Ilan Berman talked about his book, Implosion: The End of Russia and What It Means for America, in which he predicts the collapse of Russia due to internal social and demographic decline and external challenges from China. He talked about the impact that this will have on global stability. Mr. Berman spoke at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, DC In this speech last year he predicts Russia moving West to get land to make up somewhat for it's expected loss of Siberia by demographics. He predicts that in 10 years the PLA will cross the border without a shot fired into a %90 Han populated Siberia.
Video lecture at the link.
#1
Oh no... Its the Mongol Invasion of Russia and Genghis Khan redox II all over again... The role of Genghis will be played by Pudgy, plausible deniability and all, don't you know.
Helped by Putin's rationale for the Crimea anschluss. (of course it has nothing to do with principle, it's about power, but they all need something to cover for what little sense of guilt that may exist in their dark little hearts, oh, and for the apologists)
#4
Kinda sad and scary. For as long as I can remember, Russians have been the enemy. But I think I'd rather deal with Russians than some of the folks who are waiting in the wings to take their place. Russians, at least in their Soviet phase, understood the concept of MAD. Underneath the course, aggressive exterior they could be logical at times especially when we had presidents with the wisdom and guts to stand up to them. I'm not so sure about some of their neighbors.
#5
In related news. John Kerry and Barak. Obama said if this annexing of Crimea is allowed to stand by the international community then the Obama administration would consider annexing Texas.
#6
IMO an "imploded" Russia will be a toss-up between [Neo-Mongol?] Rising China + Nuclear Islam [Nuclear Islamism].
Not counting any OWG Co-Superpower Nuclear Iran, or even anti-Iran ME Sunni Nuclear States, both the Global Jihad/Caliphate-happy Hard Boyz as well as legit Muslim Govts will gain access to Russia's nuke arsenals + other.
We may see a mostly or wholly Islamic Nuclear Russia or States wid Arab characteristics, whilst in East Asia we may see n Islamic Asia wid Asian = Asian-Arab characteristcs.
[Lest we fergit, RISE OF THE "RED STAR TURBANS" here].
#2
Hardly far right. Nationalism/tribalism can tie itself to just about any aggressive political movement. Territorial imperative is natural in the species. It's the tools employed that determine whether its localized or international.
[Newsbusters] "The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country's 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day, according to a previously unreported federal analysis," the Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Smith reported on the front page of Thursday's paper. A set of "coordinated attacks in each of the nations' three separate electric systems could cause the entire power network to collapse," Smith noted, citing "people familiar with the [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] research."
More on this story at the link, including a nifty map.
#2
Appears, Texas, again, is on its own. Which in this case is probably a good idea. No mention of the pandering political philosophy of NIMBY which creates the situation.
#3
This crops up perioudicly. there's no way the US could be darkened, the power grids do NOT connect,(That's a common misconception, My grandson is a power lineman, And I WISH the lie wasn't repeated with such certainty.)
We have a series of INDEPENDANT power grids, NOT interconnected.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/18/2014 9:00 Comments ||
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#4
We have a series of INDEPENDANT power grids, NOT interconnected.
-- Your statement is not reassuring. I still remember the massive power failure in the Northeastern USA in August 2003, started by a too-tall tree a couple of miles from where I live. That alone was enough to cause major problems. "Darken US Power Grid" makes for a nice headline.
-- The significance of this news item does NOT depend on whether or not the grids "connect" or are "interconnected". The article SAYS they are "separate". Damaging a few key points nationwide would cause huge problems. Years ago an acquaintance working as an electrician at the time came up a control panel in a public garage in NE OH, unlocked, unlabeled and unsecured. An AT&T office building was next door to the garage. After he made inquiries he was told this particular panel controlled a key chunk of the grid in the NE USA, and not to mess with it. If it was so important, why was it so vulnerable? He does not know if anything was later done to secure this point. I have noticed that since the grid failure in 2003, utilities in the Great Lakes area (at least) have been much stricter about trimming tree branches near power lines, to the point of neighbors complaining that their yard's scenery is being damaged, with lawsuits being filed to prevent tree trimming near power lines.
-- The problem with even discussing this is that the vulnerabilities remain unless & until something is done about them.
#5
You lost juice, because a tree fell on the power line, This means they're interconnected?
The hell it does.
The very fact that power was out in a large area PROVES they're NOT interconnected, the Whole Nation would go dark if they were.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
03/18/2014 9:35 Comments ||
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#6
the Whole Nation would go dark ummm, I believe the nation has already gone dark with the election and reelection of the Champ (I'm not referring to race). Just think of the TRILLIONS of dollars spent/eased on nothing, could have put the money to work on serious problems like this, and insured a brighter future for generations to come.... Ask yourself are you better off now or have we missed opportunities to correct a number of nagging problems in America...Just saying.
#7
A couple of years back a power plant worker in Arizona flipped the wrong switch and a big part of southern California went dark. Well, that's what we get for relying on Arizona for our power. That's your NIMBYISM at work and we southern Californians are notorious NIMBYs. After all, that's what places like Arizona are for. But I don't mind. If we lose juice the computers won't work so I get a day off.
#8
@Ebbang - Something with the given narrative regarding the SW Blackout 2011 doesn't pan out.
The San Onofre nuclear power plant is btwn LA and SD, yet both cites were dark. I'm not an electrical engineer, but I figure a flipped switch in AZ wouldn't affect the energy output of San Onofre.
#9
This means they're interconnected? The hell it does.
That's not what I wrote, and once again, your point of "connected" is at best tangential to the point of the article & my first post. The article itself says "separate electric systems".
I NEVER lost power in August 2003. My city is connected to a different part of Ohio, and in 8/03 was an island of light in a sea of darkness.
In 8/03 the tree did not fall on the power line. The line got hot, sagged, hit the tree down below & failed, which triggered the 2003 blackout. Had the trees been properly cut back, it might not have happened. With 20/20 hindsight, this lack of tree trimming was an accident waiting to happen.
"Coast-to-coast blackout" is a phrase designed to catch attention. Two or more regional blackouts would be more than enough to cause severe economic damage. The enemy prides itself on coordinated attacks, especially in places few consider important. You have said many times on the Burg that you don't consider this issue important.
#11
The Florida Keys still have an elderly generator they keep in tip top shape in case the Florida inter-tie is cut --- and it's happened. Everyone complied with the drastic use cut back and made it work. A few light bulbs, refrigerator, fan or TVeee.
#12
I came home and after going inside I flipped a wall switch. Nothing happened. So I flipped it on and off a bunch of times. A week later I got a postcard from a lady in Germany, saying, "Knock it off!"
/paraphrasing Steven Wright
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/18/2014 22:06 Comments ||
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[DAWN] WITH 14 individuals on death row, 19 others serving life sentences and countless others awaiting sentences for blasphemy, "Pakistain's blasphemy law is used at a level incomparable to others". This is the most recent indictment against the country and the deeply problematic Section 295-C of the Pakistain Penal Code. It comes from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in its report Prisoners of Belief: Individuals Jailed under Blasphemy Laws that was released in Washington on Thursday. Whether the country is actually the worst in the world may be somewhat difficult to judge, given that the closed nature of countries such as Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... or Iran -- for whom strong criticism is also reserved in the report -- can mean that information is obfuscated or kept under wraps. Nevertheless, it is difficult to argue that the misinterpretation of the law is not common in Pakistain -- and that this needs to change.
As has been argued in this space before, the so-called blasphemy law as it currently exists on Pakistain's law books is open to misuse. There is more than enough evidence of this, from it being used as a tool to settle personal rivalries to being invoked to create panic in communities so that people with malicious intentions may seize their land or properties. There have been horrifying cases where, even before the law enforcers got involved or at times despite their intervention, suspicions of blasphemy have led to lynch mobs and violence, as seen in Larkana on Saturday. One incident that comes immediately to mind is that involving Junaid Ahmed in 2011, a Chakwal seminary student whose actions were misunderstood by a passer-by and who was severely beaten by the angry mob that tends to gather whenever such an allegation is made, before being tossed in the calaboose Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! . In point of technicality, the law serves to protect all religions, but is actually invoked only by the majority, not just against non-Mohammedans but against Mohammedans too. The fact of the matter is that the existence of this law in its open-to-abuse form lends legitimacy to the actions of those who would take the law into their own hands. It is time for parliament to examine Section 295-C, and take whatever steps are necessary to stop its misuse.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] PAKISTAN'S doublespeak on security policies is notorious throughout the world. Last week, the government extended its practice of saying one thing while doing another into the realm of social issues.
Addressing the 58th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York, the federal law secretary reiterated Pakistain's commitment to empower women and observe international laws pertaining to women's rights. Meanwhile, ...back at the dirigible, Jack stuck the cigar in his mouth, stepped onto the gantry, and asked Got a light, Mac?
Von Schtinken stopped short, lowering the dagger and trying to control his features. If you light that thing, Herr Armschtröng, he pointed out, his voice tense, we all die!... back home, the state passively oversaw the regression of women's rights.
The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) pronounced laws prohibiting child marriage to be un-Islamic, and called for changes to marriage laws that require men to seek their wives' consent before taking on a new bride.
A girl fatally set herself on fire after the release on bail of men accused of gang raping her. Nurses protesting in front of the Punjab Assembly for improved job security were baton-charged by the police.
A national sporting hero received limited condemnation for voicing archaic views about women's place in society (though social media buzz forced him to clarify his comments).
Civil society organizations have asked whether the timing of the CII's declaration on child marriage, and the Sharifs' silence on the matter, are part of a sinister plot to appease the Pak Taliban ahead of negotiations.
More likely, the government is able to engage with the TTP because so many of their barbaric views, including those about the role of women in society, are widely held.
No one needs reminding of the appalling status of women in this country. Even Pakistain's grand claim to have achieved one of the highest ratios of women parliamentarians in South Asia is half-baked -- there is no female representation in the Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... cabinet, and only two women are included as junior ministers in the federal cabinet.
This situation persists even though the status of women is a good indication of the country's overall trajectory. So what can be done about the regressive approaches to women's rights?
Slights to women such as those that made headlines last week do provoke histrionics amongst women's rights activists, and we are reminded that Pakistain is a nation of Benazirs and Malalas.
Since the fading of the organised women's movement in the 1980s, emancipated Pak women have increasingly relied on the following narrative to demand rights: don't mistreat us, some of us are amazing.
No doubt, there are exceptional Pak women. But these exceptions do not need more championing (even though they are attacked and labelled Western stooges and blasphemers).
The problem with exceptions is that they are easily written off by those who have the power to improve the lot of women: politicians, law-enforcing agencies, members of the judiciary, holy mans, feudal lords, journalists.
How does one convince these people that sidelining and suppressing women is in no one's interest, not even their own?
There's a strong economic argument to be made for empowering women. When women's labour force participation increases, economic productivity soars.
When women own land, agricultural productivity increases and children eat healthier. When women are educated, child malnourishment and infant mortality rates decline, leading to a stronger next-generation labour force.
Any country that empowers its women inevitably sees economic growth for several generations.
Politicians should also be threatened by the idea that an anti-woman stance could soon render them unelectable. Women cast 40pc of the votes in the last general elections.
Pakistain is also currently undergoing a transformation as its middle-class booms and rapid urbanisation makes rural values redundant. Women in cities have to be able to move freely and contribute to households that can't possibly survive on single incomes.
Today's new middle classes may have some conservative hangovers where women are concerned but will soon face up to realities and seek genuine government investment in women's literacy, health and mobility (even if they do it in segregated spaces, with headscarves on).
Pakistain's snivelling at the UN about how deeply it cares for women's rights suggests that international perceptions still matter to our placid politicians. For too long, Pakistain has gotten away with being able to claim the first female prime minister in the Mohammedan world.
The experiences of Malala Yousafzai, Mukhtaran Mai and others have received much international attention and will be highlighted in Pakistain's record when the world tries to paint us as a pariah state.
To maintain any standing in the international community, Pakistain cannot allow for regression in women's rights.
One wishes the universally held principle of respecting women's rights were enough to motivate pro-women state action. But in a country where everything is for sale, perhaps these cynical, bottom-line arguments will prove more persuasive.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2014 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] THE chairman of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), Muhammad Khan Sheerani, has stated that prohibition of child marriage under the Mohammedan Family Law Ordinance is un-Islamic. He argued that the requirement to seek permission of the first wife before taking on a second (or third or fourth) is also un-Islamic.
A few months back he declared that evidence generated by forensic DNA testing can't be treated as primary evidence in rape cases. Given his proclivity for regression in all forms, it would be unjust to conclude that the CII chairman is merely a proponent of gender inequality.
The crisis of religious thought in Pakistain is epitomised by the likes of Muhammad Sheerani. The divide here is not just between those who advocate absolute conservation of tradition and those who advocate progressive change, or between those who have a minimalistic approach to religion and those who wish the state to enforce a maximalist version, or between proponents of rigid construction of religious text as opposed to contextual construction.
The real problem is the ascent of coercionists who claim a monopoly over the understanding of religious texts, and leave no political and social space for reasonable people to debate and disagree over matters of faith.
The debate around religion in Pakistain has been hijacked by a bigoted mullah brigade for whom discovering, debating and promoting the truth is not the object.
The goal is to perpetuate invidious traditions and cultural practices no matter how cruel, and block any move towards striking the right balance between conservation and change.
Fazal ur Rehman (the Islamic scholar) argued in Islam and Modernity: Transformation of an Intellectual Tradition that the real challenge is to understand the context of revealed scripture and how principles laid down in Koran and Sunnah are to be interpreted and applied today.
Is text to be applied, as it was understood at the time of revelation, or are principles to be derived from it and applied in view of current socio-political and economic realities? This sums up the debate between rigid and progressive constructionists.
Pakistain's rigid constructionists simply refuse to acknowledge that human beings are involved in the process of interpretation as if texts speak directly, explain their meaning and advise all and sundry on how the principles laid out in the Koran and Sunnah are to be applied in a changing world.
This refusal is accompanied by the mullah brigade's claim that its understanding of the meaning of the Koran and Sunnah is in itself Divine Truth. You ask them about the challenge of interpretation and they'll tell you that the question itself is a conspiracy against Sharia enforcement.
What's the logic of CII's latest pronouncements? It believes there is anecdotal evidence that women during early years of Islam were married off before reaching the age of majority.
Thus prohibiting marriage of minors is un-Islamic. By the same logic there's irrefutable evidence that slavery existed during Islam's early years and keeping slaves has also not been explicitly prohibited. Should Article 11 of our Constitution forbidding slavery then be declared un-Islamic for being ultra vires of the Sharia?
Are the CII's claims the product of rigorous study of Islamic theology or that of a misogynist cultural tradition entrenched in the name of religion? The CII's opinion regarding polygamy and child marriage reveals its decadent worldview.
The reason why minors shouldn't be getting married is because humans lack agency and autonomy before they become adults and neither know right from wrong nor can be held to account for their actions.
If the guardians of a young girl can contract her out in marriage regardless of her age and hand over her possession later when she is old enough to endure sex, are we saying that women are nothing more than chattel and marriage a delayed delivery contract?
More worrisome is the design fault in the CII's conception. Given the level of intolerance our society has already surpassed, it's now evident that the CII can only be an instrument of further radicalisation, not the harbinger of progressive change. Do its decisions find acceptability within the religious right unless they pander to the extreme right and endorse savage cultural traditions in the name of religion?
Under Prof Khalid Masud, the CII supported the Protection of Women (Criminal Laws) Amendment Act, 2006, to guard against the abuse of Hudood Laws. The rabid mullah brigade rose up in arms against the CII.
A few years later, the CII proposed amendments in the nikah form to protect women against harassment and abuse they are subjected to while seeking khula. The mullah brigade was livid again and blocked the reform.
Any talk of reforming the blasphemy laws to prevent against their abuse is now seen as blasphemy itself. When Javed Ghamidi spoke up in the wake of Salmaan Taseer's murder he attracted a kaboom and had to flee Pakistain along with his family.
The Oxford-educated Fazal ur Rehman who returned to Pakistain in 1961 to head the Central Institute for Islamic Research also had to settle down in reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... University to be able to freely research Islam and write about it.
Whether it is Israrullah Zehri justifying the killing or burying of women alive in the name of honour and tradition or Muhammad Sheerani propagating child marriage in the name of religion, we must understand that bigots are cut out of the same cloth. And so long as they keep doing well in this country, progressive change won't.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/18/2014 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DAWN] WITH 14 individuals on death row, 19 others serving life sentences and countless others awaiting sentences for blasphemy, "Pakistain's blasphemy law is used at a level incomparable to others". This is the most recent indictment against the country and the deeply problematic Section 295-C of the Pakistain Penal Code. It comes from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in its report Prisoners of Belief: Individuals Jailed under Blasphemy Laws that was released in Washington on Thursday. Whether the country is actually the worst in the world may be somewhat difficult to judge, given that the closed nature of countries such as 
