuing over the Labor Day weekend, the Usual Suspects were busy cooking up new wars, from Iraq to Ukraine. While this is nothing new – after all, evil never sleeps – one thing I did notice: the stunning lack of imagination on their part. It was, in effect, the equivalent of a bunch of summer reruns: tired formulaic retreads that weren’t all that convincing in the first place.
Take the latest war propaganda centered on the alleged ‘threat’ to our precious bodily fluids supposedly posed by ISIS, the War Party’s latest bogeyman. As polls showed a stubborn reluctance on the part of the American people to re-invade Iraq, the neocons came up with a not-so-new one: they claim a laptop computer ostensibly captured from ISIS by the ‘good’ jihadists – the so-called Free Syrian Army, which is armed and trained by the US – contains plans for constructing ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ i.e. biological weapons. They’re even calling it the ‘laptop of death’ – a phrase that ought to ring a bell for those who follow these sorts of things.
That’s the same phrase used to describe yet another purloined laptop, this one supplied by the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, an Iranian terrorist group that, for years, has been feeding the War Party bogus ‘intelligence’ about Tehran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons program. That tall tale was debunked in 2011 – yet another case of MEK cobbling together old outdated data, adding a dash of forgery, and shaking well enough to fool the credulous.
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but what if the dog can pass off an old hoax as a new one? And that’s why I’m here: to remind you.
This post was published at David Stockmans Contra Corner on September 1, 2014.
London, England
[Editor’s note: This missive was penned by Tim Price of PFP Wealth Management in the UK, a frequent contributor to Sovereign Man] ‘Sir, Arnaud Montebourg, the former French economy minister and the sourest note in the Hollande repertoire, dares to complain of ‘absurd’ austerity policies ? (‘Hollande purges cabinet following leftwing revolt’, August 26.) If those policies are absurd, it is because they were not accompanied by the structural reforms so badly needed to make the French economy healthy. I am speaking of long outdated redundancy and seniority labour laws, oppressive regulations for the business sector and the unbearable bureaucratic roadblocks that stand in the way of start-ups.
‘To these, one can also add the traditional Gallic mindset of envy, if not outright hostility, towards those French citizens and other Europeans who are willing to work longer, harder and smarter and want to make good money; a mindset that Mr Montebourg never hesitated to parade before the world. Now that he and his cohorts on the left of the Socialist party have departed the government, perhaps Franois Hollande can move forward and leapfrog France from the 19th to the 21st century.’
– Letter to the FT from Stan Trybulski, Branford, Connecticut, 28th August 2014.
‘There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation.’ – Adam Smith.
‘You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats, procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.’ – Thomas Sowell.
Much of what we think we know isn’t necessarily so. The invention of the printing press with movable type? Traditionally credited to fifteenth-century Germany and Johannes Gutenberg, it was actually invented in eleventh-century China. Paper also originated in China long before it was used in the West. As did paper money and toilet paper (albeit today, these are pretty much interchangeable). English agriculturalist Jethro Tull is widely credited with the discovery of the seed drill in 1701. It was in fact invented by the Chinese 2,000 years beforehand. The first blast furnace for iron smelting is associated with Coalbrookdale – tragically close to schools in the West Midlands. It was actually introduced by the Chinese before 200 BC. The Chinese were also first to use the fishing reel, matches, the magnetic compass, playing cards, the toothbrush and the wheelbarrow. Perhaps even golf. So how did a society apparently so dynamic and innovative by comparison with the West then enter a centuries’ long decline?
This post was published at Sovereign Man on September 1, 2014.
August 2014 – AFRICA – As countries across the world battle to contain the spreads of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), the killer ailment appears to be devising means of circumventing efforts to stop it, researchers have said. Experts claim that the virus is ‘rapidly and continually mutating, making it harder to diagnose and treat.’ This is just as former President Olusegun Obasanjo declared, on Saturday, that the index case, Patrick Sawyer, in a ‘devilish’ connivance with some Liberian authorities, intentionally brought the disease to Nigeria. He also noted that the disease, which he said had become a global problem, had been taking a toll on Nigeria’s economy, charging the Federal Government to partner the World Health Organization (WHO), European Union (EU) and government of America in containing the virus. Sunday Tribune’s finding showed that result of a research by a team of American scientists indicates that the initial patients diagnosed with the virus in Sierra Leone revealed almost 400 genetic modifications, concluding that this could render current treatment ineffective and put vaccines that are being worked on for its cure in danger. According to reports, the team of researchers, under the Broad Institute in Massachusetts and Harvard University, analyzed more than 99 Ebola virus genomes which were collected from 78 patients diagnosed with the disease in Sierra Leona in the first 24 days of the current outbreak. Dr Pardis Sabeti, a senior associate member at the Broad Institute and an associate professor at Harvard University, who was among leaders of the research, said ‘by making the data immediately available to the community, we hope to accelerate response efforts.
This post was published at The Extinction Protocol on September 1, 2014.
Almost four times as many sheep in America trust the NSA than the citizens of Russia. Sacrificing liberty and freedom for safety, security, iGadgets, 24/7 reality TV, entitlement goodies, subprime loans, and $20,000 credit card limits at 19% interest never felt so good.
This post was published at The Burning Platform on 1st September 2014.
Only time will tell, but is it too soon to guess whether the Ferguson, Missouri shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown will mark a turning point in our march toward tyranny in America? There are signs that this could be the case. Yes this could be an overly optimistic assumption about the current direction of the police state in America, but there is a slight chance that the consciousness that came with the Ferguson shooting may have been a badly needed cure to the metastasizing police state problem. Before anyone makes assumptions of how naive I’m being or overly optimistic, let’s clarify. We are in a battle of competing paradigms and competing consciousness. One important thing to note about the police state is that authority, control, intimidation and police state madness is itself a real-time live form of consciousness. In this police state consciousness we can confirm the typical officer becomes consumed in their role. This disconnected behavior had been confirmed in previous psychology experiments, and we know how governments carefully train police to do as they are told. Add to that, the influence of the culture of police and what we see is a group of people acting within their own (twisted) consciousness to oppress others without consequences. We saw this in Nazi Germany and many other examples throughout history. This powerful competing consciousness, the police consciousness, took a step back after the Ferguson shooting. How do we know?
Some indicators are alternative and social media’s coverage of the images and sounds of the Ferguson police state brutality on American protesters. This mass media coverage of the police state forced mainstream media to pay attention to the police state brutality. Together, this brought an even greater mass awareness of police brutality in America that the control system wasn’t prepared for. The result?
This post was published at The Daily Sheeple on August 31st, 2014.
The following video was published by X22Report on Sep 1, 2014
UK shocked as manufacturing growth has ended. Germany’s GDP has fallen by 0.2%. Europe is suffering from a decline in factory orders. Ecuador looking to replace the dollar with a digital currency. Facebook posts could get you on the US Government terrorists watch list. Ebola breakouts seems to coincide with new oil discoveries in West Africa. Dutch government will not release the voice recording. The Islamic State might have the ability to bring down the power grid in the US according to an expert. The central bankers/US Government have been pushing propaganda warning about the Islamic State terrorist attacks. We know its a false flag event. We know this will be an inside job to get the country into WWIII.
Alarmed at the anti-Russian hysteria sweeping Washington, and the specter of a new Cold War, U. S. intelligence veterans one of whom is none other than William Binney, the former senior NSA crypto-mathematician who back in March 2012 blew the whistle on the NSA’s spying programs more than a year before Edward Snowden, took the unusual step of sending the following memo dated August 30 to German Chancellor Merkel challenging the reliability of Ukrainian and U. S. media claims about a Russian “invasion.”
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 09/01/2014.
Teaching is the art and science of people seeing/learning reality for themselves. Once ignited, passion for learning becomes a life-long expression.
Our Orwellian world of the present witnesses a union of ‘leaders’ in government and corporate media ‘teaching’ the 99% public that what’s good are:
Unlawful war-murders, our economy, corporate media journalism. This Government/Media Union is not teaching, but herding the public into chosen areas of propaganda, as the above links easily explain, document, and prove. Government/Media ‘teaching’ has an academic term thanks to Princeton Professor Harry Frankfurt’s best-selling book on this topic:
This post was published at Washingtons Blog on September 1, 2014.
The Ukrainian army has lost the battle for the airport of Luhansk. Ceasefire talks in Ukraine collapsed ending hours after Kiev was compelled to order its army to withdraw from a key eastern airport in Luhansk after coming under a serious assault from separatists fighters reportedly backed by a Russian Panzerbatallion that included an army tank column. Luhansk is the furthest province of Ukraine and it appears that the invasion has begun. It will be spearheaded by the separatists maintain that it is not a direct Russian invasion. The fall of Ukraine is not out of the question. However, this will be the flash-point for all hostilities ahead.
This post was published at Armstrong Economics on September 1, 2014.
As we’ve witnessed recently in Ferguson, Missouri, the difference between police and military is already nearly indistinguishable. In other words, the Army is already taking on peaceful citizens in domestic cities. Tank-supported SWAT teams already grenade and raid homes to serve warrants for victimless, non-violent offenses. What more can they possibly train for?
The U. S. Army is now officially getting into the crime-fighting business. According to the Army Times, the Army is training to fight battles in megacities, not against other armies, but to help local authorities root out shadowy criminals, extremists and, wait for it, wait for it, influential political dissidents.
The Army Times reports on this year’s Unified Quest war games drill:
“When the Army looks to the future, it sees cities. Dense, sprawling, congested cities where criminal and extremist groups flourish almost undetected by authorities, but who can influence the lives of the population while undermining the authority of the state. And the service is convinced that these ‘megacities’ of 20 million or more people will be the battleground of the future.”
Talk about expanding the role of the armed forces. The Army has been training in urban warfare for decades geared toward fighting insurgents and terrorists (those who commit violence).
That’s why this announcement is so stunning. Look closely at the new definition of enemy:
Criminal and extremist groups…undetected by authorities, but who can influence the lives of the population while undermining the authority of the state.
No mention of the word “violence” and it seems like they’re targeting political dissent.
This post was published at Alt-Market on 01 September 2014.
The news that UK prime minister David Cameron wants to urge the EU to exclude Russia from the SWIFT system is a few days old by now. As an aside, we note the rebels in the Eastern Ukraine and by implication their ‘surplus military hardware store’ next door apparently aren’t worried overly much, as the rebels just attacked two Ukrainian military vessels in the Sea of Azov, one of which was reported to have gone up in flames as a result…
It’s been a banner month for anyone who despises the deceitful TSA. Not once but twice, the agency has proved itself a complete, unrepentant liar.
Breitbart News reported earlier this summer that the TSA was ‘ALLOWING ILLEGALS TO FLY WITHOUT VERIFIABLE ID,’ according to the ‘BORDER PATROL UNION.’ (Since ‘illegals’ usually lack a driver’s license from the USSA, the TSA forced them instead to show ‘a Notice to Appear form, a document often based solely on the word of the illegal alien as to who they are and where they are from.’ This sheet, which US Immigration and Customs Enforcement issues, ‘has no photo, anyone can make one and manipulate one. They do not have any security features, no watermark, nothing. They are simply printed on standard copy paper based on the information the illegal alien says is the truth.’)
Such fretting is, of course, nonsensical. The TSA’s security theater of the absurd protects nothing but its own backside; whether it demands ID from everyone or only those passengers wearing pink polka-dotted sweaters does little to improve aviation’s safety. If you doubt that, remember that Muhammad Atta, leading man in the federal fairytale entitled 9/11, had no criminal record. He’d have passed any scrutiny of his papers with flying colors. Then, too, we know the precise identities of 535 criminals and their ringleader in DC, yet these sociopaths still conspire to rob, plunder, loot, and murder worldwide.
So who cares if some poor, beleaguered Mexican managed to board a plane with a bit less violation of the Fourth Amendment? I say kudos to him and here’s hoping the phenomenon spreads. The Border Patrol Union’s fear-mongering on this, amplified courtesy of Breitbart, is about as fatuous as it gets.
This post was published at Lew Rockwell on September 1, 2014.
Washington’s Middle East policies are only meant to incite chaos, to capitalize on the chaos and turn things to its own benefit.
The nuclear talks which were infused with unnecessary optimism are no longer seen by many to yield much fruit as Washington once again reveals its true colors and pernicious intentions by imposing further sanctions on Iranian companies and individuals.
As a rule, Washington has never proved to be a trustworthy and reliable dialogical partner and any idea to the contrary stems from a nave perception of the realities on the ground.
On Friday, the US government announced the imposition of a new round of sanctions on over 25 Iranian individuals and companies, including shipping firms, oil companies, airlines and six banks despite the fact that Iran and the six world powers Russia, China, France, Britain and the US and Germany are in the process of talks with the intention of resolving the West’s nuclear standoff with Iran.
What seems to be the truth of certitude in this regard is that Iran will by no means back down on its rights in the least bit and that further sanctions imposed by the West will only conduce to the complication of an issue which could be resolved if the West really wanted.
In point of fact, the new sanctions which fly in the face of international laws and regulations have exasperated the Iranians and the Iranian officials and fortified the swelling distrust of the Iranian nation in Washington.
This post was published at Boiling Frogs Post on August 30, 2014.
With China’s property developers slashing prices, piling on incentives, and still seeing sales slump; it is no surprise that demand from the top to the bottom across Asia is falling. As Reuters reports, even Singapore’s Sentosa Cove (the man-made island resort billed as Asia’s Monte Carlo) is eerily silent as the billionaires seem to be staying away with prices down over 20-30% in the past year. New mortgage business is down over 40% as “the rential can’t even cover the mortgage anymore.” As one analyst notes, “the tables have turned,” adding rather ominously that, “The way prices have fallen, it’s as if there is a global financial crisis.”
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 09/01/2014.
The Americans have a habit of first naming their imminent war before the troops march out and it will be interesting to see how this one is going to be christened. There seems some ambiguity about the war ahead in Iraq and Syria – what it is really going to be as it gathers momentum. That probably explains the shyness in naming it. What began as “humanitarian intervention” in Iraq has since spread from Kurdistan to Baghdad to Anbar and in the past forty-eight hours or so reached Syria with the US president having given approval for sustained air reconnaissance missions in its airspace. So far, the US’s intervention in Iraq has been episodic but it produced some gains. These gains have been far from consolidated or irreversible, but are important enough. Humanitarian aid has apparently reached the beleaguered Yazidi community on Mount Sinjar and some areas lost to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Lebanon [ISIL] in northern Iraq – Gwer, Makhmour and the Mosul Dam – have been retaken by the Kurdish forces with the help of US air strikes. An ISIL advance toward the Kurdish capital of Erbil has been stalled for the present. However, there are widely-shared misgivings too that the ISIL might have been bruised but is far from defeated and the spectre of a quasi-state run by a terrorist entity with worldwide networking is presented as the challenge facing the US. The American pundits are quibbling over the efficacy of a ‘containment’ strategy toward the ISIL, but most experts agree that there is no alternative to defeating the network by eliminating its sanctuaries.
This post was published at Ron Paul Institute on September 1, 2014.
Though news on the Ebola virus has been muted since two American health care workers were admitted to U. S.-based facilities last month, the deadly contagion continues to spread. According to the World Health Organization more than 40% of all Ebola cases thus far have occurred in just the last three months, suggesting that the virus is continuing to build steam.
Physicist Alessandro Vespignani of Northeastern University in Boston is one of several researchers trying to figure out how far Ebola may spread and how many people around the world could be affected. Based on his findings, there will be 10,000 cases by September of this year and it only gets worse from there.
This post was published at shtfplan on September 1st, 2014.
The violent protests that raged yesterday have turned deadly as clashes between riot police and anti-government protesters left 3 dead and at least 470 injured according to The WSJ. The military, who are acting as mediators between PM Sharif and opposition leader Imran Khan have warned both sides that they neither support the others view or sanction further use of violence to suppress crowds. Mr. Khan exclaimed to the people, “if you want to be free, if you want to have a real democracy, the time has come;” as another protester noted “the police were brutal, but that is good because whenever blood is shed in a movement, it turns into a revolution.” Meanwhile, the so-called “soft-coup” as WaPo refers to it continues to harden (threatening $3bn of US aid) as Prime Minister Sharif is left with fewer and fewer options.
Policemen run away from anti-government protesters #Islamabad September 1, 2014 #Pakistan pic.twitter.com/mUY9XLZV0H
— 1924 (@1924_AEK) September 1, 2014
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 09/01/2014.
As a public service, I like to remind everyone as to what is happening within the real Civil War inside of the Ukraine which is being ignored by our President, Congress, both political parties, and the American media by and large. Just think if 1,000,000 plus Palestinian or African refugees were created from a conflict the anointed one would be on television every night demanding the Republicans help him declare war.
However, since the refugees are by and large white, Christian, against LGBT civil rights (whatever), and Russia is having to feed and take care of them, the West could not give a crap because the mentality of the banksters is that it helps to weaken the Russian Federation. Then again, Russia could not give a crap about Obama’s self-imposed refugee crisis of the Central Americans the Obama invited into Texas and Arizona.
Follow on Twitter
Recent Comments