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Category Archives: Politics

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U.S. Employment Data by Firm Size Class

01 Saturday Nov 2014

employment_by_size_company

Posted by silvalnews | Filed under Politics, US Economy

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U.S. Government at Work

16 Saturday Aug 2014

Total_pages_of_Gov_regulations

Posted by bunchofopinions | Filed under Politics

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Will This be the ‘Asian Century’?

08 Friday Aug 2014

2000years_leading_country

GDP_China_US_1820-2014

world_shipbuilding_tonnage

GDP_per_capita_countries_ph

Posted by bunchofopinions | Filed under Economics, Politics

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Nation’s Top Colleges are Turning Our Kids into Zombies

31 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Education, Politics, Social

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William Deresiewicz, … whose résumé includes two degrees from Columbia University and ten years of teaching at Yale, published an essay last week in The New Republic called “Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League.” Subtitle: “The nation’s top colleges are turning our kids into zombies.” Read more: http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/07/new-privilege-loudly-denouncing-privilege.html

“Super People,” the writer James Atlas has called them—the stereotypical ultra-high-achieving elite college students of today. A double major, a sport, a musical instrument, a couple of foreign languages, service work in distant corners of the globe, a few hobbies thrown in for good measure: They have mastered them all, and with a serene self-assurance that leaves adults and peers alike in awe. Read more: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118747/ivy-league-schools-are-overrated-send-your-kids-elsewhere

See also:
~ An Incubator for An American Ruling Elite
~ Universities Ranked By Billionaire Alumni
~ Harvard Billionaire Machine

Is the Recession Over?

30 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Markets, Politics, US Economy

≈ Leave a comment

dropping_out_of_labor_vs_find_job

civil_employm_ratio_84-14

car_house_to_GDP

miles_per_year_US_total

USelectricity_sales2000-14_

See also: U.S. Jobs Market: What’s Going On …

Poll: Wide Partisan Gap in Israel-Palestinian Sympathies

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

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… sympathies of the American public continue to lie with Israel rather than the Palestinians. And dating back to the late 1970s, the partisan gap in Mideast sympathies has never been wider.

Parties_Gap_Isr_Pal_growing_Pew

Pew_Age_Gender_educ_Isr_Pales
~Pew Research Center, July 15, 2014

Dems_for_Palest_GOP_support_Israel

Isr_Pal_close_look_or_not
~Gallup News

Leftist Billionaire Syndrome

27 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by silvalnews in Politics, Social

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Why are names like Soros, Gates and Rockefeller associated with ultraliberal causes? … What makes so many smart billionaires gravitate to primitive liberal positions one would normally associate with…?
Read More: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/0415/123.html

    Memo: From Nick Hanauer. To: My Fellow Zillionaires
    … like you I am one of those .01%ers, a proud and unapologetic capitalist. I have founded, co-founded and funded more than 30 companies across a range of industries … Then I founded … And what do I see in our future now? … Revolutions, like bankruptcies, come gradually, and then suddenly. One day, somebody sets himself on fire, then thousands of people are in the streets, and before you know it, the country is burning. And then there’s no time for us to get to the airport and jump on our Gulfstream Vs and fly to New Zealand…
    Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014.html

See also: Taking a look inside the secret leftist billionaires club By Tori Richards

How American Rank Religious Groups

26 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Religion

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religious groups

BsrlI02IgAErj-V

There was a wider gap in ratings for Republican than for Democrat:

BN-DS392_DEMREL_G_20140716122720

BN-DS397_REPREL_G_20140716123058

Religious_groups_about_each_other

CNN Poll: Majority of Americans side with Israel in Gaza fighting

24 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

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Washington (CNN) – A majority of Americans say Israel’s military actions in Gaza are justified, with only four in 10 saying that Israel has used too much force, according to a new national poll:
~CNN Political Unit

CNN_POll_Isr_Gaz_071814_2

CNN_POll_Isr_Gaz_071814_4

CNN_POll_Isr_Gaz_071814

Read more: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2014/images/07/21/rel7b.pdf

From Global Smoking to Global Warming: Strong Alliance of Hollywood & Science

17 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Medical Trends, Politics

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In the Beginning it was a Consensus Statement of the Medical Doctors of America:

12 health lies cigarette ads 5MD_with_Microscop_cigarett

Tobacco-consumption-historical

camels_fresh_blue2camels_doctors_whiteshirt

… and Hollywood Stars were completely agree with them:

hollywood_smoke

pare_smoking

See also: Hollywood cut secret deals to promote smoking .  Report: Tobacco companies paid Hollywood stars to promote smoking

____

Now there is the same “scientific consensus” on climate change

The “consensus” was built around the mystical graph that was called a  “global warming hockey stick“:

global_warming_hockey_stick

It does not matter that independent scientists “have uncovered a fundamental mathematical flaw in the computer program that was used to produce the hockey stick“, because the Hollywood produced an impressive movie about this theory. It was called “An Inconvenient Truth” and promoted the “stick” as a truthful theory:

images

global-warming_medvedi_on_ice

Former vice president Al Gore, as a screenplay of this movie, nabbed an Academy Award for best (see above) documentary. Although the Oscar actually went to director Davis Guggenheim, Gore gave an acceptance speech:
Gore_Gets_Oscar_07

Secretary of State John Kerry declared, that according to his estimations “at Least 98, 99% of All Scientists in Our Country’ Believe in Climate Change“, and President of the United State concluded: “The debate is settled. Climate change is a fact“.

Student Loan Debt: Scale of Problem and its Main Sources

16 Wednesday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Education, Justice, Politics, Science, Social, Tech

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Members of Occupy Wall Street stage a pr

Economic Scale of the U.S. Student Loan Debt Problem
types of debt

Sources of Student Loan Debt:

costvstuitionv2

cost_of_education_1960-2015

text-book_prices_1970-2014

Social_sciences_main_source

Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. By Catherine Hill, Ph.D. Christianne Corbett Andresse St. Rose, Ed.D. “Just not interested”. Many girls and women report that they are not interested in science and engineering. In a 2009 poll of young people ages 8–17 by the American Society for Quality, 24 percent of boys but only 5 percent of girls said they were interested in an engineering career. Another recent poll found that 74 percent of college-bound boys ages 13–17 said that computer science or computing would be a good college major for them compared with 32 percent of their female peers (WGBH Education Foundation & Association for Computing Machinery, 2009). From early adolescence, girls express less interest in math or science careers than boys do (Lapan et al., 2000; Turner et al., 2008). Even girls and women who excel in mathematics often do not pursue STEM fields. In studies of high mathematics achievers, for example, women are more likely to secure degrees in the humanities, life sciences, and social sciences than in math, computer science, engineering, or the physical sciences; the reverse is true for men (Lubinski & Benbow, 2006)… Among first-year college students, women are much less likely than men to say that they intend to major in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). By graduation, men outnumber women in nearly every science and engineering field, and in some, such as physics, engineering, and computer science, the difference is dramatic, with women earning only 20 percent of bachelor’s degrees. Women’s representation in science and engineering declines further.

File Apr 06, 1 19 54 AM

Educational Attainment in the United States: 2015 Population Characteristics By Camille L. Ryan and Kurt Bauman Current Population Reports. P20-578 March 2016:

File Apr 06, 1 18 31 AM

See also: College Majors Ranked by Lifetime Earnings

Scientists Discovered the Social Reasons to Build Pyramids of Egypt …

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Religion, Social

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… and some of them now propose the same approach to resolve the future global problems. For instance, Lawrence Summers, Former Treasury Secretary says that the future global scale problem will not be producing enough. It will be providing enough work because a generation from now a quarter of middle-aged men will be out of work at any given moment.

It had taken centuries for many thousands of people to build Egypt’s pyramids. What was the social objective of constructing Egyptian pyramids? The main goal was to keep social stability and comprehensive employment with a high spiritual objective that would more than compensate for the absence of any direct obvious materialistic kind of objectives; in other words, inspired labor as an objective unto itself.

There seems to be a basic principle that works on all social and perhaps biological levels: if you cannot put earlier created processes and resources to rational use, then you conserve the system at least in a neutral “engaged condition”.

In each such case taken separately the question is the cost of such conservation, or the amount of social energy. We are talking about the cost that a society is prepared to pay for such stabilization, for tying up this social energy in a “reserve” with an eye towards using it more intelligently in the future.
____
PS. We can’t know exactly what Former Treasury Secretary had in mind when warning of the above-quoted future global problem, but it seems that the scientists have finally discovered the social reasons to build pyramids of Egypt and are now gaining a better understanding of the main global problem in the nearest future.

Mauboussin Law: “Greater Skill Doesn’t Decrease the Dependence on Luck, It Increases It.”

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Science, Social, Tech

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~The Paradox of Skill. By Michael J. Mauboussin
____

U.S. Religious Groups’ Political Preferences

13 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Religion

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religions_politics_preferences

gallup_religios_obama

15 Most Powerful Militaries in the World

12 Saturday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

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global_fire_power_sm2
Sources: Global Firepower, Center for Arms, Control and Non-Proliferation. By Amanda Macias, Jeremy Bender and Skye Gould. “Business Insider“.

Reasons Behind the Last 20 years Decline of Violent Crime

04 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Justice, Politics, Social

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US_murder_rate_1993-2012

Compared with 1993, the peak of U.S. gun homicides, the firearm homicide rate was 49% lower in 2010, and there were fewer deaths, even though the nation’s population grew. The victimization rate for other violent crimes with a firearm—assaults, robberies and sex crimes—was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993.

Pew_Firearms_Violence

~Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak; Public Unaware … Pew Research Center, May 7, 2013
_______

U.S. firearm homicides peaked in 1993 at 7.0 deaths per 100,000 people. But by 2010, the rate was 49% lower [3.6], and [generally speaking] firearm-related violence — assaults, robberies, sex crimes — was 75% lower in 2011 than in 1993, the study found. Those drops parallel an overall decline in violent non-fatal crime, with or without a gun, the study said. In fact, gun-related homicide rates in the late 2000s were “equal to those not seen since the early 1960s,” the study found.

~ Study: Gun homicides, violence down sharply in past 20 years. By CNN Staff, May 9, 2013

What is Behind the Violent Crime Decline?

prison_population_US

At the Root of these efforts are states’ legislators:

1993_Right_to_Carry

2011_Right_to_Carry

See also the above trend in some more details (1986-2013):

permit_history 1986-2013

Meanwhile, the media does a great job to hide this inconvenient truth:

Americans_Unaware_of_drop

Source: Pew Research Center, May 7, 2013

Long story short:

firearm-JPG_background-chec

200 Years of Deadly Spiral “War-Prosperity-War”

30 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

≈ 1 Comment

@pmarca_June27_14

Read more concerning the most recent stage of the above “spiral” https://opinions101.com/category/wars/

Open Path from Iraq to the New York

16 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

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The Islamist extremist [Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS Leader] some are now calling the most dangerous man in the world … said, ‘I’ll see you guys in New York,’” … Rad more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/14/isis-leader-see-you-in-new-york.html

[ ISIS] Islamic State of Iraq and Syria just got got extremely rich. As insurgents rolled past the largest city in northern Iraq, an oil hub at the vital intersection of Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and into Tikrit, several gunmen stopped at Mosul’s central bank. An incredible amount of cash was reportedly on hand, and the group made off with 500 billion Iraqi dinars — $425 million. The provincial governor of Nineveh, Atheel al-Nujaifi, said that the radical Islamists had lifted additional millions from numerous banks across Mosul, as well as a “large quantity of gold bullion,” according to the International Business Times, which called ISIS the “World’s Richest Terror Force.” Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/12/isis-just-stole-425-million-and-became-the-worlds-richest-terrorist-group/

[For comparison]: Al-Qaeda spent $500,000 on the [911] event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost — according to the lowest estimate — more than $500 billion, meaning that every dollar of al-Qaeda defeated a million dollars.” Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-nods-to-bin-ladens-stated-goal-2014-1

[President] Obama: I’m Concerned About a Nuke Being Detonated in Manhattan …

Howard Buffett and Nina Munk about “discouraging results” the U.S. efforts to help African villages.

15 Sunday Jun 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Social

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Howard Buffett—son of billionaire investor Warren—is a fascinating character. He is the hands-on owner and operator of a large-scale industrial corn farm in the Midwest and has been nominated by his father to take over chairmanship of insurance giant Berkshire Hathaway upon the aging magnate’s eventual retirement. He has also emerged as a leading philanthropist on the topic of agriculture in the Global South….

Howard Buffett delivered a blunt critique of Gates’ high-tech approach to improving food security in the Global South. He said that the Gates Foundation was essentially trying to recreate US-style industrial agriculture in Africa, an approach that he himself had tried early in his philanthropic career. “I don’t think it worked,” he said. “We need to quit thinking about trying to do it like we do it in America,” Buffett added.

Earlier in the segment, he championed low-tech, inexpensive methods for increasing farm productivity—a stark contrast to the high-tech seeds and pricey synthetic fertilizers favored by Gates. Buffett emphasizes that Gates’ efforts in African ag aren’t “all wrong” and adds that Gates is the “smartest guy in the world, next to my dad.”
~ Warren Buffett’s Son Schools Bill Gates on African Ag By Tom Philpott

Nina Munk, journalist and author of The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about her book. Munk spent six years following Jeffrey Sachs and the evolution of the Millennium Villages Project–an attempt to jumpstart a set of African villages in hopes of discovering a new template for development. Munk details the great optimism at the beginning of the project and the discouraging results after six years of high levels of aid. Sach’s story is one of the great lessons in unintended consequences and the complexity of the development process.
~ Nina Munk on Poverty, Development, and the Idealist

U.S. Jobs Market: What’s Going On …

11 Wednesday Jun 2014

Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, US Economy

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An Optimistic View:
Civilian_Unempl_Rate_84-14

A Bit More Realistic Data:
Civil_Employm_Ratio_84-14

What is Really Going On:
Civil_Labor_Particip_Rate_8
Source: Federal Reserve Economic Research – FRED.

  • The labor force participation rate, which is the percentage of the civilian non-institutional population who participated in the labor force by either having a job during the month or actively seeking one, hit a record low in April 2014. In other words, U.S. Jobs market is in the worst situation since last 30 years.
  • In the United States, the civilian non-institutional population refers to people 16 years of age and older residing in the 50 States and the District of Columbia who are not inmates of institutions (penal, mental facilities, homes for the aged), and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces.
  • To Those Who are Concerned About the “Global Warming”

    10 Tuesday Jun 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Science, Tech

    ≈ Leave a comment

      According to astrophysicist Joseph Shklovski (lectures, 1981) the total level of energy produced by human civilization during the last 300 years of industrial revolutions, is still about one hundredth of a percent of the total energy flow that reaches the surface of the earth from the sun. Meanwhile in recent decades of info-tech revolution, the total level of energy that earth irradiates to space comes to a million times more than it would have done naturally as the planet heated to 300 K. From this point, for the last couple of decades, Earth outran planet-giants Jupiter and Saturn and became comparable to Sun. So, for a radio-telescope’s observer from outer space, the earth’s info-tech revolution looks like the birth of a new bright star on the cold Earth-planet. Source: ‘National Information Resources‘, by Gregory Gromov,  Nauka, 1984, p.15

    On top of radio transmissions discussed in 1981, there are now 6 billion active cellphones worldwide…

    In spite of all of the above, there are still so many people who generously and selflessly donate their time, energy and money to so-called “Global Warming” initiatives and … nobody cares about the real issues like “self-destruction as a result of a thermonuclear catastrophe or some other discovery which may have unpredictable and uncontrollable consequences“.
     
    See also: Al Gore’s Pileup on the Information Superhighway

    Hierarchy of the Road Safety Risks: Mobile Phone, Cannabis, Drunk-driving

    08 Sunday Jun 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Science

    ≈ Leave a comment

    It found that a driver’s reaction times slowed by 46% when he or she was making a call on a hand-held mobile, by 37% when texting while driving and by 27% during hands-free calls.  For those on the drink-drive limit of 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, reaction times were reduced by 13%. For those who had used cannabis it was 21%
    ~ Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), UK

    Pot Legalized in Colorado : Success, Disaster, … Timebomb?

    08 Sunday Jun 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Science, Social

    ≈ Leave a comment

     Economic benefits from legalizing marijuana will draw interest
    … With state taxes at 35 percent and the ability for cities to add their own sales tax, the legalization and taxation of recreational marijuana in Colorado will bring in about $70 million in revenue this year, according to the Colorado Department of Revenue-division of taxation. The first $40 million in income will be spent on education and schools, while the remaining will be spent on marijuana regulation… Jeffrey Miron from Harvard University decided to figure out the law enforcement savings from the legalization of marijuana and concluded that the savings would be about $8.7 billion nationwide, an MSN.com article published in 2012 reported. Miron also believes the nearly 750,000 marijuana-related arrests could be significantly reduced to nearly zero.
    ~ By Travis Eubanks, Daily Nebraskan.

    Thousands Not Arrested for Marijuana, Millions of Dollars Saved.
    Nationally we average over 750,000 marijuana arrests each year…  Police make far more arrests for marijuana possession each year than for all violent crimes combined. Colorado has removed itself from this immense waste of resources….  The voters of Colorado did the right thing last year. They helped lead the nation to a new way to control marijuana, focus scarce law enforcement resources and increase fairness in the criminal justice system … We mark this one-year anniversary of hard-won freedoms and declare that Colorado has already won.
    ~ By Art Way. Colorado Manager, Drug Policy Alliance. Huffingtonpost.com

    Some of the Other Opinions:
    According to a recent study, fatal car crashes involving pot use have tripled in the U.S. … marijuana was the main drug involved in the increase. It contributed to 12 percent of fatal crashes, compared to only 4 percent in 1999.
    ~ Study: Fatal Car Crashes Involving Marijuana Have Tripled

    … those on the drink-drive limit of 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, reaction times were reduced by 13%. For those who had used cannabis it was 21%.
    ~ Transport Research Laboratory (TRL), UK

    – About nine percent of [cannabis] users will become dependent, compared with 32 percent for nicotine and 15 percent for alcohol. Withdrawal may trigger insomnia and depression.
    – Chronic bronchitis can develop, as cannabis smoke contains many of the same carcinogens as tobacco smoke. Heavy users are at higher risk of problems with verbal learning, memory, and attention. Use is also linked to poor educational attainment, but the experts say that the cause and effect of this relationship is unclear. It may be caused by pre-existing risk factors as well as cannabis use.
    – Because cannabis can slow reaction time and coordination, it brings an increased risk of road accidents. Its use in pregnancy could reduce birthweight, but does not seem to cause birth defects. Cannabis users are also more likely to go on to use other illicit drugs, including heroin and cocaine.
    – The potential link to schizophrenia causes widespread concern. Studies suggest the risk is more than doubled for people who have tried cannabis by age 18. An analysis published in the Lancet in 2007 found a 40 percent increase in risk of “psychotic symptoms or disorders” in people who had used cannabis, with the highest risk among regular users, particularly those with a vulnerability to psychosis. For depression and suicide attempts, the evidence is less clear.
    – The University of Queensland experts conclude that, “The most probable adverse effects [of cannabis] include a dependence syndrome, increased risk of motor vehicle crashes, impaired respiratory function, cardiovascular disease, and adverse effects of regular use on adolescent psychosocial development and mental health.”
    ~ Published in the ‘Lancet‘, the report focuses on nonmedical use……

    List of 200 highest-paid CEOs contains only 10 women

    05 Thursday Jun 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Markets, Politics, Social

    ≈ Leave a comment

    The WSJ data proved once again that even at the top-management level of America largest corporations the “War on Women” is a severe reality of the U.S. business environment …

    WSJ_Women_CEO_Pay_2013

    for comparison:

    women_on_board_corp

    See also:

  • U. S. Labor Force Structured by Occupation, Race, Gender and Education
  • Libyan Women Will Have Only 10% Representation in Government Assembly
  • U. S. Labor Force Structured by Occupation, Race, Gender and Education

    03 Tuesday Jun 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Markets, Politics, Social

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Earnings_Education

    File Jan 31, 11 18 43 AM

             U.S. 2012 Employed Population by Occupation and Race
    occup_by_race_2012_sig

    Data source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012 Population Survey (CPS).

    unemployment_race_2012_sig
    Data source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012 Population Survey (CPS).

    weekly_earnings_2012_sig
    Data source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012 Population Survey (CPS).

    management_earni_2012_sig
    Data source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012 Population Survey (CPS).

    asian_domin_silva_sig
    Data sources: Census Bureau; San Jose Mercury News.

     

    See also: 

  • List of 200 highest-paid CEOs contains only 10 women
  • How the Asians became white
  • It Will Be A Disaster For The West

    22 Thursday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

    ≈ Leave a comment

    In a matter of a mere few weeks U.S. succeeded in smashing all the heretofore insurmountable obstacles in the way of the political and economic integration of Russia and China.

    Take the agreement to supply Russian gas to China. For over ten years the two countries had been unable to resolve the differences that kept flaring up between them. After a mere month or two of hard work on the part of State Department and Secretary Kerry in person — as the leading performer of the regularly aired ultimata (John Kerry: Russia has until Monday to reverse course …) — bingo! All contradictions gone. The agreement has been announced: “Russia, China Sign $400 Billion Gas Deal After Decade of Talks” (Bloomberg News. May 21, 2014).

    A day earlier, Chinese and Russian leaders formulated just as clearly their common foreign-policy stand in response to the mounting Western pressure: “A Russia-China Alliance Is Emerging, And It Will Be A Disaster For The West” (Forbes, 5/20/2014)

    It seems to be just the beginning of by now accelerating development of a long-germinating trend. Especially since Secretary Kerry is still burgeoning with fresh ideas and creative energy that cannot be tamed.

    See also: Dangerous Miscalculation or “Politics as Usual” …

    The Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) Electric Grid Cybersecurity Initiative:

    21 Wednesday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Tech, Wars

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Evidence collected by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security suggests that cyber attacks on key energy infrastructure—and on the electricity system — are increasing, both in frequency and sophistication…
    Read more: http://bipartisanpolicy.org/events/2014/02/cybersecurity-and-north-american-electric-grid-new-policy-approaches-address-evolving

    Commander: U.S. Military Not Ready for Cyber Warfare


      Unfortunately, there were not only cyber “attacks on key energy infrastructure”:

    Sniper Attack [in California] Knocked Out Substation, Raises Concern for Country’s Power Grid. The incident happened one day after the Boston bombings which is why there’s been little reporting on the incident. Now authorities say the damage is the work of a sniper and they are treating the shootings an act of terror. “It appears to be very well organized and very well planned,” said Steve Harrison of the Arizona Department of Public Safety. In just two hours in the middle of an April night last year, a militarystyle sniper attack took out 17 transformers powering the Silicon Valley… Security expert Norman Beasley says power stations can easy pickings for bad guys because they are out in the open… The FBI continues to investigate the attack, but no arrests have been made.
    ~California power station attack last April was “act of terror”.

      See also:

    Blackout a reminder of power grid vulnerabilities. Associated Press. SAN DIEGO — A blackout that swept across parts of the Southwest and Mexico apparently began with a single utility worker and a minor repair job. How it then rippled from that worker in the Arizona desert, to southern California and across the border, plunging millions of people into darkness, has authorities and experts puzzled, especially since the power grid is built to withstand such mishaps. However it … was a reminder that the nation’s transmission lines remain all too vulnerable to cascading power failures. “There are a lot of critical pieces of equipment on the system and we have less defense than we think,” said Rich Sedano at the Regulatory Assistance Project, a utility industry think tank based in Montpelier, Vt. … There have been several similar failures in recent years.

    U.S. Risks National Blackout From Small-Scale Attack. Federal Analysis Says Sabotage of Nine Key Substations Is Sufficient for Broad Outage. The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country’s 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis… “This would be an event of unprecedented proportions,” said Ross Baldick, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin… Sabotage could wreak worse havoc, experts said. “The power grid, built over many decades in a benign environment, now faces a range of threats it was never designed to survive,” said Paul Stockton, a former assistant secretary of defense and president of risk-assessment firm Cloud Peak Analytics.

    National Research Council worried that a well-coordinated attack on the grid “could deny large regions of the country access to bulk system power for weeks or even months.

    Electric Grid Vulnerable to EMP, Could kill 9 in 10 Americans

    An Incubator for An American Ruling Elite

    19 Monday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Education, Politics, Science, Social

    ≈ Leave a comment

    US_rukking_elite_edu_2

    Source: “Investigating The World’s Rich And Powerful” by Jonathan Wai. Duke University

    Gregory Douthat’s memoir of his four years in college, Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class, clarifies the above data in some more details: “I thought at the time, and still think now, that Harvard is … an incubator for an American ruling class that is smug, stratified, self-congratulatory, and intellectually adrift.”

    See also:

  • The Harvard Billionaire Machine … billionaires attended an elite school because their parents were billionaires who “gave the school large gifts” or top level politicians (“political connections“)
  • Universities Ranked By Billionaire Alumni
  • Universities Ranked By Billionaire Alumni

    19 Monday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Education, Politics, Science, Social

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Billionaire Rank University Billionaire Alumni Population Total Wealth of Billionaire Alumni ( $US billion)
    1 Harvard University 52 205
    2 University of Pennsylvania 28 112
    3 Stanford University 27 76
    4 New York University 17 68
    5 Columbia University 15 96
    6 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 15 114
    7 Cornell University 14 35
    8 University of Southern California 14 32
    9 Yale University 13 77
    10 University of Cambridge 11 48
    Source: Wealth-X
    See also:  The Harvard Billionaire Machine

    Dangerous Miscalculation or “Politics as Usual” …

    18 Sunday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

    ≈ Leave a comment

    A top Chinese general Thursday strongly defended Beijing’s territorial claims over disputed islands in the South and East China Seas and charged that the U.S. rebalance of forces to the Pacific was encouraging unrest in the region. Gen. Fang Fenghui, chief of the general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, said “the rebalancing strategy of the U.S. has stirred up some of the problems which make the South China Sea and the East China Sea not so calm as before” … Dempsey dismissed Fang’s objections to the so-called “Pacific pivot” and said the U.S. was committed to the policy. “We’ll go because we can and should, and we’ll go because we have to,” Dempsey said of the rebalance. Dempsey also told Fang “We will respond to threats.” However, Dempsey mostly stuck to his long-held position that the U.S. must build better military-to-military relations with China to avoid miscalculations that could lead to conflict in the region.
    Read more: http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/05/15/dempsey-clashes-with-chinese-general-on-pacific.html

    The United States is halting all military engagement with Russia due to the crisis in Ukraine — including military exercises, meetings and port visits, the Pentagon said Monday. “Although the Department of Defense finds value in the military-to-military relationship with the Russian Federation we have developed over the past few years to increase transparency, build understanding, and reduce the risk of military miscalculation we have, in light of recent events in Ukraine, put on hold all military-to-military engagements between the United States and Russia. This includes exercises, bilateral meetings, port visits and planning conferences,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement.
    Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/#/storyline/ukraine-crisis/u-s-suspends-military-relations-russia-n43631

      In both cases above, the main goal of the military-to-military relationship between the nuclear superpower countries is defined as to “reduce the risk of military miscalculation “. In other words, putting “on hold all military-to-military engagements between the United States and Russia”, rather than falling under “sanctions”, appears to be more like a blindly taken step towards a nuclear Armageddon:

    US_Russia_China_Nuclear
    Data Source: Federation of American Scientists • http://www.fas.org

    US_Russia_Nuclear
    Source: Federation of American Scientists • http://www.fas.org

    US_Russia_Nuclear_1945-2013
    Source: Federation of American Scientists • http://www.fas.org

    US_Rus_Triad_2912_sh
    Data Source: Federation of American Scientists • http://www.fas.org

    Russia_based_ICBM_2014
    Source: Federation of American Scientists • http://www.fas.org

    Obama warns Russia in tense call with Putin … President Barack Obama told Russian President Vladimir Putin in a tense phone call on Monday that Moscow would face further costs for its actions in Ukraine and should use its influence to get separatists in the country to stand down. Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/15/us-ukraine-crisis-obama-idUSBREA3D1DH20140415

    “Putin will not talk to Obama under pressure,” said Igor Yurgens, Chairman of the Institute for Contemporary Development, a prominent Moscow think tank, and a close associate of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. “It does not mean forever” …  Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is also getting the cold shoulder from his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu. Pentagon officials have reached out to Russia on Mr. Hagel’s behalf within the past 24 hours but have not gotten any response, according to Pentagon Spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren…
    Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/25/exclusive-putin-halts-all-talks-with-white-house.html

    See also:

  • As The War Drums Are Getting Louder The Risk of Nuclear Conflict is Growing.  …  Stephen Cohen told a CNN-TV audience March 9, “I think were two steps from a Cuban Missile Crisis and three steps from war with Russia for the first time.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis During the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores… Soviets had long felt uneasy about the number of nuclear weapons that were targeted at them from sites in Western Europe and Turkey, and they saw the deployment of missiles in Cuba as a way to level the playing field. Despite the enormous tension, Soviet and American leaders found a way out of the impasse. During the crisis, the Americans and Soviets had exchanged letters and other communications, and on October 26, Khrushchev sent a message to Kennedy in which he offered to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for a promise by U.S. leaders not to invade Cuba. The following day, the Soviet leader sent a letter proposing that the USSR would dismantle its missiles in Cuba if the Americans removed their missile installations in Turkey. Officially, the Kennedy administration decided to accept the terms of the first message and ignore the second Khrushchev letter entirely. Privately, however, American officials also agreed to withdraw their nation’s missiles from Turkey. U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy (1925-68) personally delivered the message to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, and on October 28, the crisis drew to a close. Both the Americans and Soviets were sobered by the Cuban Missile Crisis. The following year, a direct “hot line” communication link was installed between Washington and Moscow to help defuse similar situations, and the superpowers signed two treaties related to nuclear weapons.
  • Kennedy – Khrushchev Exchanges During the “13 Days”
  • The Harvard Billionaire Machine

    18 Sunday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Education, Politics, Science, Social

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Jonathan Wai, a research scientist at Duke University and part of the school’s Talent Identification Program, looked at the world’s billionaires and global elite… The global elite—defined by media lists and culled from the attendees of the annual World Economic Forum gathering at Davos, Switzerland—are also highly educated. More than half of Davos attendees went to elite colleges… Harvard, the study suggested, is the top billionaire-making machine. Among U.S. billionaires, more than 1 in 10 went to the school, and globally about 1 in 20 billionaires went there.  As Wai told … : “I was surprised by the extent to which elite schools within each country tend to serve as influential filters for who ends up as a member of these groups of the global elite, specifically the overrepresentation of people who had attended Harvard University” … But wealthy children can also get into top universities in part because their parents attended or gave the school large gifts. Wai acknowledged that “some students attend an elite school with lower-than-typical test scores due to athletics, legacy status or political connections.
    ~ Billionaires are smarter, study says by Robert Frank.

    PS. Unfortunately, the above quoted article did not reveal what part of the billionaires attended an elite school because their parents were billionaires who “gave the school large gifts” or top level politicians (“political connections“). The below Jonathan Wai’s  data provide a clue about it:

    US_elite_education

     

     

    Moon as a Next “Wild West”

    17 Saturday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Science

    ≈ Leave a comment

    The West fears Russia is poised to invade Ukraine, but it seems the Kremlin has a bigger conquest in its sights – the Moon. Moscow today set out plans to conquer and colonise space, including a permanent manned moon base. Deputy premier Dmitry Rogozin said: ‘We are coming to the moon forever.‘
    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2602291/We-coming-Moon-FOREVER-Russia-sets-plans-conquer-colonise-space-including-permanent-manned-moon-base.html

    A Japanese beverage company has an out-of-this-world advertising idea. Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. said it’s going to shoot a can filled with its beloved beverage Pocari Sweat and embossed with its logo to the moon. It will be the first commercial product ever sent there as a marketing stunt. Set to launch in October 2015, the can will be filled with a powdered version of the popular drink along with the dreams and wishes of 38,000 children from Asia etched inside… It will travel to the moon on the Elon Musk-created Falcon 9 rocket on its first mission to the moon…
    Reed more: http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/261677/speedreads-japanese-beverage-company-%20%20unveils-plan-to-put-first-ad-on-the-moon

    It’s alive! … Sort of. Reports of the death of China’s first moon rover, Yutu, have been greatly exaggerated, according to the country’s state-run media. The Yutu moon rover, which suffered a potentially serious mechanical malfunction last month, is now awake and has apparently survived its second lunar night, China’s Xinhua news agency reported …
    Read more: http://www.space.com/24688-china-moon-rover-survives.html

    See also:

  • USA: Apollo program
  • Russia: Lunokhod programm
  • China: Lunar Exploration Program
  • Timeline of robotic and human spacecraft missions
  • The Times (UK) Front Page: “Scientists in cover-up of ‘damaging’ climate view”

    16 Friday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Science

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Research which heaped doubt on the rate of global warming was deliberately suppressed by scientists because it was “less than helpful” to their cause, it was claimed last night. In an echo of the infamous “Climategate” scandal at the University of East Anglia, one of the world’s top academic journals rejected the work of five experts after a reviewer privately denounced it as “harmful”.
    Read more: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4091344.ece

    See also: Science Is Not a Popularity Contest

    Science Is Not a Popularity Contest

    16 Friday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Science

    ≈ Leave a comment

    The interesting thing about science is that it is not about public opinion or even popular consensus. Scientific discoveries, even those that are unpopular, have a history of being borne out over time… The argument that I find most specious and intellectually suspect is that the 97 percent of climate scientists who support the idea that climate change is linked to the contaminants we’ve been putting into the air in massive quantities since the Industrial Revolution have been compromised by money, while the tiny minority (often those paid by the polluters) remain intellectually pure.
    Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-friedman/science-is-not-a-popularity-contest_b_5315241.html?utm_hp_ref=science

    Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities,1and most of the leading scientific organizations worldwide have issued public statements endorsing this position. The following is a partial list of these organizations, along with links to their published statements and a selection of related resources…
    ~ Consensus: 97% of climate scientists agree, NASA

    Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies – the very organization now presaging gloom and doom at the hands of global warming – predicted a new ice age back in 1971.
    ~ NASA Scientists Predicted a New Ice Age in 1971 By Noel Sheppard

    Swedish climate scientist says he was subjected to a witch-hunt reminiscent of the McCarthy era… Professor Lennart Bengtsson, a research fellow at the University of Reading, said he was worried about his own “health and safety” as a member of the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s academic advisory council… The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) was established because of concerns that government policies to combat climate change may be too radical. It describes itself as ‘open-minded on the contested science of global warming’. The founder of the think-tank, former chancellor of the exchequer Lord Lawson, called Bengtsson’s treatment “appalling”… The director of the GWPF Benny Peiser said: “This is a huge embarrassment to the climate science community. Why should people believe them if their critics are treated in that way? It will be self destructive if they do not stand up for free speech and discussion” … Professor Bengtsson joined the advisory council last month. He is a former director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg …
    Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10834456/Climate-scientist-forced-from-position-after-McCarthy-style-pressure.html

    Faith in Global Warming is collapsing in formerly staunch Europe following increasingly severe winters which have now started continuing into spring. Christopher Booker explained in The Sunday Telegraph on April 27, 2013 “Here in Britain, where we had our fifth freezing winter in a row, the Central England Temperature record … Last week it was reported that 3,318 places in the USA had recorded their lowest temperatures for this time of year since records began. Similar record cold was experienced by places in every province of Canada. So cold has the Russian winter been that Moscow had its deepest snowfall in 134 years of observations” … But there is a fundamental problem with the temperature records from this contentious period, when climate science crashed into political science. The land based records, which have been under the control of global warming alarmists at the British Met Office and the Hadley Centre Climate Research Unit, and at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the U.S., show much more warming during this period than the incorruptible satellite atmosphere temperature records. Those satellite records have been further confirmed by atmospheric weather balloons. But the land based records can be subject to tampering and falsification.
    ~ To The Horror Of Global Warming Alarmists, Global Cooling Is Here. By Peter Ferrara. Forbes.

    911: Elevators were disaster within disaster

    16 Friday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Tech

    ≈ Leave a comment

    The elevators were a tragic exception to an otherwise successful evacuation that resulted in the survival of 99% of the people who worked below the floors where the jets crashed… Newly installed safety devices condemned many people to death. To comply with building codes, the World Trade Center since 1996 had been adding locks that made it impossible for passengers to force open the doors of stalled elevators. These locks, called “door restrictors,” had been added to about half of the 198 elevators in the twin towers. Nobody is known to have escaped from an elevator locked by a door restrictor.
    Read more: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-09-04-elevator-usat_x.htm

    ~ 9/11 Memorial Museum works through nation’s pain to honor victims … is set to be dedicated and on May 21 [2014] will open to the public.

    The Crisis in Behalf of …

    14 Wednesday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Markets, Politics, Wars

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Here are a couple of most recent examples:

    National Crisis: Nevada Ranch Stand-Off
    Chinese energy giant ENN Energy Group wants to use federal land as part of its effort to build a $5 billion solar farm and panel-building plant in the southern Nevada desert. Rory Reid, the son of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, is representing ENN in their efforts to locate in Nevada. Part of the land ENN wants to use was purchased from Clark County at well below appraised value. Rory Reid is the former Clark County Commission chairman, and he persuaded the commission to sell 9,000 acres of county land to ENN on the promise it would provide jobs for the area, Reuters reported in 2012.
    Read more: http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/bundy-ranch-rory-reid-harry-reid/2014/04/13/id/565328

    International: East-Europe Crisis
    Hunter Biden, the youngest son of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, has been appointed  as head of legal affairs at Ukraine’s largest private gas producer, Burisma.  The appointment comes just weeks after Vice President Biden visited Ukraine’s capital to show support for the country … He also warned of the dangers of government corruption. “Russia already regards the U.S. as meddling in Ukrainian affairs, so this news won’t change that perception,” said Steven Pifer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and a director of the Brookings Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative.
    Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/vice-president-joe-bidens-son-appointed-head-legal-affairs-ukrainian-energy-firm-1583858
    ___
    PS. As it was concluded by Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff, November 19, 2008: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an  opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

    As The War Drums Are Getting Louder The Risk of Nuclear Conflict is Growing

    13 Tuesday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

    ≈ 1 Comment

    The U.S. Strategic Command, which is in charge of waging nuclear war, will hold large-scale bomber exercises this week—days after Russia held what Moscow called “massive” war games simulating a U.S. and NATO nuclear attack.,, Ten U.S. B-52 bombers and up to six B-2 strategic bombers will take part in the war games called “Global Lightning 14” from Monday through May 16, the command said in a statement late Sunday… Moscow and Washington also have been battling over Russia’s plan to upgrade aircraft used in conducting permitted spy flights over the United States that intelligence officials say could undermine U.S. security. The flights are carried out under the Open Skies Treaty. Russia temporarily blocked a U.S. overflight of Russia and a spokesman mentioned the dispute over the new Russian aircraft in criticizing U.S. officials… ~ U.S. to Conduct Strategic Bomber Exercise by Bill Gertz

    Defective signaling … when Russian foreign minister Lavrov spoke this week (in English) about the possible need to come to the aid of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, Washington had to guess whether he was stating the public rationale for an invasion, sending a warning signal to Kiev about its internal counter-terror campaign, or trying to accomplish some other purpose. Misinterpretation of such signals can become a reciprocal process that sends both sides up the “ladder of escalation” quickly, to a point where nuclear use seems like the logical next step… Command breakdown. …  with nonstrategic nuclear weapons, which at some point in the course of an escalatory process need to be released to the control of local commanders if they are to have military utility. U.S. policy even envisions letting allies deliver tactical warheads against enemy targets… Russian doctrine endorses nuclear-weapons use in response to conventional aggression threatening the homeland, and obstacles to local initiative often break down once hostilities commence… And because Ukraine is so close to the Russian heartland (about 250 miles from Moscow) there’s no telling what might happen once the nuclear “firebreak” is crossed… ~ Four Ways The Ukraine Crisis Could Escalate To Use Of Nuclear Weapons by Loren Thompson.

    Russian studies Professor [of Princeton university] Stephen Cohen told a CNN-TV audience March 9, “I think were two steps from a Cuban Missile Crisis and three steps from war with Russia for the first time.” Prof. Cohen was talking to host Fareed Zakaria, and insisted, “We need to get a negotiation going on…. Over the last 20 years we’ve moved NATO right to Russia’s borders. Ten years ago Putin announced very clearly, I don’t like NATO on my borders, but looking ahead, I have two red lines, one is Georgia, the former Soviet republic. We crossed that red line, he thinks. And we had a war. Now he thinks we’ve crossed the red line elsewhere in Ukraine.” ~ Russia Expert Stephen Cohen: ‘Two Steps From Cuban Missiles Crisis’.

    See also:

  • Cold War zombie apocalypse
  • John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
  • Cold War zombie apocalypse

    11 Sunday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

    ≈ Leave a comment

    These zombies, raising their crumbling limbs from the dank soil of think tanks, university departments and military alliances, are the Cold War hawks. Shaking off the loam of a quarter-century’s irrelevance, they … stagger en masse onto TV news shows and op-ed pages and, we fear, into ministers’ offices, where they foul the air with their very bad ideas. We need to “show strength” and deliver a “robust response,” lest the West appear to be “in retreat” and insufficiently “assertive,” making us “vulnerable” to attacks from those who see our weakness. We should send ground troops marching to the banks of the Dnieper, and aircraft carriers into the Black Sea, because “this is the only language Putin understands.” What these soldiers are meant to do, we’re never really told. It’s time to get the pitchforks. The Cold Warriors have a consistent record of being wrong. They’re wrong about military power… They’re wrong about Russia … They were wrong the last time around …

    By Doug Saunders, The Globe and Mail

    The largest crisis of Obama’s presidency — Iran’s nuclear program — may be affected by the situation in Ukraine

    11 Sunday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Moscow’s support was essential in securing the most recent agreement between the P5 + 1 and Iran, and reaching a final agreement with Iran is contingent even more on Russian support. President Putin could pull support from these talks in response to the United States’ position on Ukraine. Near to the end of his term, Obama could then face the prospects of once again trying to prevent a potential scenario where Israel pursues a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program. In the cases of both Syria and Iran, President Obama runs the risk of the situation in Ukraine impacting negatively on his Middle East policy.

    ~James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy

    The Ukrainian crisis and Japan’s dilemma

    11 Sunday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics

    ≈ Leave a comment

    The timing of the Ukrainian crisis could not have been worse for Japan,… So far, Japan’s reaction has been lukewarm compared to the response of the United States and the European Union. But should the crisis deteriorate further, the G7 members may choose to resort to harsher sanctions. Doing so may upset the cautious diplomatic game Abe has been playing with Russia. In his second term as prime minister, Abe has made Russia a focus of his personal diplomacy. He has met with President Vladimir Putin five times, more than with any other foreign leader… All of Abe’s diplomatic manoeuvres have been directed at a very tangible goal — that of renewing talks on the territorial dispute between Japan and Russia over the so-called Northern Territories (referred to in Russia as the Kuril Islands).

    Read more: http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2014/03/26/the-ukrainian-crisis-and-japans-dilemma/

    California’s business tax climate

    10 Saturday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Markets, Politics

    ≈ Leave a comment

    ranks 48th in U.S. … the third worst among the states, according to a report from the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit advocate for low taxes… The states ranking best by the Tax Foundation’s measure are: 1)Wyoming, 2)South Dakota, 3)Nevada, 4)Alaska, 5)Florida, 6)Washington, 7)New Hampshire, 8)Montana, 9)Texas, 10)Utah. Except for Utah, all of those states lack one of the three biggest taxes: sales tax, individual income tax or corporate income tax, the report said.
    ~ California’s business tax climate ranks 48th in U.S. by Jan Norman

    When Toyota announced that it was moving its U.S. headquarters from California to Texas, some were surprised, but everyone understood why. Because of its high taxes and regulations, worst states in the nation in which to do business, and a move from California would have an immediate positive impact on Toyota USA’s bottom line. And Toyota is only the latest.
    ~ As Capital Flees, England Is Texas, and the U.S. Is California By Tom Giovanetti

    Oil and Natural Gas – Four Times The Jobs

    10 Saturday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Markets, Politics

    ≈ Leave a comment

    The number of direct jobs in oil and natural gas extraction has grown 7.2 percent since April last year, more than four times the growth rate in all U.S. jobs, according to BLS [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics]… Now, keep in mind that the BLS data line for “oil and gas extraction” covers only part of industry’s upstream (pre-refining) segment. Scroll down a few lines in this BLS table to find direct jobs supporting oil and natural gas operations – such as building and dismantling field rigs, core drilling services, hydraulic fracturing services and much more (enter the number 213112 in the search engine for the full list) – and you see dynamic growth there as well, 6.3 percent …

    ~ Four Times The Jobs by Mark Green

    Oppression of Christians gets political

    10 Saturday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Religion

    ≈ Leave a comment

    The European Parliament has condemned violence against Christians, as has Amnesty International… Yet critics such as Nina Shea of the Washington-based Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom argue that the reaction has been muted — noting, … One likely reason is that mainly liberal Western journalists aren’t used to seeing Christians … as legitimate victims of oppression. U.S. conservatives rightly complain about the neglect, but their approach is often counterproductive.

    Read more: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/cathy-young/oppression-of-christians-gets-political-cathy-young-1.6253962

    Christians have become the new Jews

    10 Saturday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Religion

    ≈ Leave a comment

    For the first time in millennia, Judaism has lost its title as the world’s most persecuted religion; today, that dubious honor goes to Christianity… Even politicians have begun grasping this fact: German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly deemed Christianity “the most persecuted religion in the world” in November. In short, as one commentator put it last week, Christians have become the new Jews… There are two reasons why Christianity has displaced Judaism as the world’s most persecuted religion. One, obviously, is increased persecution of Christians, which stems largely from the rise of radical Islam… The other is that today, Jews face less persecution than ever before in history. And that is entirely due to the existence of the State of Israel.

    ~ Religious Persecution and Safe Havens by Evelyn Gordon. Commentary Magazine.

    … one of the largest persecutions of a religious group in history.

    10 Saturday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Religion

    ≈ Leave a comment

    We are living through one of the largest persecutions of a religious group in history. Few people realize that we are today living through the largest persecution of Christians in history, worse even than the famous attacks under ancient Roman emperors like Diocletian and Nero. Estimates of the numbers of Christians under assault range from 100-200 million. Read more: http://www.hoover.org/publications/defining-ideas/article/152651

    News media challenge ban on journalism drones

    09 Friday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Tech

    ≈ Leave a comment


    AP Photo/Minnesota Public Radio, Dan Gunderson, File

    The organizations, including The Associated Press, filed a brief with the National Transportation Safety Board in support of aerial photographer Raphael Pirker. Pirker was fined $10,000 by the FAA for flying a small drone near the University of Virginia to make a commercial video in October 2011… Media organizations are intensely interested in using drones for photography and videos because they are far less expensive to buy and operate than a manned airplane or helicopter, and because their size and versatility provide visual perspectives often not possible with manned aircraft.

    Read more: http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/news-media-challenge-ban-journalism-drones

    Would Economic Sanction Improve U.S. Security?

    09 Friday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Wars

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Russian Deputy Finance Minister Alexei Moiseev summoned Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanayee for a meeting in Moscow to learn strategies for avoiding the brunt of U.S. sanctions. Iran has for years developed elaborate and illegal methods for skirting sanctions on its contested nuclear program, its military, and oil trade. Moiseev is reported to have told Sanayee Russia is “willing to make use of Iran’s experience in dealing with Western sanctions”… Iran also has set up an elaborate network of front companies and networks that have allowed it to procure everything from nuclear-related goods to weapons, and even cash… Moiseev called for closer financial ties with Iran and discussed boosting trade between the two countries. Both Sanayee and Moiseev “called for further coordination between Iran and Russia for the 11th meeting of their Joint Economic Commission” which is scheduled to be held in Tehran later this year. Other top Russian officials also have sought to boost ties with Iran in recent months.

    ~ Russia Asks Iran: Help Us Skirt U.S. Sanctions By Adam Kredo.

    Electric Grid Vulnerable to EMP, Could kill 9 in 10 Americans

    09 Friday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics, Tech, Wars

    ≈ Leave a comment

    … an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack aimed at the nation’s electrical grid could leave the majority of Americans dead… An overload of radio waves to electric systems, an EMP could result from a natural disaster, such as a solar storm, or a terrorist attack. Franks said “every single facet of modern human life” would be “crippled” by such an event. “It strikes at my very core when I think of the men, women, and children in cities and rural towns across America with a possibility of no access to food, water, or transportation,” he said. “In a matter of weeks or months at most, a worst-case scenario could bring devastation beyond imagination” … Franks has introduced H.R. 3410, the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, … to implement practical steps to protect the electric grid.

    ~ Hearing: Electric Grid Vulnerable to EMP By Elizabeth Harrington.

    Bitcoin OK for politics

    09 Friday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Markets, Politics

    ≈ Leave a comment

    The Federal Election Commission on Thursday approved the use of the alternative currency Bitcoin for political contributions with limits of $100 per donor per election cycle… Proponents say it’s a sign of increased acceptance of the upstart currency, as more businesses and individuals are starting to embrace Bitcoin payments as an alternative to credit cards.

    Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/08/technology/bitcoin-politics/index.html

    What would a U.S.-Russia war look like?

    09 Friday May 2014

    Posted by bunchofopinions in Politics

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Nuclear Armageddon. …the entire stockpile of U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) — 448 active — is essentially aimed squarely at Russia. Russia’s hundreds of ICBMs are probably returning the favor. In all, the U.S. has about 7,700 nuclear warheads, including 1,950 warheads ready to deploy via ICBM, submarine, and airplane, plus thousands more in mothballs or waiting to be dismantled, according to the latest tally by the Federation of American Scientists. Russia has slightly more warheads overall — about 8,500 — but a slightly fewer 1,800 of them operational.

    Read more: http://theweek.com/article/index/257406/what-would-a-us-russia-war-look-like

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