– Saudi Arabia: because that sack of shit can’t survive much longer, Al Akhbar had a useful backgrounder on Saudi succession once King “Jabba The Hut” Abdullah finally kicks it. Bottom line, once he dies, expect more court intrigue and competing interests than a season of Game of Thrones (and possibly revolutions, or Wahhabi terrorism).
– Sabahionline looks like a new slick news website for Africa. Covering news in English, Arabic, Soomaali and Kiswalli. Of course if you go down to the bottom of the page and click the “About Us” tab you will find that it is run by the United State Africa Command. Jason Straziuso has a piece looking at the US Africa Command’s journalism gig.
– Looks like Tel Aviv has been hit by rockets despite previous Israeli denials. Indicates a greater range than the 2008 Gaza war.

Tel Aviv residents say they heard an explosion following an air-raid alert across the city, raising fears of a Gaza rocket strike on Israel’s commercial capital, the Associated Press reported.
A strike on Tel Aviv would be the first time Gaza rocket squads have reached the city and that would mark a significant escalation.

By the way the air raid sirens in Tel Aviv sounded for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War. Hamas have the the Iranian-made Fajer-5 missiles to thank for that.
– Still haven’t heard any word from Erdogan. He seems to have gone silent suddenly.

Posted by: Colm O’ Toole | Nov 15 2012 18:06 utc | 4

The complexity of Ludwig’s 5th is in a class of its own.
Anat, however, is a dab hand at precision + Passion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4Ii-RZDj2c

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 15 2012 19:00 utc | 6

b’s visualisation system, or one very similar, can be applied to any piece of music, according to something I stumbled upon on Y/T a couple of months ago – in a Vimeo if memory serves. If I can find it again I’ll construct a visualisation of this (Widor’s Toccata).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtj300j129k
Should be quite spectacular…

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 15 2012 20:23 utc | 8

wrt Iron Dome: all anti-missile systems must face the iron Law of Snowballs, ie, it will always be simpler, cheaper and more efficient to make more snowballs than to make machines that knock snowballs from the air.

Posted by: yes_but | Nov 15 2012 23:21 utc | 10

a tale of 4 cities
*I am ready to die to stop the construction,” says Kinjyo Yuji (deceised in 2007), the representative. “I have been living with this sea for over 90 years. When the War (the battle of Okinawa) was over, there was nothing left to eat except the gifts of this sea. Thanks to this rich sea, I could feed and take care of my children. If you insist on building the base, kill me before you do so,” says Shimabukuro Yoshi 92, the oldest member of the group.
okinawa
Pyeongtaek
jeju
otoh,
*when China was going to invest in agricultural projects in Mindanao, brainwashed peasants there protested: ‘Over our dead bodies!’ But when the US is building more and more military bases here – almost nobody is protesting!*

Posted by: denk | Nov 16 2012 4:23 utc | 12

daniel 13
* Japan pays for having GIs stationed in over 134 bases, but has no rights whatsoever. *
one who accepts the base must take the whole *package deal*
including SOFA
this is what happens when a country get SOFAed
http://www.countercurrents.org/gatto121112.htm

Posted by: denk | Nov 16 2012 8:54 utc | 14

“Anna Karenina”: Another Hollywood Take on Russia
http://en.rian.ru/art_living/20121117/177536290.html
“The new film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s 900-plus-page epic novel “Anna Karenina” hit US theaters on Friday, becoming the latest in a long list of Hollywood representations – or misrepresentations, as some critics charge – of Russia and Russian literary classics.
Early US reviews of the film, with actress Keira Knightley cast in the title role, have been mixed, with most critics agreeing that it is visually sumptuous but sub-par in other aspects. The Russian blogosphere meanwhile has been derisive, with one blogger describing the new film as an “intellectual bordello.”
Vicious! How can they expect an industry based upon comic book adaptations and television adverts to be able to manage works which include words of 2+ syllables?

Posted by: вот так | Nov 17 2012 2:54 utc | 16

Re #1 & #8 (Music).
Looks like I was mistaken in thinking there’s a packaged bar-type visualisation program into which one can drop a tune and post the animated result to YouTube.
Btw the visualisation looks a lot like a pictorial representation of the slots in a pianola roll, augmented with colour.
Here’s a clip by ‘musanim’ the author of b’s piece @ #1 – a very respectable Clare de Lune piano solo)
http://www.youtube.com/v/7pA8BmJ4j68&rel=1
Here’s musanim’s “How to” on making Y/T clips – and an explanation of why it isn’t as easy as it looks:
http://www.musanim.com/youtube/HowToMakeMamVideos.html
Here’s a list of other music animations:
http://www.musanim.com/watch/

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 17 2012 5:15 utc | 18

bilejones
*Here’s the line I liked
paetras
[ I showed extremely poor judgment
by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable,
both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. ]
Slipping someone a length on the side is unacceptable, slaughtering children across the globe is just fine*
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2295-dead-enough-the-reality-of-the-qlesser-evilq.html
*******************************

Posted by: denk | Nov 17 2012 5:46 utc | 20

That Patriot thing – Germany, the Netherlands and the US own Patriots, German soldiers to be stationed at the Turkey/Syria border

Posted by: somebody | Nov 17 2012 9:14 utc | 22

a friendly reminder….who’s running the un as a private fief ?
*Although South Korean Ban Ki-moon is the Secretary General
of the UN, his most important deputies represent the interests of
NATO and its allies. The Undersecretary General for Political
Affairs is B. Lynn Pascoe, a former U.S. ambassador to
Indonesia and Malaysia and is thought by many UN staffers to
have links to the CIA. The Undersecretary General for Safety
and Security is Gregory Starr, a former Director of the U.S.
State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service who is also
thought to have close links to the CIA.
The Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning and
Policy Coordination is Robert Orr, the former Director of Global
and Multilateral Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council on
which the CIA is represented. The Executive Director of the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is Anthony Lake, a former U.S.
National Security Adviser.
The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations is
Herve Ladsous of France who has served as French
ambassador to Indonesia and China and who is a pro-NATO
Atlanticist.
Perhaps no where is the Soros and CIA influence felt more than
in the UN Development Program (UNDP), which is headed by
Helen Clark, a former Prime Minister of New Zealand. However,
Soros’s operatives are heavily present in every UN agency
except for Peacekeeping Operations but it, too, is an ultimate
target for the multi-billionaire Hungarian Jew who once
cooperated with the Nazi occupation forces in wartime Hungary*
http://tinyurl.com/85z8nb5

Posted by: denk | Nov 17 2012 16:43 utc | 24

This past Friday was the 42nd annual anniversay of the launch of the “Corrective Movement” in Syria that brought Hafez Assad to power (16 Nov 1970). Within the Syrian Army nationwide on Friday the occasion was marked by speeches and ceremonies specifically endorsing Hafez Assad and Bashar Assad.

Posted by: Parviziyi | Nov 18 2012 10:05 utc | 26

Glad you liked Anat’s playing, Parviziyi. Imo she plays with superb definition.
I don’t have an opinion about her singing voice but I think the fact that she sees herself as a wannabe composer gives her interpretations of other people’s music a certain authority.
I have several versions of Malaguena and hers is my favourite – by a country mile.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 18 2012 14:15 utc | 28

@ 29. Maybe it’s time for the FSA to hook up with the Zio-Nazis, and the British, French and Yankee fascists. They could all chip in and buy Shrillary some brand new, knee-high, jack-boots for her swearing-in as the 5th Reich’s inaugural Fuhrer. She could look quite fetching in high-heeled boots, fishnets and a gym top … much better than in the tasteless bargain-basement left-overs she usually wears in public.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Nov 19 2012 7:32 utc | 30

L’Iran se rapproche de l’opposition syrienne

Posted by: somebody | Nov 19 2012 11:41 utc | 32

Rhysa, from Le Figaro

Selon Haytham Manna, «les Iraniens ne sont pas absolutistes par rapport au régime syrien. Ils ne disent pas: c’est lui (Bachar, NDLR) ou rien. Ils ne s’opposent pas à un changement (à la tête de la Syrie), si ce changement intervient à la suite d’élections auxquelles Bachar el-Assad aurait le droit, au même titre que les autres composantes de la société syrienne, de se présenter».
Alors que le pays s’enfonce dans la guerre civile, après vingt mois d’une répression sanglante, le vice-ministre iranien des Affaires étrangères a surtout mis en garde contre «la destruction de l’armée syrienne», cible aujourd’hui des rebelles, qui réclament des armes pour mieux affronter la troupe encore loyale à Assad. «Cette destruction va à l’encontre des intérêts du peuple syrien», a insisté M. Abdollahian. «C’est contre-productif pour vous-même les Syriens, car il vous faudra, demain, disposer d’une armée. L’Iran estime qu’il faut distinguer l’État du régime. Or, si on détruit l’État syrien, ce ne sont pas les Frères musulmans, qui arriveront au pouvoir à Damas, a lancé le vice-ministre iranien des Affaires étrangères à Haytham Manna, ce sera l’anarchie. Il vaut mieux garder l’État, quant au régime,ce sont les élections qui trancheront.»

….

Ce n’est pas la première fois que la République islamique tend des perches aux opposants syriens. De précédentes discussions ont eu lieu au printemps avec la Coordination, et l’an dernier avec des Frères musulmans syriens. Dimanche, Téhéran compte organiser «un dialogue national» entre les deux protagonistes du conflit en Syrie. «Des représentants du gouvernement syrien vont s’entretenir avec des représentants de partis politiques, de minorités et de l’opposition», a précisé mardi Hossein Amir Abdollahian.

Having said all this they end the article with quoting the “Doha official opposition” line.
However there is also this:
Former US Envoy Calls For US-Iran Talks on Syria

Posted by: somebody | Nov 19 2012 14:24 utc | 34

there is also the Financial Times from September
Iran holds talks with Syrian opposition

Posted by: somebody | Nov 19 2012 15:18 utc | 36

from the Financial Times article

In a rare interview, Ali Larijani told the Financial Times on Tuesday that Iranian diplomats had met members of the Muslim Brotherhood as well as ultraconservative Salafis and liberals and encouraged them to accept “democratic reforms through peaceful behaviour, not violence”.
Mr Larijani did not identify names of opposition members nor the exact dates of the meetings, which he said took place in Iran and were continuing, but conceded that little progress had been made.
Tehran had previously only acknowledged “contact” with the Syrian opposition but had given no details.

Posted by: somebody | Nov 19 2012 18:07 utc | 38

this here is worth a read

The Petraeus affair has served to focus on the salacious details of the extra-marital affair of General Petraeus overlooking the more fundamental question of the forms of military destruction that have been unleashed on Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. Within the US military establishment there had been a raging debate on whether generals should be accountable to civilian leadership. The resignation of General Petraeus, the removal of Carter Ham of Africa Command and the redeployment of Rear Adm. Charles M. Gaouette have now brought back the question of civilian control over the military. Despite the new book by Tom Ricks that had been crafted to save the reputation of Petraeus and the biography which was supposed to place Petraeus on the same platform as historic US generals, the new forms of unchecked warfare brought down the top officers of the COIN strategy of Petraeus and the Crusaders.
Within a democratic society, the military is supposed to provide advice to military leaders and military officers are not supposed to deploy troops to engage with militias without the authorization of the civilian leadership. The NATO intervention in Libya and the subsequent CIA base in Benghazi had been an expensive experiment in new forms of warfare that brought about destruction and the deaths of thousands. After the information on CIA detention centers during the war in Iraq there had been an outcry about CIA private prisons. There are citizens in Libya who can come forward to get out the truth about the charges of Paula Broadwell that the CIA was holding prisoners in its ‘facility’ in Libya.
US foreign policy makers had resisted the call by sections of the United Nations Security Council for a review of the NATO military operations in Libya. Through the United Nations Human Rights Council there has been a major effort by peace activists from the global south to bring private military contractors under international oversight. The Human Rights Council has established an ‘open-ended intergovernmental working group to consider the possibility of elaborating an international regulatory framework on the regulation, monitoring and oversight of the activities of private military and security companies.’ http://tinyurl.com/cubkbwl
The United States and Britain took the lead in opposing oversight of private military contractors. Commanders of CENTCOM and AFRICOM have operated over the past five years as if they were running parallel government. The war on terror had inspired the intellectual climate on counter-terror and the rationale for the bureaucratic structure of the unified command which enabled the military to also be a source of ‘independent’ policy creation.
There was no oversight when the military budget placed unlimited resources under the control of military commanders. Why would the US AFRICOM dig wells in East Africa or hand out school books? These activities were all part of the public relations exercise to plant the idea that the US Africa Command was doing humanitarian work in Africa. The confirmation hearings for General Rodriquez will provide another opportunity to expose the CIA/Africom failure in Libya. It is well publicized by African scholars that the US Africa command has been deployed as an auxiliary force to protect US oil companies. In this protection game, there had been some sections of the top military apparatus who ventured to state explicitly that the role of Africom was supposed to check Chinese influence in Africa. General Petraeus had aggressively pushed the military deeper into the C.I.A.’s turf, using Special Operations troops and private security contractors to conduct secret intelligence missions and for fighting. As commander of the United States Central Command Petraeus had refined the trick of fighting with one group and then turning against them later. This double-cross game was taking hold in Libya in order to set back peace and reconstruction in Libya for decades so that Libya would morph into another Somalia.
With the millions of dollars available for suborning journalists and academics and with the complicit media, the narrative about the success of AFRICOM had been widely sold within the United States. It is this attempt to control the narrative that had led to the widespread view in the United States that the NATO operation in Libya was a success. The death of Ambassador Stevens shattered this myth. The firing of Carter Ham uncovered the ways in which the CIA and sections of the military were making decisions running policy independent of the civilian leadership.

Posted by: somebody | Nov 19 2012 21:00 utc | 40

The wars in Afghanistan and Cechnya have come full circle
Russia trains Syrian special forces

Posted by: somebody | Nov 20 2012 7:56 utc | 42

*President Obama apparently agrees with what I have been
saying: China is a growing threat * [sic]
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/NK17Ae01.html
hmm, kinda like a gangster come to ur house n point a gun at u ,
then demands to know why r u threatening him ?
+The Korean people know that the naval base at Gangjeong is
not for the South Korean Navy but for the US Navy. Look at the
Pyongtaek base. Pyongtaek is the nearest US military
installation to Beijing and Shanghai. It is only one or two hours
away by civilian airplane. Firing a missile would take no time
at all. .+
http://space4peace.blogspot.sg/2012/10/encircling-china.html
imagine chinese missiles in bermuda or puerto rico which can hit
washington under 1 min ?
but then u cant reason with guys like watson, they’r security
analysis u know, these experts know their stuff huh ?
*and the US needs to have as many friends in Asia as possible.*
fukus dont need no friends babe, it prefers poodles
are these *democracies*, are they even sovereign ?
+when I and several other Americans called the Korean
Embassy in Washington to register our concerns, we all
received similar versions of the same prepared response, “Don’t
call us; call the U.S. State or Defense Departments; they are the
ones who are pressuring us to build this base.+
http://www.fpif.org/articles/naval_base_tears_apart_korean_village
Yasuhiko Yoshida, professor of international relations at Osaka University
+Japan is a puppet, a satellite country. Japan is too obedient to
the US; too loyal politically, economically and in security affairs+
http://www.newsinsider.org/editorials/the_three_legged_stool.html
philippines
http://bulatlat.com/main/2011/11/20/philippines-is-a-military-pawn-not-an-ally-of-imperialist-us-cpp/
australia
+We really like using you guys”, said the American. “It’s like this:
the Brits have the gurkhas; we’ve got the Austraaaaaaalians.+
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/28339
*This is the reason behind the administration’s policy reversal
and its decision to engage with Naypyidaw. Unfortunately,
though, it also means that unlike with Libya (and one suspects in
coming months Syria), the US will not take strong steps to help
the people of Myanmar escape their tyranny.*
classical fake outrage
babbling about tyranny while overlooking the ultimate in tyrannism
+Instead, Obama has decided that this goal, freedom for the
people, can be sacrificed. America can renew its alliance with
Myanmar’s dictatorship, in its new civilian disguise, against
China. This is yet another deceptive, and pathetic, abandonment
of American principles. +
u cant *abandone* something u dont have in the first place
professor.
elementray, watson, eh ?
p.s.
1] in case u missed it
this is how they robbed the land for the Pyongtaek base
http://web.archive.org/web/20080330232530/http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200605/200605040021.html
2] banned by atimes since 2000

Posted by: denk | Nov 21 2012 4:20 utc | 44

Hussam ‏@Hussamov11
Please God let this be true. I’d love to see #Iraq & #Syria united
Expand
13h Hussam ‏@Hussamov11
@Sierrasverdes1 that was 4 hours ago, I’m all ok now, thanks 🙂
View conversation
13h Hussam ‏@Hussamov11
OMG THIS IS HUGE!!!!! reports say #Syria & #Iraq are preparing to unite!!! :’) I’m gonna die happy. Please be true
Expand Reply Retweet Favorite
13h Hussam ‏@Hussamov11
#AlQaeda & Islamist Jihadists have killed (directly&indirectly) more #Muslims #Arabs than they killed “invaders” (#NATO)
story here:
http://breakingnews.sy/ar/article/8372.html?m=0

Posted by: brian | Nov 22 2012 23:30 utc | 46

running out of jihadis? where do u go to top up?
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=411373855602323&set=a.145623862177325.35853.143677389038639&type=1&theater

Posted by: brian | Nov 29 2012 7:53 utc | 48

on the promotion of democracy by Qatar

Posted by: somebody | Nov 29 2012 9:53 utc | 50