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Iran pursues building of major new trade route with Iraq, Syria and Lebanon reaching to Mediterranean Sea


Sputnik
Mon, 09 Apr 2018 02:56 UTC
Iran
© Sputnik/ Dmitriy Vinogradov
The ambitious project will reportedly connect Iran with three other Middle Eastern countries and is expected to serve as Tehran's main transit route for exports.

Iran plans to build a highway connecting Tehran with cities in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and provide the country with access to the Mediterranean Sea, Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper reported.

According to the media outlet, Iranian authorities have already signed bilateral agreements on the construction of a 1,700 km long land route with authorities in Baghdad and Damascus.
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Arrow Down

American celebrity scandals: If adults won't grow up, nobody will

Peggy Noonan
The Wall Street Journal
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
From Facebook to Harvey Weinstein, America's scandals amount to a giant crisis of maturity.
Mark Zuckerberg in Roman bust
© Chad Crowe
I want to write about something I think is a problem in our society, that is in fact at the heart of many of our recent scandals, and yet is obscure enough that it doesn't have a name. It has to do with forgetting who you are. It has to do with refusing to be fully adult and neglecting to take on, each day, the maturity, grace and self-discipline that are expected of adults and part of their job. That job is to pattern adulthood for those coming up, who are looking, always, for How To Do It-how to be a fully formed man, a fully grown woman.

It has to do with not being able to fully reckon with your size, not because it is small but because it is big. I see more people trembling under the weight of who they are.

Comment: Neither Weinstein nor Zuckerberg are honest enough to be examples to follow. Decades of MSM propaganda funded by the war-mongering financial elite, left-leaning educational system, instant gratification of social media technologies created an infantile and dumb society that is not prepared for the realities of the life. See also:


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Hiliter

John Helmer writes letter to Salisbury Hospital regarding Yulia Skripal

John Helmer
Dances with Bears
Sun, 08 Apr 2018 20:34 UTC
Salisbury Hospital
Salisbury Hospital becomes secret rendition center for Yulia Skripal

Salisbury Hospital's chief administrator and chief doctor refuse to say they are holding consent forms signed by Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal. Without those forms, and proof the hospital has obtained them from the Skripals since they regained consciousness last week, the hospital is making claims about their privacy which are improper, according to the practice rules of the British National Health Service, and unlawful violations of their human rights, according to British and European law.

Late on April 4, Cara Charles-Barks, the Salisbury Hospital chief executive, said by email: "Due to patient confidentiality, the [Salisbury Hospital] Trust is not able to enter into further correspondence about the clinical care of patients." This was her reply to the request that she confirm her hospital's standard practice for communication between patients and their next of kin; and the particular next-of-kin arrangements which the Skripals have agreed with Salisbury Hospital. For details of that story, read this.
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Bad Guys

Islamist group Jaysh al-Islam admits using banned weapons against Kurds in Aleppo


RT
Sat, 07 Apr 2018 21:45 UTC
Jaysh al-Islam
Jaysh al-Islam
The Jaysh al-Islam militant group fighting government forces in Syria has admitted to using "forbidden" weapons against Kurdish militia in Aleppo. The group's statement comes after reports of chemical gas being used in shelling Aleppo's Sheikh Maqsood district.

The hardline Islamist group did not not specify what substances were used, but claimed that it will punish those responsible.

The group's statement reads: "During the clashes one of the Jaysh al-Islam brigade leaders used [weapons] forbidden in this kind of confrontations."

The group claims that the brigade commander in question was summoned to a military court, where it was decided he is to be held accountable. "This situation is contrary to the charter of Jaysh al-Islam," says the group.

Aleppo's Sheikh Maqsood neighborhood was shelled with mortars containing chemical agents earlier on Thursday.

Comment: See: Also check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Perfidious Albion: If Russia is a Rogue State, What is the UK?

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Eye 1

"Bureaucratic tricks": Niece of Yulia Skripal refused visa, recent phone call with her was strange


RT
Sun, 08 Apr 2018 01:52 UTC
Viktoria Skripal, niece of poisoned former double agent Sergei Skripal
© Tatyana Makeyeva / ReutersViktoria Skripal, niece of poisoned former double agent Sergei Skripal
Sergei Skripal's niece has written a letter to Theresa May after the UK abruptly denied her an entry visa to visit relatives, who are recovering from alleged poisoning by a military grade nerve agent, Victoria Skripal told Ruptly.

Shocked by the British authorities' refusal to grant her a visa to visit relatives recovering from the March 4 attack in Salisbury, Viktoria Skripal told RT's Ruptly video agency that she is planning to plead the case to the British Prime minister - especially after she was forced to tell Skiripal's 90-year-old mother about the poisoning in order to get the needed paperwork.

"The main thing I want now is to see them in person in order to personally tell our grandmother about the state of health of her son and granddaughter. But my visa was denied," Viktoria said, quoting the text of the letter she plans to send to PM May.

Comment: See Also: Also check out SOTT radios: Behind the Headlines: Perfidious Albion: If Russia is a Rogue State, What is the UK?

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Heart - Black

City of Detroit to resume brutal policy of mass water shutoffs

Debra Watson
World Socialist Web Site
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 17:54 UTC
detroit water shut off
© Rebecca Cook/ReutersProtesters demonstrate against water shut-offs in Detroit in July 2014.
More than 17,000 Detroit households face having their water turned off as the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) resumes mass water service shutoffs to city homes this month. Since the Detroit municipal bankruptcy devastated city workers' pensions and jobs in 2014, the DWSD has issued water shutoff notices to over 100,000 residences.

Between 2014 and 2017 Detroit saw more than one in seven of its 677,000 residents lose access to running water.

Because cold weather prohibits the smooth and cost-effective execution of water shutoffs, the annual culling waits for the spring thaw. Homrich Wrecking, a private contractor hired by the city to turn off water at the street, or rip out water connections when warranted, has just had their contract extended by the Detroit City Council to 2021, an indication that no one among the city's officialdom expects this annual horror to end any time soon.

Comment:

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Megaphone

Nine major studies reveal US anti-drugs program DARE may actually make problem worse

John Vibes
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 04 Apr 2018 12:00 UTC
Nine Major Studies Reveal DARE Program Actually Makes Drug Problem WORSE
© The Free Thought ProjectDARE has been around for decades, despite the fact that every single study done on the program has shown that it was ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst.
In the mid-1980s when the crack epidemic was in full swing, there were a number of public programs and policies put into place that promised to curb drug trafficking and thus addiction. Many of these policies centered around a mentality of abstinence and zero tolerance, such as mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, as well as "educational" programs like "Just Say No" or "DARE."

Nearly 40 years later, it is clear that the establishment's "War on Drugs" has done nothing to prevent drug addiction, and has instead created a long list of other problems, like violent criminal black markets where tainted drugs are the norm. The generation that grew up on DARE and Just Say No is now experiencing an unprecedented rate of heroin addiction with an overwhelming number of overdoses.

If the evidence in front of your eyes is not enough to convince you, consider the fact that every single study done on the infamous DARE program showed that it was ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst. As a result, the organization has seen their revenue dwindle over the years, falling from $10 million in 2002 to $3.7 million in 2010.

Comment: The world is turning away from the catastrophic failure that is the 'war on drugs', which was forced on them by the United States (who at the same actors with the US facilitated and profited from the drugs trade) because, looking at the state of drug use in the US, evidently the policy never has or will work:

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Light Sabers

4 years ago, hundreds of protesters proved that armed Americans can take a stand against the US Gov't—and win

Rachel Blevins
The Free Thought Project
Sun, 08 Apr 2018 00:00 UTC
Armed protesters
In April 2014, hundreds of armed protesters gathered at the Bundy Ranch in Nevada to take a stand against the federal government.

While there are a number of arguments that are used by gun control advocates, one of the most common is that individuals do not need high-powered firearms because they will not stand a chance in a war against the federal government. However, four years ago, a group of armed men and women did come together to form a militia, as referenced in the Second Amendment, and they successfully stood up to the government agencies that were infringing upon their rights.

On April 5, 2014, an ongoing land dispute between cattle rancher Cliven Bundy and the United States Bureau of Land Management hit its peak when the agency and federal law enforcement began seizing cattle owned by Bundy that they claimed were trespassing on "federally-owned" land.

The dispute first began in 1993 when Bundy refused to pay for a cattle grazing permit to use the land near his ranch in Clark County, Nevada, after the BLM claimed that he must reduce the side of his herd to 150 and that the size of land where his cattle were allowed to graze would be severely restricted. Bundy argued that the federal government does not have the authority to own large amounts of land, which launched a legal battle that continued for the next two decades.

Comment: See also: Judge dismisses all charges against Bundy family, bars retrial

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Star of David

Slight shocker: NYT stops being stenographer for Israel for a day

James North
Mondoweiss
Sun, 08 Apr 2018 19:19 UTC
Yousef Munayyer
Yousef Munayyer
Maybe all the criticism of the New York Times's coverage of Israel's massacres in Gaza is having an impact. Today's news analysis, by David Halbfinger, is strikingly more balanced than the paper's previous reports. The article gives four paragraphs to Yousef Munayyer, who directs the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, who points out, accurately, that:
This is not a battle that protesters are coming to with guns. They're coming to it with their bodies and they're confronting very real policies of violent repression. The protesters paid with their lives to get people to question whether these policies are justifiable.
In this article, the Times also stopped being the stenographer for the Israeli army. It notes that of the 20 Gazans killed by Israeli soldiers on March 30, the first day of the protests, "Videos showed that some were shot as they had their backs turned to the fence."

Halbfinger also counters the Israeli contention that the Gazan demonstrators plan to invade en masse. He noted that this past Friday, April 6, although ". . . many protesters threw stones or rolled burning tires toward the fence, far more could be seen doing little more than standing around - chanting, singing and shouting."

The analysis does quote a retired Israeli general warning darkly that the barrier fence is "not as strong and robust as people might think." But then Halbfinger immediately adds his own rejoinder: Israel's soldiers are still "aiming rifles at unarmed people."
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Windsock

Regarding the news, America is in a state of 'pure polarization' says physicist

Rob Wile
Miami Herald
Tue, 03 Apr 2018 05:19 UTC
UCurve Polarization
© Unknown/KJN
Americans are consuming more news than ever - and it's driving us further and further apart. That's according to a new paper from Neil Johnson, a physicist who now runs the University of Miami's Complexity interdisciplinary group, which is examining collective behavior in a number of fields.

Johnson and his team have found that when it comes to digesting news of any kind, Americans now exist in a state of pure polarization: the size of the extremes of the left and right are now so large that they outnumber those in the middle ground.


Comment: Pure polarization would mean there is no middle ground.


As a physicist, Johnson is used to seeing populations sorting into bell curves - think of heights and weights, he says. So one might expect that people would naturally sort into this normal distribution when it comes to ideology. Not so. It doesn't even matter whether news is real or fake, let alone left or right: The mere act of absorbing news that everyone else is seeing causes a polarizing effect.
"Even on issues for which there is no conceivable counter-evidence, a surprisingly large number of people may [take] an 'anti-crowd' viewpoint, e.g. the many people who believe the world is flat and attended the 2017 Flat Earth International Conference," Johnson and his team write. "Even within the community of professional scientists, there is a non-zero 'anti-crowd' that are skeptical about global warming."

Comment: "[If] our first connection is through information, that's the tie that's got to be broken." Precisely MSM's agenda. Polarization is step one for MSM biased news. Step two: eliminate alternate news. Step three: MSM 'news' becomes the new truth. This is the concept that should be explored, not the bogus ideas above.

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