Analysis Topic: Politics & Social Trends
The analysis published under this topic are as follows.
Friday, December 26, 2014
Christmas Reality - One Jew’s Christmas / Politics / Religion
By: Walter_Brasch
I am a Jew.
I don’t mind receiving Christmas cards or being wished a “Merry Christmas” from friends, clerks, or even in junk mail trying to sell me something no sane person should ever buy. My wife and I even send Christmas cards, with messages of peace and joy, to our friends who are Christians or who we don’t know their religion.
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
My Parrot Told Me About Global Warming / Politics / Climate Change
By: Andrew_McKillop
Ivar Giaver the Parrot
Sometimes you don't have to buy a parrot even if you never had that particular thought. My parrot adopted me without me having to go out and buy one, in Papua New Guinea. At the time a young telecom engineer used to come visit me with problems due to the tectonic movement of relay towers on PNG mountains – and he thought it could be something to do with climate change! The parrot didn't agree at all. Nor me.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
How to Prepare for the Super Convergence: the Bio-Info-Nano Singularity? / Politics / Technology
By: DK_Matai
More than a century ago, in 1900, Lord Kelvin famously stated, "There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement." Five years later, Albert Einstein published his paper on special relativity, which challenged the very simple set of rules laid down by Newtonian mechanics, which had been used to describe force and motion for more than two hundred years.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
How Goldman and D.C. Hosed AIG – and the Taxpayers / Politics / Banksters
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: The truth about crony capitalism, at the highest level, is being laid bare right before our eyes.
I’m talking here about Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) as the husband of global investment banking prowess with the U.S. government as its mistress puppet.
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Monday, December 22, 2014
About That Interview - North Korea / Politics / Social Issues
By: Raul_I_Meijer
Michael Moore once famously – though by no means famously enough yet, because he was so dead-on – said that ‘you can’t declare war on a noun’. If only Americans had paid better attention. That would have shone a whole different light on, if not outright prevented, insane, expensive and terribly deadly concepts such as the ‘war on drugs’ and the ‘war on terrorism’. Now it looks as if John McCain is fishing for a fresh noun to declare war on.
Talking about Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Franco’s ‘The Interview’ movie, and the hackers known as ‘Guardians of the Peace’ who made Sony Pictures pull the movie’s Christmas release, McCain told CNN’s State of the Union that “It’s more than vandalism. It’s a new form of warfare that we’re involved in and we need to react, and react vigorously.” President Obama earlier said the opposite, that it’s not war, but vandalism.
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Sunday, December 21, 2014
Obama's Party Joke Spotlights North Korea / Politics / US Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Don't Obamify His Name
Kim Jon Bama, AKA president Barack Obama delivered his own party joke at what was billed as his end-year conference and Q&A, December 19. This was two day's after Vladimir Putin did his own often light-hearted and boisterous same thing. Commentators warned us to only take what Jon Bama was saying as a last pirouette of presidential power and privilege, before Republicans take full control of the floors of both houses in January. So Obama was witty, formal, stern and forthright about finally ending the 50-year blockade of Cuba, a small island country run as the Castro family firm, and starting a spanking "new" crusade - against equally small and unimportant North Korea. Which has been US-blockaded about 60 years
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Ukraine Headed for Disaster / Politics / Ukraine Civil War
By: Stephen_Lendman
Perfect storm conditions threaten Ukrainians. In Europe's heartland. Fascist dictatorship. Mass impoverishment. Growing deprivation.
Civl war. Potential economic collapse. Troubled nuclear reactors. Facing possible meltdown. More on this below.
Ukraine's economy is rife with problems. Potential bankruptcy looms. IMF aid caused more harm than good. Largely used to pay Western bankers. Wage war on Donbas.
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Saturday, December 20, 2014
Ruble Takedown Exposes Cracks in Putin’s Defense / Politics / Russia
By: Mike_Whitney
Russian President Vladimir Putin suffered a stunning defeat on Tuesday when a US-backed plan to push down oil prices sent the ruble into freefall. Russia’s currency plunged 10 percent on Monday followed by an 11 percent drop on Tuesday reducing the ruble’s value by more than half in less than a year. The jarring slide was assisted by western sympathizers at Russia’s Central Bank who, earlier in the day, boosted interest rates from 10.5 percent to 17 percent to slow the decline. But the higher rates only intensified the outflow of capital which put the ruble into a tailspin forcing international banks to remove pricing and liquidity from the currency leading to the suspension of trade. According to Russia Today:
Friday, December 19, 2014
Is Russia Being Driven Into the Arms of China? / Politics / Russia
By: GoldCore
The “isolation of Russia” idea is one which has been receiving a lot of traction of late. Russia’s recent economic woes have sometimes been covered with barely contained glee despite the hardships that average Russians may have to endure if the rouble continues to collapse … not to mention the inevitable geo-political backlash.
Russia has become isolated from its western neighbours on account of the putsch in Ukraine which led to the predominantly ethnically Russian Crimea seceding from Kiev through a democratic process.
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Friday, December 19, 2014
Putin's Kremlin Q&A Show / Politics / Russia
By: Andrew_McKillop
Not the BBC Version
This was billed as Vladimir Putin's end-of-year question and answer session for the press, pressure groups, the public, and anybody else who is interested in Russia. The BBC however, true to its role of unsinkable US aircraft carrier anchored near Calais, rivaling Israel's role in the so-called American "empire", treated Putin's Q & A session as a rather pathetic attempt to ignore the US-led attempt to destroy the Russian economy. The BBC screened only 15 minutes of Putin's conference, ignoring the other 2 hours of Q & A. BBC News TV had former UK ambassador to Russia, Andrew Wood, in its early-morning studios to proclaim Putin's death sentence.
Thursday, December 18, 2014
The United States and Cuba Begin Restoring Relations / Politics / US Politics
By: STRATFOR
The United States and Cuba on Dec. 17 took their most assertive step in several decades toward normalizing relations. The most important announcements concerned the resumption of high-level political discussions focused on renewing formal diplomatic ties between the countries, which have been nonexistent since 1961. Cuban and U.S. officials will hold high-level meetings in the coming months, and the two countries will work toward establishing embassies in Havana and Washington. The United States will also immediately relax some sanctions on trade and travel to Cuba. President Barack Obama announced that the United States would loosen certain restrictions on financial transactions with Cuba, remove some restrictions on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba, and authorize the export of certain goods to the Cuban private sector. The U.S. State Department will also review Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. Obama has the legal authority to immediately implement the measures he announced, but he left the issue of formally lifting the trade embargo up to Congress. Together, the announcements signaled a gradual process of reopening Cuba to the United States.
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Thursday, December 18, 2014
Outrage at Taliban Islamic Fundamentalists Massacre of 132 Pakistani School Children in the Name of God / Politics / Religion
By: Nadeem_Walayat
There is NO JUSTIFCATION for the Murder of Children. NONE Whatsoever. Virtually everyone reading this will agree with this statement.When bearded Black Turbaned Taliban appear on broadcast news in front of the Black flags with Islamic verses on them to justify their murderous actions then virtually everyone reacts with the same disgust that THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION for killing 132 children.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Oil Prices And The Waziristan Republic - BEWARE OF THE AKOND OF SWOT / Politics / GeoPolitics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Does He Beat His Wife With a Gold-topped Cane?
When she lets the gooseberries grow too ripe – or rot? The rot accelerated in royal (or caliph) fashion on 16th of December. Financial markets were in something of a profitable tizwas for short sellers of oil futures and Russian rouble futures – a money now AKA as Russian Rubble – but the sheer horror of the Pakistani school atrocity trumped the financial massacre.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
German Chancellor Merkel Won’t Let Ukraine Get in the Way of Business / Politics / Ukraine Civil War
By: Marin_Katusa
The Ukraine crisis has moderated for now, but it should have awakened the world to the new “great game” being played in Eastern Europe. Vladimir Putin is positioning Russia to control the global energy trade, knowing that he holds the trump card: Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas.
This epic struggle between the US and Russia could change the very nature of the Euro-American trans-Atlantic alliance, because Europe is going to have to choose sides.
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Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Euro Crisis Deepens / Politics / Eurozone Debt Crisis
By: BATR
The alarm warnings are going off in Europe. International markets under pressure, global tensions rising and the financial system stressed to the point of breaking. Europe is ready for a relapse. It may be a very cold winter without Russian gas. Yet the technocrats in Brussels just go on their merry way in dictating the future to the vastly different societies and economies that make up the EU block. The Guardian expands this theme in the article, The eurozone crisis - history is repeating itself … again.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Torture, Terror And Elite Schizophrenia In The UK / Politics / UK Politics
By: Andrew_McKillop
Keep Calm and Carry On
First reaction and respnse from the "mainsream media" in the UK. if not from alternate media and bloggers to the US Senate report on CIA-initiated torture, was to talk it down and dump it. Editorials in true-blue papers like the 'Telegraph' and in every single media outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch, Sky Tv and of course the BBC told consumers of pap-news that torture was necessary if a wee bit distasteful, saved lives, and thwarted Islamic terror plots - but is never used by the UK!
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Viewing Russia From the Inside / Politics / Russia
By: STRATFOR
George Friedman writes: Last week I flew into Moscow, arriving at 4:30 p.m. on Dec. 8. It gets dark in Moscow around that time, and the sun doesn't rise until about 10 a.m. at this time of the year — the so-called Black Days versus White Nights. For anyone used to life closer to the equator, this is unsettling. It is the first sign that you are not only in a foreign country, which I am used to, but also in a foreign environment. Yet as we drove toward downtown Moscow, well over an hour away, the traffic, the road work, were all commonplace. Moscow has three airports, and we flew into the farthest one from downtown, Domodedovo — the primary international airport. There is endless renovation going on in Moscow, and while it holds up traffic, it indicates that prosperity continues, at least in the capital.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
The Financial Industry Pigmen Win Again / Politics / Market Regulation
By: James_Quinn
"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying - lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else." - George Carlin
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Tuesday, December 16, 2014
Spain's Publishing Industry Commits Internet Suicide as Google Quits News / Politics / Internet
By: Nadeem_Walayat
Spain at the heart of a luddite Europe Union has forced Google to quit its news service following its law makers succumbing to Spain's lunatic publishing industry that was expecting profit from taxing Google for every news story that it linked to on Google News as of 1st of Jan 2015. That's just for posting the title of news stories with a short snippet to prompt google news searchers to link through to the source content, a lot of free traffic that Spain's publishing industry had greatly profited from.
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Monday, December 15, 2014
A U.S. Court Practically Declared Insider Trading Legal / Politics / Market Regulation
By: Money_Morning
Shah Gilani writes: Wednesday, December 10, 2014, was a big day for insider trading.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned insider trading convictions of former hedge fund managers Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson.
Not only did the appeals court reverse the much-publicized guilty verdicts against the two traders, its 28-page decision effectively rewrites the meaning of insider trading.
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