Sigh. IN our prayers

Iranian mullahs vs women

Kids, if you want to change the world and not just tie up Monday morning traffic, this is the apartheid that desperately needs your attention: The #GenderApartheid. pic.twitter.com/0Ajep3JUnN

— Bill Maher (@billmaher) June 1, 2024

quick: How many Hamas loving protesters recognize that Hamas is an Iranian proxy? 

And how many know about the woman who won a Nobel Peace prize for her activism to promote women's rights in Iran, and was jailed for doing so?

shame on the Hamas loving protesters for being so ignorant. 

they not only ignore that Hamas not only has attacked Israel and stolen much of the aid money sent to Gaza, but they seem unaware that Hamas, and probably a lot of the groups that are behind the so called protests, are inspired by Iran, whose mullahs are kleptocrats. To distract the country from pointing fingers at their corruption, they find a scapegoat, and are busy pretending that Israel is the only problem in the area.

 But the Arab countries know better. More here:

maybe look at the aims of Hamas? Nah. Violence porn Propaganda is preferred

LINK

Link for book at Amazon

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The May 2021 conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas generated headlines around the world.

However, much of the reporting ignored the history, funding, political dynamics, and other key components of the story.

Hamas initiates conflict every few years, but the reporting rarely improves.

Social media has only further clouded the picture. Hamas is rarely held responsible for its use of "human shields," blindly firing rockets at civilian areas in Israel, or diverting aid that should benefit the people of Gaza.

The Islamic Republic of Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, has been the primary patron of Hamas since the group's inception in the late 1980s.

Hamas has received additional assistance over the years from Qatar, Turkey and Malaysia. These countries are fomenting conflict, while others, such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have tried to minimize it. Gaza is therefore ground zero in a struggle for the future stability of the Middle East.

The Biden administration has important choices to make. Its intent to re-enter the Iran nuclear deal could have significant consequences, given that sanctions relief to Iran will likely yield a financial boon for Hamas, along with other Iranian proxies.

The Biden administration must also come to terms with "The Squad," a small but loud faction of the Democratic Party that seeks to undermine US-Israel relations.

 

The propaganda of showing the wounded civilians, and the high number of casualties that stress civilians not soldiers killed, is being used to undermine the backstory: That if Hamas is not stopped, it is not just a threat to Israel but to the Arab countries in the Middle East.

Iran's used of the Houthis to bomb Saudi has been going on for years, and now is being used against shipping, which is threatening not only to raise prices for the west, but is a direct threat to Egypt's economy.

Yet none of this is being discussed, and as to the press: if it bleeds, it leads.

Israel did not release photos of the dead and mutilated by Hamas in their attack against civilians, out of respect for their families. Yet the MSM has ignored what happened then, since that story is now "old"... too often the press and the social media prefer to just repeat press reports from Hamas propaganda outlets, often echoed by tainted UN reports, or reports from the clueless left, who has decided to turn on Israel and promote gangsters.

Sigh.

This is a war of civilizations: Not Islam vs the West, but of a radical form of Islam that has more in common with the Nazis and Marxism than with the beliefs of the majority of Muslims.

And the propaganda war is more about persuading these Muslims that they are victims of the west and need to join them.

The fact that Iran is the puppetmaster behind all of this is ignored of course.

By the way: Did you read that the UN just condemned Iran for their human rights violations against women?

Iran’s “repression of peaceful protests” and “institutional discrimination against women and girls” has led to human rights violations, some of which amount to “crimes against humanity,” according to a United Nations’ report.

Such violations and crimes include “extrajudicial and unlawful killings and murder, unnecessary and disproportionate use of force, arbitrary deprivation of liberty, torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and gender persecution,” the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) said in a press release Friday.

Sigh. 

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update:

dancing in the streets and other dangerous protesters

protests have been going on for months in Iran but are rarely mentioned in the US MSM. 

 An Iranian woman protester who won the Nobel Prize is going to trial later this week, but that also has been pretty well ignored by the western MSM. 

 But finally the NYT  (headsup AnnAlthouse) and other MSM have noted the latest street dance protests in Iran: 

Straits Time report.

People are dancing on the streets, in shops, at sport stadiums, in classrooms, malls, restaurants, gyms, parties and everywhere else they congregate.

In Teheran, traffic was stopped in a major highway tunnel for an impromptu dance party to the song. Young women, hair uncovered and flowing, dance in parks, and young men performed a choreographed hip-hop dance.

“It’s obvious that joining this dance trend sends a strong message,” Mr Mohammad Aghapour, 32, a DJ who goes by the professional name DJSonami, said in an interview from Teheran. “It’s a way of protesting and demanding our freedom and happiness.”

 

خواستید گیله‌مرد ر خفه کنید، صدای شادی او، آااوو آااوووو آاوو آاااووو کنان و‌ رقصان در گوشه نقاط کشور تکثیر شد:)
عو عو زدن شما هم میبینیم؛))#صادق_بوقی pic.twitter.com/kuLB6ng3tK

— مجید آذرپی 🏴 (@majidazarpey) December 10, 2023

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in other protest news, Jimmy Lai, media leader, businessman and a pro democracy leader of Hong Kong, is going to be tried and put into jail by China. 

his crime? Lai is charged with colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to publish seditious publications.

don't mess with China. Not only will they threaten you via their police stations in foreign lands, but if a country dares to imply that covid came from their lab, China will organize a spontaneous consumer boycott of your products...

 Conspiracy theory? Just ask Italy about why they can't sell China their good wine. (China did the same thing to the Philippines in 2012 with a banana boycott ).

OTHER NEWS

some in the US Congress are asking the government to stop perscuting Julian Assange for leaking secrets. It is a bipartisan group of troublemakers.

The bipartisan resolution introduced Wednesday was co-sponsored by Reps. James McGovern, D-Mass.; Thomas Massie, R-Ky.; Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.; Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla.; Eric Burlison, R-Mo.; Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Clay Higgins, R-La.

The article blames Trump for the charges of course but ignores that hounding him goes back to the Obama administration, and and that one big leak threatened the campaign of Hillary Clinton... many suspect that leak came from  Seth Rich about the Democratic party's shennanigans.

Conspiracy theory of course, just like the conspiracy theory about the now debunked story about Russian Collusion by Trump or the story that the Covid virus came from a Chinese lab whose research was funded by Fauci via ecohealth

a lot of stories out there about how the green meanies are going to destroy your way of life, (sorry about that jeepney drivers too poor to buy into the scam)... 

But just wait: it's not just the ecotyrants doing this:

The UN WHO, the ones who covered up the covid story, have plans for your future too:

sigh

ah, but don't worry: dissidents in the USA will be safe from such threats of arrest and being jailed and taken away in handcuffs for misdemeanors:

UhOH:

Who wudda thot that the Babylon bee is so dangerous to the present regime?

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of course, the well funded antifa protests have morphed into anti Jewish protests in the USA, (gee, don't these guys have a job?) and get a lot of positive press when they block roads, harass Jewish restaurants or threaten Jewish teachers. 

your tax dollars at work.

................................

a clue to how to stop this: Accordions:

.altogether now:

gee, they insist they need charity but they can afford missiles

 Things must be serious in the Middle East, because the gov't here is arranging to evacuate some of our OFW from Israel. But this article mentions only 300, and I believe there are 30 thousand Filipinos there, so although the gov't is making contingency plans if things get worse, they are not planning a full evacuation.

Joy reports that one of her friends heard from her daughter there: She is not planning to return home, but does note that the government warned people to go to their shelters when the siren hits.

A lot of the news stories imply Israel is the bad guy of course, because they retaliated after being hit by thousands of missiles.

So who is paying for the missiles? Is it an Iranian proxy war, so they were put there by Iran who has openly swore to destroy Israel for the last 30 years, or did the locals buy them with all that foreign aid money given to them by various western countries and charities?

I don't know, But here is Strategy Page's take on what's going on.

.....

If I post a lot of stuff from StrategyPage here, it is because they get things right about countries that I happen to know about, but that the press, especially in the USA, often distort the story, usually out of ignorance of cultural nuances rather than bias.

as for the Middle East: It's not just Israel. Here they discuss why Greece is sending stuff to Saudi to help protect them against missile attacks from Iran's proxies there (read Houthi rebels in Yemen, a group that makes the Taliban look liberal, but thanks to Iran's sophisticated propaganda network, are usually portrayed as the victims here.).

and like China, who is using their ships to block fishing (with a "wink wink" to all and sundry that they are now able to block passage of civilian ships in the West Philippine sea), the Iranians are busy building ships that could stop shipping there.

President Obama tried to make nice with Iran, but they tricked him. So Trumpie boy reestablished sanctions and pulled aid from their proxies in Gaza etc. But now Biden is trying to make nice with them again. Of course, instead of seeing this as a way to grasp at peace and help their own people (the Iranians have been badly hit by the WuhanFlu), they saw it as a message they can "do their thing" without the cop on the beat (i.e. Team America World Police) getting in their way.

Sigh. 

Don't ask me. 

We are still in partial shutdown, and Manila is in strict shutdown, but the good news is that the number of new cases has fallen. 

The bad news? The Indian varient is here.

Sigh.

Happy Norwuz

the Persian Spring Festival starts on Feb 20.

a pre Islamic Zorastrian festival celebrated in the Middle East, Central and South Asia.

BBC video (from 2019)





link: white House press release:

Nowruz is a time of renewal that encourages those observing the holiday to embrace a refreshed spirit of optimism.... As they begin this season of renewed hope, we join our partners and allies around the world in praying for a brighter, freer future for Iran. On behalf of the United States, I extend my warmest greetings for a joyous and peace-filled Nowruz.

uh, Mr President: tear down that wall (of sanctions).

the sanctions against Iran do not include medicine or food, but nevertheless are hurting the civilian population by wrecking their economy, so many are urging that the US lift them, especially since Iran is in the midst of a major Coronavirus epidemic.

On the other hand, like North Korea, one sees a regime that will take aid supposed to go to their civilian population and use it to build weapons and pay their terrorist proxies fighting in other countries.

I worked in Rhodesia when world sanctions were trying to overthrow the evil apartheid regime: And sometimes our hospital would have to substitute older cheaper but more dangerous medicines to treat diseases, and we had to re-sterilize things like gloves and bandages because supplies were limited (we were allowed 20 pairs of gloves per month at one point).

but eventually it worked, but maybe because the leaders were not crazy believers in a rigid (communist/religious) dogma, just greedy.

I have no easy answer to this.

Lifting sanctions might save lives, but result in more deaths from Iran's proxy wars in Yemen and Syria (not to mention the deaths if one of the crazy Mullahs act on their threats to nuke Israel and start World War 3).

Sigh. 

Wuhan Flu: What, me worry?

one reason I haven't been posting a lot about the Wuhan Flu aka Coronavirus, is that the news is not accurate: 

The dirty little secret is that no one knows how many cases are out there. Not only are many mild cases and asymptomatic cases or early cases being missed, but a lot of reporting is "iffy".

and it makes you wonder: why the panic if the mortality rate is low: 2 percent of diagnosed cases die, according to the latest statistics.

But then you wonder if the number is artificially high because mild cases which are not diagnosed?

Or maybe people are dying at home, or in isolated villages, and/or are old, so not counted...so it's a lot worse than is being reported...



and the question no one is asking: is China lying about it? (yup. I expect Chinese trolls to fill my comment box on that statement).

Because China's attitude seems to be: Only report sweetness and light or we'll get back at you.

For example, this Feb 3 story notes that China condemned the USA for raising the alarm and causing panic.

Global voices notes that certain blogs have disappeared from the internet for their reports on Wuhan flu:

popular online media outlet posting high-quality commentary, suddenly vanished from the Chinese internet after it published an article headlined “The 50 days of Wuhan pneumonia: Chinese people are all paying the price of the death of media”.

Following the article's publication, the website of Tencent Dajia and its WeChat public account disappeared from the internet. Both Tencent Dajia and WeChat, a popular Chinese messaging and social media app, are owned by China’s biggest tech giant Tencent. The takedown happened on February 19, the same day three Wall Street Journal reporters were expelled from China in response to the publication of an opinion piece referring to China as “the real sick man of Asia.”

and the Chinese social network site Weibo, is full of happy happy Chinese folks making comments and posting happy happy videos to counter the reality of what's going on.

We Will Make Them Better” – Popular Online Video Promotes Chinese Unity in Times of COVID-19 Chinese state media are spreading more hopeful and positive online content in times of coronacrisis.

Just move along, folks, nothing to see here...




 and rumors of the failure of government to confront the disease spread is complicated by HongKong's pro democracy demonstrations:



China's bullying has led to some countries like Iran from not banning Chinese entering the country (i.e. limited flights were allowed), and now there are cases in their holy city of Qom...

NYTimes article mentions clusters of cases in the Koreas and in Iran.

(unrelated note: Iran is holding an election this weekend and the opposition is boycotting it. I wonder if they will spin the low turnout by blaming the virus).
I'm not sure where I should be getting news about this: The most recent CDC report was posted on Feb 7 and is probably out of date.

But it should comfort you to know the CDC is busy doing their thing, because since then they have released reports on the percentage of adults over 25 who saw a dentist this year, discussing a program that encourages people to take their BP medicines, a single case of Chaga's disease in Missouri who didn't catch it from travel, This is a headsup meaning it might be spread by local insects (probably an under reported disease thanks to the many unscreened illegal immigrants entering the US), a survey of which states prohibit teenagers from buying tobacco products, and a report that the seasonal influenza shot doesn't work very well. And in the recent past: Lots of stuff about Vaping.

When you read complaints about Trumpieboy cutting their funding, remember that it is this stuff that he is trying to cut, not the actual investigation of infectious diseases etc. but wasting lots of money on stuff about lifestyle and social problems: things that used to be called sin before the PC made sin a dirty name.

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here in the Philippines, the big stories are about the Chinese bribing immigration officials for visas. The whistleblower is in hiding, and unlike American "whistle-blowers" who raise money and get interviews on CNN with their claim of threats, here whistle-blowers and witnesses do tend to disappear one way or another.

The story mentions 2000 Chinese enter the country every day, but doesn't mention if that has changed.

So we have cases of Wuhan flu here, mainly in Chinese tourists: But the real crisis is among Filipinos working in cruise ships: 52 have been diagnosed in one ship alone.

Sigh.

And you know and everyone here knows that when things get bad, it will not be China helping the Philippines, but the USA who is offering China and other countries money to help stop the disease.

I'm so old that I remember when the World Health organization said don't close borders 

GENEVA, Switzerland – The World Health Organization cautioned Friday, January 31, that closing borders was probably ineffective in halting the transmission of the deadly novel coronavirus from China and could even accelerate its spread.
If you close official border crossings, you can "lose track of people and cannot monitor (their movement) anymore," WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva.

Right. And that worked well, didn't it?

the other news is the Senate is opposing Duterte stopping the US/Phil joint military training agreement. Local politics in this one, but Duterte is pissed at suspected CIA money supporting his opponents and the human rights types in the US Congress and UN are trying to stop the (very popular) war on drugs here.

But even though locals dislike the idea that they are supposed to obey the US in these things, the dirty little secret is that outside of the elite bubbles, the average folk hate hate the Chinese and the way they bribe the elite and ignore custom and visa laws.

 John Bachelor had this from the Daily Beast about China trying to bribe their way to make a base in the Philippines.




well, nothing new: The Chinese even have printed articles in their press that quoted a General insisting that Luzon should be part of a Greater China.

But one wonders how the spread of Wuhan flu will affect China's territorial aggression and it's bribery/threats to influence the Philippines: I suspect it won't make them popular here.
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update:
criteria if you are in trouble according to the CDC. 

Interview with the guy who revealed China's forced abortion laws at a time when no one in the MSM noticed what was going on. He suspects they are lying here too



latest from the NEJM: asymptomatic patients can spread the disease. A report of German travelers coming home from China.

In this effort to evacuate 126 people from Wuhan to Frankfurt, a symptom-based screening process was ineffective in detecting SARS-CoV-2 infection in 2 persons who later were found to have evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in a throat swab. We discovered that shedding of potentially infectious virus may occur in persons who have no fever and no signs or only minor signs of infection.

Meme of the day

Don't mess with Texas story of the day

Ross Perot has died.

The Texas businessman ran for president to fix the system, and lost, but his run for the presidency resulted in the US electing Bill Clinton instead of Bush Sr...

Ann Althouse links to a Dallas news article about his computer software company EDS which resulted in him becoming a millionaire: but it was his common sense and care for others that made him famous:

Perot became a multimillionaire when he took EDS public in 1968. In a 2018 interview, Perot Jr. described the family's dinner the night before the company's IPO. "Dad said, 'Now tomorrow, we're going to take EDS public, and a lot of people are going to write about the money that we have. But remember, none of this is important. The only thing that's important is our family and how we take care and respect our family.'

the article describes his fight with GM over it's bad business practises, and he was such a thorn in their side that they bought him out.

His efforts to help the families of the American POWs in VietNam that made him beloved of the VietNam vet community.

but it was his rescue of his employees from an dangerous Iran in the midst of a revolution that impressed many more.

Perot assembled the commando team of seven EDS employee volunteers, trained and led by Arthur "Bull" Simons, that freed Paul Chiapparone and Bill Gaylord from Tehran's Qasr Prison. Perot personally oversaw the mission, flying to Tehran during the planning phase and greeting the rescued employees and raiders when they arrived in Istanbul.

Another raid (paid for by the CIA and helped out by Hollywood) also rescued Americans at risk for being held hostage back then, and that film "ARGO" won an academy award, but this rescue was done by ordinary Texans rescuing their own... as the saying goes: You don't mess with Texas.

The book about the rescue (internet archive link) was made into a TV miniseries. which is not available on line thanks to the copyright cops, but the company has this film about the story:

Cyberwar

Iran placed old fashioned mines on some tankers, and then shot down a spy drone, and the world (and the US left/Democrats/MSM) prepared their talking points against Trumpie boy because they assumed he'd bomb them in retaliation.

But then, Trumpieboy thought "outside the box". From Richard Fernandez:

Members of Congress had already geared up in anticipation to block the war that was sure to come. "As the prospect of a confrontation with Iran continues to rise, an increasing number of members of Congress have a new objective: ensuring President Trump does not launch a war without their approval."

But he didn't bomb anything biological.

Even though the Washington Post sources called the strike "a long-in-the-making cyberattack that took down Iranian missile control computers," it still caught conventional wisdom by surprise. Just as the Battle of the Coral Sea was the first naval engagement conducted beyond the visual range of opposing fleets, the recent exchange of strikes marks the first public battle between two nations in which only automata died.

Fenandez goes on to point out the problem with this: like economic sanctions, it hurts ordinary people, but does not necessarily topple their leaders.

On the other hand, it does weaken them enough that they are no longer a threat.

This attack got into the news, but the dirty little secret is that the US has been the target for cyberattacks for years. (for example, my OPM personnel file was one of millions hacked by China "unknown persons".)

This is why people aware of this threat were so enraged that Hillary had an insecure email server and found out that Huma took sensitive emails and information to her apartment and used her husband's computer to print them out. 

That last part especially raised eyebrows, since her husband was into porn and that is an easy way to get a malwaree virus on your computer.


StrategyPage wrote about the problem in 2007.

The U.S. Department of Defense has noted the increasing number of hackers trying, and succeeding, to get into military networks. This sort of thing has been going on since the 1980s, when a gang of West German hackers, hired by the Soviet secret police (KGB) were caught inside Department of Defense networks, stealing classified data.
But in the last few years, the hacker activity has accelerated. Currently, Department of Defense networks get probed six million times a day. 

and a more recent article (May 2009) notes that Iran has lots of these cyberwarriors.

This use of APTs was one advantage Iran had against its enemies. Decades of sanctions had made it impossible for Iran to obtain modern weapons or technology in general. But via the APTs, they created or employed they could steal much of what they wanted.

So just a variation of "spy vs spy", right?

Wrong. Everything is connected nowadays.

and if you watched DieHard4.0, you know how a cyberattack on basic utility systems could decimate the country.

(and not just a cyber attack: A half decent solar flare could do the same thing).

ZDnet (Dec2018) has an article on this that should give you nightmares.

Unlike traditional military attacks, a cyberattack can be launched instantaneously from any distance, with little obvious evidence of any build-up, unlike a traditional military operation.... governments and intelligence agencies worry that digital attacks against vital infrastructure -- like banking systems or power grids -- will give attackers a way of bypassing a country's traditional defences, and are racing to improve their computer security.

More at ZDNet here

and here is a "WAGD" scenario by an independent video maker:





presumably, I should be safe here in the rural Philippines where everyone including my maid has a smartphone, but most people have generators etc. since we get periodic typhoons, floods, and brownouts...

but actually we had a minor cyberwar kerfuffle with China a couple years ago (actually, Chinese hackers who are of course government inspired, but the Filipino hackers were just students causing mischief, but it does show how we do have the talent to do these things)., 

So if China wanted to play rough with us via cyberwar, we might be in trouble... but not completely helpless.

World policeman no more?

the ending of High Noon shows the sheriff, after fighting the bad guys almost by himself (since the townspeople refused to help him), throws his badge into the ground and leaves town.

So when Trumpieboy refused the advice of the military to kill people to venge himself on Iran's attack of a spy drone (something that could start another war where America would be the one doing the fighting, of course) it sounds like Trumpie is channeling his inner Will Kane... 

Let me explain.

For the last 60 years, the USA has been the world policeman. The leftists lament all those US troops all over the world, but they sort of overlook the alternative.

But the US Voters got tired of being ridiculed and hated for doing this hard job, which is why you got first President Obama and now President Trump. 

President Obama tried his best to make peace, and Iran betrayed the deal.

So now Trumpieboy is in charge, and doxing the bad guys in the Middle East, the establishment US state department, the Military industrial complex, the establishment MSM. and of course, the Mullahs who watch CNN and believe what they hear.

Blocking the straits of Hormuz is the Mullah's "trump card" (pun intended) since they could block the export of Middle Eastern oil to the world and destroy the world's economy. This is not a new gambit: My son in law was there with the US Navy before the Gulf wars when the Mullahs were trying to pull the same trick. 

But things have changed: can you say "Fracking" children?

the US is now a leading exporter of petroleum/natural gas...

Richard Fernandez has an interesting take on what is really going on in the Straits of Hormuz....

The problem is normally posed in terms of U.S. difficulty in keeping it open. ...

But actually closing the Strait would be political, if not national suicide. Most of the oil passing through Hormuz (about 11/17ths) is bound for the Straits of Malacca en route to China, Japan and Korea.

If Tehran actually closed the Straits, by mining it, for example, they would essentially be blockading China....

Interestingly Trump seems willing to let the Iranian threat serve as a goad for international action. "President Donald Trump said Friday that if Iran were to block the Strait of Hormuz, “it’s not going to be closed for long,” but he did not elaborate on whether the United States had an obligation to keep open the international shipping gateway, which is critical to the oil industry." (Emphasis mine). With the U.S. nearly a net exporter of oil the pressure is actually on Asia to keep Hormuz open.

translation: The mullahs think that blocking the strait would harm the USA, but it would raise oil prices, which would help the US, (who is now energy independent and exporting oil/natural gas) and also Russia, who exports their petroleum to Europe (and who could make a bundle selling it to China).

Complicating the matter, of course, is China's artificial islands in the West Philippine sea: there are reportedly huge reserves of natural gas under those shoals, which is another reason that China has been trying to take over the region for years. If China would stop pushing around the Philippines and make a deal with a China friendly Duterte, between the natural gas resources there, and the expansion of Chinese influence into the petroleum rich Central Asian countries, China might soon be able to lower their own imports from the middle East.

I don't know much about the Central Asian republics who used to be part of Russia but are now in China's long term plans for a new silk road.

John Bachelor has had a dozen podcasts about this region lately, but I have been too busy to listen to them.


I am also slowly working my way through Austin Bay's book Cocktails from Hell (I am slowly reading it on scribd) which goes into summarizing the complexities of multilateral complicated issues of war and peace in today's world. 

To quote Bill Clinton: It's the economy stupid.



People pushing the "Russia Russia RUSSIA" conspiracy theory forget that Trumpieboy has had business contacts in many countries, and even though many of these are under his son, who runs the company, he is aware of the complexities of how international finance and economics work, and often has personal contacts that are important in international business,  and so he has a different point of view than many in the diplomatic community.

Hence, the use of economic rather than military pressure on rogue regimes.

Now if only the DNC/MSM would notice things are changing: alas, they are stuck in the 1970s, when the leftist students just decided everything the US did was bad, and everything that the communists or their minions did was good (ignoring the Great Leap forward, the Red guard atrocities, the Gulag, etc. etc.).... 

Yes, I am being sarcastic...but with their children taking over the Democratic party, such simplistic ideas are still with us... which is why Joe Biden, not the socialist types who are running for president, is actually more popular among the hoi polloi, who will probably ignore the MSM's hit jobs on him.

But that's another topic for another time.

Persian history

Masaman, whose videos discuss ethnic cultures world wide, today puts up this video on ethnic Persian history:

In our prayers: Iran's massive floods

AlJ has a report on the recent flooding in Iran.

which hasn't gotten a lot of headlines in the west.

the BBC report on flooding started on March 25; an April 2 report discusses evacuation from a "third flood".

The environmentalists blame "global warming", as does the Iranian government, which of course can blame the US for climate change so their neglect of the environment can be ignored. And of course "US Sanctions" are being blamed for problems in getting relief supplies.

the problem seems to be the sanctions stopping the banking system from allowing them to get aid money or to buy medicine... but of course I suspect that if the sanctions are lifted, a lot of this "aid" will go to Iranian war terrorists in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, not to mention being diverted into their nuclear program. 

StrategyPage has a long essay about the problem here.

But the NYTimes admits that foreign journalists aren't allowed in to assess the damage, maybe because they might notice folks mad at the bungled gov't response.

It should be noted that Saudi and the UAE have sent aid to help flood victims, as are other countries.

In the midst of the spat, Iran has received aid from neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Kuwait, as well as from Germany, France and Japan. The move by Saudi Arabia and the UAE came despite the long-standing rivalry with Shia-majority Iran, which is based as much on geostrategic interests as religious differences.

 Facing off across the Gulf, the major oil producers have taken opposing sides for decades in conflicts across the Middle East.

Iran, like Syria, is in the midst of a dry spell (blamed on "global warming" of course: which is why President Obama blame global warming for the civil war in Syria).

Long analysis at Futuredirections website.

The Islamic Republic’s approach to water management has been less than successful, dismissing proposed sustainable water management policies, in favour of building infrastructure, including wells and dams. This approach has led to the over-exploitation of aquifers and has prevented water from reaching lakes and rivers.

Flood management policies are significantly lacking and there is little to mitigate the impact of rural land use, which contribute significantly to flooding. Over 2,000 hectares of forest has been cut down in a 25-year period in northern Iran, which has increased surface runoff and, in turn, increased its susceptibility to flooding.

Although building dams had mitigated flooding to some degree, the extent of the rainfall Iran has received has meant that the dams are no longer able to prevent floods. Currently, many dams are more than 95 per cent full, risking more downstream flooding.

Catching up on podcasts

John Bachelor's podcasts have a lot of stuff this week.

The surging trend to anti semitism against Jews and Israel is a big problem: I mean, when a CNN commentator just comes out and says Israel needs to be eliminated, what should one think. (full transcript here). At least he was fired from CNN, but his college will not fire him for his "opinion": Apparently wishing the genocide of Israelis is not as bad as saying men and women are different.

discussion of the trend here:


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related story: Iran is sending it's war proxies into the Golan Heights.

Why is this important? Because you can shell Galilee from there. But of course, basic military concepts are unknown to the snowflake MSM.

There used to be UN Peacekeepers to keep the place safe, but they were attacked awhile back by Syrian "rebels": Some of the peacekeepers meekly surrendered their guns and were "captured", but the Filipino peacekeepers refused to surrender their weapons and eventually made it to Israel.

hmm... what is Tagalog for "Molon labe"?

Iran is facing riots (rarely covered by the US MSM) and financial collapse (link2) after cheating on Obama's peace agreement to lift sanctions, so Trumpieboy put them back: A lot of Europeans want to trade with Iran and dislike this, partly because money but also because of a growing anti Israeli sentiment among their elite and the left there. And of course, China and Russia will ignore the sanctions out of spite and geopolitics, and China and India need their oil, so at least they have an economic reason to do so.

my take? No one cries when the Turks kill thousands of Kurds, or the Russians kill thousands in Chechnya, both of which are areas who are also prevented from their own independent nations, but Israel? lots of propaganda against them.

well, here is the podcasts on that subject.

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sort of related: Ottoman History Podcast discusses the use of marijuana and hashish in the late Ottoman Empire.

and ProfessorBob has a series of podcasts on tulipmania, including Tulips in the Ottoman Empire and Tulips in the Battle of Kosovo.

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Headlines below the fold

Strategypage on Indonesia's growing terrorist problem.

While PKS is led by Moslem clerics it has managed to hold onto it voters by playing down Islamic lifestyle rules and concentrating on reducing corruption and promoting what Westerners would see as a socialist economic platform. PKS also encourages more foreign investment and economic expansion.

Yet lurking in the background is the fact that Islamic scripture (depending on who is interpreting it) approves of and encourages violence against non-Moslems and Moslem heretics. Islam is the only major religion to be burdened by that and it is a persistent problem that no one has found a permanent fix for.

Indonesia, however, is the only Moslem majority nation that deliberately prohibits Islam from dominating the nation.

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Austin Bay writes about the uprising against the corrupt gov't in Iran.

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Anthony Esolen's essay on the pervasive normalization of perversion of modern culture, and a church that is too weak and mushy to notice. And points fingers why.

(headsup FatherZ)

Professor Podles has a similar take. his book is here.-

related item: And you thought Harvey Weinstein was evil.
At least Weinstein didn't kill those he abused.

headsup GetReligion.

caution: Don't read any of these articles if you are under 18 or have a weak stomach.

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related item: How Pope Francis is destroying the Catholic church by  U turns.

He does something that horrifies Catholics but pleases the "reformers", then does a U turn on the issue. (with a wink that means they know they can go ahead with their plans). And example three is probably why.

update: It's not a pope winking at and promoting immorality, heresy and apostasy: it's a "paradigm shift".


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Stories below the fold

Demonstration? What Demonstrations?

The opinion polls, the massive nationwide protests and the police reports on Internet chatter all confirm that Iranians want a new government, preferably a non-religious and democratically selected one. After that Iranians want improved relations with the neighbors, particularly the Arabs and Israel (in others all the Semitic nations)

from StrategyPage , which has a long analysis on Iran.

that part about Israel? It has to do with water:

Another example of how foreign media is shaking things up was the recent appearance of a two-minute video by the Israeli leader in which he offered to share Israeli tech used to deal with water shortages (especially low use and recycling tech). This is a growing problem throughout Iran (and in neighbor countries like Iraq and Turkey) but Israel has been dealing with far worse situations for decades. Iranian leaders angrily refused the Israeli offer but the average Iranian, especially one personally suffering from the current water problems is willing to take help from whoever offers it.

and yes there is a russia Russia RUSSIA mention there:

Russia has made it clear that it sides with Israel when it comes to Syria and a long-term peace deal. Russia backed this up by openly accepting Israeli use of Jerusalem as their capital and moving functions normally held in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This angers many Moslems, and especially Iran. This support for Israel is one the few things the United States and Russia agree on these days. But the alliance with Russia is unwritten. Yet it is real as Israel has not attacked any Russian targets with its growing air offensive against Iranian forces.

lots more analysis of what is going on not just in Iran but in Syria, in case you want to know what is going on in the world while the press is busy being hysterical about a ten year old American law that separates of kids kept from parents who break the law.

Israel 1: Iran's Qud 0

For later reading: StrategyPage on the Israeli strike on the Iranians in Syria, in retaliation for their attack on Israel, while the Arab countries quietly cheer them on.

If Iran gets the bomb, the Saudis will buy one too, and then you will see a real danger. How does that Arab saying go: The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

Long and complicated, to read after a cup or two of coffee.

Iran is resettling people from other countries into Syria so they have a friendly population there: Hmm...

Iran is financing a resettlement operation in Syria that brings in Shia families from Lebanon, Afghanistan and elsewhere to replace the third of the Syrian population that fled the country during the civil war. Nearly all these refugees were Sunni Arabs and the Assads (who are Shia) don’t want them back

a lot of Afghans fled to Iran when the Taliban ran the place, and although most returned after the northern tribes with US help threw them out, some stayed, and are a problem (i.e.drug runing and crime). And Iran has hired a lot of them to fight in Syria...

and I ran across this at GP from an anti Iran site, so it might be fake news: Iran is sending boxes of 100 dollar bills to their proxy militias to hire thugs to cause trouble in Iraq. Hmm... where could they have gotten all that cash? (update: Nah, Obama said he got around sancgions by using non American currancy. So probably from banks looted during the various Iraq wars.... Ironically,right not, the Iranian currancy is tanking and people are buying US dollars for safety, so they are in short supply there.

Drumbeats of war?

So I made the mistake of opening Drudge early this morning, and found Trump has cancaled the agreement with Iran, and the Israelis are preparing their bomb shelters.

Guess what? They had been cheating on it. Everyone sort of knew this, but then the Israelis stole a basketful of documents to prove it in writing, so it was a bit hard to continue to pretend.

StrategyPage has this about the Israeli operation, and about Israel worrying about Iran.

The Iranian government prefers to retaliate against Israel indirectly. Iran has long used foreign proxies (like Hezbollah or other non-Iranian Islamic terrorists) to attack Israel. Iran does not have modern weapons (because of decades of sanctions) and Iranian leaders are smart enough to realize that Iran itself trying to attack Israel would most likely result in another humiliating Iranian defeat. Israel has anti-missile defenses against Iranian ballistic missiles. Yet Iran has enough of these missiles to attempt a “saturation attack” on Israel using explosive or chemical warheads. Iran could also use a “dirty” warhead by adding radioactive material to a high explosive warhead. A few of these missiles landing in Israel, especially in a major urban area, would be a great propaganda victory. But Israel also has ballistic missiles (armed with nuclear warheads) and, worse, hundreds of modern fighter-bombers that could hit two key economic targets using smart bombs.

a long summary of the problem which is bookmarked for later reading on my tablet, since it is early morning here and I am still half awake.

Sigh.

I hear that there have been a lot of demonstrations in Iran against the government, but that hasn't hit the news due to censorship.

the reason behind the Iranian agreement was not only to keep them from getting nukes but to encourage the moderates to take over from the mullahs, but that last hasn't happened (it's not religious zealotry: the mullahs families are getting rich while the country is getting poor).

And of course, the Saudis are quietly making nice with Israel, since they figure the Persians are a bigger enemy.

as for Iran: They used to have a lot of Jewish people living there, but most have fled. There are a lot of them in the Los Angeles area of the US, and there are so many of them living in Israel that the Iranian government put an office there for them to vote in the election.

Wikipedia article on the Persian Jews

and yes, the Philippines has a lot of Iranians studying here, because our universities are taught in English and the degrees are recognized as good.

Wikipedia page 

Headlines below the fold

It's the corruption stupid. Gambia's expresident is fighting extradition for his crimes.

  Follow the money. when he fled, he took the government's money with him, along with all of his Bentlys and Rolls Royces.

Aides of Mr Barrow (the new president who threw him out) said at least GBP 8.8 million was missing, a considerable sum for a country of just 1.9 million people.

nor was he the only dictator to do so:

Mr Jammeh is the latest in a series of dictators to flee abroad with suitcases of state treasure. Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and his wife allegedly flew out of Tunisia in 2011 with 1.5 tonnes of gold bars purloined from the central bank, while Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos left the Philippines with 24 suitcases of gold bricks and 22 crates of cash.

the Philippines has been suing to get that money back, but of course, Marcos' family claims it was not stolen from the Philippine people, but Yamashita's gold (i.e. stolen by the Japanese from Malaysia etc. and hidden and found by a gentleman named Roxas and then stolen from him by Marcos).

Here is a list of ten similar dictators who looted their countries to get rich... hmm. they left out Hugo Chavez and a lot of other guys.

But you can see why I am sarcastic when the Pope condemns ordinary folks who try to live quietly and follow the rules while staying silent on corruption, be it sexual or money, especially if these bozos are PC.

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Speaking of the Philippines: StrategyPage has an article on our lovely country, including a lot of stuff about China's sea grab of the west Philippines sea.

The Chinese first tried to buy (bribe Gloria via the ZTE scandal) to get the Spratlys, then they simply moved into the area while Aquino was president, and President Obama told him not to oppose their aggression but take it to court. Now they are dug in (litereally: They destroyed the reef and ecology to build artificial islands which are now armed) and then Duterte is criticized for making nice with China.

n late 2017 China appeared to have succeeded in buying cooperation from the Philippines. The Filipino government is willing to accept all the legal gifts (aid, investment, loans) China offers in return for the Philippines not resisting Chinese claims in the South China Sea.

President Duterte pointed out earlier in 2017 that China threatened war if the Philippines went ahead with plans to drill for oil in offshore areas that international law recognizes as Filipino but that China claims actually belongs to them.

Duterte openly criticizes other nations for not confronting China and sees no point in the Philippines trying to take on China by itself or at least not without a massive amount of support.

Obama talked about stopping this, but actually did nothing. Has anyone followed the money here to explain why the US didn't help the Philippines? or was he just a naive pacifist?

and now, nothing short of a shooting war will get China out of the Spratlys. And in the long term, they are aiming at Luzon: something sometimes discussed in their media but ignored in the western media...

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SPage also has a discussion of Russia in the world. Bookmarked for later reading.
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Fajr music festival (in Iran)

The annual Fajr International Music Festival held in Tehran dedicated some of its musical selections to the November quake victims of Iranian Kurdistan as well as some 30 Iranian seafarers who went missing when their oil tanker collided with a cargo ship off of the coast of China earlier this month..

A 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck the Iraq-Iran border in November killing 620 people and wounding another 12,000 in Iranian Kurdistan. It also left many homeless due to collapsed or damaged infrastructure. The November 11 earthquake was the world’s deadliest in 2017..

I knew about the tanker accident which caused a huge oil spill, but that earthquake didn't get a lot of publicity.

Sigh. In our prayers.

Iran update

The news is fuzzy, but the LATimes seesm to be on it (and CNNI even interviews one of their reporters about it).

Factoid: Half a million Iranians live in the LA area.

Their latest report is about the Iranian diaspora's view of the protests.

in our prayers.

I worked with a lot of Iranian docs who left the country and knew how crooked the Shah was back then. By killing off or jailing the moderate opposition, the only ones left alive were the religious radicals, who took over and then were worse.

And another factoid: A lot of Iranians study here in the Philippines.

the educational level is good, and the classes are in English.

this got some publicity when a tour bus carrying some students and their families in Cebu fell was in a terrible accident: a lot of American reporters were not aware that a lot of foreign students come here to study, (60,000 in 2012).

Based on sampled data for 2012 (e=+1), the biggest number of foreign students was from Iran at 21.44%. South Korean students comprised 19.62% followed by those from China and ASEAN countries at 18.39% and 10.97%, respectively. The remaining 23.58% were students from other countries all over the globe.