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Wednesday 14 January 2015

Your blood type may put you at risk for heart disease

Blood Type

© Lightspring/Shutterstock



People whose blood type is A, B or AB have an increased risk of heart disease and shorter life spans than people who have type O blood, according to a new study.

But that doesn't mean people with blood types other than O should be overly concerned, because heart disease risk and life span are influenced by multiple factors, including exercise and overall health, experts said.


In the study, researchers followed about 50,000 middle-age and elderly people in northeastern Iran for an average of seven years. They found that people with non-O blood types were 9 percent more likely to die during the study for any health-related reason, and 15 percent more likely to die from cardiovascular disease, compared with people with blood type O .


"It was very interesting to me to find out that people with certain blood groups - non-O blood groups - have a higher risk of dying of certain diseases," said the study's lead investigator, Dr. Arash Etemadi, an epidemiologist at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.


The researchers also examined whether people's blood type may be linked with their risk of gastric cancer, which has a relatively high incidence rate among the people living in northeastern Iran. They found that people with non-O blood types had a 55 percent increased risk of gastric cancer compared with people with type O blood, according to the study, published online today (Jan. 14) in the journal


The association between blood type and people's disease risk and life span held even when the researchers accounted for other factors, including age, sex, smoking, socioeconomic status and ethnicity.


Previous studies have shown that people with non-O blood types may be at higher risk of certain cancers and cardiovascular disease, but it was less clear whether blood type is linked with life span, Etemadi told Live Science.


About 11,000 people in the study provided information about their blood's biochemistry, including their cholesterol levels, glucose levels and blood pressure. But only certain metrics stood out - for example, the people with type A blood tended to have higher levels of total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, also known as the "bad" cholesterol.


It's possible that higher cholesterol levels could partly explain the increased mortality risk. People with non-O blood types also have an increased tendency to form blood clots, and this higher coagulation might lead to more heart problems, Etemadi said.


Moreover, the gene that is responsible for blood type is on the same chromosome as some of the genes responsible for controlling blood cholesterol, Etemadi said.


But it's unlikely that the cholesterol link is solely responsible for the difference in people's life span, he said. "We think that it's a mixture of both causes that contribute to this increased mortality," Etemadi said.


Although people with non-O blood types may have these increased risks, they should "absolutely not" be concerned that their blood type is the determining factor in their health, said Dr. Massimo Franchini, director of hematology and transfusion medicine at the Carlo Poma Hospital in Italy, who was not involved with the study.


"Belonging to a non-O blood type represents only a risk factor (among many others), and actually, there are many and many millions of people worldwide with non-O blood type that do not have, and will never develop, any of these diseases," said Franchini, who wrote a commentary on the study that was also published in the journal. "Thus, in my opinion, a healthy lifestyle still remains the main factor able to influence the health status of an individual."


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Following through: Russia will completely stop the delivery of gaz through the Ukraine

Putin and Miller



Vladimir Putin and Alexei Miller, the head of Gazprom



First, I was a little skeptical. Then more and more sources confirmed what seems to be a fact: Russia will completely stop the delivery of gaz through the Ukraine and all Russian gaz will now flow through Turkey (see Bloomberg and LifeNews). Not only that, but the Russians have told the Europeans that if they want Russian gaz, they will have to build their own pipeline to Turkey at pay for it all.

The Europeans appear to be shell-shocked. Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission's vice president for energy union, declared that this decision made "no economic sense". As if the nonstop economic and political warfare waged by the EU against Russia did make any sense!


I can image the faces of the Eurobureaucrats when Alexei Miller, the head of Gazprom, told them that "now it is up to them to put in place the necessary infrastructure starting from the Turkish-Greek border" while the Russian Energy Minister Novak added that "the decision has been made, we are diversifying and eliminating the risks of unreliable countries that caused problems in past years, including for European consumers."


In other words, the EU just lost it all and so did the Ukraine. Keep in mind that the EU has no other options then to purchase the Russian gas from Turkey while Russia can simply do without gaz exports to Europe because China has already signed a contract covering the exact same amount of gaz and possibly much more.


Let's see now how the infinitely corrupt, arrogant, criminally irresponsible European elites will cope with an agriculture choking in useless surplus stocks, a society waging ideological war on 1.6 billion Muslims, and now with no energy.


The always irreplaceable Poles have come up with a brilliant strategy it appears: they will "not really" invite Putin to the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz even though Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet military. I am sure that Putin will be both impressed and heartbroken.


Nowadays every time I hear any news out of Europe, I always think that Victoria Nuland's famous "f**k the EU" and how Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, called his colleagues the "great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies". I share exactly the same sentiments: let them "Charlies" now freeze in their own pathetic mediocrity.


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Cops say 'it's not fair' they were forced to resign after being busted for sexual abuse of a minor

cops resign_sexual abuse

© Mercer County Sheriffs Office



They were arrested for sexual abuse involving a minor, but now former Aledo Police Officer Steven Bonynge says that he was treated unfairly by being forced to resign.

Officers Bonynge, 32, and Seth Degelman, 30, had been investigated by the Aledo Police Department after they received a complaint about their sexual abuse of a juvenile. That's according to Aledo Police Chief J. Michael Sponsler who spoke with reporters from local WQAD 8.


The Chief pointed us to a statement released from attorney Blaise Rogers of Gullbert, Box & Worby, LLC, who said he represents Bonynge. It said that the victim was "slightly under the age of 17." In other words, she was 16.


But Steven Bonynge later seemed to want to distance himself from the case, saying, "I am not his sole attorney. I am just the messenger. William K. Gullberg and Kyle J. Worby are the partners working on the case as well."


Bonynge found himself slapped with a class 2 felony aggravated criminal sexual abuse, meaning that he used a weapon in the commission of the assault.


Former Officer Degelman, for his part, was charged with class 3 felony. That charge was indecent solicitation and aggravated criminal sexual abuse. Again, the "aggravated" bit means he used a weapon in the commission of the crime.


Both officers resigned their positions, Aledo Mayor Chris Hagloch said.


Rogers, the officer's attorney, said that Bonynge's resignation was "a direct result of administrative mismanagement by the Aledo Police Department, a reckless disregard for his personal and professional integrity, as well as his rights in the criminal justice system."


"The accusations do not include the use of force, threat, intimidation, or coercion," he continued.


Bonynge now claims that he was "being forced out." He adds that his "resignation is involuntary," claiming that his arrest and treatment "has been unconscionable."


Are you crying a river for him yet?


He's not done. The copy of the resignation letter provided by Rogers, continues the sob story, saying: "I am innocent of this criminal charge but it appears that I have already been convicted by my superiors."


"Resigning for these reasons is discouraging but, given the circumstances I was put in, I do not have any choice," the former cop adds. "I know I will not have the opportunity to be rehired or to continue my employment by the Aledo Police Department, but I would like to say that I have performed my duty faithfully and I have nothing but the utmost respect for the residents of Aledo and Mercer County."


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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In preparation for the Pope's visit, Manila police arrest homeless children and detain them in brutal conditions

homeless child_manilla

© Daily Mail



Homeless children in Manila are being rounded up by Philippines' police in an attempt to clean the city up for the Pope's visit, reports.

Children as young as 5 are being arrested and detained in subhuman living conditions. They are often held for months before being let go onto the streets. Unfortunately, the government has not provided any support for these children, and they often end up back in the temporary prisons.


Children are locked up alongside convicted criminals, and guards often are apathetic or look the other way while children are physically and sexually abused by inmates. The captured children sleep on and eat off of concrete floors, often using buckets as toilets. In some instances, children were chained to poles in these cellars.


Father Shay Cullen, who was nominated for a Nobel Prize, runs a missionary about 100 miles from Manila and recently traveled through these temporary prisons to help children and adopt some to the missionary. One boy, Mak-Mak, had scabies and had been abused by adult inmates during his times in the prison. He was apparently abandoned by his parents and was picked up on the street by Manila police while cleaning up for the Pope. Cullen brought Mak-Mak to his missionary to rehabilitate him.


An inmate in a temporary cell said: "Lots of children have been brought here lately. We're told they're being picked up from under the road bridges where the Pope will travel."


homeless child_manilla

© Daily Mail



This practice is not new, though, as Manila first started to arrest children without cause during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders' Summit in 1996, according to Catherine Scerri, deputy director of Bahay Tuluyan, a charity that helps street children. The country and specifically Manila have been blamed for child abuse of this kind in the past but have not been punished for it.

Rosalinda Orobia of the Social Welfare Department said, "There is no question that children should be kept off the streets, but a campaign to do so just for the duration of a dignitary's visit helps nobody except the officials who want to put on a show and pretend all is well in our cities."


Thousands of the arrested children will be let go after the Pope's stay. However, most will be arrested again once a new internationally televised event comes to Manila.


One boy has been arrested 59 times yet still lives on the streets on Manila.


The citizens of Manila are outraged when they find out about these injustices, but many of them have been very well hidden by the city government.


Father Cullen hopes that the Pope speaks out about child abuse during his visit to Manila and that doing so will help put an end to the injustice towards children.


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City of Albuquerque bars DA from latest officer involved shooting the day after charges filed in shooting death of James Boyd


© Albuquerque Police Department

Detective Keith Sandy, far right, moves up the ridge behind an APD K-9 officer in last March’s confrontation with James Boyd in a photo taken from officer Dominique Perez’s helmet video camera.



The day after a New Mexico prosecutor charged two police officers in the shooting death of a mentally ill homeless man last year, Albuquerque officials refused to allow representatives from the District Attorney's office to participate in the investigation of a new officer-involved shooting that occurred on Tuesday.

According to KRQE, Chief Deputy District Attorney Sylvia Martinez was barred from a briefing about a shooting that occurred Tuesday evening because, she was told, the District Attorney's office "has a conflict of interest because we charged the officers" who shot the homeless man last year.


The District Attorney's office typically plays a vital role in investigating police-involved shootings - issuing warrants, providing legal counsel for the officers involved, and determining whether a shooting was justified - but when DA Martinez attempted to enter the briefing about Tuesday's shooting, City Attorney Kathryn Levy told her that the officers "wouldn't be needing any legal advice or help" and that she "could go home."


"I have never seen anything like this ever," District Attorney Kari Brandenburg told KRQE. "Clearly, this could compromise the integrity of the investigation of this shooting."


In 2004, the District Attorney's office signed an agreement with the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) that allowed it to oversee the APD's investigation of officer-involved shootings. Last year, Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry signed a settlement with the United State Department of Justice (DOJ) that implemented measures to combat the widespread use of excessive force by APD officers.


According to DA Brandenburg, the APD's decision to exclude the District Attorney's office from investigating Tuesday's shooting violates both those agreements.


"It is my opinion that they violated [the agreement with the DA's office]," she said, adding "that means they also violated their agreement with the DOJ."


The APD recently investigated whether DA Brandenberg bribed and intimidated witnesses in a criminal case against her son, turning the case over to the New Mexico Attorney General's Office in December. However, General Counsel David Pederson from the state Attorney General's Office told KRQE that the investigation was "unusual," given that no one at the AG's Office knew about it until it was reported by the media.


"I've been here three years," he said, "and I can't remember another time when an investigatory agency just dropped something off like that. I also can't recall a time when a police agency turned over an investigative file to the news media apparently before turning it over to a prosecuting agency. That's unusual, and it leads to a lot of questions about what's going on here."


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EU cries foul as Russia shifts Ukraine gas transit to Turkey

Russia plans to shift all its natural gas flows crossing Ukraine to a route via Turkey, a surprise move that the European Union's energy chief said would hurt its reputation as a supplier.

The decision makes no economic sense, Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission's vice president for energy union, told reporters today after talks with Russian government officials and the head of gas exporter, OAO Gazprom (GAZP), in Moscow.




Gazprom, the world's biggest natural gas supplier, plans to send 63 billion cubic meters through a proposed link under the Black Sea to Turkey, fully replacing shipments via Ukraine, Chief Executive Officer Alexey Miller said during the discussions. About 40 percent of Russia's gas exports to Europe and Turkey travel through Ukraine's Soviet-era network.

Russia, which supplies about 30 percent of Europe's gas, dropped a planned link through Bulgaria bypassing Ukraine amid EU opposition last year. Russia's relations with the EU have reached a post-Cold War low over President Vladimir Putin's support for separatists in Ukraine.


Sefcovic said he was "very surprised" by Miller's comment, adding that relying on a Turkish route, without Ukraine, won't fit with the EU's gas system.


Gazprom plans to deliver the fuel to Turkey's border with Greece and "it's up to the EU to decide what to do" with it further, according to Sefcovic.


Different Habits


"We don't work like this," he said. "The trading system and trading habits -- how we do it today -- are different."


Sefcovic said he arrived in the Russian capital to discuss supplies to south-eastern EU countries after Putin scrapped the proposed $45 billion South Stream pipeline. The region, even if Turkey is included, doesn't need the volumes Gazprom is planning for a new link, he said.


Ukraine makes sense as a transit country given its location in Europe and the "very clear specified places of deliveries" in Gazprom's current long-term contracts with EU customers, Sefcovic said.


"I believe we can find a better solution," Sefcovic said.


The 28-nation EU is planning build an energy union to reduce dependence on Russia and facilitate transition to a low-carbon economy. Russia was planning South Stream for about a decade, first claiming it would meet expanding demand in the EU, then saying would ensure supplies from high transit risks via Ukraine.


'No Options'


Gazprom has reduced deliveries via Ukraine after price and debt disputes with the neighboring country that twice in the past decade disrupted supplies to the EU during freezing weather.


After building and acquiring export pipelines, the company cut transit via Ukraine to about 62 billion cubic meters last year from 137 billion in 2004.


"Transit risks for European consumers on the territory of Ukraine remain," Miller said in an e-mailed statement. "There are no other options" except for the planned Turkish Stream link, he said.


"We have informed our European partners, and now it is up to them to put in place the necessary infrastructure starting from the Turkish-Greek border," Miller said.


Russia won't hurt its image with a shift to Turkey because it has always been a reliable gas supplier and never violated its obligations, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak told reporters today in Moscow after meeting Sefcovic.


"The decision has been made," Novak said. "We are diversifying and eliminating the risks of unreliable countries that caused problems in past years, including for European consumers."


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FBI arrests Ohio man for 'plotting' ISIS-inspired attack on Capitol


© Reuters / Gary Cameron



The FBI today arrested an Ohio man for allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired attack on the U.S. Capitol, where he hoped to set off a series of bombs aimed at lawmakers, whom he allegedly considered enemies.

Christopher Lee Cornell, 20, of Green Township, was arrested on charges of attempting to kill a U.S. government official, authorities said.


According to government documents, he allegedly planned to detonate pipe bombs at the national landmark and open fire on any employees and officials fleeing after the explosions.



© Butler County Sheriffs Office

Christopher Lee Cornell, 20, of Green Township, Ohio, was arrested on charges of attempting to kill a U.S. government official in an alleged plot to attack the U.S. Capitol.



The FBI first noticed Cornell several months ago after an informant notified the agency that Cornell was allegedly voicing support for violent "jihad" on Twitter accounts under the alias "Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah," according to charging documents. In addition, Cornell allegedly posted statements, videos and other content expressing support for ISIS -- the brutal terrorist group also known as ISIL -- that is wreaking havoc in Iraq and Syria.

"I believe that we should just wage jihad under our own orders and plan attacks and everything," Cornell allegedly wrote in an online message to the informant in August, according to the FBI. "I believe we should meet up and make our own group in alliance with the Islamic State here and plan operations ourselves."


In the message, Cornell said that such attacks "already got a thumbs up" from radical cleric Anwar Awlaki "before his martyrdom."


Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011, but his online messages calling for attacks on the West live on.


U.S. officials considered Awlaki an operational leader within al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemen-based terror group tied to the deadly assault on a satirical magazine in Paris last week.


Cornell and the informant met in Cincinnati over two days in October, and then another two days in November. During the last meeting, Cornell told an FBI informant that members of Congress were enemies and that he wanted to launch an attack on the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., according to charging documents.


Cornell then allegedly saved money to finance the attack and researched how to build bombs, the FBI said.


Earlier today, while also taking "final steps" to travel to Washington for the attack, Cornell allegedly bought two semi-automatic rifles and 600 rounds of ammunition from a store in Ohio, authorities said.


Within hours of Cornell's arrest, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin to law enforcement agencies across the country notifying them of the case.


"The alleged activities of Cornell highlight the continued interest of US-based violent extremists to support designated foreign terrorist organizations overseas, such as ISIL, by committing terrorist acts in the United States," the bulletin read. "Terrorist group members and supporters will almost certainly continue to use social media platforms to disseminate English language violent extremist messages."



© Butler County Sheriffs Office

Christopher Lee Cornell, 20, of Green Township, Ohio, was arrested on charges of attempting to kill a U.S. government official in an alleged plot to attack the U.S. Capitol.



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Solutions: Guerrilla Gardening



© corbettreport.com



The problems are obvious: food safety scandals, the death of family farming, food supply insecurity, the revolving door between corporate lobbyists and government regulators, and many more. The solution should be equally obvious: rolling up our sleeves and getting in the garden. Join us today as we explore this simple, natural solution to one of our most fundamental problems.

[embedded content]





Comment: James Corbett gives an excellent overview of the current climate in the food world, from safety, production, regulation and control, to the evils of GMO foods. Corbett talks about The Lunatic Farmer: Joel Salatin and Polyface Farms solutions to the growing 'food problem'. Corbett also quotes from the excellent book by William Engdahl

This skillfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. "Control the food and you control the people."


This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.


The author cogently reveals a diabolical World of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.


Engdahl's carefully argued critique goes far beyond the familiar controversies surrounding the practice of genetic modification as a scientific technique. The book is an eye-opener, a must-read for all those committed to the causes of social justice and World peace.




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Tanzania bans witchdoctors in attempt to end albino killings

Albino

© Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

At least 74 people with albinism have reportedly been murdered in the east African country since 2000.



Tanzania has banned witchdoctors in an attempt to combat a rise in the killing of people with albinism for their body parts, officials said on Wednesday.

At least 74 people with albinism have reportedly been murdered in the east African country since 2000. After a surge in 2009, the government placed children with albinism in special homes to protect them.


Witchdoctors believe their body parts bring good fortune and wealth. Isaac Nantanga, an interior ministry spokesman, told Agence France-Presse: "These so-called witches bear responsibility for the attacks against albinos."


The government and the Tanzania Albinism Society have agreed to form a taskforce to conduct special operations against the kidnaps, abductions and murders. But the society warned that a ban on witchcraft alone does not go far enough. Ziziyada Nsembo, its secretary-general, said on Wednesday: "It's just a starting point. The government should understand it is an endless story from 2006 until this time. No action has been taken to stop the killings."


Witchdoctors may not be the ultimate source of the problem, she added. "We haven't seen where these hands, legs and skin are taken. This is the big question. If the witchdoctors will tell us that they are taken to somebody, and what purpose they are used for, we will be in a better position. Through the witchdoctors we can reach the real culprits. That is our one demand: for the government to find these people."


A hereditary genetic condition that causes an absence of pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes, albinism affects one Tanzanian in 1,400, according to experts. It affects just one person in 20,000 in the west.


Body parts sell for around $600 in Tanzania, with an entire corpse fetching $75,000. A US survey in 2010 found that while most people in Tanzania are Christian or Muslim, 93% said they believed in witchcraft. Despite the scourge, only 10 people have been convicted of murder.


Last month a four-year-old girl was kidnapped from her home by men armed with machetes in the northern Mwanza region. Police have since arrested 15 people, including the girl's father and two uncles, but she remains unaccounted for.


Nsembo said: "The situation is so bad because people with albinism are afraid of going out and are not going to work. Children are hiding in the house. Mothers take children aged one and two to a special centre for their safety where they are like orphans: they lose the love of their mothers.


"It's because of a lack of knowledge. People don't understand that the difference is the skin but inside we're just the same."


The government has also launched an education campaign to end the killings. Home affairs minister Mathias Chikawe told AFP: "We are keen on addressing the issue of abductions and killings of people with albinism once and for all.


"We are against those who cheat people [telling them] that they will be rich by possessing charms, as well as fortune tellers and those distributing talismans. People should also be repeatedly told that the only way of becoming rich is through hard work and not possessing charms."


In August, a UN rights expert warned that attacks against people with albinism were on the rise ahead of Tanzania's October 2015 national elections, encouraging political campaigners to turn to witchdoctors for good luck.


Isaac Mwaura, a Kenyan MP with albinism, said Tanzanian gangs were crossing into neighbouring Kenya to carry out abductions.


"You can clearly see people in politics going for these concoctions," Mwaura told the BBC. "People will kill people with albinism in return for what they believe is this good fortune, and that is totally wrong. This problem has now become a regional problem because of Tanzania not having taken strong measures to curb it."


Tanzania's Daily News newspaper, in an editorial earlier this month, condemned the "disgusting" trade and said it had brought shame to the nation. The attackers "stalk unsuspecting people with albinism, pounce on them, hack off their body parts and run away with them," it said.


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Study Shows Voters See Far Beyond The Expensive Suits And Practiced Language Patterns Of Politicians



Rick PerryMitt RomneyBarack Obama

Many of us have forgotten how to judge the character of another. Their words only tell half the story. For example it is good to watch television with the sound off, this allows you to see numerous nonverbal cues. Body language alone speaks volumes about someone. You can see shy people pull their bodies inward, shift their shoulders in and put their hands in their pockets. We have patterns that emerge that tell everything about ourselves. What we think of ourselves and others. Politicians in general are not immune, but they have been cultivated to hide those flaws. Lessons in culture, neural-linguistic programming, rapport and a lot more goes in to the most prominent politicians. Bill Clinton in particular was trained by two of the best in the business Kevin Hogan and Tony Robbins. They tell them never to stretch your arms past their shoulders as it makes you seem like you are lying. You end up looking like the fisherman who said I caught a fish 'this big'!



Science Daily has a great study on nonverbal communication:


As the old saying goes, "you never get a second chance to make a first impression."


When it comes to presidential candidates in nationally televised debates, though, a series of studies by a Texas Tech University professor in the College of Media and Communication are showing the nonverbal repertoires that make up a presidential candidate's communication style are important influencers of voter reaction.


Erik Bucy, a regents professor of strategic communication at Texas Tech, is a popular guest lecturer around the world for his research on nonverbal expressions in political news and presidential debates and how those televised leader displays affect public perceptions of candidates.


Over the past year, Bucy has presented the results to several national associations, spoke at a symposium on nonverbal communication and democracy in Sweden, guest lectured at UCLA and participated in an invited conference sponsored by the C-SPAN Education Foundation and Purdue University.


Some of this work, conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of Wisconsin (UW), is summarized in a paper entitled "The Power of Television Images in a Social Media Age: Linking Biobehavioral and Computational Approaches via the Second Screen," soon to be published in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

What Bucy and his colleagues discovered is candidates' facial expressions, gestures and voice tone do as much do as much or more to drive public reaction to the debates than what the candidates actually say.


"This frustrates some people who study media and politics because they want the discussion to be all about the issues," Bucy said. "What we're documenting is, in fact, people respond a lot to behavior. Not everybody pays really that close of attention to elections or knows all their party's positions on the issues, but they can get a sense of the candidates' traits by observing competitive political behavior. And traits are reliable predictors of candidate support."



Let's talk about rapport for a moment, politicians want to make a deep connection with their voters. George W Bush acted like he was a real Texan and made obvious attempts at sounding like an idiot. Today we call them 'Bush-isms' but the best way to get rapport with someone is to talk like that someone and act like that someone. Because we like ourselves and we like people like us. An old school technique for getting deep rapport was called matching and mirroring. When someone changed their body language you wait three seconds and do it yourself and make it look like you both are mirror images of each other. You can breath in sync with someone, that also works well. If you are not good at this you can really piss people off. Obama has dabbled with conversational hypnosis, you can use it redefine arguments such as:


“The issue isn't (high taxes), it's about (roads and schools), and that means..”

“I agree (taxes are high) and would add the issue isn't about the revenue but how useful we are using it..”


You lead everyone away from the problem at hand toward something that you can debate properly. One of the hidden tricks of the trade that Obama overuses is future pacing. Pushing an important agenda forward and avoiding the issue altogether:


“The issue is not the misuse of the people's taxes but how we can work together to ensure the American people benefit from their hard earned money they send to Washington every year.”


We notice everything about these politicians on a subconscious level. That is not to say that voters truly understand politicians they might get an idea about one and just vote for another selected politician. We have the information available to us but we are too busy and too distracted to notice. I've gotten myself out of very bad situations based on gut reactions that came about through nonverbal communication. I'll be adding a few pictures of politicians from the previous election and I surely would love to know what were the first thoughts you had about them.


Mike Vail is a US based investigative journalist, geopolitical analyst, and publisher of StratRisks.com. You can read Michael's articles on BlacklistedNews.com, and follow him on Twitter @MichaelVail




Another US move to flank China: Japan approves largest military budget since WWII

japanese military budget

© Reuters / Yuya Shino

A Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) Type 74 armoured tank takes part in an annual new year military exercise with the JGSDF 1st Airborne Brigade at Narashino exercise field in Funabashi, east of Tokyo January 11, 2015.



Japan's government has approved its largest military budget in 70 years, in contravention of the country's pacifist constitution, in a display of force to its highly militarized neighbors. The extra military spending comes amid a stalling economy.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet has given the green light to an unprecedented nearly 5 trillion yen ($42 billion) defense budget, which comes into force in April. The extra military expenditure mirrors an expanded overall budget, which has reached a record 96.3 trillion yen ($814 billion). The budget still awaits parliament's approval, where the government coalition headed by Abe has a majority in both houses.


The 2 percent increase in military spending is the third hike during Abe's rule. Since he took office in December 2012, Abe ended the 11-year decline in defense spending. In 2002, Tokyo passed its previous highest military budget of 4.96 trillion yen.



Japan proposes record US $42 billion military budget to counter China's rise http://t.co/Y2PKTTKeim http://ift.tt/1yaRa6k


- NDTV (@ndtv) January 14, 2015



"This budget will contribute to achieve both economic recovery and regaining fiscal health together," PM Abe said at a press conference Wednesday.

In line with plans announced in late 2013, Abe's Cabinet plans to spend 24.7 trillion yen between 2014 and 2019 on military hardware, including on amphibious vehicles, drones, fighter jets and submarines.


Japan's military purchases consist mainly of US-made military hardware and homemade weaponry.




Tokyo intends to buy six 5th-generation F-35A stealth fighter jets (reportedly for $148 million apiece), as well as five US-made Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft (which have an estimated price tag of $68 million each).

Japan passes record defense budget http://t.co/AiXjqYev3P http://ift.tt/1yaRa6m


- Circa (@Circa) January 14, 2015



Japan's so-called Self-Defense Force is also looking forward to get a fleet of US-made Global Hawk drones (estimated cost over $100 million a unit), yet this will take place over a five-year period and funds for this purchase will not be allocated from the 2015 military budget, Japanese officials told AFP.

The Japanese Defense Ministry's shopping list also includes 20 Kawasaki P-1 (350 billion yen a unit) national-made maritime patrol aircraft, at 350 billion yen apiece) which are already in service with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.


Tokyo's increased military expenditure comes amid rising tensions between Japan and China over territorial disputes in the East China Sea.


Abe's government is struggling to prevent the economy slipping into recession. The country has an aging population and soaring welfare costs.




In 2014, Japan's population fell for a third straight year, with the elderly (over 65 years old) making up 25 percent of the nation. Social security spending in 2015 is expected to account for about one-third of the budget.

The Cabinet is boosting government spending, changing its tax policies and prompting the nation's senior citizens to spend more on the younger generation.


Abe has previously tried to alter the country's pacifist constitution and downplay the restrictions it imposes on the national armed forces, but has failed to gain the necessary public support. Instead, his government has reinterpreted the law, saying that it allows the Japanese military to come to the rescue of an ally under attack.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Study Shows Voters See Far Beyond The Expensive Suits And Practiced Language Patterns Of Politicians



Rick PerryMitt RomneyBarack Obama



Many of us have forgotten how to judge the character of another. Their words only tell half the story. For example it is good to watch television with the sound off, this allows you to see numerous nonverbal cues. Body language alone speaks volumes about someone. You can see shy people pull their bodies inward, shift their shoulders in and put their hands in their pockets. We have patterns that emerge that tell everything about ourselves. What we think of ourselves and others. Politicians in general are not immune, but they have been cultivated to hide those flaws. Lessons in culture, neural-linguistic programming, rapport and a lot more goes in to the most prominent politicians. Bill Clinton in particular was trained by two of the best in the business Kevin Hogan and Tony Robbins. They tell them never to stretch your arms past their shoulders as it makes you seem like you are lying. You end up looking like the fisherman who said I caught a fish 'this big'!



Science Daily has a great study on nonverbal communication:


As the old saying goes, "you never get a second chance to make a first impression."


When it comes to presidential candidates in nationally televised debates, though, a series of studies by a Texas Tech University professor in the College of Media and Communication are showing the nonverbal repertoires that make up a presidential candidate's communication style are important influencers of voter reaction.


Erik Bucy, a regents professor of strategic communication at Texas Tech, is a popular guest lecturer around the world for his research on nonverbal expressions in political news and presidential debates and how those televised leader displays affect public perceptions of candidates.


Over the past year, Bucy has presented the results to several national associations, spoke at a symposium on nonverbal communication and democracy in Sweden, guest lectured at UCLA and participated in an invited conference sponsored by the C-SPAN Education Foundation and Purdue University.


Some of this work, conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of Wisconsin (UW), is summarized in a paper entitled "The Power of Television Images in a Social Media Age: Linking Biobehavioral and Computational Approaches via the Second Screen," soon to be published in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

What Bucy and his colleagues discovered is candidates' facial expressions, gestures and voice tone do as much do as much or more to drive public reaction to the debates than what the candidates actually say.


"This frustrates some people who study media and politics because they want the discussion to be all about the issues," Bucy said. "What we're documenting is, in fact, people respond a lot to behavior. Not everybody pays really that close of attention to elections or knows all their party's positions on the issues, but they can get a sense of the candidates' traits by observing competitive political behavior. And traits are reliable predictors of candidate support."



Let's talk about rapport for a moment, politicians want to make a deep connection with their voters. George W Bush acted like he was a real Texan and made obvious attempts at sounding like an idiot. Today we call them 'Bush-isms' but the best way to get rapport with someone is to talk like that someone and act like that someone. Because we like ourselves and we like people like us. An old school technique for getting deep rapport was called matching and mirroring. When someone changed their body language you wait three seconds and do it yourself and make it look like you both are mirror images of each other. You can breath in sync with someone, that also works well. If you are not good at this you can really piss people off. Obama has dabbled with conversational hypnosis, you can use it redefine arguments such as:


“The issue isn't (high taxes), it's about (roads and schools), and that means..”

“I agree (taxes are high) and would add the issue isn't about the revenue but how useful we are using it..”


You lead everyone away from the problem at hand toward something that you can debate properly. One of the hidden tricks of the trade that Obama overuses is future pacing. Pushing an important agenda forward and avoiding the issue altogether:


“The issue is not the misuse of the people's taxes but how we can work together to ensure the American people benefit from their hard earned money they send to Washington every year.”


We notice everything about these politicians on a subconscious level. That is not to say that voters truely understand politicians they might get an idea about one and just vote for another selected politician. We have the information available to us but we are too busy and too distracted to notice. I've gotten myself out of very bad situations based on gut reactions that came about through nonverbal communication. I'll be adding a few pictures of politicians from the previous election and I surely would love to know what were the first thoughts you had about them.


Mike Vail is a US based investigative journalist, geopolitical analyst, and publisher of StratRisks.com. You can read Michael's articles on BlacklistedNews.com, and follow him on Twitter @MichaelVail




China's geopolitical policy shift that no one is talking about


I have been to China over the years more than a dozen times. I have spoken with people at all levels of policy-making, and one thing I have come to realize is that when Beijing makes a major policy change, they make it carefully and with great deliberation. And when they arrive at a new consensus, they execute it with remarkable effect on all levels. That is the secret to their thirty-year economic miracle. Now China's top leadership has made such a policy decision. It will transform our world over the next decade.

On November 29, 2014, a little-noted but highly significant meeting took place in Beijing as Washington was absorbed with its various attempts to cripple and ultimately destabilize Putin's Russia. They held what was termed The Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs. Xi Jinping, Chinese President and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivered what was called "An Important Address" there.


Careful reading of the official Foreign Ministry statement on the meeting confirms it was indeed "important." The central leadership of China has now made official a strategic global shift in geopolitical priorities in Chinese foreign policy.


No longer does China regard its relationship with the United Sates or even the EU as of highest priority. Rather they have defined a new grouping of priority countries in their carefully-deliberated geopolitical map. It includes Russia, as well as the entire BRICS rapidly-developing economies; it includes China's Asian neighbors as well as Africa and other developing countries .


To give a perspective, as recently as 2012 China's foreign ptries in the world, including China); Multilateral Organizations (UN, APEC, ASEAN, IMF, World Bank etc.), and public diplomacy which determines which situations to become engaged in around the world. Clearly China has decided those priorities no longer work to her advantage olicy priorities were described in a general framework: Great Powers (principally the USA, EU, Japan, and Russia); Periphery (all countries bordering China); Developing Countries (all lower income coun.


In his address to the meeting, President Xi highlighted a sub-category of developing countries: "Major Developing Powers (kuoda fazhanzhong de guojia). China will "expand cooperation and closely integrate our country's development" with the designated Major Developing Powers, Xi declared. According to Chinese intellectuals, these are countries now deemed especially important partners "to support reform of the international order." It includes Russia, Brazil, South Africa, India, Indonesia, and Mexico, that is, China's BRICS partners, as well as Indonesia and Mexico. China has also ceased calling itself a "developing country," indicating the changed self-image.


Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin indicated one significant aspect of the new policy when at the conference in Beijing he declared that the "imbalance between Asia's political security and economic development has become an increasingly prominent issue." China's proposal to create an Asian "community of shared destiny" aims to resolve this imbalance. That implies closer economic and diplomatic ties with South Korea, Japan, India, Indonesia, even Vietnam and the Philippines.


In other words, although the relationship with the United States will remain highest priority because of America's military and financial power, we can expect an increasingly outspoken China against what it sees as American interference. This was seen clearly in October when the official China Daily wrote an OpEd during Hong Kong's "Umbrella Revolution" asking, "Why does Washington Make Color Revolutions?" The article named the Vice President of the US Government-financed regime-change NGO, National Endowment for Democracy as involved. Such directness would have been unthinkable just six years ago when Washington tried to embarrass Beijing by stirring up violent protests by the Dalai Lama Movement in Tibet just before the 2008 Beijing Olympics.


China is openly rejecting the usual Western criticism on human rights and recently declared a freeze in China-UK diplomatic relations following a meeting by the Cameron government with the Dalai Lama and to Norway over its recognition of dissident Liu Xiaobo. Over the past year, step-by-step Beijing has dismissed Washington's criticism of its reclamation of its historical claims in the South China Sea.


But perhaps most significant, in recent months, China has boldly moved an agenda to build alternative institutions to the US-controlled IMF and World Bank, a potentially devastating blow to US economic power if it succeeds. To counter the US attempt to economically isolate China in Asia through creation of a US Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Beijing has announced its own Chinese vision of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), an "all inclusive, all-win" trade deal that really promotes Asia-Pacific cooperation.


Elevating Russian Relations


At present, what clearly emerges is China's decision to make its relation with Putin's Russia central to this new priority strategy. Despite decades of mistrust following the 1960 Sino-Soviet split, the two countries have begun a depth of cooperation unprecedented. The two great land powers of Eurasia are welding economic bonds that create the only potential "challenger" to future American global supremacy, as US foreign policy strategist, Zbigniew Brzezinski described it in his in 1997.


At a time when Putin was engaged in a full-scale NATO economic sanctions war aimed at toppling his regime, China signed not one, but several gigantic energy deals with Russian state companies Gazprom and Rozneft, allowing Russia to offset the growing threat to her west European energy exports, a life-and-death issue for the Russian economy.


During the November APEC meeting in Beijing, where Obama was given an unmistakable Chinese diplomatic downgrade for the official photo by being told to stand next to the wife of one of the Asian presidents while Putin stood beside Xi. In politics symbols, especially in China carry great import as an essential part of communication. During the same occasion, Xi and Putin agreed to build a West Route Gas Pipeline from Siberia to China, as an addition to the historic East Route Pipeline agreed with Russia in May. When both are completed, Russia will deliver 40% of China's natural gas. At the same occasion in Beijing the Chief of the Russian General Staff announced significant new areas of cooperation between Russian Armed Forces and the Chinese PLA.


Now, in the midst of Washington's full-scale currency war against the Russian ruble, China has announced its readiness, if asked, to help its Russian partner. On December 20 amid a record fall in the Ruble to the dollar, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that China will provide help if needed and is confident Russia can overcome its economic difficulties. At the same time Commerce Minister Gao Hucheng said expanding a currency swap between the two nations and making increased use of yuan for bilateral trade would have the greatest impact in aiding Russia.


There are other synergies between Russia and China where both coordinate more closely, including Putin's decision to meet in Spring with the North Korean President, as well as with India, a long-time Russian ally with whom China has had fragile relations since the 1950's. As well Russia has a strong position with Vietnam going back to the Cold War and development by Russian oil companies of Vietnam's offshore oil discoveries. In short, for both, once in a harmonized geopolitical strategy, Brzezinski's worst geopolitical nightmare is taking on a life of its own, thanks, largely, to the very stupid policies of Washington's neo-conservative warhawks, President Obama, and the very rich, loveless families who pay their bills.


All of these moves, while fraught with danger, signal that China has deeply understood the Washington geopolitical game and the strategies of the neo-conservative US warhawks and, like Putin's Russia, have little intention of bending their knee to what they see as a Washington global tyranny. The year 2015 shapes to be one of the most decisive and interesting in modern history.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Study Shows Voters See Far Beyond The Expensive Suits And Practiced Language Patterns Of Politicians



Rick PerryMitt RomneyBarack Obama



Many of us have forgotten how to judge the character of another. Their words only tell half the story. For example it is good to watch television with the sound off, this allows you to see numerous nonverbal cues. Body language alone speaks volumes about someone. You can see shy people pull their bodies inward, shift their shoulders in and put their hands in their pockets. We have patterns that emerge that tell everything about ourselves. What we think of ourselves and others. Politicians in general are not immune, but they have been cultivated to hide those flaws. Lessons in culture, neural-linguistic programming, rapport and a lot more goes in to the most prominent politicians. Bill Clinton in particular was trained by two of the best in the business Kevin Hogan and Tony Robbins. They tell them never to stretch your arms past their shoulders as it makes you seem like you are lying. You end up looking like the fisherman who said I caught a fish 'this big'!



Science Daily has a great study on nonverbal communication:


As the old saying goes, "you never get a second chance to make a first impression."


When it comes to presidential candidates in nationally televised debates, though, a series of studies by a Texas Tech University professor in the College of Media and Communication are showing the nonverbal repertoires that make up a presidential candidate's communication style are important influencers of voter reaction.


Erik Bucy, a regents professor of strategic communication at Texas Tech, is a popular guest lecturer around the world for his research on nonverbal expressions in political news and presidential debates and how those televised leader displays affect public perceptions of candidates.


Over the past year, Bucy has presented the results to several national associations, spoke at a symposium on nonverbal communication and democracy in Sweden, guest lectured at UCLA and participated in an invited conference sponsored by the C-SPAN Education Foundation and Purdue University.


Some of this work, conducted in collaboration with researchers from the University of Wisconsin (UW), is summarized in a paper entitled "The Power of Television Images in a Social Media Age: Linking Biobehavioral and Computational Approaches via the Second Screen," soon to be published in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

What Bucy and his colleagues discovered is candidates' facial expressions, gestures and voice tone do as much do as much or more to drive public reaction to the debates than what the candidates actually say.


"This frustrates some people who study media and politics because they want the discussion to be all about the issues," Bucy said. "What we're documenting is, in fact, people respond a lot to behavior. Not everybody pays really that close of attention to elections or knows all their party's positions on the issues, but they can get a sense of the candidates' traits by observing competitive political behavior. And traits are reliable predictors of candidate support."



Let's talk about rapport for a moment, politicians want to make a deep connection with their voters. George W Bush acted like he was a real Texan and made obvious attempts at sounding like an idiot. Today we call them 'Bush-isms' but the best way to get rapport with someone is to talk like that someone and act like that someone. Because we like ourselves and we like people like us. An old school technique for getting deep rapport was called matching and mirroring. When someone changed their body language you wait three seconds and do it yourself and make it look like you both are mirror images of each other. You can breath in sync with someone, that also works well. If you are not good at this you can really piss people off. Obama has dabbled with conversational hypnosis, you can use it redefine arguments such as:


“The issue isn't (high taxes), it's about (roads and schools), and that means..”

“I agree (taxes are high) and would add the issue isn't about the revenue but how useful we are using it..”


You lead everyone away from the problem at hand toward something that you can debate properly. One of the hidden tricks of the trade that Obama overuses is future pacing. Pushing an important agenda forward and avoiding the issue altogether:


“The issue is not the misuse of the people's taxes but how we can work together to ensure the American people benefit from their hard earned money they send to Washington every year.”


We notice everything about these politicians on a subconscious level. I've gotten myself out of very bad situations based on gut reactions that came about through nonverbal communication. I'll be adding a few pictures of politicians from the previous election and I surely would love to know what were the first thoughts you had about them.


Mike Vail is a US based investigative journalist, geopolitical analyst, and publisher of StratRisks.com. You can read Michael's articles on BlacklistedNews.com, and follow him on Twitter @MichaelVail




Russia giving France until February to deliver Mistral carrier


© Sputnik/ Alexey Danichev



The Russian Defense Ministry will not take any action until February over France's failure to deliver the first Mistral-class helicopter carrier, a high-ranking Russian military source told RIA Novosti on Wednesday.


"We'll wait until February and then we'll make a decision depending on the situation," the source said.


On Tuesday, the official from the Defense Ministry's Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation told that Moscow has sent Paris an official inquiry about its failure to deliver the Mistral.


The official said that to proceed with the issue, either by taking the case to court or giving France more time, Moscow requires a written explanation of the current situation.


The $1.5 billion deal for the delivery of two Mistral-class amphibious assault ships was signed in 2011 between Russian state-run arms exporter Rosoboronexport and French shipbuilder DCNS. The first carrier, the , was due by November 14, 2014. However, French President Francois Hollande announced the suspension of the delivery, citing Russia's alleged role in the Ukrainian conflict.


In early December, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls called any speculation about the contract's cancellation "premature."


Russian experts estimate that if France fails to fulfill its contractual obligations, it could face penalties up to $10 billion.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Palestinian market in Jerusalem attacked by illegal Israeli settler

israeli settler opens fire market

© Spencer Platt/Getty Images

An Israeli settler walks with his gun in the Old City on November 25, 2014 in Jerusalem.



Local sources said that the Israeli assailant lives in one of the illegal colonial outposts in the Old City, and that he started walking provocatively in the market, while carrying his government-issued automatic rifle.

He then started shouting and cursing at the Palestinian merchants and residents before assaulting a young man, identified as Anwar Mona, 24 years of age.


The settler also opened fire at the Palestinians in the area, causing no injuries, while Israeli soldiers arrived at the scene, provided protection to the Israeli assailant, and kidnapped Anwar.


The soldiers also installed sudden roadblocks, on Saturday evening, blocking most Gates of the Old City of Jerusalem, especially Bab al-Amoud (Damascus Gate), Bab al-Asbat (Gate of the Tribes) and Bab al-Khalil (Hebron Gate), and prevented the Palestinian from entering or leaving the area for more than 30 minutes.


The soldiers also stopped and interrogated dozens of Palestinians, especially young men, and inspected their ID cards.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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EU is considering easing anti-Russia sanctions and improving relations


© Flickr/ Giampaolo Squarcina



The EU is considering the possibility of scaling down its sanctions against Russia and resuming previously-suspended discussions with the country on a broad range of issues, depending on how the situation in Ukraine develops, according to a European Union discussion paper cited by the .


The paper was drafted ahead of the upcoming meeting of the EU member-states' foreign ministers in Brussels, and hasn't been disseminated yet.


According to the paper, the change in the EU's stance would depend on Moscow's implementation of the peace and ceasefire agreements that have already been signed with Ukraine; Russia would also be required to abide by the terms of the gas-supply deal, and not throw "fresh wrenches in the way of the EU-Ukraine trade and political pact," the notes.


In the event of a positive development, the paper suggests a potential increase in cooperation with Russia in the spheres of foreign policy and trade.


The newspaper points out that it is the first serious attempt by the EU officials to scale back tensions related to the Ukrainian crisis and to provide some incentive for Russia to ensure its cooperation. The paper doesn't address the possibility that sanctions may be tightened if the situation in eastern Ukraine deteriorates.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Radical element of reality: Israeli citizens who have refused to serve in the armed forces


© Mondoweiss

Miriam Peretz and Ronnie Barkan on Israeli Channel 10.



Last month over 50 alumni of the Israel Arts and Science Academy called on students at the prestige school to refuse to serve in the Israeli armed forces. The story has gotten wide coverage but very little in the U.S. till now. Here are some developments.

First, Moriel Rothman-Zecker was published on the op-ed page - "Why I Won't Serve Israel" - where he points out that the ethos of service in Israel is being undermined on many sides, not just by the IASA letter. A tiny fraction of the 1.7 million Palestinians inside Israel serve in the army; hundreds of thousands of religious Jews don't serve; and thousands of Jews are in a "gray area" of getting out of service. He sees this community as contending with Israel's power structure:



In a recent interview, the Israeli author Amos Oz urged politicians to act as "traitors," and make peace. But the type of traitors Mr. Oz wishes for - visionary ministers, peace-minded military men - are nonexistent. The most left-wing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's potential challengers in Israel's coming election is the same Mr. Herzog who attacked the 8200 refusers.


Peace won't come from the next Knesset, or the one after that. But some hope for a less violent, more decent future lies with the real traitors, the disregarded millions of Israeli citizens who have refused to serve in the army.



Of course, Rothman-Zecker also describes the monolithic social pressure to serve: "Refusal to serve is portrayed by politicians and pundits - many of whom began their careers through service in elite units - as treacherous and marginal."

On that note, here is Ronnie Barkan, one of the signers of the IASA alumni letter, going on Israel television and speaking of massacres in Gaza and keeping his cool during an onslaught of hostile questions. Barkan shows real bravery as the hosts blow up at him for saying that Israel is not a democracy. Those hosts are Orly and Guy on Channel 10, who I am told are on the left side of the Israeli mainstream spectrum.


"Your call for refusal is illegal. Your call harms the state... I will not accept harming the state," Miriam Peretz, who lost two sons in Israeli actions, catechizes Barkan.


She cannot hear the word massacre - but of course many in the world regard Gaza as a massacre; it has had a huge impact on global opinion. While the male TV host loses his cool at 10:23, shouting at Barkan about "people who come through tunnels to kill children."


At minute 11, Avi Wortzman, the acting Israeli minister of education, rebukes Barkan as representing a "radical element of reality." "You stain the name of the school," he says. And the principal there "washes his hands of you."



"What you do here is anarchy. What you do here is undermining our most basic values of life here."





So Barkan is excommunicated.

[embedded content]




Finally, Russia Today scooped American media with this wonderful interview by Abby Martin of Amit Gilutz, a composer evidently living in New York, who helped to organize the IASA letter to stop the next generation of "obedient soldiers."

[embedded content]




Gilutz says the indoctrination of children to be soldiers begins in kindergarten, with uniformed teachers visiting schools. The depiction of Palestinians is racist, as being either terrorists or primitive farmers, per Nurit Peled-Elhanan's study. Students are encouraged to learn Arabic as a "tool to be used against the Palestinian people, and with a very high degree of cooperation between the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Education on that point." This goes along with politicians trying to "script a more narrow Zionist narrative... normalizing the occupation by sending students to Hebron."

Gilutz criticizes deputy minister Tzipi Hotovely for calling the letter a wakeup call.



I agree with what she says but I don't think we mean the same thing.... What she means by that is that we need to indoctrinate students even more forcefully to put these ideological walls around them, so they won't be able to see through the cracks. And trying to create the crack is what we are doing with this letter... [We are saying] Look, The education that you're receiving is at best a manipulation, you're only being given the tools to rationalize reality and to accept your own role in it as the oppressor, as someone who is about to take an active role in the dispossession of Palestinians, in the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and in participating in the crimes of occupation and apartheid.



It's actually against Israeli law to urge others not to serve. We could end up being prosecuted, Gilutz says.

Reporter Martin thanks him for his bravery. Amen.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Albuquerque cop shoots first, asks questions later; turns out the person he shot was a cop

Albuquerque Police Department's five months without a shooting has come to an end as an Albuquerque police officer remains in critical condition after being shot by a fellow officer on Friday.

The unnamed officer was shot while undercover during a drug operation to bust two men for $60 worth of meth. Another officer sustained minor injuries, but information on how has not been released.




Police have not released the names of any of the officers who were involved, but criminal complaints filed in Metropolitan Court against the two targets of the investigation identify the undercover officers as detectives Holly Garcia and Jacob Grant, The reported.

According to the criminal complaint, Garcia and Grant met a suspect to buy $60 worth of "shards," another term for meth. The suspects got into Garcia's car and she drove them to an Econo Lodge Motel. One of the suspects went into a room and returned to Garcia's vehicle with the meth.


Garcia then went to a McDonald's parking lot and gave the signal to begin the bust, the shooting took place shortly after.


Witnesses report that they heard around five shots, and the officer was shot multiple times, but the exact number has not yet been released.


Police have not yet come forward with any explanation as to why an officer opened fire, but it appears as though both of the suspects were unarmed. The pair was taken into custody on drug trafficking charges following the shooting.


Media, police, and citizens are grieving and expressing condolences, but what they are not doing is discussing why this really happened.


We don't need all the details to be able to safely assume the undercover officer was not a threat to their peers, . Media is discussing this event using words like "" and "" while ignoring the fact that this is a symptom of a much larger problem, and it seems that an officer once again shot someone who posed no threat to them.


This trigger happy officer, who opened fire and shot someone who posed no danger to them, multiple times, is "devastated" according to Police Chief Gorden Eden. The lieutenant is currently on administrative leave and "getting support" through the department's counseling services.


Police even went so far as to confiscate a witness's cell phone after he had recorded some of the incident.


While brutality is clearly a nationwide issue, the APD has claimed some major notoriety for their badge abuse. Since 2010, the department has had 41 officer involved shootings, 27 of which were fatal.


In April, the department was accused of using excessive force by the Justice Department after the frightening murder of the homeless James Boyd when he was approached for "illegally camping." Boyd was shot by an officer who had discussed his plans to shoot him in the penis hours prior. Their own police chief openly admitted that he is stuck with officers who should not be on the force.


Had the person this officer mistakenly shot, under the exact same circumstances, been one of the suspects- we would likely already know their entire history, the history of all relatives, and have been spoon fed some wild tale about the officer "fearing for their life" and having no other choice. The shooting would be written off and ultimately swept away and forgotten by the media.


Police and police apologists have not blamed the unnamed officer.


So was this a "tragic accident" as they say, or evidence of the systemic lack of care taken by reckless officers as they reach for their weapons?


Perhaps we should call it what it is- one more victim of our militarized police and the disastrous drug war. Nobody is safe, not even those standing behind the thin blue line.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Goodbye free speech and privacy - David Cameron ushering in more state surveillance



This week, British Prime Minister, David Cameron, decided to throw a confused cat among even more confused pigeons. He made comments suggesting that end-to-end encryption should be a thing of the past, a necessary measure to combat that ever woeful virus many deem terrorism. "Are we going to allow a means of communication between people which even in extremis, with a signed warrant from the Home Secretary personally, that we cannot read?" Naturally for him, the answer was no. "The first duty of any government is to keep our country and our people safe."

The statements prompted some commentators to wonder what had gotten into Cameron. Certainly, he is moving the gear into electoral mode, with a general poll set for May. And there were the Paris killings, with various decrepit responses from politicians to out bid each other in terms of who could look tough on terrorism. Cameron, evidently, felt he could outdo all of them with a spike of hawkishness. For all of that, Twitter went into apoplectic overdrive, drumming with WebCameronClangers or #CameronCryptoBollox (TechCrunch, Jan 13).


The free speech imperative is aligned with the notions of privacy - these are the Siamese twins of political and social practice in the democratic realm. Central to this is the messaging phenomenon in which encryption is king, be it such services as ChatSecure, Cryptocat, Signal/Redphone, Silent Phone and Silent Text, to name but a few star performers outlined by the EFF (TechCrunch, Jan 13). The British Prime Minister is showing a rather scant knowledge of their workings, not to mention the way technology plays out. Then again, he may simply be playing the cheapest of populist cards.


No matter - the victims of , a satirical magazine that should, given the chance, lampoon Cameron for his anti-encryption fantasy, have become the excuses for firm prying from overly sensitive authorities. Be careful what you say, and to whom you say things to, which is, in essence, the fundamental rationale of police state politics.


Various key areas are of importance, and it would seem that the Cameron government is getting busy undermining privacy in each one of them. Home Secretary Theresa May has cobbled a code of practice covering the use of police surveillance powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA).


The measures contained therein have been deemed inadequate in curbing sweeping powers regarding the access of "phone and email records of professionals such as journalists, lawyers, doctors, MPs and priests who handle privileged, confidential information" (, Jan 13).




Cameron's anti-encryption agenda conform to that spirit of rampant, and ultimately futile intrusiveness. They prove to be suggestions of an astoundingly counter-productive nature, undermining a constituency vital for his party: the corporate dimension. For a party that fancies The City of London and all that it does - hefty financial transfers, fat loans, the energy of the big wheeling and dealing - removing firm encryption settings will be an unwelcome development.

Companies operating in Britain, using central privacy settings for their services, such as Apple with its iMessage or FaceTime, are less likely to alter their privacy settings to placate a small market when they can move operations elsewhere (, Jan 13).




"If introduced," Brian Honan, CEO of BH Consulting and Special Advisor to the Europol Cybercrime Centre, "this could have a devastating impact on businesses within the United Kingdom" (Help Net Security, Jan 14). It would effectively encourage "competitive disadvantage against products developed in other countries which can employ more robust encryption."

Honan has another accusation. Rather than forking out for security services, Cameron is choosing an undermining, and lazy route, treating "the symptoms of a problem and not the root causes of that particular problem". Provide, in other words "proper funding, training and resources to law enforcement agencies."


Lance Cottrell, Chief Scientist at Ntrepid, also points out the plan's redundant nature. "Such a proposal is unlikely to have significant impact on the ability of law enforcement or intelligence organisations to track the serious terrorists" (Help Net Security, Jan 14). The reason being that open source encryption tools were plentiful and readily available for all, criminal or otherwise.




Cameron's move, should it materialise, will trickle down. In giving the backdoor keys to government, hacking will be a breeze and distinctly less challenging. Ironically, it will not only make it easier for British security services to access unencrypted communications - it will make it easier for everybody else. Internationally recognised privacy settings, reflected in EU guidelines and those of the domestic Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), risk being violated by companies adopting compromised data protection measures.

"Slow clap for David Cameron," posed former White House employee and current CEO of Digg and Instapaper Andrew McLaughlin, "whose proposal to ban encrypted comms (leaving UK wide open to hacking, spying etc.) is colossally stupid" (Twitter, Jan 13).


The security dimension in a world free of encryption will create an information free-for-all that would strike terror at the heart of any property minded Tory. Not to mention the customers of any communication service.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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Albuquerque Cop Shoots First, Asks Questions Later. Turns Out the Person He Shot Was a Cop

Albuquerque Police Department's five months without a shooting has come to an end as an Albuquerque police officer remains in critical condition after being shot by a fellow officer on Friday.

The unnamed officer was shot while undercover during a drug operation to bust two men for $60 worth of meth. Another officer sustained minor injuries, but information on how has not been released.




Police have not released the names of any of the officers who were involved, but criminal complaints filed in Metropolitan Court against the two targets of the investigation identify the undercover officers as detectives Holly Garcia and Jacob Grant, The reported.

According to the criminal complaint, Garcia and Grant met a suspect to buy $60 worth of "shards," another term for meth. The suspects got into Garcia's car and she drove them to an Econo Lodge Motel. One of the suspects went into a room and returned to Garcia's vehicle with the meth.


Garcia then went to a McDonald's parking lot and gave the signal to begin the bust, the shooting took place shortly after.


Witnesses report that they heard around five shots, and the officer was shot multiple times, but the exact number has not yet been released.


Police have not yet come forward with any explanation as to why an officer opened fire, but it appears as though both of the suspects were unarmed. The pair was taken into custody on drug trafficking charges following the shooting.


Media, police, and citizens are grieving and expressing condolences, but what they are not doing is discussing why this really happened.


We don't need all the details to be able to safely assume the undercover officer was not a threat to their peers, . Media is discussing this event using words like "" and "" while ignoring the fact that this is a symptom of a much larger problem, and it seems that an officer once again shot someone who posed no threat to them.


This trigger happy officer, who opened fire and shot someone who posed no danger to them, multiple times, is "devastated" according to Police Chief Gorden Eden. The lieutenant is currently on administrative leave and "getting support" through the department's counseling services.


Police even went so far as to confiscate a witness's cell phone after he had recorded some of the incident.


While brutality is clearly a nationwide issue, the APD has claimed some major notoriety for their badge abuse. Since 2010, the department has had 41 officer involved shootings, 27 of which were fatal.


In April, the department was accused of using excessive force by the Justice Department after the frightening murder of the homeless James Boyd when he was approached for "illegally camping." Boyd was shot by an officer who had discussed his plans to shoot him in the penis hours prior. Their own police chief openly admitted that he is stuck with officers who should not be on the force.


Had the person this officer mistakenly shot, under the exact same circumstances, been one of the suspects- we would likely already know their entire history, the history of all relatives, and have been spoon fed some wild tale about the officer "fearing for their life" and having no other choice. The shooting would be written off and ultimately swept away and forgotten by the media.


Police and police apologists have not blamed the unnamed officer.


So was this a "tragic accident" as they say, or evidence of the systemic lack of care taken by reckless officers as they reach for their weapons?


Perhaps we should call it what it is- one more victim of our militarized police and the disastrous drug war. Nobody is safe, not even those standing behind the thin blue line.


Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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The Russian national character - Confounding the West for centuries

Zimnik the ancient Slavic god



Zimnik the ancient Slavic god: a squat old man, long hair the color of snow, wears a white coat, always barefoot. Carries an iron staff, one swing with which instantly freezes everything solid. Can summon snowstorms, ice storms and blizzards. Goes around taking whatever he likes, especially children who misbehave.



Recent events, such as the overthrow of the government in Ukraine, the secession of Crimea and its decision to join the Russian Federation, the subsequent military campaign against civilians in Eastern Ukraine, western sanctions against Russia, and, most recently, the attack on the ruble, have caused a certain phase transition to occur within Russian society, which, I believe, is very poorly, if at all, understood in the west. This lack of understanding puts Europe at a significant disadvantage in being able to negotiate an end to this crisis.

Whereas prior to these events the Russians were rather content to consider themselves "just another European country," they have now remembered that they are a distinct civilization, with different civilizational roots (Byzantium rather than Rome) - one that has been subject to concerted western efforts to destroy it once or twice a century, be it by Sweden, Poland, France, Germany, or some combination of the above. This has conditioned the Russian character in a specific set of ways which, if not adequately understood, is likely to lead to disaster for Europe and the world.


Lest you think that Byzantium is some minor cultural influence on Russia, it is, in fact, rather key. Byzantine cultural influences, which came along with Orthodox Christianity, first through Crimea (the birthplace of Christianity in Russia), then through the Russian capital Kiev (the same Kiev that is now the capital of Ukraine), allowed Russia to leapfrog across a millennium or so of cultural development. Such influences include the opaque and ponderously bureaucratic nature of Russian governance, which the westerners, who love transparency (if only in others) find so unnerving, along with many other things. Russians sometimes like to call Moscow the Third Rome - third after Rome itself and Constantinople - and this is not an entirely empty claim. But this is not to say that Russian civilization is derivative; yes, it has managed to absorb the entire classical heritage, viewed through a distinctly eastern lens, but its vast northern environment has transformed that heritage into something radically different.


Since this subject is of overwhelming complexity, I will focus on just four factors, which I find essential for understanding the transformation we are currently witnessing.


1. Taking offense


Western nations have emerged in an environment of limited resources and relentless population pressure, and this has to a large degree determined the way in which they respond when they are offended. For quite a long time, while centralized authority was weak, conflicts were settled through bloody conflict, and even a minor affront could cause former friends to become instant adversaries and draw their swords. This is because it was an environment in which standing your ground was key to survival.


In contrast, Russia emerged as a nation in an environment of almost infinite, although mostly quite diffuse, resources. It also drew from the bounty of the trade route that led from the Vikings to the Greeks, which was so active that Arab geographers believed that there was a salt-water strait linking the Black Sea with the Baltic, whereas the route consisted of rivers with a considerable amount of portage. In this environment, it was important to avoid conflict, and people who would draw their swords at a single misspoken word were unlikely to do well in it.


Thus, a very different conflict resolution strategy has emerged, which survives to this day. If you insult, aggrieve or otherwise harm a Russian, you are unlikely to get a fight (unless it happens to be a demonstrative beating held in a public setting, or a calculated settling of scores through violence). Instead, more likely than not, the Russian will simply tell you to go to hell, and then refuse to have anything further to do with you. If physical proximity makes this difficult, the Russian will consider relocating, moving in any direction that happens to be away from you. So common is this speech act in practice that it has been abbreviated to a monosyllabic utterance: "Пшёл!" ("Pshol!") and can be referred to simply as "послать" (literally, "to send"). In an environment where there is an almost infinite amount of free land to settle, such a strategy makes perfect sense. Russians live like settled people, but when they have to move, they move like nomads, whose main method of conflict resolution is voluntary relocation.


This response to grievance as something permanent is a major facet of the Russian culture, and westerners who do not understand it are unlikely to achieve an outcome they would like, or even understand. To a westerner, an insult can be resolved by saying something like "I am sorry!" To a Russian that's pretty much just noise, especially if it is being emitted by somebody who has already been told to go to hell. A verbal apology that is not backed up by something tangible is one of these rules of politeness, which to the Russians are something of a luxury. Until a couple of decades ago, the standard Russian apology was "извиняюсь" ("izviniáius'"), which can be translated literally as "I excuse myself." Russia is now a much more polite country, but the basic cultural pattern remains in place.


Although purely verbal apologies are worthless, restitution is not. Setting things right may involve parting with a prized possession, or making a significant new pledge, or announcing an important change of direction. The point is, these all involve taking pivotal actions, not just words, because beyond a certain point words can only make the situation worse, taking it from the "Go to hell" stage to the even less copacetic "Let me show you the way" stage.


2. Dealing with invaders


Russia has a long history of being invaded from every direction, but especially from the west, and Russian culture has evolved a certain mindset which is difficult for outsiders to comprehend. First of all, it is important to realize that when Russians fight off an invasion (and having the CIA and the US State Department run Ukraine with the help of Ukrainian Nazis qualifies as an invasion) they are not fighting for territory, at least not directly. Rather, they are fighting for Russia as a concept. And the concept states that Russia has been invaded numerous times, but never successfully. In the Russian mindset, invading Russia successfully involves killing just about every Russian, and, as they are fond of saying, "They can't kill us all." ("Нас всех не убьёшь.") Population can be restored over time (it was down 22 million at the end of World War II) but the concept, once lost, would be lost forever. It may sound nonsensical to a westerner to hear Russians call their country "a country of princes, poets and saints," but that's what it is - it is a state of mind. Russia doesn't have a history - it is its history.


Because the Russians fight for the concept of Russia rather than for any given chunk of Russian territory, they are always rather willing to retreat - at first. When Napoleon invaded Russia, fully planning to plunder his way across the countryside, he found the entire countryside torched by the retreating Russians. When he finally occupied Moscow, it too went up in flames. Napoleon camped out for a bit, but eventually, realizing that there was nothing more to be done (attack Siberia?) and that his army would starve and die of exposure if they remained, he beat a hasty and shameful retreat, eventually abandoning his men to their fate. As they retreated, another facet of Russian cultural heritage came to the fore: every peasant from every village that got torched as the Russians retreated was in the forefront as the Russians advanced, itching for a chance to take a pot shot at a French soldier.


Similarly, the German invasion during World War II was at first able to make rapid advances, taking a lot of territory, while the Russians equally swiftly retreated and evacuated their populations, relocating entire factories and other institutions to Siberia and resettling families in the interior of the country. Then the German advance stopped, reversed, and eventually turned into a rout. The standard pattern repeated itself, with the Russian army breaking the invader's will while most of the locals that found themselves under occupation withheld cooperation, organized as partisans and inflicted maximum possible damage on the retreating invader.


Murmansk russia



Murmansk, 68°58′45″, pop. 300,000. On

January 12 the sun rises for the first time in 40 days, with the length of the day lasting only 38 minutes.



Another Russian adaptation for dealing with invaders is to rely on the Russian climate to do the job. A standard way of ridding a Russian village house of vermin is simply to not heat it; a few days at 40 below or better and the cockroaches, bedbugs, lice, nits, weevils, mice, rats are all dead. It works with invaders too. Russia is the world's most northern country. Canada is far north, but most of its population is spread along its southern border, and it has no major cities above the Arctic Circle, while Russia has two. Life in Russia in some ways resembles life in outer space or on the open ocean: impossible without life support. The Russian winter is simply not survivable without cooperation from the locals, and so all they have to do to wipe out an invader is withhold cooperation. And if you think that an invader can secure cooperation by shooting a few locals to scare the rest, see above under "Taking offense."

3. Dealing with foreign powers


Russia owns almost the entire northern portion of the Eurasian continent, which comprises something like 1/6 of the Earth's dry surface. That, by Earth standards, is a lot of territory. This is not an aberration or an accident of history: throughout their history, the Russians were absolutely driven to provide for their collective security by gaining as much territory as possible. If you are wondering what motivated them to undertake such a quest, see "Dealing with invaders" above.


If you think that foreign powers repeatedly attempted to invade and conquer Russia in order to gain access to its vast natural resources, then you are wrong: the access was always there for the asking. The Russians are not exactly known for refusing to sell their natural resources - even to their potential enemies. No, what Russia's enemies wanted was to be able to tap into Russia's resources free of charge. To them, Russia's existence was an inconvenience, which they attempted to eliminate through violence.


What they achieved instead was a higher price for themselves, once their invasion attempt failed. The calculus is simple: the foreigners want Russia's resources; to defend them, Russia needs a strong, centralized state with a big, powerful military; ergo, the foreigners should be made to pay, to support Russia's state and military. Consequently, most of the Russian state's financial needs are addressed through export tariffs, on oil and natural gas especially, rather than by taxing the Russian population. After all, the Russian population is taxed heavily enough by having to fight off periodic invasions; why tax them more? Thus, the Russian state is a customs state: it uses customs duties and tariffs to extract funds from the enemies who would destroy it and use these funds to defend itself. Since there is no replacement for Russia's natural resources, the more hostile the outside world acts toward Russia, the more it will end up paying for Russia's national defense.


Note that this policy is directed at foreign powers, not at foreign-born people. Over the centuries, Russia has absorbed numerous immigrants: from Germany during the 30 years' war; from France after the French revolution. More recent influxes have been from Vietnam, Korea, China and Central Asia. Last year Russia absorbed more immigrants than any other country except for the United States, which is dealing with an influx from countries on its southern border, whose populations its policies have done much to impoverish. Moreover, the Russians are absorbing this major influx, which includes close to a million from war-torn Ukraine, without much complaint. Russia is a nation of immigrants to a greater extent than most others, and is more of a melting pot than the United States.


4. Thanks, but we have our own


One more interesting Russian cultural trait is that Russians have always felt compelled to excel in all categories, from ballet and figure-skating to hockey and football to space flight and microchip manufacturing. You may think of champagne as a trademark French product, but last I checked "Советское шампанское" ("Soviet champagne") was still selling briskly around New Year's Eve, and not only in Russia but in Russian shops in the US because, you see, the French stuff may be nice, but it just doesn't taste sufficiently Russian. For just about every thing you can imagine there is a Russian version of it, which the Russians often feel is better, and sometimes can claim they invented in the first place (the radio, for instance, was invented by Popov, not by Marconi). There are exceptions (tropical fruit is one example) and they are allowed provided they come from a "brotherly nation" such as Cuba. That was the pattern during the Soviet times, and it appears to be coming back to some extent now.


During the late Brezhnev/Andropov/Gorbachev "stagnation" period Russian innovation indeed stagnated, along with everything else, and Russia lost ground against the west technologically (but not culturally). After the Soviet collapse Russians became eager for western imports, and this was quite normal considering that Russia wasn't producing much of anything at the time. Then, during the 1990s, there came the era of western compradors, who dumped imported products on Russia with the long-term goal of completely wiping out domestic industry and making Russia into a pure raw materials supplier, at which point it would be defenseless against an embargo and easily forced to surrender its sovereignty. This would be an invasion by non-military means, against which Russia would find itself defenseless.


This process ran quite far before it hit a couple of major snags. First, Russian manufacturing and non-hydrocarbon exports rebounded, doubling several times in the course of a decade. The surge included grain exports, weapons, and high-tech. Second, Russia found lots of better, cheaper, friendlier trading partners around the world. Still, Russia's trade with the west, and with the EU specifically, is by no means insignificant. Third, the Russian defense industry has been able to maintain its standards, and its independence from imports. (This can hardly be said about the defense firms in the west, which depend on Russian titanium exports.)


And now there has come the perfect storm for the compradors: the ruble has partially devalued in response to lower oil prices, pricing out imports and helping domestic producers; sanctions have undermined Russia's confidence in the reliability of the west as suppliers; and the conflict over Crimea has boosted the Russians' confidence in their own abilities. The Russian government is seizing this opportunity to champion companies that can quickly effect import replacement for imports from the west. Russia's central bank has been charged with financing them at interest rates that make import replacement even more attractive.


Some people have been drawing comparisons between the period we are in now and the last time oil prices dropped - all the way to $10/barrel - in some measure precipitating the Soviet collapse. But this analogy is false. At the time, the Soviet Union was economically stagnant and dependent on western credit to secure grain imports, without which it wouldn't have been able to raise enough livestock to feed its population. It was led by the feckless and malleable Gorbachev - an appeaser, a capitulator, and a world-class windbag whose wife loved to go shopping in London. The Russian people despised him and referred to him as "Mishka the Marked," thanks to his birthmark. And now Russia is resurgent, is one of the world's largest grain exporters, and is being led by the defiant and implacable President Putin who enjoys an approval rating of over 80%. In comparing pre-collapse USSR to Russia today, commentators and analysts showcase their ignorance.


Conclusions


This part almost writes itself. It's a recipe for disaster, so I'll write it out as a recipe.


1. Take a nation of people who respond to offense by damning you to hell, and refusing to having anything more to do with you, rather than fighting. Make sure that this is a nation whose natural resources are essential for keeping your lights on and your houses heated, for making your passenger airliners and your jet fighters, and for a great many other things. Keep in mind, a quarter of the light bulbs in the US light up thanks to Russian nuclear fuel, whereas a cut-off of Russian gas to Europe would be a cataclysm of the first order.


2. Make them feel that they are being invaded by installing a government that is hostile to them in a territory that they consider part of their historical homeland. The only truly non-Russian part of the Ukraine is Galicia, which parted company many centuries ago and which, most Russians will tell you, "You can take to hell with you." If you like your neo-Nazis, you can keep your neo-Nazis. Also keep in mind how the Russians deal with invaders: they freeze them out.


3. Impose economic and financial sanctions on Russia. Watch in dismay as your exporters start losing money when in instant retaliation Russia blocks your agricultural exports. Keep in mind that this is a country that, thanks to surviving a long string of invasion attempts, traditionally relies on potentially hostile foreign states to finance its defense against them. If they fail to do so, then it will resort to other ways of deterring them, such as freezing them out. "No gas for NATO members" seems like a catchy slogan. Hope and pray that it doesn't catch on in Moscow.


4. Mount an attack on their national currency, causing it to lose part of its value on par with a lower price of oil. Watch in dismay as Russian officials laugh all the way to the central bank because the lower ruble has caused state revenues to remain unchanged in spite of lower oil prices, erasing a potential budget deficit. Watch in dismay as your exporters go bankrupt because their exports are priced out of the Russian market. Keep in mind, Russia has no national debt to speak of, runs a negligible budget deficit, has plentiful foreign currency reserves and ample gold reserves. Also keep in mind that your banks have loaned hundreds of billions of dollars to Russian businesses (which you have just deprived of access to your banking system by imposing sanctions). Hope and pray that Russia doesn't put a freeze on debt repayments to western banks until the sanctions are lifted, since that would blow up your banks.


5. Watch in dismay as Russia signs major natural gas export deals with everyone except you. Is there going to be enough gas left for you when they are done? Well, it appears that this no longer a concern for the Russians, because you have offended them, and, being who they are, they told you to go to hell (don't forget to take Galicia with you) and will now deal with other, friendlier countries.


6. Continue to watch in dismay as Russia actively looks for ways to sever most of the trade links with you, finding suppliers in other parts of the world or organizing production for import replacement.


But now comes a surprise - an under-reported one, to say the least. Russia has just offered the EU a deal. If the EU refuses to join the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the US (which, by the way, would hurt it economically) then it can join the Customs Union with Russia. Why freeze yourselves out when we can all freeze out Washington instead? This is the restitution Russia would accept for the EU's offensive behavior with regard to the Ukraine and the sanctions. Coming from a customs state, it is a most generous offer. A lot went into making it: the recognition that the EU poses no military threat to Russia and not much of an economic one either; the fact that the European countries are all very cute and tiny and lovable, and make tasty cheeses and sausages; the understanding that their current crop of national politicians is feckless and beholden to Washington, and that they need a big push in order to understand where their nations' true interests lie... Will the EU accept this offer, or will they accept Galicia as a new member and "freeze out"?


Recommended article: Chomsky: We Are All – Fill in the Blank.

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