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and it's not just Europe: Spengler's discussion of Iran ends with this note:
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Iran is suffering the fastest fertility decline on record, any time, ever. The average Iranian has six or seven brothers and sisters, but will have one or two children. The population pyramid will invert: within a single generation
he has a book about the problem of depopulation, and notes that parts of Asia and also Turkey have the same problem.
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Iran's problem is their private terrorist organization, the QUDS, is all over the place causing trouble.
Once you get to know Quds Force a little better, the Saudi ambassador assassination plot does not seem so outrageous. Quds Force has always tolerated, and sometimes indulged, mavericks who were willing to undertake high-risk (but high-payoff) operations overseas.
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but not everything in Iran is war, religion or politics:
Amir has photos of the memorials to Steve Jobs in the Apple store in Tehran.
photos of their computer mall here.
Blogging is big in Iran, and Farsi is one of the most common languages on the net.
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Iran has a long history...and there is a course about it on itunesU..., if that link doesn't work check HERE.
My main interest for podcasts is the neolithic revolution and Bronze age classical history, but I'm starting to work through Herodotus, and need some background on Persia....
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Speaking of neolithic ages: A lecture I listened to last night said that Neanderthals probably didn't bury their dead, since the "ritual objects" near the skeletons were probably just trash that landed near the body...the only burial that raises questions was a child's body in a small cave like hole...
it was downloaded awhile back from a video
lecture is from the Penn museum.
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here in the Philippines, a minor war has broken out in Mindanao after the Abus got more aggressive.
The AFP is after the "MILF by day, Abus by night" folk...the MILF who is trying for peace is upset (but of course not upset enough to turn in their relatives), but Erap (former president Estrada) was on TV yesterday supporting military action...since Erap is a commoner he probably speaks for the majority of ordinary folks...but of course, the Churches and the US are pressuring PNoy to talk peace.
The MILF want to take over their island, never mind that the majority who live there are not Muslim. The Muslims are angy because many locals have lived there only for 50 years... but the indigenous say the Moro pirates moved in and stole their land only in 1457 so so stop complaining.
It's not really about religion: it's about money: who gets to siphon off a share of all that development money. Even if the radicals got everything and chased off all the non Muslims, you would get wars there between the clan chiefs over who gets the loot (the terrible Manguindanao massacre was mainly about staying in power to get rich by corruption...)
so it looks like PNoy, like Obama, started out as the peace president but is stuck fighting a war because some thought working for peace meant you were a weakling.
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in a related item: the priest killed in the south was killed for defending the indigenous tribes from having their land destroyed by mining companies (open pit mines). Many mines have their own private militias to guard the mines from NPA or MILF attacks, but now PNoy will be pressured to eliminate these private armies.
The problem is that you can always hire an ex soldier or ex-NPA hitman to do the job for a price...that way, you can keep the investigation from targeting the guy who ordered the killing, as in the killing of our nephew...
A parallel in European history is how the medieval kings got rid of the local barons' castles and private armies to stop local wars and uprisings.
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other news: Our lovely ex president Gloria and the former "first gentleman" have been given subpoenas.
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Thailand is in terrible shape from the flooding, which continues as the rainwater flows downstream through Bangkok...a story that is dominating the news here in Asia. The loss of the rice will lead to an increased price for rice, although probably not a shortage.
Flooding has damaged 13 percent of crop areas in Thailand, 6 percent in the Philippines, 12 percent in Cambodia and 7.5 percent in Laos, according to the UN Food & Agriculture Organization.
And here's a factoid of the day that I learned:
Strategy page points out that since a lot of hard drives are made there, expect the prices to go up again...fiberoptics plants have also been damaged
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