binarray2000

This is why I sympathise with regular US American citizens, they are equally a victim as the rest of the world. Their soldiers are not bringing "freedom, democracy and human rights" but death and destruction. And they themselves come back home - some dead, many destroyed. And for what?

Regarding US media being influenced by three-letter-agencies: Operation Mockingbird

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

is alive and well.

Is WaPo still a credible medium after their "no pardon for Snowden"?

Also, when will the US Oligarchy stop blaming everything on Russia. Sloppy server security? It's Russia. Private e-mail server used for government business? It's Russia.... Nearly 20 trillion dollar debt? It's Russia.

OK, US Oligarchy needs an enemy for a new war. A war that would hide the fact that this neoliberal system is about to hit the wall. A war that would fill the troves of the military industrial complex.

Says a "conspiracy theorist" George F. Kennan, former US ambassador to Moscow and distinguished Council on Foreign Relations member: "Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy."

Good Night, and Good Luck.

What you (plus the quote from The Economist) describe is like shooting yourself in the foot. Still, ideology aside, why would Chavez do such a thing? Was he an intellectual moron? No. He knew that without oil exports his people would be hungry, and hungry people mean bloody revolution.

Also, quoting from The Economist is one sided considering their position regarding Venezuela during and after Chavez.

You see, media is biased and I don't want to trust them, no matter how "respectable" they are. (eg. NYT in the eve of 2003 Iraq invasion)

I'd like to hear from people who live there (or from less biased reporters) about causes for this situation in which an oil rich country must import oil from its major adversary, in which the whole society dissolves.

EDIT: User nnq asks the same questions as I do.

Why can't they just ask other more friendly countries (Russia, Norway, maybe China) for the expertise in exchange for oil? Should be an easy solution, or am I missing something in my oversimplification?

(And, please, don't blame it on communism/socialism; people have interests and I believe so do people in Venezuela - including those working in the government.)

Same here. It's disguisting what the "Beacon of Democracy and Freedom" does to those who break the law to expose much bigger crimes.

If you're in the US you can write to your representative. Or organise a movement. But, (as an outsider) I'd suspect, that the more you do, the more you'll get your own life into trouble. But, I'll stand corrected if persuaded to the contrary.

Is that the same Kenneth Rogoff who co-authored a study about "Growth in a Time of Debt" which turned out to be full of faked data? And, curiously, EU/ECB/MMF (the infamous "Troika") and, most prominently, Germany based their "austerity" measures towards South European countries on that very study - which practically and conveniently provided the alibi for their crimes.

"Curiously" only the first sight: This guy is a member of the "Group of Thirty", a group "founded in 1978 by Geoffrey Bell at the initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation" and supported (http://group30.org/about/supporters) by the very profiteers of austerity.

And now he writes about "The Curse of Cash".

Should we believe him this time as well? Do we really know, who's interests he's serving?

I hope someone knowledgable will help me here.

Do I get this right: US taxpayers are giving their hard earned dollars so that a government agency CIA can take it and, throu their venture capital firm (!), invest it into something that might, but also might not, work?

Is this actually fiscally responsible? Is it in the job description of an intelligence agency to be a VC fund, not with private money, but with the money of the shrinking US middle class?

Great writeup! Very enjoyable read but, at least for me, the last part "Thoughts on the Van Life" was the best. All the best!

(Disclaimer: I am writing about 0.1% of Americans/Germans, not about 99.9%. And I assume you do to.)

> So next time someone tells you that american banks are responsible for screwing up the world. Point them at the Germans and the Swiss :)

Yes, that sounds plausable when we read the OP. And I am not here to defend Germans, but the largest shareholder of DB are Americans at BlackRock:

https://www.db.com/ir/en/shareholder-structure.htm

(6.05% held by BlackRock Inc., New York)

This.

Further: US oligarchy[1][2]/establishment/(self proclaimed) elite blames Russia for every leak where they look bad. As if there are no real US American patriots who, unsatisfied with the course that same oligarchy has taken in the last 25 years, want to expose it and try to change it.

[1] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/videos/jimmy-carter-u-s...

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

Nitpick: Position of "mal" in the German sentence is wrong. "Leih mir mal ein Dollar" is the right one.

Re Crimea: International laws forsee referendum as a legal mean of separation. And that is what people of Crimea did.

Re Syria: NATO was bombing in Syria for years and it didn't have (and still doesn't have) any legitimacy to do so - neither by the UN nor by the syrian government. Russia was invited to help by the elected government officials and this has the legitimacy to be there.

Yes, those ruskies! How dare they react to the coup in Ukraine? How dare they save their naval base in Sevastopol? Base that is longer there than the US of A exist. How dare they, among other things, react to the request to tender [1] by the US Navy to renovate a school in Sevastopol and put US troops there - right in the Russian garden?

[1] https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=2bb691b...

Pay attention to the timeline. Writing of the documentation for this project had to be started at least three months prior to the publication. It was published on 2013-09-05, Euromaidan begins on 2013-11-21, 2014-03-16 Crimean referendum, 2014-04-15 tender is cancelled.

One million dollar question: How did US Navy know in summer of 2013 that it will need a school in Sevastopol in 2014 considering that Ukraine was still under Yanukowich (and close to Russia) at that time?

Can it get more silly? Russia, after disintegration of the Soviet Union, has not moved an inch to the west. NATO, on the other hand, is nearer on Russia than ever. And does military exercises near the Russian border. And builds launching pads for nuclear and anti missile rockets in Poland and Romania. And has invaded country after country (Republic of Yugoslavia 1999, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003, Libya 2011...) while breaking international laws in the process. Yet, "Russia’s Military Buildup in the Baltic Stokes Invasion Fears"!

This insults intelligence of every critically thinking person.

Fascinating hardware with great processing speed.

One question for the knowledgeable: Why are speeds for PostgreSQL hashes so high (~ 25k MH/s) compared with, say, MSSQL(2012) (~ 1k MH/s)?

(1) The main link is for the article from 19th, September 2000 which predates Brexit by 16 years.

(2) Telegraph is "just" a messenger. Main source are documents that "were found by Joshua Paul, a researcher at Georgetown University in Washington".

A few more infos:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/27/the-european-...

Yeah... Cojones :-) Or coincidence:

2015-11-23: US air force general and the second-highest ranking military officer visits Turkey "to discuss the Russian airstrikes on Turkmen-populated areas in Syria.

http://www.dailysabah.com/diplomacy/2015/11/23/us-air-force-...

2015-11-24: Two turkish jets shoot down one russian over the Turkmen region in Syria and Turkmen kill the pilot. Putin said that the russian military has communicated flying routes to the US military.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_sh...

> Turkey makes the claim that insulting the head of state is a 'crime against humanity'. Turkey is a corrupt country and is committing 'crimes against humanity' on a daily basis. [...]

All true. But it doesn't stop the oligarchy [1][2] in your country to still keep it in the NATO, have (at least one) military base there (Incirlik Air Base), not say/do anything about the way it treats minorities, journalists ...its own citizens.

(remember the US slogan: "We bring freedom, democracy and human rights to the world")

[1] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/videos/jimmy-carter-u-s...

[2] http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

Upvoted! (And I don't know, why you were downvoted) If we're doing software the open source way (and thus securing the sustainability of the software "eco" system), why not do the same for food production (and secure the sustainability of food production). Just this morning I talked to a woman on the Sunday market and she told me about a guy who, even thou he has his own green houses and makes a living doing that, gives all that info to who ever is interested (best produce to grow, best timing for the market etc.) Concentration of this knowledge (or even patents) in the hands of a few is bad, bad, bad.

(1) Has Ghaddafi really threatend to "decimate Benghazi"?

"Contrary to Western media reports, Qaddafi did not initiate Libya’s violence by targeting peaceful protesters. The United Nations and Amnesty International have documented that in all four Libyan cities initially consumed by civil conflict in mid-February 2011 — Benghazi, Al Bayda, Tripoli, and Misurata — violence was actually initiated by the protesters. The government responded to the rebels militarily but never intentionally targeted civilians or resorted to “indiscriminate” force, as Western media claimed. Early press accounts exaggerated the death toll by a factor of ten, citing “more than 2,000 deaths” in Benghazi during the initial days of the uprising, whereas Human Rights Watch (HRW) later documented only 233 deaths across all of Libya in that period."

http://journal-neo.org/2014/06/22/the-truth-of-libya-finally...

And who has armed protesters/rebels there in early 2011... those same rebels who have stormed the US embassy on September, 11th 2012? (interesting date... it must be a coincidence)

America's secret plan to arm Libya's rebels

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/americas...

You may be asking yourself, why would USG and its NATO allies (yes, French government primarily) do such thing (topple Ghaddafi)? One hint is hidden in recently published Clinton e-mails:

FRANCE'S CLIENT & QADDAFI'S GOLD

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/12659

[...]

Qaddafi's government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver. During late March, 2011 these stocks were moved to SABHA (south west in the direction of the Libyan border with Niger and Chad); taken from the vaults of the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli.

This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA).

(Source Comment: According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to commit France to the attack on Libya. According to these individuals, Sarkozy's plans are driven by the following issues:

a. A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production,

b. Increase French influence in North Africa,

c. Improve his internal political situation in France,

d. Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world,

e. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi's long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa.)

[...]

So much for "the West" just trying to avoid being blamed for atrocities in Libya.

More interesting e-mails: H: LOTS NEW. FRENCH ECONOMIC GRAB/LEVY/Q & OBL/AQ BASE IN ALGERIA. SID

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/11647

H: LOTS OF NEW INTEL; POSSIBLE LIBYAN COLLAPSE. SID

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/6551

[...]

French, British and Egyptian Special Forces troops are training the rebels inside of western Egypt, and to a limited degree in the western suburbs of Benghazi.

[...]

GERMANY LOANING $144 MILLION TO LIBYAN REBELS (AP)

https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/27323

(2) On Syria: I assume you are referring to Daraa protest and arrested children (who were released afterwards)? Not even MSM (mainstream media) spoke of an execution. Information about that came from Rami Abdul Rahman, a guy who heads up the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and sits in London! Not the most credible source. A more balanced view:

Syria: The Hidden Massacre

http://mideastshuffle.com/2014/05/16/syria-the-hidden-massac...

Besides (and this relates to Libya, as well), do you really think that a protest and arrest lead to a civil war? For a war to be fought you need weapons, trained people, communication equipment, structure, food and medical supplies, organizational structure. We are to believe the protesters had all that? Another hint of the real cause for the war in Syria is this:

Newly-Declassified U.S. Government Documents: The West Supported the Creation of ISIS

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/newly-declassified-u-...

'None of these "revolutions" started as US+European backed.'

Really? Clinton on Qaddafi: https://youtu.be/mlz3-OzcExI

ADDENDUM regarding "US+European" involvement in Libya and Syria (as I was on mobile and had time constraints as I wrote the above):

Libya

'The Libyans were emotional because the U.S. and its allies had toppled leader Moammar Kadafi in a military campaign that averted a feared slaughter of Kadafi's foes. Obama administration officials called the international effort, accomplished with no Western casualties, a "model intervention."' (http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-libya-20140...)

Syria

This USG cable (https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html) written in 2006 (!) lists a number of "vulnerabilities" and "possible actions" - almost like a playbook - on how to change Syrian regime. (background info and analysis of the cable: http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/33180-wikilea...)

Well, he is a tool. But, I think that those e-mails are just a "limited hangout": They are exposing just so much to let us think that there is not much to see anyway. Stratfor does "consulting" as well and those e-mail conversations are not exposed.

EDIT: It seem that, at least some, of the e-mails of the "consulting" branch are exposed.

I assume, you are reffering to this:

https://youtu.be/QeLu_yyz3tc

Chilling insight into foreign policy of a superpower (an euphemism for "empire"). Not that he says something new (if you've read Carroll Quigley), but still... it's a fresh proof from the founder of the "Shadow CIA".

Let's put it like it is: Infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.

We can not infinitely polute air, water, soil. We can not infinitely extract all crude materials from the Earth. We can not infinitely exploit most of the others.

What IS infinite is human imagination and ingenuity: We CAN innovate and (at least) greatly mitigate our impact on our Home. Thus the importance of education.

Also, Business Insider is owned by Axel Springer.

Not only giving advice: "Deutsche Bank boss throws party, Merkel foots the bill" (http://www.dw.com/en/deutsche-bank-boss-throws-party-merkel-...).

A few more questions regarding your point:

- Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Chief Executive Officer of E.L. Rothschild has what interest in fighting inequallity? A look at the list of investments of E.L. Rothschild http://www.elrothschild.com/investments paints a picture of an investment fund. So, the very 1% that is getting richer by moving money around while working population earns the dividends. Funny thing, one of the companies listed is The Economist Group. It would be interesting to know, how favourable/critical of Oxfam is The Economist.

- Oxfam had a budget of €947.1 million for the period 1st April 2013 - 31th March 2014. Almost a billion euros! And who has given them that much money? https://www.oxfam.org/en/annual-and-financial-reports has that data. Or, at least, that is what I have hoped for. The list of donors om page 68 of the annual report for 2013 - 2014 is just a birds-eye view.

- In its report, Oxfam says very little about growing inequallity in developed countries. Does that mean, that only developing world has inequallity problems?

Funny thing is that this document - incidentally? - says nothing about US involvement in the war in Libya.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_involvement_in_the_...