EUROPE

 

 

 Lord Stirling's News Blog EUROPE

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Latest Satellite Surface Current Forecast for North Atlantic - Loop Current - Gulf Stream ~ link

Latest Satellite Sea Surface Temperature for North Atlantic - Loop Current - Gulf Stream ~ link  

Current status of the Gulf Stream ~ link


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Royal Burgh of Stirling Pipe Band at Stirling Castle ~ link   ~ Official site ~ link 

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True Believer Album by Jeff DeVillez (iTunes) ~ link


War on Iran & Syria: What They Are NOT Telling Us ~ link  

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Hard talk with US officials on Iran fails to move Israel from military option ~ link ~ So now is the time for the Obama Administration to publicly announce that if Israel attacks Iran it will do so alone without American assistance and without the US getting involved in any follow-on.  The chances of that happening are just about zero because Obama is really just a Front Man for Israel and the Global Banking Cartel.   If he was really acting as the President of the USA he would tell Netanyahu and his cabinet of nuts to go to Hell.   Stirling     

White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon faced an acrimonious Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in two hours of stormy conversation in Jerusalem Sunday, Feb. 19, according to updates reaching senior US sources in Washington. The main bones of contention were Iran’s continuing enrichment of uranium and its ongoing relocation of production to underground sites.
 

Israeli officials declined to give out any information on the conversation. Some even refused to confirm it took place.





Red Cross negotiating Syria ceasefire to bring aid ~ link ~  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is negotiating with Syrian authorities and opposition fighters on a ceasefire to bring life-saving aid to civilians hardest hit by the conflict, it said on Monday.

"The ICRC is exploring several possibilities for delivering urgently needed humanitarian aid. These include a cessation of fighting in the most affected areas to facilitate swift Syrian Arab Red Crescent and ICRC access to the people in need," ICRC spokeswoman Carla Haddad said.

Iranian ships in Syrian port are disrupting Syrian Opposition secure communications ~ link ~ Interesting!  I cannot help but wonder if this is Chinese or Russian technology that is involved.  Stirling     

Egyptian security sources and members of the Syrian opposition are claiming that the two Iranian ships docked off the Syrian coast are equipped with "military communications jamming devices that are disrupting communications made by the Syrian opposition via satellite," the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported Monday.  

According to the report, an Egyptian security source noted that recently the Syrian regime has been finding it hard to monitor opposition calls after it began using secure communication lines.

China: US and allies push Syria into civil war ~ link ~

US and its allies are pushing Syria into civil war by backing the armed opposition, the newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party writes. The article insists Beijing must stick to opposing any attempt to intervene or regime change in Damascus."If Western countries continue to fully support Syria's opposition, then in the end a large-scale civil war will erupt and there will be no way to thus avoid the possibility of foreign armed intervention," a foreign affairs expert Qu Xing wrote in the piece as cited by Reuters

His article in the People's Daily suggests if the UN Security Council had passed the resolution backing the Arab League’s call for Assad to step down, that would only have lead to more violence.

 

Israel could strike Iran's nuclear facilities but it won't be easy ~ link ~ It is important to remember that this crisis is NOT really about the Iranian nuclear program.  It is about domination of the entire Middle East by tiny Israel and also, from the global banksters point of view, about starting a new global war...the Third World War...so that they can reshape the entire globe for their satanic high-tech police state, the New World Order.   Stirling     

The New York Times quotes military experts who claim that Israel will have to use at least a hundred warplanes in an Iranian operation, this probably a conservative estimate as in addition the main nuclear-enrichment installations, Israel will most likely seek also to take out research centers and long-range missile bases and factories. In addition, there will have to be strikes on anti-aircraft missile batteries and radar sites.

But this is exactly the mission the IAF has been equipping for over the last fifteen years. Between 1996 and 2009, Israel purchased, largely with U.S. Foreign Military financing, 125 advanced F-15s and F-16s, specially modified for carrying out long-range strategic attacks. In addition to these five front-line squadrons, the IAF fields another nine squadrons of older-model F-16s and F-15s. In all, Israel has around 350 fighter jets, a larger aerial combat force than countries of the likes of Britain and Germany. 

US officials: Israeli attack on Iran requires 100 planes ~ link ~ I continue to be shocked by the one-sided stories and views of any coming 'attack' on Iran.  To say the least, viewing a possible coming military engagement only from the view of 'what we are going to do to them' is dangerously narrowly minded.  Stirling      

Iran launches air defense drill and threatens to push oil prices to $150/barrel ~ link ~ Now is a good time to purchase a hybrid auto.  Stirling  

Iran announced Monday that its aerial defense forces have embarked on a drill meant to contend with the threats to strike the country's nuclear facilities.

Iranian news agency Fares reported that the drill started in the Bushehr region, where one of Iran's nuclear reactors is located. According to the report, aerial defense forces embarked on "tactical maneuvers in order to boost preparedness for coping with possible threats on the homeland, and especially on its vital and sensitive nuclear centers."




UN inspectors arrive in Iran for key talks on nuclear program as Israel prepares to deploy its 'Iron Dome' anti-missile defense system ~ link ~ The way to overcome the Iron Dome or any anti-missile system is to fire far more missiles at it then it can defend against.   That is why the Iron Dome and similar systems are more for show (and the profit from building them) than anything.  Stirling    




Iran and Oman - Strait partners - carry out joint naval exercises ~ link ~ An Iranian Navy commander says his country is set to conduct naval exercises with nearby ally Oman in March. Iran looks to be on its way to major naval power status, fighting piracy and cooperating with other countries in the region. Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said the exercises will involve joint rescue and relief operations. He expressed his country’s readiness to cooperate militarily with other countries in the region in an effort to ensure the peace and stability of the Middle East.

Iran and Oman occupy opposite shores of the Strait of Hormuz. They have already conducted two drills together, in 2009 and 2011. Last year’s included four vessels, two fighter jets and one maritime helicopter under Omani command, with four Iranian naval ships.

   

Haaretz Editorial: Israel must listen to US warnings against Iran attack ~ link ~ Does Iran truly intend to use nuclear technology for military purposes, or do its leaders recognize that the international response to such a development could jeopardize its very survival?

Dempsey believes, correctly, that Iran is a “rational actor” that considers the political implications of its actions. He concludes from this that the sanctions must be given a chance before trapping the region and the world in a war the final outcome of which is unknowable. 

Jerusalem Baptist church vandalized ~ link ~ Vandals daubed "Death to Christianity" on a Jerusalem church on Monday in the second such attack in the holy city this month, police said.

The words 'Price Tag', a slogan used by extremist Jewish settlers, were also scrawled on the walls of the Baptist Narkis Street Congregation in a quiet residential neighborhood in west Jerusalem.

 

"Markets are so rigged by policy makers that I have no meaningful insights to offer" ~ link~ Good One.  Stirling   

1 – Greece (and the whole eurozone story) continues to lurch about, seemingly perpetually, from Farce to Tragedy. Policy seems to be focused on protecting and preserving vested interests, with little consideration given to the dreadful conditions the people of Greece and other "peripherals" are being forced to live with. However, it seems that eurozone leaders may be about to pour even more taxpayer money down into the black hole that is Greece, primarily to help the banks in Europe, at the expense of perhaps a decade of suffering by the Greek populace. For my part, I am now consigning the Greece/Peripherals/Eurozone story to the box marked "self-serving political debacle" and from here on in I will simplify Europe as follows: Until, and unless, Germany signs up to full fiscal union, a eurozone breakup is likely. And depending on how long we can continue to "kick the can" down the road in order to protect the eurozone banks, the eurozone will be consigned to an extended period of weak growth, which in turn means ever decreasing debt sustainability. Ultimately this means that the end game will simply be more devastating for us all the longer we are forced to wait. Investors should be fully aware that "home" bias amongst real money investors is now "off the charts". This is not a good development for the eurozone, unless of course our leaders are preparing for break up, or at least considering it as a viable option.

2 – I am staggered at how easily the concepts of Democracy and the Rule of Law – two of the pillars of the modern world – have been brushed aside in the interests of political expediency. This is not just a eurozone phenomenon but of course the removal of elected governments and the instalment of "insider" technocrats who simply serve the interests of the elite has become a specialisation in Europe. Many will think this kind of development is not a big deal and is instead may be what is needed. Personally I am absolutely certain that the kind of totalitarianism being pushed on us by our leaders will – if allowed to persist and fester – end with consequences which are way beyond anything the printing presses of our central banks could ever hope to contain. Communism failed badly. Why then are we arguably trying to resurrect a version of it, particularly in Europe? Are the banks so powerful that we are all beholden to them and the biggest nonsense of all – that defaults should never happen (unless said defaults are trivial or largely meaningless)?

Presidents Day - Why can't we nominate our own president? We can, we are ~ link ~ Why can't the American public nominate their own candidate for president? It turns out we can, and are doing so for the first time in American history.

If the last 12 years have revealed anything, they have shown beyond reasonable doubt that both Status Quo political parties in the U.S. are hopelessly, ruinously corrupt and thus beyond any reform or redemption. We all know why: it now takes millions of dollars to run costly mainstream media election campaigns, and the only source for contributions of that scale is the financial/corporate Elite.

It doesn't matter how you arrange the taxonomy of the financial aristocracy that rules the nation or how you subdivide it--old money, new money, family money, corporate money, etc.-- the bottom line is these campaign contributions are viewed by the aristocratic donors as investments that yield gargantuan returns in tax breaks, subsidies, bailouts, sweetheart contracts, "get out of jail free" cards for the shadow banking system, and so on.

Ron Paul: 'Last man standing for lost liberties' - with video ~ link ~ Speaking to supporters in Kansas City, the Republican candidate said Americans' individual liberties were being stripped away. And, as Houston-based author Anis Shivani says, Paul is “the only candidate on the Republican side who is talking about the loss of civil liberties, pending illegal wars, making the connection between imperialism and the loss of rights at home.”
It now looks like Ron Paul could have won the Maine caucus, and Shivani believes he could have more support with the American public but it seems that the media won’t allow it to happen:

52 UN troops held by rebels in Sudan ~ link ~ The joint UN-African Union UNAMID peacekeeping force has been repeatedly caught in the crossfire during almost 10 years of fighting between government troops and insurgents in Sudan's remote west.

But the capture of more than 50 soldiers will be seen as a major setback for an already stretched mission, set up to keep the peace in a territory the size of France.

Disappearing from the landscape of rural America: The fight to preserve the nation's rotting barns as a way of life fades away ~ link ~ My mother-in-law (my late wife's mother) has a decaying old barn.  When I was first dating my wife, her parents still had chickens in part of the barn.  My Grandfather Fred (my mother's father) had a nice barn built about 95 years ago and it was in good shape when it sadly burnt down a few years ago.  There are less and less old barns left and they really are a part of a way of life that has at least partly vanished from the American Midwest.   Stirling     

Ron Paul says US is turning into a 'fascist system' dominated by government and businesses ~ link ~ 

Ron Paul has warned the U.S. is 'slipping into a fascist system' dominated by government and businesses.

The Republican presidential candidate made the bold claim as he held a rally on Saturday - upstaging other nearby Republican Party banquets. The Texas congressman drew thousands to Kansas City's Union Station while the party's establishment dined on steak across the street at the Missouri GOP's annual conference.

Small town in New Hampshire gets new police 'tank' ~ link ~ The Federal Government is equipping local police departments with military gear at a frighting rate as fascism grows in what use to be the 'Land of the Free'.   Stirling       

Keene in New Hampshire is a quaint little town of just 23,000 and the scene of just two murders since 1999.  Yet, the town has just accepted a $285,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for an eight-ton armoured personnel vehicle.

Once dismissed as pretentious but now brain scans prove Eastern philosophies can be effective in treating mental illness ~ link ~  Yes, but Big Pharma cannot make any money on this...so don't expect to see your physician recommending them.   Stirling