90 seconds at 9 am: Hong Kong announces new property curbs to slow property bubble post QE III; Japanese factories torched in Chinese riots; Spain closer to bailout, but protests grow

Thankyou for the clarification .

.. .. nevertheless , Hugh P. & myself would still welcome Bernard's explanation of events .

:-)

I learnt a saying a long time ago: "All Excuses are Equal"

What is really the worry is all the firepower being concentrated on exercises in the straight of Hormuz just because Israel 'might' lay down a pre-emptive strike. That means you have Israel controlling the military of all those countries invovled. Take that line of thinking further and you would say nonsense, that can't happen. That leads to the conclusion that this isn't a build up purely for exercises. Think about the build up to WW1 and the parallel's here. The claims at the moment at this these exercises are a display of strength and capability, but it only takes a little nudge somewhere for full mobilisation to occur.

When you accept that the growth curve has ended and resources have hit their peak, the economic woes are not going to disappear. War is always a good distraction and a good way of liquidating some of of the liabilites(hungry people).

Yes Kate....they certainly have taken a lot of mileage out of  Ahaventhadmedinnerdad's throw away line, "Israel should be wiped from the face of the earth"...

I guess he was rallying the team at the time, and maybe just got a little carried away in the moment......still eh..?....Israel will never be free of the Politics of Paranoia, realistically , will they now.../ eventually the enemy is within.....as anybody with a persecution complex will tell you.

I mean ask yourself which is worse....Death to America...or ...Your Prophet's a Pedo...?

Not only will Israel be the aggressor but in this Orwellian world, it's the one with the nukes! Not just one but 2-300 of them! Yet not one TV station or newspaper in the west will ask a US President or British PM why Israel is fit to have those weapons but nobody else. It's a taboo topic.

Interestingly in a war simulation based on just this scenario in the Straits of Hormuz a few years a go, a US naval officer playing the part of Iran sank a US carrier group with swarm attacks of small patrol boats and missiles. Iranians have a "proud" history of martyrdom and enough numbers that could well overwhelm any technical superiority. They also have large numbers of Russian missles including the carrier killing Sunburn. Would not want to be a US or British sailor in such an enclosed sea space

Kate I will clarify where I sit a bit further. I am not interested in the blame game for the same reason I find politics a bore. I am interested and what will affect me, to do that you have to ignore the rhetoric and look at the underlying facts. The real trick is trying to find those facts. So this could all be posturing as the Count says, but I give a reason above as to why the actions taking place might mean a little more than rhetoric. If there is war then the resultant restriction in world oil supplies will have a dramatic impact on New Zealand, hence my interest.

The term "pre-emptive strike" is a term and justification introduced most recently by the US invasion of Iraq. In that case the US claimed that there was an imminent threat posed to the US by Iraq before the UN. This was of course a flimsy excuse at best, but was the legal justification to begin the second invasion of Iraq, while supposidly avoiding UN prosecution for the international war crime of aggression.

Israel is trying to make the same claim, that they are under immediate threat of attack, given that Iran develops a nuclear weapon. However Israel are extremely unlikely to act with out the protection provided by the US.

No worries though, plenty of room for them here.

Iconoclast - Nigeria has been colonised already.

Anyone of us buying Shell petrol, was essentially gaining from this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Saro-Wiwa

http://www.foto8.com/new/online/blog/1328-wikileaks-shell-and-nigeria

They were already being exploited, indirectly but traceably by us all.  Be interesting to know how much of the 'resistance' is from vested (and extreme minority, one guesses) interests, who see their positions threatened. The average punter on the ground will probably echo Collingbourne's: "yet more trouble".

Stevo....A.J. put up a link well worth the look, partcularly in terms of just how far back  the beginnings of the process were being implanted upon the masses through very simple , easy to understand , good vs evil propaganda purveying evey level of society, enabling a triggered response to take place..

 It's called The Power of Nightmares( youtube it).....for the cynical or non cynical, it is cofirmation  of what I could plainly see at age 10 reading Superman or the like....indoctrination into triggered response thought.

Not the stuff of Genius...but completely effective nevertheless.