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Today: 69 articles and 143 comments as of 14:21.
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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Ninevah Nightmares: 235 die
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 6: Politix
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
It's Hard to Tell War Heroes From Paper-Pushers
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/28/2016 12:52 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Some things can only be taught through experience.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 04/28/2016 13:05 Comments || Top||

#2  No. It's pretty easy. The only possible way to muck it up is to follow their press...
Posted by: Iblis || 04/28/2016 14:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Sigh ... yes, it does make uniforms look over-embellished, but what the whole matter of the ribbon rack means is that it is a coded personal resume. Know the code, read the resume at a glance. Certain ribbons are more significant than others, other certain ribbons mean 'been there, done that.'
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 04/28/2016 15:22 Comments || Top||

#4  The Navy has the option of wearing only one row of the three most senior ribbons for 'regular use'. However, official photos require all awards.
Posted by: Pappy || 04/28/2016 17:53 Comments || Top||

#5  The Sukhomlinov Effect is appearing.
Posted by: Canuckistan sniper || 04/28/2016 18:41 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Lawsuit In China Could Be A Tripwire To Watch
[Daily Caller] Most Americans are listening closely to what Donald Trump has to say. Like him or not, he's got their attention.

One issue he constantly addresses that few would argue about is our relationship with China. I've personally characterized it for years in the simplest of terms. "We give them money. They give us stuff." It’s of course more complex than that, but as Mr. Trump notes, they always seem to have the upper hand.

Now there is word that one of the many companies owned by the Chinese government, the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), is being taken to court over monies owed to a privately owned company with a large number of Western investors. That company, Primeline, is owed approximately $57.5 million after CNOOC failed to meet certain well-defined contractual obligations.

Besides monies owed Primeline, an article in a Hong Kong newspaper now states that CNOOC runs the risk of defaulting on loans from a number of lenders. A Chinese government owned company defaulting on loans? There’s something Mr. Trump could sink his teeth into. A harbinger of things to come? One hopes not.
The author is a former Marine and intelligence officer.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/28/2016 09:21 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Economy
Ireland treads the path from austerity to prosperity
[Wash Times] DUBLIN -- They called it the Celtic Tiger, a period of prosperity between 1995 and 2008, during which everything in Ireland appeared to come up shamrocks.

According to Wikipedia, between 1995 and 2000, the long-dormant Irish economy took off, expanding by a startling 9.4 percent. There was a building boom; roads were widened to accommodate more traffic; newly confident people started buying things they had long denied themselves, including bigger and nicer houses, which, it turns out, many could not afford.

Even after 2000 when the Irish economy continued to grow at an average rate of 5.9 percent, still well above the American average, confidence in the economy remained high. By 2008, a dramatic reversal had occurred with gross domestic product contracting by 14 percent. Unemployment levels rose to 14 percent by 2011 and 15 percent the following year.

The reasons are familiar to Americans. Mostly it was a property bubble. Banks approved loans for people who could not handle big mortgages, which led to a recession, not unlike the one experienced in the United States.

As a much smaller country, Ireland’s comeback has progressed faster than in America, where real unemployment is much higher than last month’s misleading Labor Department announcement of 5.0 percent.
Being smaller isn't the only reason...
The Irish economy has experienced a dramatic reversal under the leadership of Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who is struggling to form a new government after two elections denied his party a parliamentary majority from a less than thankful public that has tasted prosperity and wants more of it now. Sound familiar?

Emerging from a joint European Union-International Monetary Fund bailout program, Ireland’s growth rate stood at a respectable 4.8 percent in 2014, declining slightly to 3.5 percent last year, but still better than any EU country.

While much credit belongs to the political leadership that has bitten the bullet and imposed austerity on government spending programs, causing howls from the left, and to the resilient Irish people who are experienced when it comes to suffering, foreign investment has also played a major role. Much of that investment has been driven by the anti-business tax policies imposed on corporations by the U.S. government, prompting many U.S. businesses to seek tax relief overseas.
And there you go...
According to a report last year in The Guardian newspaper, 700 U.S. companies now do business in Ireland. This has meant $277 billion of U.S. direct foreign investment in the past two decades. Ireland has gained more from American firms than Brazil, Russia, India and China combined, says the newspaper.
Something to be learnt here possibly.
Posted by: Besoeker || 04/28/2016 04:50 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Smaller government and less interference and taxing businesses means booming economy, job and income growth?

Where have I heard that before? It used to be the GOP. And part of the GOP still believes in this.

The problem is most of the leadership fell in love with the power big government gives them and the ability to restrict the economy in favor of cronies with taxes and tailored loopholes. Donald Trump believes such things as well based on his history and his touting of government healthcare, expanded government power, and tax increases. Not too different from Shrillary when you get down to it.

Its a matter of degree between the Beltway Dems and The Beltway Repubs these days, with a few exceptions.
Posted by: Andy Elmoting7772 || 04/28/2016 7:22 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Is Hillary really the super-hawk she's said to be?
Posted by: ryuge || 04/28/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  only against non-leftist americans.
Posted by: Nguard || 04/28/2016 0:41 Comments || Top||

#2  She is in bad health and is the equivalent of Thad Cochran: a puppet for the people holding her strings.
Posted by: Josing Crater5513 || 04/28/2016 7:34 Comments || Top||

#3  neither Trump nor Cruz have demonstrated anywhere near the appetite for military engagement abroad that Clinton has," Landler writes.

Supposing that to be true, might there be a correlation with her obvious disdain for the military? The military is just one of her tools to project her enormous power. Not really people to worry about, let alone appreciate.
Posted by: Bobby || 04/28/2016 8:11 Comments || Top||

#4  She's not a hawk at all, or her base wouldn't vote for her, and she does know that!
Posted by: Bobby || 04/28/2016 10:01 Comments || Top||

#5  Sure she is. I remember her walking tall through sniper fire in Bosnia. Like Robert Duvall in apocalypse now. She is such a hawk and fearless patriot. If this was only April 1st.
Posted by: 49 pan || 04/28/2016 10:46 Comments || Top||

#6  I recall a recent article in which someone quoted a Secret Service agent who was so aghast at the real hildabeest he shared an anecdote I find uttered credible, given all I have seen of her in the past 30 years. It was some thing to the effect that while on tour for the 08 Presidential run, the motorcade stopped at a rural school that was holding a 4h/FFA event for the local families.
When they first got out of the car, she is alledged to have said: "What are we doing here, there's no fucking money here!" I resonated with me that this is exactly what she actually is, venal and corrupt to the core...
Posted by: NoMoreBS || 04/28/2016 14:49 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
The cloudy future of Israel's nuclear reactor
This is indeed a pickle for Israel. No western power will sell Israel a reactor given the NNPT. Russia might but it would come at a heavy price, far higher than the declared dollar value. Russia would have a strong veto over whatever Israel might then do in its foreign policy. And the 'strategic ambiguity' policy disappears the moment Israel signs the NNPT.
The moment of truth for Israel's nuclear policy is nearing. Haim Levinson's publication yesterday in Ha'aretz regarding the defects in the core of the nuclear reactor in Dimona only emphasizes this fact.

Such reactors are normally taken out of service after 40 years or so. Ultrasound examinations found 1537 flaws in the metal core in Dimona, scientist from the facility reported earlier this month, Levinson wrote in Ha'aretz.

These are not defects that can develop to the level of large cracks, that would at this stage cause nuclear radiation emission from the reactor and endanger the surrounding population and environment.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White || 04/28/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I am sure, like the LAVI, China would help them in exchange for US classified tech.
Posted by: 3dc || 04/28/2016 7:12 Comments || Top||

#2  I don't see a reason why Israel would need the US, Russia, or China to make a new reactor. If North Korea can do it, Israel should be able to do it.
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain || 04/28/2016 11:37 Comments || Top||

#3  China might just be interested in commercialization of their fusion tech.
Posted by: Skidmark || 04/28/2016 14:35 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
38[untagged]
10Islamic State
3Commies
2Govt of Pakistan
2Taliban
1Arab Spring
1Fatah
1Govt of Iran
1Govt of Iraq
1Govt of Pakistain Proxies
1Govt of Saudi Arabia
1Govt of Syria
1Salafists
1Sublime Porte
1Thai Insurgency
1Abu Sayyaf
1al-Qaeda in Arabia
1al-Shabaab
1Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (IS)

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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2016-04-28
  Ninevah Nightmares: 235 die
Wed 2016-04-27
  Turkish artillery shells missile launchers, kills 11 ISIL militants
Tue 2016-04-26
  Islamist militants behead Canadian man in Philippines
Mon 2016-04-25
  Top Taliban leader killed in a special military operation in north of Afghanistan
Sun 2016-04-24
  Islamist militants suspected in slaying of professor in Bangladesh
Sat 2016-04-23
  Mali arrests suspected criminal mastermind of hotel terror attack
Fri 2016-04-22
  U.S. Ups Pressure on IS with first B-52 Bomber Strike
Thu 2016-04-21
  Taliban military commission chief killed in Afghan intelligence operatives raid
Wed 2016-04-20
  Chotoo gang surrenders to Army, releases hostages
Tue 2016-04-19
  Hundreds wounded in Kabul suicide attack
Mon 2016-04-18
  Ivory Coast Attacks 'Number Two' Arrested in Mali
Sun 2016-04-17
  Dozens of Hezbollah militants 'accidentally' killed in chemical attack
Sat 2016-04-16
  UK police arrest 5 in terror probe
Fri 2016-04-15
  Sharia police preacher faces terrorism charges
Thu 2016-04-14
  SSS announces arrest of another ‘top Boko Haram terrorist’

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