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What *Should* We Be Worried About?
tomos:
enjoying the poems :up:
IainB:
I'm so worried about what's hapenin' today, in the middle east, you know. ...
-kyrathaba (March 29, 2013, 10:13 PM)
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Yep. Now I are especially worried too, after reading this (which just might turn into something that could keep us all awake at night - if there are any of us left to worry, that is):
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
Snippets from Israel daily news stream
1. The US and Iran hope to reach an agreement by Friday that would lift some sanctions of the international sanctions for six months. In return, the Iranians would curb their uranium enrichment program. McClatchy News sums up the deal so far:
At the heart of the proposal is the demand that Iran halt the expansion of its ability to enrich uranium, presumably by not buying new centrifuges, the equipment used in the enrichment process. That’s a change from previous demands that Iran stop enriching uranium past a certain purity.
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Israel opposes the proposal. AP‘s fact checks what Israel claims the Iranians are doing.
2. The Saudis bought nuclear weapons from Pakistan, according to the BBC. They’re even ready for delivery:
One senior Pakistani, speaking on background terms, confirmed the broad nature of the deal – probably unwritten – his country had reached with the kingdom and asked rhetorically “what did we think the Saudis were giving us all that money for? It wasn’t charity.”
Another, a one-time intelligence officer from the same country, said he believed “the Pakistanis certainly maintain a certain number of warheads on the basis that if the Saudis were to ask for them at any given time they would immediately be transferred.”
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This might potentially be a tad worse than an itty-bitty radiation leak at Fukushima (where apparently no-one was killed or is dying of radiation poisoning, and no deformed births are expected as a result).
IainB:
Well, after my gloomy comment above, I have today read of something that offers a bright spark of hope. It's described in a blog post by an American woman living in Israel. If this episode does not soften the hearts of the people otherwise apparently bound to make war with an obligatory/statutory and remorseless hatred, then probably nothing can or will, and it probably makes a nuclear war in the Middle East that much more inevitable if/when the US takes the economic shackles off Iran.
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)
The other mother and the grandfather in Gaza.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer November 19, 2013, 12:19 am
So on a day when my daughter puddle-jumps in boots with pink polka dots, and my son looks for snails, while I yell against the wind to my kids “hold my hand when we cross the street, dammit,” another mother waits in Gaza for word on her baby daughter.
Earlier, as the other mother’s daughter grew sicker by the minute, the baby’s grandfather asked for help.
Not such a big deal, right? Your kid is sick, you call for help. Duh.
But this is different. The little baby is the granddaughter of the leader of Hamas.
Hamas, whose very charter calls the Jewish people a “Nazi-like enemy, who does not differentiate between man and woman, elder and young.”
Hamas, that has sworn to create an Islamic State across all of Israel.
Hamas, whose mission is to “fight the Jews and kill them.”
But on this day, Ismail Haniyeh acted as a grandfather, the same way my babies’ grandfathers would act if their grandchildren were in trouble: The leader of Hamas asked for help. And without hesitation, Israel agreed, and that baby was transfered across enemy lines to Israel where a team of doctors was waiting.
The lines between Us and Them, blurry through a veil of the other mother’s tears.
I close my eyes and think about my own kids’ pediatrician: The smiling man who looks like Santa Claus with a yarmulke, who hands out kosher lollypops, who can lower a temperature with his cool hand, and can ease this mother’s frayed nerves with his beamish smile.
And I close my eyes and think about all the doctors in Israel who hover over this little girl.
He who saves a life saves the universe.
And as they work tirelessly over Ismail Haniyeh’s baby granddaughter, these doctors don’t care whose child she is.
I close my eyes, and I see that other mother: Her knuckles clenched, bone white, dry lips sucking air, her heart stutters.
Maybe it hurts her just below the bellybutton, where that baby grew not long before – that’s where it hurts me when my babies are hurting.
The other mother waits.
And waits.
And waits.
While I yell at my daughter to get her feet off the couch. While I tell my son that if I see one more freaking snail crawling on our table, I will liberate them in the garden.
The other mother waits.
As the seconds drag by way too slowly, and the phone doesn’t ring, she waits. Maybe she’s praying. Or maybe she’s too scared to move her lips to shape the words she wants to say:
Truly distress has seized me, but You are Most Merciful of those that are merciful.
And as hours pass with the shadows, and as the sky darkens, so does that last glimmer of hope.
Maybe it’s cold in the room where she sits, while I turn off the light and snap “go to sleep, already” as my kids giggle in bed.
Now, I’ve lived enough to know that turning the other cheek will sometimes get your ass kicked.
But I also still hope.
And while this baby girl won’t be cured, maybe — just maybe — the lines between Us and Them can stay a little blurry for just a little while longer.
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IainB:
Looks like straightforward no BS reporting from the Vice crew: The Islamic State (Full Length)
I found it via Guido Fawkes:
WATCH: The Islamic State
The best reporting of what has happened in Iraq and Syria over the last few months has not been in the papers or on television, but online. Vice are the only news organisation who have managed to embed a reporter with Islamic State (ISIS). Medyan Dairieh’s documentary from Raqqa is remarkable viewing and well worth a watch.
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At approx 40 minutes it is quite long, but it is worth a watch.
Those IS (was ISIS) mujahadeen seem to be very committed - I guess similar to the Al Queda and Taliban.
This is from the YouTuble link:
Vice crew: The Islamic State (Full Length)
Published on 14 Aug 2014
Subscribe to VICE News here: http://bit.ly/Subscribe-to-VICE-News
The Islamic State, a hardline Sunni jihadist group that formerly had ties to al Qaeda, has conquered large swathes of Iraq and Syria. Previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the group has announced its intention to reestablish the caliphate and has declared its leader, the shadowy Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the caliph.
The lightning advances the Islamic State made across Syria and Iraq in June shocked the world. But it's not just the group's military victories that have garnered attention — it's also the pace with which its members have begun to carve out a viable state.
Flush with cash and US weapons seized during its advances in Iraq, the Islamic State's expansion shows no sign of slowing down. In the first week of August alone, Islamic State fighters have taken over new areas in northern Iraq, encroaching on Kurdish territory and sending Christians and other minorities fleeing as reports of massacres emerged.
VICE News reporter Medyan Dairieh spent three weeks embedded with the Islamic State, gaining unprecedented access to the group in Iraq and Syria as the first and only journalist to document its inner workings.
Check out the VICE News beta for more: http://vicenews.com
Follow VICE News here:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vicenews
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Tumblr: http://vicenews.tumblr.com/
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Renegade:
Looks like straightforward no BS reporting from the Vice crew: The Islamic State (Full Length)
-IainB (August 16, 2014, 03:16 AM)
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I'll need to check that out. I like Vice. They do cut through a lot of BS and they report on things that you don't see elsewhere in the MSM.
Another thing to be worried about...
http://news.msn.com/crime-justice/court-silence-can-be-used-against-suspects
tl;dr - In California, if you say anything to the police, that CAN and WILL be used AGAINST you. Also, if you're silent, that CAN and WILL be used AGAINST you. Here's that as a nice little table.
/SpeakStay SilentHeld against youOONot held against youxx
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