Hollywood’s role in the US-China fight for cultural supremacy

In mid-November of 2012 rockets were shot from across the Syrian border into Israel. Simultaneously, rockets and even Fajr 3 and Fajr 5 missiles were shot from the Gaza Strip into Israel. The culprit was well-known, and this was no surprise to Israel’s intelligence service. Hamas was obviously behind it all, and they had recently hijacked the politic in the Palestinian territory. The US State Department has labeled Hamas as a terrorist organization, and in fact it is a proxy terrorist group for Iran.

Well, I love the United States, and I surely love what we stand for even if we don’t always completely live up to those high ideals that we proclaim. I love the freedom, liberty, and the ability to pursue happiness even if I realize there are many barriers in my way to fulfilling those wonderful rights. Yes, the United States could do better, but luckily we are doing better than most.

The new Politburo Standing Committee is a leaner 7 member group with an average age of 63.4. I guess the red “princelings” in China are more in Prince Charles style.

After reading several CFR (Council on Foreign Relations) papers and a couple of RAND Corporation reports it is obvious to me that the Arab Spring was not merely caused by people getting together on social networks. There was a populist undercurrent of anger, despair, and helplessness and the protestors merely used the social networks for tools to promote their political agendas.

Perhaps, it is good that the Arab Spring protests have ended for a while, but in many regards they haven’t, they are ongoing. It’s as if it is a wildfire which has been put out, but it’s still smoldering waiting for the next breeze to come along. Where will it flare up next time? Currently, it appears that Syria is in serious territory, and the Assad regime may eventually fall meanwhile, until it does things are totally chaotic, society has crumbled, and the civilization is being destroyed. That’s the worst scenario of an Arab Spring gone bad, I’d say.