Ukraine: While Middle East is falling apart US now storing heavy weapons and tanks in Eastern Europe

Some 200 years ago Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz said "War is a mere continuation of politics by other means."  It still holds truth today.

And...as we all know, politics are very much influenced by the corporate lobby and interest groups.

In the case of the US, the military industrial complex plays a major role in the political decision procress.

Even though the extravagant US military budget was cut according to The Wall Street Journal over the past four years from $721 billion, to "just" $560 billion -- It still provides a huge market for the Pentagon's new weapons systems, and a lot of revenue "up for grabs" by the defense contractors.

If you look, however, at the track record  of the US military, which was sent into war by the political establishment, the results, overall have been dismal.

Just this 21st century alone, the US, assisted by a "coalition of the willing" (some have called them willing  "lap dogs"), fought three wars, in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

What these wars had in common is that each time, the US and their "allies"  scored what they thought was a stunning victory -- they quickly also found out that victory was a brief mirage on the road to defeat.

Today's results of the disastrous US Middle East  policy, which goes way back in time, is really starting to "bear fruit",  specially when we watch the recent boatloads of Middle Eastern and North African refugees arriving on the shores of Europe.

When former US President George W. Bush announced in 2003, on the US aircraft carrier SS Abraham Lincoln, that the combat operations in Iraq were over, while he proudly stood under a  "Mission accomplished" banner, he could not have been more wrong, specially if we look at the aftermath of that war today.

As someone said at the time of the Bush victory announcement, "confidence is the feeling you have before you fully understand the situation."

And here we go again, as the US announced on Saturday, June 13, that it plans to store heavy military equipment in the Baltics and Eastern European nations to "reassure allies made uneasy by Russian intervention in Ukraine, and to deter further aggression", a senior U.S. official said.

Several questions arise? What is the EU Commission and Parliament saying about this. Are they just sitting back and letting the US steam-role them into another military escapade?

Isn't it time Europe starts to do some serious thinking about the fact that always blindly "following the leader" is maybe not the right way to go forward? Or, that the real issue at stake in Europe is the Ukraine crisis and the future of America’s role as Europe’s security guarantor.


EU-Digest

The Netherlands: Dutch economy fully recovers from financial crisis - by Janene Van Jaarsveldt

By the end of this year the Dutch gross domestic product is expected to top the real level seen in 2008 for the first time since the financial crisis. This is according to De Nederlandsche Bank’s latest half-yearly forecast, which was published on Monday.

According to the forecast, the Dutch economy will grow a projected 2 percent this year, the highest figure recorded since 2008. The bank expects that the Dutch economy will, on average, maintain this growth pace in 2016 and 2017, which means that the economic activity will develop more favorably than previously foreseen.

Exports remains the driving force behind the economic growth. The bank expects that the international environment will improve further, partly due to the depreciation of the euro, low level of oil prices and a pick-up in world trade growth.

Domestic spending will also contribute to economic growth – a development unseen since 2011. Private consumption will show a significant increase of 2 percent this year, for the first time since the credit crisis broke out. This can be attributed to a strong increase in real disposable income and improved sentiment.

Read more: Dutch economy fully recovers from financial crisis - NL Times

Turkey's elections: A Turkish Obama ? - Selahattin Demirtaş: thumbing his nose at political convention in Turkey

 Selahattin Demirtaş

When Selahattin Demirtaş shrugged off the formal traditions of Turkish political campaigning and went on a television talk show equipped with a saz, a Turkish folk guitar, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sensed an opportunity to land a blow.

The co-leader of the Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), sniffed the Turkish president, was a mere “pop star”. But, far from hurting Demirtaş, the remark merely served to highlight Erdoğan’s fear of the 42-year-old’s youthful, telegenic appeal and sense of humour.

His musical performance was just one of the ways in which Demirtaş – the man who has done more than anyone to thwart Erdoğan’s aspirations to build an all-powerful presidency – achieved electoral breakthrough by thumbing his nose at political convention.

In Sunday’s parliamentary elections, the HDP broadened beyond its Kurdish roots, to become a liberal umbrella group with particular appeal to women, gay men and lesbians, anxious about Erdoğan’s growing power and deepening conservatism.

In May, Demirtaş invited the television cameras into his home, where he made a leisurely Turkish breakfast for his wife, Başak, and their two daughters. “Breakfast is the only time we truly enjoy each other’s company,” he said. “After that everyone goes to either school or work.”

Read more: Selahattin Demirtaş: thumbing his nose at political convention in Turkey | World news | The Guardian

Turkey′s election system the ′most unfair′ in the world

With days to go until general elections, the fairness of Turkey's voting system has come under international scrutiny. When compared with other democracies, the Turkish voting system appears to be designed to leave underdogs in the lurch.

The British daily newspaper The Guardian reported that Turkey had "the world's most unfair election system." This was based on the fact that a 10 percent threshold kept smaller political movements from entering parliament - forfeiting dozens of seats to their rivals under the country's d'Hondt voting system, which allocates parliamentary seats proportionally according to vote totals.

The Guardian's primary criticism is that Turkey only allocates seats to parties that win at least 10 percent of the vote.

Though such a barrier is not exclusive to Turkey, 10 percent is the highest threshold of its kind. German politics employ a 5 percent threshold, and many other countries - the United Kingdom, France and Portugal among them - don't feature any such hurdle.

The Turkish voting system is also regarded as unjust for facilitating minority governments. Under certain circumstances, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) could manage to gain a majority of parliamentary seats with merely 45 percent of the popular vote, in which case the wishes of 55 percent of the electorate could effectively be ignored.

These guidelines could create an unpredictable outcome at Sunday's polls. While AKP has managed to grow support in its 13-year-reign, taking full advantage of the 10 percent threshold, the latest polls suggest that its luck may change. The Konda Research and Consultancy institute in Istanbul gave the party of President Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu only about 41 percent of the vote.

Read more: Turkey′s election system the ′most unfair′ in the world | News | DW.DE | 04.06.2015

Life Expectancy: Ubble: the online test to predict if you'll die within five years

If you are a middle-aged man and want to know if you are going to die in the next five years, you simply need to ask yourself how healthy you think you are.

Whether you would rate your health as excellent, good, fair or poor is a better predictor of death in the next five years for men aged 40 to 70 than physical measures including blood pressure and pulse rate, according to scientists writing in the Lancet medical journal. Other significant questions include how briskly you walk and how many cars you own.

The first major publication from scientists using data from the UK Biobank scores 655 different measures that can affect the chances of premature death. The researchers have used this to put together a short questionnaire. Just 13 questions for men and 11 for women will produce a percentage risk factor for death within five years.

While self-assessed health is the strongest risk factor for men, the strongest for women is any diagnosis of cancer, which is the biggest cause of women’s death in this age group. For people of both sexes who do not have any serious disease or disorder, smoking is the most significant factor.

The website, called Ubble (for UK Longevity Explorer), also tells people their “Ubble age”. If their Ubble age is lower than their real age, then their risk of early death is also low. If it is higher, say researchers, people might like to think about making possible improvements to their health such as stopping smoking and a better diet.

The website has been designed with the help of the charity Sense About Science.

The death rates in the 40-70 age group are low. Among the nearly 500,000 Biobank participants, 8,352 died over a five-year period – fewer than 2%. There are no questions about weight or body mass index because they will not impact mortality over a five-year period.

The researchers found that how many cars a household owned was a factor, however – because more cars indicated a more affluent family. Walking briskly was more obviously an indicator of better health.

he scientists, Professor Erik Ingelsson from Uppsala University and Dr Andrea Ganna from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, have also put their more detailed findings about the 655 significant measures on the website.

To do the test click here.

Read more: Ubble: the online test to predict if you'll die within five years | Science | The Guardian

US Police - US police officers kill more than two people a day

US police have reportedly shot and killed 385 people over the past five months, a rate of more than two per day, reports the Washington Post. The figure is much higher than typical federal counts.

The analysis is based on data the Washington Post newspaper is compiling on every fatal police shooting in 2015. The investigation also includes information about every officer killed by gunfire while on duty over the past five months.

“We are never going to reduce the number of police shootings if we don't begin to accurately track this information,” said Jim Bueermann, president of the Police Foundation, a not-for-profit organization committed to improving law enforcement.

Federal Bureau of Investigation records for the past decade show the occurrence of around 400 fatal police shootings per year, or an average of 1.1 deaths a day.

The death rate reported in the Washington Post newspaper on Saturday is more than twice that cited by the federal government over the past decade.

Read more: Report: US police officers kill more than two people a day | News | DW.DE | 31.05.2015

IS THE LOTTO RIGGED ? YES IT IS !

You may have heard that you are more likely to be hit on the head by a meteorite than to win the lottery. This is certainly so. 

Assuming that the game is honest, the odds are roughly one in several hundred million. Even with these odds, lottery commissions are not satisfied. The lottery is rigged.

The giant multi-state and individual state lotteries are more fixed than pro wrestling. The jackpots go up and up, with no winners.  People get lottery fever. Millions nationwide are willing to wait in a line just like the ones for bread in the former Soviet Union for the pipe dream of striking it rich.   

The rigging works like this: super computers keep track of each combination sold, and then the ping-pong balls are weighted to assure that a losing combination comes up. On rare occasions, all possible combinations are sold, and they must let someone win. Only then is the game honest.

Why? The lottery, which is a state-run version of the Mafia's numbers racket, is a great money grab scam, as long as it brings in more than it pays out. In the past, lotteries were abolished because they lost money. 

 

The worst part of this is whom it hurts. The poor and desperate are the most common victims of lottery fever.  Children go hungry and senior citizens go without their medication because of it. People prone to gambling addiction also blow huge sums.

We spoke with an employee at a state lottery agency. We can not reveal his name or even which state, as some of the same gangsters who ran the numbers racket now run the lottery, and they would kill him.

 

“Yes, I personally am involved in it. Lottery ping-pong balls have a small valve, like a basketball or soccer ball, only it’s very tiny, and nearly invisible. We use a hypodermic needle to inject heavier-than-air gasses such as radon into the balls we don’t want to come up. At first, we tried helium in the ones we did want to rise, but they jumped up so quickly that it was obvious. Lotteries are raking in much more than if the games were honest, and people don’t know they have literally no chance!”

“If you think about it logically, you certainly don’t play anyway. You are betting that you can predict which six of 45 or more balls are going to come out of the hopper. In some games, the order even matters! It’s a sucker’s bet, and that’s when it’s honest! Most drawings are rigged, making the odds zero in infinity! The lottery is not only a tax on people who don’t understand math; it is an unfair and unjust tax. Didn’t we have the American Revolution over taxes like that?”

You read it here first.

In other words - you can better throw your money in the fire than play the lottery and it is high time governments which allow or organize Lotto review these fraudulent  Lotto games.

Read more: THE LOTTERY IS RIGGED