It looks like the recent tensions in Korea have gotten even more tense. Amid negotiations, the North Korean Navy has put 70% of its submarines to sea and doubled the number of artillery units on the border with the DMZ.
This is worrisome to say the least. Its unlikely that it will develop into a shooting war, but as it continues to escalate, then the possibility is still there. And the longer the the stand off goes the higher the chance it will eventually turn into a shooting war.
UPDATE
Reports of Chinese troops moving to the North Korean border. This doesnt make any sense unless China would be throwing in North Korea. But why move reinforcements so far from Seoul? Is it to preserve them from the initial blood shedding and nukes? This bears watching.
So I've been following the immigration crisis in Europe with my peripheral attention, but this morning something caught my eye. Immigrants that have been illegally sneaking into Greece organized a sit in and demanded papers and food. KOS, Greece (AP) — Fights broke out among migrants Tuesday on the Greek island of Kos, where overwhelmed authorities are struggling to contain increasing numbers of people arriving clandestinely on rubber dinghies from the nearby Turkish shore.
Hundreds of protesting migrants demanding quick registration began blocking the main coastal road in the island's main town, staging a sit-in.
"We want papers, we want to eat!" they chanted.
Hundreds of people arrive on Greece's eastern Aegean islands daily, many after fleeing conflict in Syria and Afghanistan. Authorities, locals and charity groups are struggling to provide registration, food and shelter to the new arrivals, many of whom are children.
Look at that quote for a second. "We want papers, we want to eat!" they chanted.
Think about that sense of entitlement. These people illegally snuck into the country and then have the audacity to demand immigration paperwork and a hot meal, and it better be right now! Never mind that the immigration authorities are completely overwhelmed. Never mind that they circumvented the legal and proper way to immigrate the country. They're here now and you better bend over backwards to accommodate them.
I get that they are running from an active war zone. But to show up and start throwing demands around with no thanks for the people that are actually taking them in? Imagine in you walked into your neighbors house and demanded they stop what they were doing, fix you up a room and cook you a meal right now because you're living there now. I imagine it wouldn't go well.
Another thing about the article concerns me.
Greece has been overwhelmed by the number of migrants arriving, with at least 124,000 people reaching the eastern islands in the first seven months of this year alone. The figure represents a staggering 750 percent increase over the same period last year, according to figures from the United Nations' refugee agency, the UNHCR.
In all, Greek police said Monday that 156,726 migrants had been arrested for entering or remaining in the country illegally from January through July 2015, compared to 32,070 for the same months in 2014.
HOLY FUCK those numbers. That's almost a 500% increase in one year of people moving into the country. And Greece is already a shithole. Where are these people supposed to get jobs from when the country is defaulting.
Its true that most of them are trying to push deeper into Europe to France and Germany but I guarantee you things aren't much better there.
Greece isn't the only entry nation having problems. Hungary is trying to build a fucking 100 mile long fence. And because they're succeeding immigration there has actually sped up as people try and get in before the fence is complete! The Hungarians are actually going to pull it off too. They're having the military set up the fence, but they are also using prison inmates and people on welfare to help construct it faster. That's the only part of the situation I actually like. They're giving unemployed people a job.
If we look at Hungary's immigration numbers, they are just as bad as Greece. Last year 43,000 people applied for asylum. So far this year 100,000 have applied and its only August. Officials have stated they expect to get 300,000 by the end of the year.
This massive wave of immigration is causing a dilemma for Europe. They have two options. 1. They go broke trying to support these people while adhering to their socialist ideologies and Europe plunges into chaos an becomes a Muslim state. 2. They become more conservative and authoritarian and start kicking these people out or making them work for a living. There is even a slim chance they over correct and go back to the European time honored tradition of putting people in camps.
While this article in itself is pretty interesting, I found the comments section far more disturbing. I browse foreign nations news sources to get an understanding of world opinion for the United States, so that I can predict how other nations will act. The comments section for Russia Today is entirely Anti-American. That's not really a surprise. The surprise is to what degree. Actively calling for a nuclear war to show the US a lesson? That's terrifying if its a main stream view.
This kind of nationalism could explain Putin's soaring approval ratings.
According to this study, the order in which Google search results post news articles for candidates can sway undecided voters. Because of how close elections are, half of American elections have come down to less than an 8% margin, this is terrifying. Not to mention that most elections are decided only in swing states. If Google decided to show only positive articles for their candidate, and negative articles for an opposing candidate, the majority of uneducated voters would be subtly guided to Google's will.
To make matters worse, in the 2010 election Facebook send a random message to 61 million users urging them to vote. 340,000 people voted who would otherwise have not. Seeing as how Facebook knows what you like and who you support, they could send that message to just one parties voters.
And to top it all off the researchers in the study actually tried it in India during an election, and it worked.
This is huge news and its not anywhere in the main stream media. The Saudis are not prepared to win a fight in Yemen. We have fought all of their battles for them for the past 2 decades. This has allowed them to look strong while in reality the Monarchy is weak. Yemen in going to be their version of Iraq.
If and when Saudi Arabia loses in Yemen it will destabilize the Monarchy and add to the chaos in the Middle East.
[I've been on a bit of a hiatus - I had a project where I was building an EEG machine with a hacked Mindflex toy and an Arduino microcontroller, but now that that's finished, I'm back]
Hoboy. Here we go.
What the fuck is going on in the middle east? You may be wondering. Let me break it down for ya:
Daesh
I'm gonna start this off by saying I don't like the term ISIS or ISIL. The terrorist organization has undergone several name changes since it's inception, so there are plenty to choose from. There are other places that cover it all in greater detail, but the story of Daesh goes that in 1999 a loose network of Jordanians under some guy who was so brutalhe pissed off al-Qaeda started a group called Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad that became Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn in 2004 (also known then as al-Qaeda in Iraq, AQI [Not to be confused with AQIM] or al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia). They teamed up with 5 other Mujahideen organizations and in early 2006, formed an umbrella organization called the Mujahideen Shura Council, which disbanded later that year and reorganized under the name The Islamic State of Iraq, or Dalwat al-Iraq al-Islamiyyah. They went on like this until 2013, when they changed their name to al-Dawla al-Islamiyyah al-Iraq al-Sham, and it is from this we can pull the Arabic acronym Daesh (this meaning The Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria; ISIS and ISIL respectively). Since 2014, they've gone by al-Dawla al-Islamiyyah, the Islamic State, or just al-Dawla for short.
Daesh is more than just an Arabic acronym, it has negative undertones as it sounds like both Daes, or "one who crushes something underfoot," and dahes, "One who sows discord." So, it's got negative connotations either way. If we were just picking names for the acronym I'd call them State Holding Islamic Terrorists, or some shit like that.
Daesh still controls a large amount of territory within Iraq and Syria. The Caliphate is continuing to grow at alarming speeds, although not necessarily within this region. They've had several radical Sunni groups pledge allegience to them, such as al-Shabaab in Somalia, militant Chechens in Russia, and Boko Haram in Nigeria to name a few, as well as a presence in many others, like the Philippines, Afghanistan and North Africa.
In addition to these attacks, Daesh has also been busy elsewhere. The United States recently launched a drone strike that took out a bunch of their leadership in Afghanistan, fucking up Shahidullah Shahid and about 30 other insurgents in a compound near the Pakistani border. Shahid was part of the Pakistani Taliban faction who splintered off to join Daesh in Afghanistan.
Map of Syria, 8 Days before my previously linked post was originally published
Map of Syria, as of last week
Interestingly enough, around the time of the previously linked piece on Syria, there was a whole bunch of shit going around about the chemical attacks taking place in the country. The international conversation was "Was it al-Assad? Was it a rebel group?" and "Should we intervene? Does it really matter who it was, doesn't this need to stop, no matter who did it?" Most people in America, who were only then just tuning in, thought this was a fairly rational response, and their politicians were looking out for a people being slaughtered far away. A lot of the national conversation going on was "Should we get involved, even with all of this?" Most people did not want another war in the middle east, and Putin made Obama look like a bitch on the national stage.
I, however, was rather convinced we didn't give a shit about anyone in this country and we only wanted to position ourselves geopolitically to expand our sphere of influence and impede on Russia's, who has a port in Syria.
Given how big of a stink this was in the media, I was at first surprised, then full of contempt when I read about the recent attacks in Deir ez Zor. Here was Assad's forces, fighting Daesh and Jabhat al-Nusra in the highly contested city, actually openly using chemical agents that killed civilians. And the world has said nary a peep about it.Unless the climate is right for a nation to exploit a situation for their own benefit, nobody is going to give a shit. Always keep that in mind when reading "news".
In the last three weeks China's stock market has dropped by about 25%. Thats roughly $2.36 trillion dollars, or ten times the GDP of Greece. Its a metric fuck-ton of money.
China's stock market is still up about 20% from the beginning of the year. Due to the massive growth we see in the graph above the law of averages states that a "balancing" was in order. The question is how much more their stock market will drop and how that effects us. Analysts predict it could drop another 35% which would be roughly another trillion dollars.
So how does that affect us? Well; "What happens in China will turn out to be far more consequential than any sting that Greece may deliver over the coming weeks or months,'' said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong. "As China's equity markets lose their roar, the risk is that demand more broadly on the Mainland could take a hit. That would knock out an essential engine of world demand over the past decade. As dramatic as events in Greece currently appear, however, ultimately, it's difficult to see these proving decisive for the world economy.''
China has been pushing hard to develop as hard as could to modernize and get on equal foot with the rest of the world. That may slow or stop, hurting businesses and industries that have building China's infrastructure.
"Study strategy over the years and achieve the spirit of the warrior. Today is victory over yourself of yesterday; tomorrow is your victory over lesser men." - Miyamoto Musashi
