Maher's Digital World

Off Topic Discussion => Chit Chat => Topic started by: aa1234779 on August 20, 2017, 07:35 AM

Title: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 20, 2017, 07:35 AM
Hello everyone..

As learning and sharing information/ideas is important to me and many others, I thought opening a topic on Documentaries can be both fun and educational.

Here is the first video I'd like to post..
Aljazeera's The Caliph part 1 Foundation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3O9d7PsI48

A short introduction to the history of the Islamic state founded by Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and his guided caliphs and how it deteriorated then became a monarchy (The Umayyads), an Islamic one at least, that continued expanding until infighting led to its fall.

I can't say that everything told in this video is completely true since the speakers are not islamic historians/scholars. Yet they express their views & analysis of the events that occurred, which can be differed with especially by a person who read the original narration of the events of that time in human history from authentic sources.

Please post any documentary film you deem worthy of sharing with others here.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on August 21, 2017, 05:07 AM
I haven't had the time to watch the documentary, but I'm under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that "Islamic Caliphate" implies some sort of political state run by the Islamic religion. If this is so then I strongly disagree. If history has taught us anything it is that government and [any]religion do not mix. Only a secular government can guarantee the right of the people, both freedom OF and freedom FROM religion. Religion is a private matter and has no place in government.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 21, 2017, 10:12 AM
QuoteI haven't had the time to watch the documentary, but I'm under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that "Islamic Caliphate" implies some sort of political state run by the Islamic religion. If this is so then I strongly disagree.

Actually, the Islamic State or Caliphate is run by men like us with strict reference to the Sharia Laws of Islam, derived from the Quran, Prophetic tradition (Sunnah), the tradition of the four rightly guided Caliphs, and so on. Immaculacy, on the other hand, died with the Messenger of Islam, Muhammad peace be upon him, as the Quran & Prophetic tradition clearly states.

QuoteIf history has taught us anything it is that government and [any]religion do not mix. Only a secular government can guarantee the right of the people, both freedom OF and freedom FROM religion. Religion is a private matter and has no place in government.

You have a clear right to believe in this view as you aren't Muslim, Allah says in the Glorious Quran Ch.2 Verse 256:
"There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion."

For me as a Muslim, and for many others around the globe, we'd rather be ruled by a government of men & women that refer to no other laws than those derived from the authentic sources of our religion. No man-made laws or widespread usury, adultery, liquor, drugs, and other sorts of what true Muslims deem as corruption.

In Islam, religion can be described as four inseparable parts:
1- Sharia (law) 2- Aqeedah (creed) 3- Ebadah (worship) 4- Sulouk (conduct)

If pondered well, you'll realize that Islam is much more than a religion for ones self, but an organizational system as well starting from the person whether it's a he or a she, the family, the neighborhood, the mosque, all the way to the government itself.


Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on August 22, 2017, 06:00 AM
aa1234779 ->

If we define Sharia law as that which is practiced in Iran or Saudi Arabia, then the leaders  of those countries are directly violating Verse 256 of the Koran. In those countries, Islamic rules are imposed on everyone and those who disobey are brutally punished. I can name example after example.

It seems to me Verse 256 is every reason NOT to have a government that follows an official religion. In a secular government the right of all are respected. Christian churches, Islamic mosques, Jewish synagogues and Bhuddist temples all live together in peace. The government's job is to protect the rights of all and not to forcibly impose one religion over another as in the case in the 2 above mentioned countries.

Maher is one of my best friends, if not the best. The cornerstone of our relationship is mutual respect. He is a devout Muslim and I am an atheist, yet we fully respect each other and we firmly uphold and defend each other's right to disagree. Maher is a true Muslim - he is tolerant, respectful, and follows Verse 256 to the letter.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 22, 2017, 08:16 AM
 
Quoteaa1234779 ->

If we define Sharia law as that which is practiced in Iran or Saudi Arabia, then the leaders  of those countries are directly violating Verse 256 of the Koran.

Sharia is not present on this earth nowadays, just partial implementations here & there, or shall I say, partial secularism.

QuoteIn those countries, Islamic rules are imposed on everyone and those who disobey are brutally punished. I can name example after example.
The same can be said to any other laws, whether it is American, French, British, Indian, Chinese, or whatever.
Even if real untainted Sharia law is present, and an uprising of sorts comes into place, it will be wiped out. Same as everywhere.

QuoteIt seems to me Verse 256 is every reason NOT to have a government that follows an official religion. In a secular government the right of all are respected. Christian churches, Islamic mosques, Jewish synagogues and Bhuddist temples all live together in peace. The government's job is to protect the rights of all and not to forcibly impose one religion over another as in the case in the 2 above mentioned countries.
The two mentioned countries are not representative of Islam, but are of the rulers of the two countries.
As to the Arabian peninsula, the Messenger of Allah told his Companions & followers to forever expel Christians & Jews from it. That did not completely happen back then, and now it is definitely not happening as we all know for sure. There are people of all religions living in the Arabian peninsula, although no public places of worship for them are present. Smaller places are present in living compounds and even churches in UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain.

QuoteMaher is one of my best friends, if not the best. The cornerstone of our relationship is mutual respect. He is a devout Muslim and I am an atheist, yet we fully respect each other and we firmly uphold and defend each other's right to disagree. Maher is a true Muslim - he is tolerant, respectful, and follows Verse 256 to the letter.
Difference in religion or opinions shouldn't be an obstacle to mutual respect.  :)

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 24, 2017, 01:27 AM
Well, once again, I will give advice to aa1234779, before going to bed.

You said you were unemployed, but do you really need a job (in fact, do you need money?). What's more, are you ready to do a "shitty job", for example dustman, or cleaning the @ss of the old people? Those jobs are useful, but few people are brave enough to do that, and there are manpower shortages. Nowadays, if you are looking for a job of good-for-nothing lurking in a open space office, well, chances are you won't find anything. The period where some people were paid to do nothing is over, I mean today you'll find something if you accept to get your hands dirty.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on August 25, 2017, 04:25 AM
aa12345779 -> I'm not too clear as to what your opinion is. You believe the legal systems of Iran and Saudi Arabia do NOT represent Sharia and are in effect dictatorships set up by governments who misinterpret the Koran to suit their needs. It seems to me everyone disagrees on what is Sharia law really is. I'll say this: if true Sharia law guarantees that everyone's beliefs are respected, then I'm totally in favor.

You quoted Verse 256 which, as I understand it, says Islam is a religion of peace and respect. This runs contrary to the notion of a government which favors one religion over another. In a secular government (one that leaves religion out) you are free to follow Islam as you wish and others are also free to follow their beliefs (or lack of them). The government's duty is to protect everybody's rights. I am under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the Islamic Caliphate you mentioned favors Islam over other religions. No good! Take a pencil and scratch out Verse 256, the 2 concepts can't coexist.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 27, 2017, 11:28 PM
Well, tonight I'm going to hold a conference. But first a thought for humbert who may have feet in the water at this moment.
I will talk about oil, and reassure aa1234779, who is unemployed.

In its medium-term annual report (2017-2022), the International Energy Agency (IEA) has formalized what its executive director, Fatih Birol, has been saying for months, in unison with the bosses of large companies: The world supply of crude oil will remain abundant by the end of the decade, but it will be hard for production to meet demand soon after 2020. Since Investment in exploration and production halved since their peak in 2014, it could lead to shortages and a new surge in prices.

And I’m going to reassure aa1234779, because I think the end of oil is nearing, at least we have more and more clues suggesting that it's the case (oil sands development, the fact we discover less and less oil), and it’s going to trigger drastic changes in our societies. In Paris, for example, I can see more and more Bicycle couriers in the street. It’s probable that cars will disappear too, by the end of the next decade. It also means that the capitalist world is going to crumble, somehow. And it's probable we won’t have the same jobs in 10 or 15 years, if we have no more energy. In my opinion, we will need more people in rural areas, to produce food for example.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 28, 2017, 02:58 AM
Quoteaa12345779 -> I'm not too clear as to what your opinion is. You believe the legal systems of Iran and Saudi Arabia do NOT represent Sharia and are in effect dictatorships set up by governments who misinterpret the Koran to suit their needs. It seems to me everyone disagrees on what is Sharia law really is. I'll say this: if true Sharia law guarantees that everyone's beliefs are respected, then I'm totally in favor.
Sharia law is a complete & just system that suits humanity's needs. You may differ with me on this.

QuoteYou quoted Verse 256 which, as I understand it, says Islam is a religion of peace and respect. This runs contrary to the notion of a government which favors one religion over another. In a secular government (one that leaves religion out) you are free to follow Islam as you wish and others are also free to follow their beliefs (or lack of them). The government's duty is to protect everybody's rights. I am under the impression (and correct me if I'm wrong) that the Islamic Caliphate you mentioned favors Islam over other religions. No good! Take a pencil and scratch out Verse 256, the 2 concepts can't coexist.

This is the meaning of the whole verse 256 of Surrah 2:
There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. The right course has become clear from the wrong. So whoever disbelieves in Taghut and believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy handhold with no break in it. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing

There is also another verse worth noting in Surrah 18 (The Cave) Verse 29:
And say, "The truth is from your Lord, so whoever wills - let him believe; and whoever wills - let him disbelieve." Indeed, We have prepared for the wrongdoers a fire whose walls will surround them. And if they call for relief, they will be relieved with water like murky oil, which scalds [their] faces. Wretched is the drink, and evil is the resting place.

It says believe in what you wish in life, and you will be dealt with accordingly in the afterlife. Forcing belief upon people is not the Islamic way or practice. If some Muslims do that then it's their wrongdoing and Islam should not be responsible for that.

I don't know what you mean by favoring Islam over other religions, but Muslims have lived along with Christians, Jews, and the Magi (fire worship) for hundreds of years. The Non-Muslims pay the Jizya which is 2% of income & no other taxes should be imposed on them, and they live freely within the true Islamic state with all their rights respected same as Muslims. In fact, there have been cases where the poor Non-Muslims were given benefits to buy food, clothing, and a place to stay like a modern day welfare system. All of this happened 1400 years ago. Try reading about the Pact of Umar which dictated how things will go on after the Caliphate took Palestine from the Romans. I wish it could come back into practice once again and the whole Palestinian/Israeli issue will be solved, and Jerusalem (Al Quds) will once again bring people of many faiths under the right & just system of rule.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 29, 2017, 12:06 AM
I wish you were right aa1234779. But I'm a bit puzzled. If God was so powerful, I'm wondering if there would be as many problems on the planet.
You should tell us where the Islamic caliphate and the generous caliph are, there are Syrian panhandlers sit on mattresses or sleeping in tents strewn with garbage on the avenue de Clichy who are waiting for your answer.
Well, I'm sure Maher is reading this topic with interest, not to say impatience. And I remember he was saying in a topic a few years ago that God had no son. He seemed a bit abashed when he was asked: what about Jesus? (at least that's the case for both Muslims and Protestants who think Jesus is not the son of God). Actually, you are a bit like him: you have a literary interpretation of religion, but it seems you don't feel free to give constructive criticism.
Frankly, do you think that a Caliphate forcing some communities to pay the Jizya would be attractive?
I also know that Judas Iscariot is not quoted in the Koran. Then do you believe Judas was crucified on the cross, in a case of mistaken identity instead of Jesus (I'm going to call him Issa, his Arabic name, in case you don't know him). Muslims teach that Judas Iscariot, the betrayer and thief, is the real saviour of Christians: it was actually Judas who actually died on the cross and because Judas had a similar physical appearance to Jesus even his own mother didn't recognize him at the foot of the cross. For 600 years Christians had been preaching Christ crucified. Then Muhammad comes along, jumps off his camel and gets a direct revelation from God that the universal record of history and the 10,000 manuscripts of the Bible, are all wrong. The idea that Judas was crucified instead of Christ is a bit outrageous, what do you think about it?
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 29, 2017, 11:19 AM
QuoteI wish you were right aa1234779. But I'm a bit puzzled. If God was so powerful, I'm wondering if there would be as many problems on the planet.
You should tell us where the Islamic caliphate and the generous caliph are, there are Syrian panhandlers sit on mattresses or sleeping in tents strewn with garbage on the avenue de Clichy who are waiting for your answer.

Check out this link, an interesting read, and it will answer this question:
Why Does Allah Allow Suffering and Evil in the World?
https://archive.islamonline.net/?p=885

As to the Islamic Caliphate and the generous Caliph, I'm afraid they aren't present in our day to take care of the millions of refugees that have left their countries. Some of the reasons are internal and some external, e.g. Sykesâ€"Picot Agreement and the likes of it. It does pose a problem that there isn't a safe haven for people of war-torn countries, most of whom are Muslims. Europe is reaping what it sowed during Colonialism, and post. They have a problem at their hands that must be dealt with, the refugees, and the reality that must be fixed by not interfering with coming transformations (hopefully peaceful) or engaging in ties with leaders that do no good for their people.

QuoteWell, I'm sure Maher is reading this topic with interest, not to say impatience. And I remember he was saying in a topic a few years ago that God had no son. He seemed a bit abashed when he was asked: what about Jesus? (at least that's the case for both Muslims and Protestants who think Jesus is not the son of God). Actually, you are a bit like him: you have a literary interpretation of religion, but it seems you don't feel free to give constructive criticism.
Well, I try my best to do so..

QuoteFrankly, do you think that a Caliphate forcing some communities to pay the Jizya would be attractive?

There is no forcing in Jizya, either pay up or pack up. Just like any other system of rule in the sense that you are not obliged to pay your taxes yet if you don't, their will be consequences like prison and fines and so on.

QuoteI also know that Judas Iscariot is not quoted in the Koran. Then do you believe Judas was crucified on the cross, in a case of mistaken identity instead of Jesus (I'm going to call him Issa, his Arabic name, in case you don't know him). Muslims teach that Judas Iscariot, the betrayer and thief, is the real saviour of Christians: it was actually Judas who actually died on the cross and because Judas had a similar physical appearance to Jesus even his own mother didn't recognize him at the foot of the cross. For 600 years Christians had been preaching Christ crucified.

There is no mention in Islamic sources of Judah being the one crucified, there is a story who Ibn Abbas, the cousin of the Prophet peace be upon him and the most knowledgible in Quranic meanings, that one of Prophet Issa's companions asked to turn himself in instead of Prophet Issa and in return be with Issa in heaven.

That day was a Friday, in the evening. They surrounded `Isa in the house, and when he felt that they would soon enter the house or that he would sooner or later have to leave it, he said to his companions, "Who volunteers to be made to look like me, for which he will be my companion in Paradise'' A young man volunteered, but `Isa thought that he was too young. He asked the question a second and third time, each time the young man volunteering, prompting `Isa to say, "Well then, you will be that man.'' Allah made the young man look exactly like `Isa, while a hole opened in the roof of the house, and `Isa was made to sleep and ascended to heaven while asleep
Ibn Abbas


QuoteThen Muhammad comes along, jumps off his camel and gets a direct revelation from God that the universal record of history and the 10,000 manuscripts of the Bible, are all wrong. The idea that Judas was crucified instead of Christ is a bit outrageous, what do you think about it?
There are historical facts that the original Bibles were changed after the Council of Nicaea and only traces of the original narrations are still present within the 20,000 or so editions of the Bible we see today which differ from each other.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
A new creed was in place for Christians to be followed (Trinity) and the Romans prevailed in changing the religion and it's texts.
As to the idea of Judas being the one crucified. I don't know, it could be him, it could be someone else. There is no hard evidence in Islamic scripture that it was him or a certain person other than the above narration of Ibn Abbas.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 29, 2017, 02:30 PM
It's impressive, you have a lot of knowledge.

My conclusion is simple : I won't invite you for a barbecue at my father's (pork cutlets after a little glass of Pastis). Or we'll have to change the menu. (I don't know if you drink alcohol, but I guess you don't). I don't know if Maher is in favor of Sharia, but he must be thinking you are even more "jusqu'au-boutiste" than him.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 29, 2017, 05:19 PM
Quote from: scarface on August 29, 2017, 02:30 PM
It's impressive, you have a lot of knowledge.

My conclusion is simple : I won't invite you for a barbecue at my father's (pork cutlets after a little glass of Pastis). Or we'll have to change the menu. (I don't know if you drink alcohol, but I guess you don't). I don't know if Maher is in favor of Sharia, but he must be thinking you are even more "jusqu'au-boutiste" than him.

hahaha I love barbecues too bad for me..

What's with the comparison to Maher (May Allah preserve him) in every post here? ;D
I haven't had the honor to know him, but I'm sure that he as a person coming from a Muslim culture has his own views on these issues. Disagreement can be a mercy. Sometimes.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 29, 2017, 07:02 PM
Quote from: aa1234779 on August 29, 2017, 05:19 PM
hahaha I love barbecues too bad for me..
What's with the comparison to Maher (May Allah preserve him) in every post here? ;D
I haven't had the honor to know him, but I'm sure that he as a person coming from a Muslim culture has his own views on these issues. Disagreement can be a mercy. Sometimes.

Well, I was assuming you don't eat pork. But after all, we also made barbecued sardines, it's delicious. And like Maher you already speak a few words in French aa1234779 (now you know the words barbecue and sardines,  these words are the same in French).
As for Maher, I was referring to this topic: http://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=333.0
And I also know he's very religious (it's the first thing he asked me when I called him). But as far as Sharia is concerned, he does not live in a country where it is applied.
Actually few countries are fully applying Sharia law, and judging by your statements, you are probably living in one of the following countries or you are planning to do so: Mauritania, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Brunei.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 29, 2017, 10:11 PM
I'm currently in a little park. It's hot here. And with this heatwave it was hard to work today.
I still don't know the whereabouts of our friend aa1234779, but I'm sure I'll know it one day.

And a little French lesson for aa1234779: You can say "Je veux un barbecue de sardines" but if you don't pronouce it very well and say "Je veux rejoindre Ansar Dine", the meaning is totally different.
A bad joke, I guess.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 29, 2017, 11:02 PM
Quote
I'm currently in a little park. It's hot here. And with this heatwave it was hard to work today.
I still don't know the whereabouts of our friend aa1234779, but I'm sure I'll know it one day.
So you still don't know where I live. Yeah, I believe you. ;D
Anyways, I try to keep my location to myself for privacy reasons. What does that make me?

Quote
And a little French lesson for aa1234779: You can say "Je veux un barbecue de sardines" but if you don't pronouce it very well and say "Je veux rejoindre Ansar Dine", the meaning is totally different.
A bad joke, I guess.
Bad joke, but still funny. Millions of Muslims around the world are Pro-Sharia yet aren't extremists if you were hinting by the joke that I am.
What does Ansar Dine mean? The supporters of religion. If that's what you meant, not the armed groups, then all devout Muslims are Ansar. That support shouldn't be violent, it can be with conveying the message and showing the bright light of Islam that the international media doesn't or shows the opposite of.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 29, 2017, 11:28 PM
QuoteAnyways, I try to keep my location to myself for privacy reasons.

Because if you tell me you are in Lahore, and you are very happy, I can believe you. If you are currently in a café in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, drinking a beer, and telling me there is nothing better than Sharia, then I would think you're an hypocrite. In this case, it's true, you could be afraid I might pack my suitcase and go to your palace.
No matter anyway.

and here is a movie if you didn't watch it yet (les visiteurs, with english subtitles): https://ufile.io/q5ejd
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 29, 2017, 11:58 PM
Quote from: scarface on August 29, 2017, 11:28 PM
QuoteAnyways, I try to keep my location to myself for privacy reasons.

Because if you tell me you are in Lahore, and you are very happy, I can believe you. If you are currently in a café in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, drinking a beer, and telling me there is nothing better than Sharia, then I would think you're an hypocrite. In this case, it's true, you could be afraid I might pack my suitcase and go to your palace.
No matter anyway.

and here is a movie if you didn't watch it yet (les visiteurs, with english subtitles): https://ufile.io/q5ejd
I don't really care if you think I could be in a palace boasting about Sharia or in a Paris bar or happy in Lahore. It's the ideas that matter most whether yours, mine, Maher's, humbert's etc... in the WWW, not the place of residence. Pressing me to say where I live is useless & invading of  something I choose to keep private. Thanks for the movie.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on August 30, 2017, 05:42 AM
Quote from: aa1234779 on August 29, 2017, 11:02 PM
Anyways, I try to keep my location to myself for privacy reasons. What does that make me?

Of course you have every right not do disclose your location, but my curiousity has gotten the best of me. Why in the world would you opt to do this? What's wrong with saying you're in [for example] Pakistan? It's not like we can find you by simply naming a county without the city, let alone put you in danger.

How about a region of the world instead of a country, e.g., North Africa, Middle East, Southwest Asia, North America, South America etc.

Just curious, that's all.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 31, 2017, 12:09 AM
Apparently aa1234779 comes from a distant and conservative country. I don't know if the simple fact of browsing this forum is a risk for him, maybe, maybe not, but since I'm posting weird pictures, I guess he shouldn't use a smartphone in the street, as I do sometimes.
But as long as he doesn't talk about God, I guess he doesn't risk anything. Neither should you talk about the Baboon God of the forum, the people around you would make a confusion and think it's an act of apostasy.

(http://www.liutprand.it/articoliPavia/babbu2.jpg)




And for those who want to become a cleric, it seems we are in a world where becoming caliph or messenger of God is more and more risky.
Indeed, In India, A controversial Indian guru convicted of rape on Friday has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Violence after Friday's verdict in Panchkula in northern Haryana state had killed some 38 people.
The self-styled holy man was found guilty of sexually assaulting two female followers and jailed for 10 years for each, to run consecutively.
There were initial reports of a 10-year sentence but his lawyers confirmed the sentencing was of consecutive, not concurrent, terms.
A lawyer for the victims said 50 women had come forward with allegations of rape and they would be seeking further investigation in the case.
"We believe there are at least 48 more victims who were sexually abused and who may have been killed or are too scared to come out and testify against Ram Rahim," lawyer Utsav Singh Bains told AFP.
Ram Rahim Singh denies charges of murder in two cases due to be heard next month.

The Indian messenger of God
(http://img.lemde.fr/2017/08/29/70.5/0/3500/2333/534/0/60/0/a0a3429_4042-2j5wq8.99e8xmkj4i.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 31, 2017, 05:22 AM
As to Humbert's question, I'm from the Middle East.  :'(

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on September 04, 2017, 07:10 AM
Quote from: aa1234779 on August 31, 2017, 05:22 AM
As to Humbert's question, I'm from the Middle East.  :'(

Given this information, is it safe to rule out Israel as a possible candidate of where you live? :)

Is Arabic the official language of your country?

Finally, do you have a beard?
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 05, 2017, 12:12 AM
Well, tonight I'm going to hold a conference about the Middle East. But I'm not going to talk about religion, you have enough knowledge about it.
Instead, I'm going to talk about unemployment.

In most places a large youthful population would be regarded as an economic blessing. But in the Arab world the young are treated, for the most part, as a curse to be suppressed. Faced with oppression and few opportunities, the region’s youth is wasting away.

Here is an interesting chart:
(https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/640-width/images/2016/08/blogs/graphic-detail/20160813_woc916.png)

The Arab world is growing fast, and the number of young workers, aged 15-24, will grow to 58 million in 2025. In the largest Gulf state, Saudi Arabia, about 70% of working people are employed in the public sector. According to Jadwa Investment, a Saudi research firm, the working-age population is expected to increase to nearly 18 million by 2025, meaning 226,000 Saudis will enter the labor force each year. The public sector simply cannot absorb all of them.

(http://reports.weforum.org/rethinking-arab-employment/wp-content/blogs.dir/58/mp/image-cache/site/7/figure2c.54344964f0ec3e38ed0e0b0173775510.png)

And in the context of a sharp decline in oil prices over the past 15 months, unemployment levels in the oil-exporting countries in the region, including the GCC, are expected to surge as governments are poised to cut spending to cope with rising fiscal deficits, according to the latest regional economic outlook of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Clearly, the private sector will have to take over from the public sector as the main source of job creation. However, the expansion of the private sector and the diversification away from oil that are needed to absorb the growing workforce have so far proven elusive. Though some progress has been made, most economies in the region are still deeply dependent on the capital-intensive hydrocarbon sector, which generates limited direct employment.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on September 10, 2017, 01:37 AM
The problem with the world today is people think great numbers of people is not a plus for any certain country. Human resource is more important than any other resource if invested in and managed properly.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 12, 2017, 06:30 PM
Tonight, I’m going to show you a disquieting photo. Maher must be wondering if the scene is taking place in Palestine. Actually, it’s not the case, the photo was taken today in Paris.
(http://i.f1g.fr/media/ext/680x382_crop/www.lefigaro.fr/medias/2017/09/12/20170912PHOWWW00383.jpg)

Indeed, The Parisian demonstration against the reform of the labor code gathered 24,000 people on Tuesday, according to the prefecture of police. The CGT, meanwhile, estimated that 60,000 demonstrators participated in the parade in the capital, speaking of "very strong" social mobilization.
After the province this morning, the Parisian demonstration started around 2 pm. The police headquarters spotted "about 300 hooded people" behind the head of the procession. The first tensions broke out in the middle of the afternoon.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 17, 2017, 07:39 PM
Tonight, I'm going to hold a conference to talk about the forests of the world.


Deforestation: Anatomy of an announced disaster.

Each year, 13 million hectares of forests vanish around the world, the equivalent of four times the area of Belgium. If intensive agriculture, urbanization and the timber trade are the main factors, other causes are to be explored. This phenomenon in sharp progression is likely to have irreversible consequences.

Forty football fields. It is the area that forests lose every minute around the world. This net loss represents more than 13 million hectares per year, according to FAO (the UN Food and Agriculture Organization). It is the equivalent of the area of England, or a quarter of France, gone up in firewood, transformed into plantations or left in grazing ground for livestock.

A daunting figure. Especially when compared to the forest resources on Earth. In total, four billion hectares are now occupied by forests (see maps below). While boreal and temperate forests have increased slightly in recent years, particularly in China and the West, tropical areas - 1.6 billion hectares - have been declining steadily for the past 50 years. These massifs are the richest, the most fragile and, therefore, the most threatened. At current rates, tropical forests are projected to disappear within 50-70 years.

While eleven flanks of deforestation are listed by NGOs worldwide, three are of real concern: the Amazon, particularly in Brazil, Central and Southeast Asia, mainly Indonesia and Malaysia. These three zones represent the main tropical forests in the world, and form a "green belt" around the Earth. In the future, experts predict that 80% of deforestation will take place in these less and less isolated areas. Only this phenomenon is difficult to apprehend. It is not a crude process that applies equally to different countries. It takes different forms: social, economic, industrial. It is undoubtedly this polymorphy which makes this extractivism - the means and strategies for the industrial exploitation of nature by man - so difficult to control because it does not call for uniform measures to regulate it.

Today, deforestation is responsible for 20 to 25% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, the main causes of global warming. More precisely, the destruction of the rainforest causes each year more emission into the atmosphere than the entire transport sector in the world. In southern countries - which deforest more than northern countries since 1990 - 35% of greenhouse gas emissions are due to deforestation. This figure even reaches 65% in the poorest regions.

Evolution of forests between 1990 and 2015 in the world
(https://i.ibb.co/wQSSn3t/forests.jpg)

If the collective imagination would gladly make the timber trade the main cause of deforestation, this is not the case. The major actor of this phenomenon is agriculture, responsible for 80% of the deforestation in the tropical areas. Agricultural activity can take different forms: breeding, soya and palm oil cultivation, rubber.... The illegal timber market also has its share of responsibility. It is a triggering factor, and feeds on other activities. While each region has its own specificities, the intrusion of humans into primary forests also has a non-negligible social aspect.

The Amazon, an essential but abused lung.
(https://i.ibb.co/vDTFD61/amazon.jpg)
An area of the Amazonian forest turned into a desert illegally by mining companies.

Nestled in the heart of South America, the Amazon is a natural treasure of more than 500 million hectares. It is the largest tropical forest in the world. Swept by the Atlantic wind, the green expanse seems to be abutting against the Andes, which limits the expansion of this "lung" essential to the planet's ecosystem. But the Amazon is in danger. The main area affected by deforestation in terms of deforested volume has lost nearly 20% of its area since 1970, and forecasts point to a loss of 70% by 2050. The main threat comes from Brazil, the greater part of this primary forest where nearly 390 billion trees live from 16,000 different species. In 2010, a WWF report showed that 1,200 new species were discovered in the Amazon rainforest between 1999 and 2009, including 637 plants, 257 fish, 216 amphibians, 55 reptiles, 16 birds and 39 mammals

Monsieur bonobo
(http://www.animalfactguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/bonobo.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 19, 2017, 12:13 AM
Tonight, I'm going to ask a few questions to aa1234779.
After you disappeared, I didn't know if you were going to come back. I thought you had gone (how long did you leave? maybe for 2 years?) And for those who did not read this thread, we learnt you were unemployed.
You know, when you have a job you become a modern-day slave. That's why I suggested you should be doing what you like if you can. But for most people and probably for you, living without money is not possible, that's why getting a job is required to meet one's basic needs. If you don't have skills, maybe you should consider doing manual work (garbage collector, baker, or ever ... executioner !?). You can talk here about your difficulties, and what you think.
Note that the humbert still have unresolved questions. Maybe it's difficult to say whether you have a beard or not (in the avatar below, the answer seems obvious though).
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on September 20, 2017, 02:30 AM
QuoteTonight, I'm going to ask a few questions to aa1234779.
After you disappeared, I didn't know if you were going to come back. I thought you had gone (how long did you leave? maybe for 2 years?) And for those who did not read this thread, we learnt you were unemployed.
You know, when you have a job you become a modern-day slave. That's why I suggested you should be doing what you like if you can. But for most people and probably for you, living without money is not possible, that's why getting a job is required to meet one's basic needs. If you don't have skills, maybe you should consider doing manual work (garbage collector, baker, or ever ... executioner !?). You can talk here about your difficulties, and what you think.
Note that the humbert still have unresolved questions. Maybe it's difficult to say whether you have a beard or not (in the avatar below, the answer seems obvious though).
Yes it was a bit more than two years. We are all modern-day slaves whether employed or not, like or dislike it. We are all trapped in a system that doesn't seem to work very well in relation to the problems we face as a race.
I'll hopefully find an office job in the coming months. There is nothing wrong with manual work, but executioner. OMG. I don't believe there are vacancies in that area of work as it pays very well those who are willing to take such opportunities. Not me though.
I don't have a beard and no mustache. But even if that were to be, it shouldn't make a difference at all. At the end, we are all human.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 20, 2017, 07:57 PM
The answer of aa1234779 is interesting. In spite of his whereabouts, he does not wear a long beard. Maybe he does not need that though, he's already living in a region where his prophet used to do miracles, a long time ago. I might still be hearing the whispers of God sometimes. Note that it's not the case for Maher. But I assume that wearing a beard is more fashionable in the Syro-Palestinian region, even if  it's popular in Gulf nations.
Actually, if we take the example of Algeria, In the 1960s and 70s, the beard was mainly worn by far-left sympathisers. It was often long and untrimmed. At the end of the 1970s, with the advent of Islamist ideology, more and more men started to wear one as well because the Prophet Mohammad wore one, and they wanted to do the same as him. On this issue, the Ulama (Muslim legal scholars) are divided. Some say wearing a beard is not a religious obligation, arguing that the Prophet wore it simply because it was the norm at the time.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on September 23, 2017, 05:37 AM
aa1234779 -> Whether or not you have any kind of facial hair is, as you said, essentially meaningless. The question was based on curiosity since, for some reason, many Muslims wear them. Scarface said (or so I understand) that in many variants of Islam it's not mandatory but done only to emulate Mohammed. ISIS doesn't allow men to shave. I was under the impression this was also the case in Saudi Arabia. That is, of course, until I saw Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir (Saudi foreign minister) on TV.

I wonder how much money do executioners make? For example, that guy who chops off heads in Saudi Arabia on Friday. I assume he gets paid by the number of heads he cuts off.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 22, 2017, 09:47 AM
Today, I’m going to hold an exceptional conference to talk about insects.

Maybe you don’t know it, but If we were to weigh all the ants in the world, they would weigh as much as all of the people. But today, I’m not going to talk about ants, I’m going to deal with the worrying disappearance of the insects. Some of you may have been wondering “ where are all the crushed insects on the windshield?” Well, there is an explanation: entomologists report an 80% drop in invertebrates ... in just 24 years.

Trapped in the headlights, they crashed by the hundreds on the windshields. Flocks of mosquitoes, greasy grasshoppers that left a yellow juice on the glass on the scene of the crash,  and these big cockchafers that hit like hail the sheet of the cabin. But yes, remember: a few decades ago, one only had to take a walk in the fields to make dad's gleaming vehicle good for a great cleaning, studded with corpses of unfortunate creatures of all kinds. .

And then, little by little, the cars came out of their field trips more and more clean. First, we did not pay much attention, of course: after all, they were only insects ...
Unfortunately, this is not good news. Who would have thought that one day we would regret these massive genocides of Diptera, Lepidoptera and other Coleoptera? However, it is not for pure sadism, nor for primary entomophobia, nor even for the simple pleasure of rubbing our foamy sponge on the car on Sunday afternoon.

This is because it may just herald the irretrievable decline of insects caused by the heavy use of pesticides in the countryside. Less and less numerous in the countryside for a few decades, small animals seem to have undergone a vertiginous...and invisible demographic decline.

(http://www.demotivateur.fr/images-buzz/9854/insectes-pare-brise-6729.jpg)

So, some would say that there is nothing to worry about: after all, have not vehicles become more and more aerodynamic over time? Perhaps if we harvest fewer insects today, it is simply thanks to the evolutions of the techniques of the car builders.

We would like to believe ... But the drivers of Kangoo or Fiat Multipla can testify, the more or less tapered profile of the vehicle does not change anything.
Same result if you drive a big jeep, a truck, or even if you were driving a sports car in the 1980s: windshields are getting cleaner, there are fewer insects, and it's not a big deal.

The reason seems obvious, and unfortunately, it is extremely worrying: there would simply be fewer and fewer insects in the countryside. As we do not spend our time glued to the grass counting small animals, we quickly did not notice this sudden and discreet decline, this inexorable decline in the number of invertebrates. And yet, when we think about it, if we stop for a moment and compare our current experience with our memories of yesteryear, the difference is very clear.

Of course, these observations of crushed insects, which everyone can see from his side, are not very scientific. And it turns out that, if the disappearance of insects is done in the greatest discretion, it is because science has a hard time quantifying exactly this kind of things ... for lack of data.

Indeed, the majority of existing censuses are those of amateur naturalists, butterfly collectors and other observers. Although they may also give some indications and trends, these observations must be made with tweezers because they do not necessarily have the rigor of analysis from professional scientists.

But new data on the abundance of wild insects, taken over the long term, are coming to the surface, says the journal Science in an article published a few days ago.

From various surveys conducted by a group of entomologists since the early eighties and in more than a hundred nature reserves in Western Europe, these figures make us dizzy. Using a trap system that allowed them to calculate the total mass of insects collected, month after month, and several decades apart, the Krefeld Entomological Society has noted an extremely sharp decline in the amount of invertebrates caught .

Thus, between the years 1989 and 2013, the difference is very clear: in a point located in the north of Germany, the amount of insects has dropped by 78% in just 24 years!
To check if it was not just a bad year, scientists did a survey the following year, in 2014. But the numbers were still so low ... In a dozen other sites the decline of invertebrate masses was equally dramatic.

(http://www.demotivateur.fr/images-buzz/9849/Insects_350.png)

Even more frightening: just last year, a third of the bee colonies in the United States died ... and again, beekeepers were at the party: they normally lose 40% of their workforce per year ! While monoculture and the abundant use of pesticides are kings in this country, no fewer than seven species of bees have been declared at risk of extinction in 2016. Some even think of designing bees-drones to ensure the plant pollination, to replace them with automated mini-flying machines in the event that these insects disappear completely.

A real nightmarish landscape, shaped by the use of pesticides, by the lack of foraging flowers and shelter caused by the system of large-scale plantations, but also by various epidemic diseases and pest invasions, whose spread could be caused by pollution and climate disruption.

Honey insects are responsible for pollination, and we estimate that we owe them at least a third of our food production (fruits, vegetables, cereals). All these small insects, however, are one of the main pillars of natural cycles.

(http://www.demotivateur.fr/images-buzz/9849/i_abeilles-mortes.jpg)

Perhaps it would be time to ask some existential questions about how we produce and consume? Although some pesticides are now banned or regulated, there are still many abuses.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on October 23, 2017, 03:14 AM
Even though ISIS has not YET been defeated, I strongly believe it's a matter of time before they're either wiped off the map or rendered ineffective. Every day that passes they lose more and more ground. As for attracting followers, there will always be a handful of nuts that will join, but their recruitment drives also make them easy to infiltrate. All the other Middle East players mentioned in the video also happen to be mortal enemies of ISIS. The narrator of the video even admits their dream of an Islamic Caliphate has been rendered impossible.

Where I do agree is with the idea that ending terrorism forever is an impossible dream. Keep in mind that terrorism is a strategy employed by many different groups of people, and it's been with us much before ISIS even existed.

With respect to insects, with the exception of small quantities of unique insects that live only in one specific place, their total irradication is impossible. They exist everywhere except Antarctica and the top of the Himalayas (the North Pole doesn't count because that's all water). They've gone from place to place and manage to survive whatever the odds. Earth is their planet, they were here billions of years before humans and will be here until the day this planet ceases to exist. In my back yard there is a small nest of red fire ants. This is an invasive specie who hitched a ride on a ship from their native Brazil, and have spread themselves all over the southern USA. They're very hard to kill and every days become more and more resistant to insecticides. Here at home every 3 months I spend $120 for a fumigator to come and fumigate my house. If I didn't this place would immediately be invaded by ants, roaches and spiders (technically insects, but still invasive pests). And of course our friend Ædes ægypti (the mosquito), who has killed more humans that all other animals combined, will NEVER make the endangered species list.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 01, 2017, 11:55 AM
Theodorin Obiang has been finally condemned in Paris.
To understand why Theodorin Obiang, the son of Equatorial Guinea's president, was on trial in Paris, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpgWCjcax1g
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on November 02, 2017, 03:34 AM
What happened in Equatorial Guinea is nothing really new. Dictators of all presuasions notoriously abuse their power at the expense of the people. There are endless examples.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on November 05, 2017, 11:36 AM
100 Balfour Road
A short film
18 languages
https://youtu.be/vPndQGImVMc
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on November 07, 2017, 03:32 AM
Quote from: scarface on November 04, 2017, 09:00 PM
Well, I conclude that the Americans elected a President who is either an imbecile, or a liar.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid it may be the first option.

No imbecile reaches the position of President of the United States, arguably the world's most powerful man. Trump is a liar, a manupulator, a bully and a guy who will absolutely never admit he's wrong.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 27, 2017, 11:47 PM
Tonight, I'm going to give you a link for an exceptional video to understand the economic collapse:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgjIeR5DBY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgjIeR5DBY)

Do we have to deal with a temporary  combination of crises linked to a global redistribution of the cars or are we facing even deeper phenomena such as a collapse of society?
For the specialist who is talking, it’s clear that the collapse started a long time ago.
This conference is in French, but subtitles in several languages are available if you click on the nut.


We can think that all this will change because people are aware of these problems, as we can see on these photos.
But if we are optimistic, we'll have a better world, with a small population, with people closer to nature, where there will be no money because they will be worth zero.


(https://i.ibb.co/Zf9YXKw/islamist-rally-karachi-pakistan-shutterstock-editorial-9243580b.jpg)
Here in Washington, some Americans protesting against Trump about his policy for climate change.
Officially, this photo was taken in Karachi where supporters of the radical religious party, Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah shout slogans during a sit-in protest on Nov. 27, 2017. Pakistani Islamists announced they were disbanding their sit-in near Islamabad after the country’s law minister resigned, caving in to the protesters who have been demanding his ouster in a three-week-long rally.


(https://i.ibb.co/Wypr9Mh/black-friday.jpg)
Some American people, after the invasion of the white house. We can be wondering if they have real claims or if they are looting the place. Apparently an ominous sign is indicating “black Friday”.


Nowadays, towns are larger and larger, because oil is cheap and easily available. But without oil things could change rapidly.



Here is a screenshot taken in Crysis 3, but it could have ben taken in Deir-ez-zor.
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SssRlUcGgb0/UfIxFN533GI/AAAAAAAAAQ4/Mo4edBsbBoE/s1600/chinatown_5.jpg)




Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on November 28, 2017, 06:50 AM
Scarface: If you studied a little bit of history you'd realize that the world has never been better than it is right now and will continue in that direction. In the past 100 years technology has advance much faster than it ever has, even if you count the time before the pyramids of Egypt. It will continue rapidly in that direction. Things have been infinitely worse than they are right now, I could name example after example.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 28, 2017, 03:07 PM
Quote from: humbert on November 28, 2017, 06:50 AM
Scarface: If you studied a little bit of history you'd realize that the world has never been better than it is right now and will continue in that direction. In the past 100 years technology has advance much faster than it ever has, even if you count the time before the pyramids of Egypt. It will continue rapidly in that direction. Things have been infinitely worse than they are right now, I could name example after example.

I appreciate the peremptory tone of humbert, but the lack of arguments leaves an unsettling feeling, and I am bit skeptical on the fact that technical progress could save us. In fact I think it's precisely the opposite: technical progress will accelerate the fall of complex civilizations.
Imagine, for example, Maher, in Palestine, in the middle of his olive groves (actually, it's just an assumption). He's relying on two oxen to pull his plow. Nothing can happen, if there is no more oil, well, he'll still have his cart full of olives, and another one full with maraschino cherries. So the collapse is not a problem for him. But for me it's a problem: I have got a Franprix in front of my building, and without oil, there will be no more food, no more saucison in Franprix and no more coke in your walmart. But Maher will still have his dried olives in his cellar.
In fact, technical progress makes societies more fragile. If we take a meadow, unmodified by man, it is a resilient environment: the plants grow without fertilizers.
In a field, however, fertilizers are killing microorganisms needed for plants. Until the 19th century fallowing was practiced, but it's not the case any more of course: it is now necessary to use pesticides, phosphorus, because soils are dead and nothing would grow without additives.

Let's take another example: the bitcoin (in my opinion it's a bubble). The technological progress also affected how we store our money and how we pay for the goods and services we need. The digital currencies only live in the virtual wold of the Internet. They have strange-sounding names, are governed by often unfamiliar rules , and require us to adopt new habits if we want to use them.
But it's also a regression: You can either buy bitcoins on public exchanges or you can earn them by doing some “bitcoin mining”â€" that is, participating in the process by which bitcoin transactions are verified and added to the public ledger (the blockchain) and also the means through which new bitcoins are released. Essentially, this means building and running your own server farm and, as the price has increased, more and more people appear to be doing this. The consequences are astonishing but predictable. According to one estimate, bitcoin mining is now consuming more electricity than 159 countries, including Ireland, Bahrain and the Slovak Republic. The same source reckons that it’s currently taking as much electricity as would be required to power 2.7m US households and that it’s responsible for 0.13% of global electricity consumption. If things go on like this, bitcoin mining will require all of Denmark’s electricity consumption by about 2020.
In my opinion, in a world in which we will run out of resources (depletion of uranium, oil, and coal, a little later), bitcoin has no future. But gold coins yes. Because gold remains a rare asset, and a gold coin has a universal value. Therefore, I thing technical progress is only an illusion, and will not make it possible to satisfy the primary needs such as eating or heating in the near future.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on November 29, 2017, 06:37 AM
Scarface, you're not happy unless everything in the world is bad and getting worse. You said I had no fact to back up my contention that things are better than ever. Just for starters, here's a comparison between 1820 and 2017
                                                                                                                          in 1820          in 2017
World's Population living in extreme poverty (income less than $1.25 a day)              94%               10%
World's Population living in a democracy                                                                   1%                56%
World's Population having basic education                                                               17%                86%
Vaccination (polio, diptheria, pertussis and tetanus)                                                  0%                86%
World Literacy Rate                                                                                               12%                85%
Infant Mortality (surviving first 5 years of live)                                                         43%                96%

And so on and on and on.......

You also have no faith in technology. If Lithium-Ion batteries have a safety issue, then it will either be fixed or another way will be found. It's a little too early to condemn green technologies to the scrap heap. Once again my faith is based on history.

You brought up the topic of war. This is one of the most peaceful times in history. All you have is a few regional civil wars going on. When was the last time one country declared war against another?

I'd love to see Kim Jong-Un eradicated from the face of the earth. Sadly I seriously doubt this will happen.




Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on November 30, 2017, 12:37 AM
If you're assessing our age, check this out..
https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2017

Things aren't as they should be, "Freedom & Justice for All" and stuff..
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on November 30, 2017, 03:44 AM
For more understanding of the matter, two books by a great investigative journalist:

-The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=36B49030DCB37C3C3824CDBFEB870F30

-The Terror Years: From al-Qaeda to the Islamic State by Lawrence Wright
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=4E3BE347689FF55D829EF9CDFCFC6534

-------------

-Milestones by Sayyid Qutb
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=4DF4069F2D4AA9D5F7D0EE8BC3AC7C97

Milestones is a controversial & pivotal book. It along with commentary on the Holy Quran (In The Shade of The Quran) got the Author a death sentence in 1965 Egypt. The book was written in a prison cell and was smuggled out in papers gradually until completion. It's considered by some a constitution for Islamist's, and it's one of the most misunderstood books of our time. This book & other published works by Mr. Qutb remain in the spotlight even decades after coming to print. There are many studies around this book and the thought of Sayyid Qutb, many of which link the origin of modern Islamic radicalism to his writings. But is that true?

- Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism [1 ed.] by John Calvert
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=73D42A25AA6AA8D280A96DFD69F33326

--------------

You should also check out the writings of Michael Scheuer who is an expert on the matter, as he was in charge of the CIA unit after Bin Laden.

-Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America [1st ed.] by Michael Scheuer
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=4693A74AD8D45206AC397113D1A39EE0

-Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror by Michael Scheuer
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=71FFD07E0447D7E46F0D722032C805F3

-Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq [Reprint ed.] by Michael Scheuer
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=32CD4D53390D13B73702CAA3C185BE51

-Osama bin Laden [1 ed.] by Michael Scheuer
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=54339809271EBE722B90CB783AF0813A
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 30, 2017, 08:08 PM
Quote from: humbert on November 29, 2017, 06:37 AM
Scarface, you're not happy unless everything in the world is bad and getting worse. You said I had no fact to back up my contention that things are better than ever.

Well, you are not totally wrong, but I’m not hunappy because of what I say. And I'm not saying that living standards have worsened, but it's only because we are depleting the main resources that we can achieve such standards. In fact, thanks to oil, every American people has somewhere between 200 and 8,000 energy slaves.
A class 8 truck can carry 50,000 pounds of goods 500 miles in one day. This would take 1,250 people carrying 40-pound backpacks walking 16 miles a day for 31 days. If the people ate 2,000 kcal of raw food a day, they’d burn 77.5 million kcal (and even more energy if the food is cooked). The truck needs 31 times less energy: at 7 mpg, that’s 71 gallons of diesel containing 35,000 kcal per gallon. Trucks carried over 13.182 billion tons of goods, equal to 329 million people each carrying 40 pound packs.
The problem is, we are already facing the end of oil. If oil companies are producing oil with tar sands, it's because the production of conventional already peaked 10 years ago. And the collapse of modern societies will probably happen in the next 10 years.

Understandably, the oil-rich Islamic nations of the Middle East deeply resent the controlling economic hand of the non-Muslim world, and America’s leading role as both banker and war-monger.  Just like the USA, their demographic explosions are artificially maintained by oil income, pending a catastrophic decline which will almost  certainly come after Peak Oil. In the short-term, those glorious days of petrodollar recycling of the 1970s must seem like something from the Persian Nights tales of legend, to populations of which 50% were born after 1970, many of which have recently known increasing poverty and humiliation. America’s ‘uncontrollable’ demographic growth is through the floodgate of immigration, which daily adds to the imperative to seek more energy by dominating geoeconomics, and Islam’s fertility has spawned populations of young men and women with nowhere to go and nothing to lose.

In fact, we’re dealing with an anxiety-provoking subject. That’s why it is taboo. In Franche-Comté, an association asked the permission to hold conferences in schools about this matter, that’s to say about the accelerating destruction of habitats and species, resources depletion, increase in social inequalities...Permission was denied.
Then, we have several ways to see this. Most people are in denial. They don’t know and they don’t want to know. In your messages I’ve noticed that you were not among the brainless mass. Maybe thanks to your Cuban background. And for those who want to look further into this issue, there are those who can understand we won’t withstand a collapse. If you watch the video above, that’s basically what the lecturer says. For the others, the belief in the potential of technological progress will be a way to overcome this predicament. Note that I’m talking about predicament here. In French we have the same word for problem, with the same meaning, but there is no byword for predicament. Maybe we could talk about an inextricable situation (une situation inextricable in French).
Because there is no solution to address resources depletion.
Depletion is the true elephant in the living room of our age: it is a gigantic problem but it is rarely - if ever - recognized. Few people understand that depletion does not mean that we run out of anything. It means that producing a mineral commodity becomes so expensive that fewer and fewer people can afford it.
For example, the gold mining industry literally devours energy to produce an ounce of gold.  In the past decade, fuel consumption at the top gold miners more than doubled, but the actual energy cost grew at a much higher rate.
You can think that thanks to progress we are making bigger trucks to extract gold, but it’s just symptomatic of gold depletion.
(https://srsroccoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/CAT-797-pic.jpg)
Actually, as open-pit mines age, they deepen which forces the haul trucks to travel longer distances at a higher grade.  One of the largest haul trucks in the world is the Caterpillar 797F.  These haul trucks are massive and can transport 400 metric tons of ore in a single trip.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on December 01, 2017, 09:58 PM
Tonight, I'm going to hold a conference about cotton. Maybe some of you have been wondering where the cotton of your clothes was made.
Uzbekistan is one of the world’s largest cotton exporters, and the government of Uzbekistan uses one of the largest state-orchestrated systems of forced labor to produce it.

In 2015 and 2016, the government of Uzbekistan forced more than a million people, including students, teachers, doctors, nurses, and employees of government agencies and private businesses to the cotton fields, against their will and under threat of penalty, especially losing their jobs.
The government of Uzbekistan has increased the use of forced adult labor, apparently to compensate for fewer children. Massive mobilization of teachers, doctors, nurses and other adults to the cotton harvest has degraded education and health services. It has also led to widespread extortion of individuals and businesses.
Daewoo International, General Motors, Teliasonera, Telenor, Nike, zara, H&M and other multinational companies operating in Uzbekistan are benefitting from forced labor.

Here is an exceptional documentary about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZUWZT0pOmc

(http://www.asianews.it/files/img/UZBEKISTAN_-_0327_-_Cotone.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on December 02, 2017, 06:32 AM
Quote from: scarface on November 30, 2017, 08:08 PM
Well, you are not totally wrong, but I’m not hunappy because of what I say. And I'm not saying that living standards have worsened

I DEFY you to tell me a time in history when things were better than they are now.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on December 02, 2017, 04:35 PM
Quote from: humbert on December 02, 2017, 06:32 AM
I DEFY you to tell me a time in history when things were better than they are now.

Well. From this slant you are probably right.
But Im not talking about living conditions. It's not a value judgement either. Im just saying that resources depletion will trigger an economic collapse pretty soon, that's my point.
Let's go back to electric cars for example. Governments are aware that oil is going to be a big problem. China is increasing its strategic reserves. And yet the electric cars market remains a niche market. Less than 1 car out of 100 is an electric vehicle. And for obvious reasons it won't increase much. Today there is already a six-month waiting list to buy a tesla. And they are very expensive. The reason is quite simple, it's getting harder to find lithium, cobalt and rare minerals...
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on December 14, 2017, 11:12 PM
Tonight, I'm going to hold a conference about the decline of the welfare state in the United States.
(in 2 messages since it's too long).



The American welfare state was created in 1935 and continued to develop through 1973.  Since then, over a prolonged period, the capitalist class has been steadily dismantling the entire welfare state.

(https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cartoonstock.com/politics-welfare_state-incapacity_benefits-incapacity_benefits_officers-recession-credit_crunch-rjo1326_low.jpg)

Between the mid 1970’s to the present (2017) labor laws, welfare rights and benefits and the construction of and subsidies for affordable housing have been gutted.  ‘Workfare’  (under President ‘Bill’ Clinton) ended welfare for the poor and displaced workers.  Meanwhile the shift to regressive taxation and the steadily declining real wages have increased corporate profits to an astronomical degree.

What started as incremental reversals during the 1990’s under Clinton has snowballed over the last two decades decimating welfare legislation and institutions.

The earlier welfare ‘reforms’ and the current anti-welfare legislation and austerity practices have been accompanied by a series of endless imperial wars, especially in the Middle East.

In the 1940’s through the 1960’s, world and regional wars (Korea and Indo-China) were combined with significant welfare program â€" a form of ‘social imperialism’, which ‘buy off’ the working class while expanding the empire.  However, recent decades are characterized by multiple regional wars and the reduction or elimination of welfare programs â€" and a massive growth in poverty, domestic insecurity and poor health.

The 1930’s witnessed the advent of social legislation and action, which laid the foundations of what is called the ‘modern welfare state’.

Labor unions were organized as working class strikes and progressive legislation facilitated trade union organization, elections, collective bargaining rights and a steady increase in union membership.  Improved work conditions, rising wages, pension plans and benefits, employer or union-provided health care and protective legislation improved the standard of living for the working class and provided for 2 generations of upward mobility.

Social Security legislation was approved along with workers’ compensation and the forty-hour workweek.  Jobs were created through federal programs (WPA, CCC, etc.).  Protectionist legislation facilitated the growth of domestic markets for US manufacturers.  Workplace shop steward councils organized ‘on the spot’ job action to protect safe working conditions.

World War II led to full employment and increases in union membership, as well as legislation restricting workers’ collective bargaining rights and enforcing wage freezes.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans found jobs in the war economy but a huge number were also killed or wounded in the war.

The post-war period witnessed a contradictory process:  wages and salaries increased while legislation curtailed union rights via the Taft Hartley Act and the McCarthyist purge of leftwing trade union activists.  So-called ‘right to work’ laws effectively outlawed unionization mostly in southern states, which drove industries to relocate to the anti-union states.

Welfare reforms, in the form of the GI bill, provided educational opportunities for working class and rural veterans, while federal-subsidized low interest mortgages encourage home-ownership, especially for veterans.

The New Deal created concrete improvements but did not consolidate labor influence at any level.  Capitalists and management still retained control over capital, the workplace and plant location of production.

Trade union officials signed pacts with capital:  higher pay for the workers and greater control of the workplace for the bosses.  Trade union officials joined management in repressing rank and file movements seeking to control technological changes by reducing hours (“thirty hours work for forty hours pay”).  Dissident local unions were seized and gutted by the trade union bosses â€" sometimes through violence.

Trade union activists, community organizers for rent control and other grassroots movements lost both the capacity and the will to advance toward large-scale structural changes of US capitalism.  Living standards improved for a few decades but the capitalist class consolidated strategic control over labor relations.  While unionized workers’ incomes, increased, inequalities, especially in the non-union sectors began to grow.  With the end of the GI bill, veterans’ access to high-quality subsidized education declined.

While a new wave of social welfare legislation and programs began in the 1960’s and early 1970’s it was no longer a result of a mass trade union or workers’ “class struggle”.  Moreover, trade union collaboration with the capitalist regional war policies led to the killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands of workers in two wars â€" the Korean and Vietnamese wars.

Much of social legislation resulted from the civil and welfare rights movements.  While specific programs were helpful, none of them addressed structural racism and poverty.

The 1960’a witnessed the greatest racial war in modern US history:  Mass movements in the South and North rocked state and federal governments, while advancing the cause of civil, social and political rights.  Millions of black citizens, joined by white activists and, in many cases, led by African American Viet Nam War veterans, confronted the state.  At the same time, millions of students and young workers, threatened by military conscription, challenged the military and social order.

Energized by mass movements, a new wave of social welfare legislation was launched by the federal government to pacify mass opposition among blacks, students, community organizers and middle class Americans.  Despite this mass popular movement, the union bosses at the AFL-CIO openly supported the war, police repression and the military, or at best, were passive impotent spectators of the drama unfolding in the nation’s streets.  Dissident union members and activists were the exception, as many had multiple identities to represent: African American, Hispanic, draft resisters, etc.

Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Medicare, Medicaid, OSHA, the EPA and multiple poverty programs were implemented.  A national health program, expanding Medicare for all Americans, was introduced by President Nixon and sabotaged by the Kennedy Democrats and the AFL-CIO.   Overall, social and economic inequalities diminished during this period.

The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the American militarist empire.  This coincided with the beginning of the end of social welfare as we knew it â€" as the bill for militarism placed even greater demands on the public treasury.

With the election of President Carter, social welfare in the US began its long decline.  The next series of regional wars were accompanied by even greater attacks on welfare via the “Volker Plan” â€" freezing workers’ wages as a means to combat inflation.

‘Guns without butter’ became the legislative policy of the Carter and Reagan Administrations.  The welfare programs were based on politically fragile foundations.

Private sector trade union membership declined from a post-world war peak of 30% falling to 12% in the 1990’s.   Today it has sunk to 7%.  Capitalists embarked on a massive program of closing thousands of factories in the unionized North which were then relocated to the non-unionized low wage southern states and then overseas to Mexico and Asia.  Millions of stable jobs disappeared.

Following the election of ‘Jimmy Carter’, neither Democratic nor Republican Presidents felt any need to support labor organizations.   On the contrary, they facilitated contracts dictated by management, which reduced wages, job security, benefits and social welfare.

The anti-labor offensive from the ‘Oval Office’ intensified under President Reagan with his direct intervention firing tens of thousands of striking air controllers and arresting union leaders.  Under Presidents Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and William Clinton cost of living adjustments failed to keep up with prices of vital goods and services.  Health care inflation was astronomical.  Financial deregulation led to the subordination of American industry to finance and the Wall Street banks.  De-industrialization, capital flight and massive tax evasion reduced labor’s share of national income.

The capitalist class followed a trajectory of decline, recovery and ascendance.  Moreover, during the earlier world depression, at the height of labor mobilization and organization, the capitalist class never faced any significant political threat over its control of the commanding heights of the economy.

The ‘New Deal’ was, at best, a de facto ‘historical compromise’ between the capitalist class and the labor unions, mediated by the Democratic Party elite.  It was a temporary pact in which the unions secured legal recognition while the capitalists retained their executive prerogatives.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on December 14, 2017, 11:12 PM
The Second World War secured the economic recovery for capital and subordinated labor through a federally mandated no strike production agreement. There were a few notable exceptions:  The coal miners’ union organized strikes in strategic sectors and some leftist leaders and organizers encouraged slow-downs, work to rule and other in-plant actions when employers ran roughshod with special brutality over the workers.  The recovery of capital was the prelude to a post-war offensive against independent labor-based political organizations.  The quality of labor organization declined even as the quantity of trade union membership increased.

Labor union officials consolidated internal control in collaboration with the capitalist elite.  Capitalist class-labor official collaboration was extended overseas with strategic consequences.

The post-war corporate alliance between the state and capital led to a global offensive â€" the replacement of European-Japanese colonial control and exploitation by US business and bankers.  Imperialism was later ‘re-branded’ as ‘globalization’.  It pried open markets, secured cheap docile labor and pillaged resources for US manufacturers and importers.

US labor unions played a major role by sabotaging militant unions abroad in cooperation with the US security apparatus:  They worked to coopt and bribe nationalist and leftist labor leaders and supported police-state regime repression and assassination of recalcitrant militants.

‘Hand in bloody glove’ with the US Empire, the American trade unions planted the seeds of their own destruction at home.  The local capitalists in newly emerging independent nations established industries and supply chains in cooperation with US manufacturers.  Attracted to these sources of low-wage, violently repressed workers, US capitalists subsequently relocated their factories overseas and turned their backs on labor at home.

Labor union officials had laid the groundwork for the demise of stable jobs and social benefits for American workers.  Their collaboration increased the rate of capitalist profit and overall power in the political system.  Their complicity in the brutal purges of militants, activists and leftist union members and leaders at home and abroad put an end to labor’s capacity to sustain and expand the welfare state.

Trade unions in the US did not use their collaboration with empire in its bloody regional wars to win social benefits for the rank and file workers.  The time of social-imperialism, where workers within the empire benefited from imperialism’s pillage, was over.  Gains in social welfare henceforth could result only from mass struggles led by the urban poor, especially Afro-Americans, community-based working poor and militant youth organizers.

The last significant social welfare reforms were implemented in the early 1970’s â€" coinciding with the end of the Vietnam War (and victory for the Vietnamese people) and ended with the absorption of the urban and anti-war movements into the Democratic Party.

Henceforward the US corporate state advanced through the overseas expansion of the multi-national corporations and via large-scale, non-unionized production at home.

The technological changes of this period did not benefit labor.   The belief, common in the 1950’s, that science and technology would increase leisure, decrease work and improve living standards for the working class, was shattered.  Instead technological changes displaced well-paid industrial labor while increasing the number of mind-numbing, poorly paid, and politically impotent jobs in the so-called ‘service sector’ â€" a rapidly growing section of unorganized and vulnerable workers â€" especially including women and minorities.

Labor union membership declined precipitously.  The demise of the USSR and China’s turn to capitalism had a dual effect:  It eliminated collectivist (socialist) pressure for social welfare and opened their labor markets with cheap, disciplined workers for foreign manufacturers. Labor as a political force disappeared on every count.  The US Federal Reserve and President ‘Bill’ Clinton deregulated financial capital leading to a frenzy of speculation.  Congress wrote laws, which permitted overseas tax evasion â€" especially in Caribbean tax havens.  Regional free-trade agreements, like NAFTA, spurred the relocation of jobs abroad.  De-industrialization accompanied the decline of wages, living standards and social benefits for millions of American workers.

The New Deal, the Great Society, trade unions, and the anti-war and urban movements were in retreat and primed for abolition.

Wars without welfare (or guns without butter) replaced earlier ‘social imperialism’ with a huge growth of poverty and homelessness.  Domestic labor was now exploited to finance overseas wars not vice versa.  The fruits of imperial plunder were not shared.

As the working and middle classes drifted downward, they were used up, abandoned and deceived on all sides â€" especially by the Democratic Party.  They elected militarists and demagogues as their new presidents.

President ‘Bill’ Clinton ravaged Russia, Yugoslavia, Iraq and Somalia and liberated Wall Street.   His regime gave birth to the prototype billionaire swindlers: Michael Milken and Bernard ‘Bernie’ Madoff.

Clinton converted welfare into cheap labor ‘workfare’, exploiting the poorest and most vulnerable and condemning the next generations to grinding poverty.  Under Clinton the prison population of mostly African Americans expanded and the breakup of families ravaged the urban communities.

Provoked by an act of terrorism (9/11) President G.W. Bush Jr. launched the ‘endless’ wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and deepened the police state (Patriot Act).   Wages for American workers and profits for American capitalist moved in opposite directions.

The Great Financial Crash of 2008-2011 shook the paper economy to its roots and led to the greatest shakedown of any national treasury in history directed by the First Black American President.  Trillions of public wealth were funneled into the criminal banks on Wall Street â€" which were ‘just too big to fail.’  Millions of American workers and homeowners, however, were ‘just too small to matter’.



The Age of Demagogues

President Obama transferred 2 trillion dollars to the ten biggest bankers and swindlers on Wall Street, and another trillion to the Pentagon to pursue the Democrats version of foreign policy: from Bush’s two overseas wars to Obama’s seven.

Obama’s electoral ‘donor-owners’ stashed away two trillion dollars in overseas tax havens and looked forward to global free trade pacts â€" pushed by the eloquent African American President.

Obama was elected to two terms.   His liberal Democratic Party supporters swooned over his peace and justice rhetoric while swallowing his militarist escalation into seven overseas wars as well as the foreclosure of two million American householders.  Obama completely failed to honor his campaign promise to reduce wage inequality between black and white wage earners while he continued to moralize to black families about ‘values’.

Obama’s war against Libya led to the killing and displacement of millions of black Libyans and workers from Sub-Saharan Africa. The smiling Nobel Peace Prize President created more desperate refugees than any previous US head of state â€" including millions of Africans flooding Europe.

‘Obamacare’, his imitation of an earlier Republican governor’s health plan, was formulated by the private corporate health industry (private insurance, Big Pharma and the for-profit hospitals), to mandate enrollment and ensure triple digit profits with double digit increases in premiums.  By the 2016 Presidential elections, ‘Obama-care’ was opposed by a  45%-43% margin of the American people.   Obama’s propagandists could not show any improvement of life expectancy or decrease in infant and maternal mortality as a result of his ‘health care reform’.    Indeed the opposite occurred among the marginalized working class in the old ‘rust belt’ and in the rural areas.  This failure to show any significant health improvement for the masses of Americans is in stark contrast to LBJ’s Medicare program of the 1960’s, which continues to receive massive popular support.

Forty-years of anti welfare legislation and pro-business regimes paved the golden road for the election of Donald Trump

Trump and the Republicans are focusing on the tattered remnants of the social welfare system:  Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.   The remains of FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Societyâ€" are on the chopping block.

The moribund (but well-paid) labor leadership has been notable by its absence in the ensuing collapse of the social welfare state.  The liberal left Democrats embraced the platitudinous Obama/Clinton team as the ‘Great Society’s’ gravediggers, while wailing at Trump’s allies for shoving the corpse of welfare state into its grave.





Over the past forty years the working class and the rump of what was once referred to as the ‘labor movement’ has contributed to the dismantling of the social welfare state, voting for ‘strike-breaker’ Reagan, ‘workfare’ Clinton, ‘Wall Street crash’Bush, ‘Wall Street savior’ Obama and ‘Trickle-down’ Trump.

Gone are the days when social welfare and profitable wars raised US living standards and transformed American trade unions into an appendage of the Democratic Party and a handmaiden of Empire.  The Democratic Party rescued capitalism from its collapse in the Great Depression, incorporated labor into the war economy and the post- colonial global empire, and resurrected Wall Street from the ‘Great Financial Meltdown’ of the 21st century.

The war economy no longer fuels social welfare.  The military-industrial complex has found new partners on Wall Street and among the globalized multi-national corporations.  Profits rise while wages fall.  Low paying compulsive labor (workfare) lopped off state transfers to the poor.  Technology â€" IT, robotics, artificial intelligence and electronic gadgets â€" has created the most class polarized social system in history.  The first trillionaire and multi-billionaire tax evaders rose on the backs of a miserable standing army of tens of millions of low-wage workers, stripped of rights and representation.  State subsidies eliminate virtually all risk to capital.   The end of social welfare coerced labor (including young mother with children) to seek insecure low-income employment while slashing education and health â€" cementing the feet of generations into poverty.  Regional wars abroad have depleted the Treasury and robbed the country of productive investment.  Economic imperialism exports profits, reversing the historic relation of the past.

Labor is left without compass or direction; it flails in all directions and falls deeper in the web of deception and demagogy.  To escape from Reagan and the strike breakers, labor embraced the cheap-labor predator Clinton; black and white workers united to elect Obama who expelled millions of immigrant workers, pursued 7 wars, abandoned black workers and enriched the already filthy rich.  Deception and demagogy of the labor-liberals bred the ugly and unlikely plutocrat-populist demagogue:  labor voted for Trump.

The demise of welfare and the rise of the opioid epidemic killing close to one million (mostly working class) Americans occurred mostly under Democratic regimes. The collaboration of liberals and unions in promoting endless wars opened the door to Trump’s mirage of a stateless, tax-less, ruling class.

Who will the Democrats choose as their next demagogue champion to challenge the ‘Donald’ â€" one who will speak to the ‘deplorables’ and work for the trillionaires?




Maher and Vasudev can try to go to the US, but in my opinion, even the Taliban have a better life in Afghanistan. I think you'll be treated as slaves, and you'll work as barman for 5$ an hour. This is the American dream.
I know someone in Florida who sells cars for a living. He's 65. And he has no money for the dentist (he'll go to Colombia because instead of paying 25000$ it's 5000$ over there).

Below, You can see an interesting town, and there are fields everywhere. For sure the people are not starving there. Lately, I've seen a documentary about people in Bihar, India, eating rodents because they have nothing else, it's probably not the case there.
This town is not Los Angeles. It's Jericho, one of the oldest towns in the world, in Palestine.
I wish I could leave Paris to go there with Maher and humbert.  I think that the economic collapse is approaching, I guess the people of this town will be spared.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Jericho_from_above.jpg/1200px-Jericho_from_above.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on December 31, 2017, 08:36 AM
The world according to Subway.

(https://i.ibb.co/Bnv1DKS/subway-first.jpg)


Subway, these are 44,000 burger shops in the world. Number 1 in fast food, before McDonald's! Multimillionaire, Fred de Luca, the American founder of the brand, based its success on a marketing promise: Subway sandwiches, including raw vegetables, would be very low calorie diets. In 2014, US First Lady Michelle Obama joined Subway to promote her campaign against obesity.
But 50 years after its creation, the brand is going through a bad patch: in the United States, a university study has shown that Subway customers composed sandwiches as caloric as a full menu at McDonald's! Another concern: the brand would overexploit its franchisees. Finally, Subway set up a system of tax optimization allowing it to pay very little tax, especially in France.

It’s difficult to make a fortune by buttering Subway sandwiches. The Capital monthly magazine did the math. Of the approximately 200 franchisees who filed their accounts in the last two years, 35% are losing money. And many are earning only a few thousand euros. "Among the competitors of the fast food restaurant, when one counts 5 to 7% of losing units, it is the end of the world", analyzes Bernard Boutboul, director of Gira Conseil. A third of restaurants in the red? "Maybe, I did not look at the numbers," says Marc Kreder, Europe director of Subway.
This will be his last word. The chain has beautiful shops open on all corners of the street, but it does not like to communicate.
And yet, This does not prevent them from opening many Franchise-owned restaurants. And, surprise, without doing market research. Because they don't care if the Business is profitable or not, unlike McDonald's. Subway wants to open as many franchises as possible because they earn royalties paid by the franchisees.

In its franchise agreement, Subway clearly announces the color: "We do not know what types of locations offer the best chance of success." A franchisee who opened in 2011 in an isolated city of the South of France testifies to have "simply counted the number of passersby for a day". So his sandwich shop, even though it’s open seven days a week, is losing money. We understand better why 45% of restaurants have changed hands between 2008 and 2010.

Be careful however: franchisees do not have any exclusivity on their area. This is how many historic members of the network, whose business was profitable (it happens of course), have seen their activity plunge right from the opening of a rival nearby. "I have no way to oppose it," says one of them. Without finding an ear to talk to. In case of problems, Subway invites its members to re-read the manual of the good franchisee.

Rather discreet in the accompaniment of his flock, Subway claims no less than 12.5% royalties, levied each week. Much more than the use in the sector: Golden brioche is 5%, Paul 6%, Bread apple 7%. One-third of this fee is used to fund advertising. That's 7 million euros last year, compared to the 208 million invested by McDo. Obviously, it's hard to be heard.

From there to publicly express their discontent, the Franchisees don't dare to talk. "The Subway franchise contract is designed to stifle any potential litigation," sighs the lawyer of one of these rebels who plans to fight. Any dispute must indeed be settled in English ... by a referee from New York. However, the franchise agreement is governed by the law of the Netherlands, where the European headquarters of Subway is located. And the company is registered in Liechtenstein...to avoid taxes.

My advice:
If you want to eat junk food, You have the choice between Mcdo or Subway.
You are unemployed? You want to lose money and enrich the De Luca family? Open up a Subway Franchise-owened restaurant (but in France you won’t be able a get a loan from a bank if you say you want to open a Subway, it’s too risky and they know it).
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on January 07, 2018, 09:35 PM
Tonight, I'm going to paste here an interesting article reselased by Nafeez Ahmed on 6 January 2018. But first off, some of you, like aa1234779, or usman, must be wondering who Nafeez is.

Nafeez Ahmed is a British author and investigative journalist who released a documentary in 2011 titled The crisis of civilization.
The majority of the movie features Mr. Ahmed addressing the viewer, with each point illustrated by a combination of news footage, darkly humorous animation, and clips ranging from B movies to public service announcements.
While the message of the film may be too controversial for some, the thoughtful and seemingly unbiased nature of the reporting should also win over its fair share of devotees.

Here is the documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMgOTQ7D_lk

In his latest article, he's talking about the end of oil. And unlike most analysts, he explains that peak oil is more relevant than ever.




Brace for the oil, food and financial crash of 2018
80% of the world’s oil has peaked, and the resulting oil crunch will flatten the economy

By Nafeed Ahmed

(https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*e3J5pQSanWflA0vpLBDdWA.jpeg)

Last September, a few outlets were reporting the counterintuitive findings of a new HSBC research report on global oil supply. Unfortunately, the true implications of the HSBC report were largely misunderstood.

The HSBC research note â€" prepared for clients of the global bank â€" found that contrary to concerns about too much oil supply and insufficient demand, the situation was opposite: global oil supply will in coming years be insufficient to sustain rising demand.

Here is the HSBC report: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9wSgViWVAfzUEgzMlBfR3UxNDg/view

Yet the full, striking import of the report, concerning the world’s permanent entry into a new age of global oil decline, was never really explained. The report didn’t just go against the grain that the most urgent concern is ‘peak demand’: it vindicated what is routinely lambasted by oil majors as a myth: peak oil â€" the concurrent peak and decline of global oil production.

Headquarted in London, UK, HSBC is the world’s sixth largest bank, holding assets of $2.67 trillion. So when they produce a research report for their clients, it would be wise to pay attention, and see what we can learn.

Among the report’s most shocking findings is that “81% of the world’s total liquids production is already in decline.”

Between 2016 and 2020, non-OPEC production will be flat due to declines in conventional oil production, even though OPEC will continue to increase production modestly. This means that by 2017, deliverable spare capacity could be as little as 1% of global oil demand.

This heightens the risk of a major global oil supply shock around 2018 which could “significantly affect oil prices.”

The report flatly asserts that peak demand (the idea that demand will stop growing leaving the world awash in too much supply), while certainly a relevant issue due to climate change agreements and disruptive trends in alternative technologies, is not the most imminent challenge:
“Even in a world of slower oil demand growth, we think the biggest long-term challenge is to offset declines in production from mature fields. The scale of this issue is such that in our view rather there could well be a global supply squeeze some time before we are realistically looking at global demand peaking.”

(https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*hneHVTYIOI4FLkX9K7liNg.jpeg)

Under the current supply glut driven by rising unconventional production, falling oil prices have damaged industry profitability and led to dramatic cut backs in new investments in production. This, HSBC says, will exacerbate the likelihood of a global oil supply crunch from 2018 onwards.

Four Saudi Arabias, anyone?
The HSBC report examines two main datasets from the International Energy Agency and the University of Uppsala’s Global Energy Systems Programme in Sweden.

The latter, it should be noted, has consistently advocated a global peak oil scenario for many years â€" the HSBC report confirms the accuracy of this scenario, and shows that the IEA’s data supports it.

The rate and nature of new oil discoveries has declined dramatically over the last few decades, reaching almost negligible levels on a global scale, the report finds. Compare this to the report’s warning that just to keep production flat against increasing decline rates, the world will need to add four Saudi Arabia’s worth of production by 2040. North American production, despite remaining the most promising in terms of potential, will simply not be able to fill this gap.

Business Insider, the Telegraph and other outlets which covered the report last year acknowledged the supply gap, but failed to properly clarify that HSBC’s devastating findings basically forecast the longterm scarcity of cheap oil due to global peak oil, from 2018 to 2040.

The report revises the way it approaches the concept of peak oil â€" rather than forecasting it as a single global event, the report uses a disaggregated approach focusing on specific regions and producers. Under this analysis, 81% of the world’s oil supply has peaked in production and so now “is post-peak”.

Using a more restrictive definition puts the quantity of global oil that has peaked at 64%. But either way, well over half the world’s global oil supply consists of mature and declining fields whose production is inexorably and irreversibly decreasing:
“If we assumed a decline rate of 5%pa [per year] on global post-peak supply of 74mbd â€" which is by no means aggressive in our view â€" it would imply a fall in post-peak supply of c.38mbd by 2030 and c.52mbd out to 2040. In other words, the world would need to find over four times the size of Saudi Arabia just to keep supply flat, before demand growth is taken into account.”

(https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*9lpp4QqXJvPIID4VykhjiA.jpeg)

What’s worse is that when demand growth is taken into account â€" and the report notes that even the most conservative projections forecast a rise in global oil demand by 2040 of more than 8mbd above that of 2015 â€" then even more oil would be needed to fill the coming supply gap.

But with new discoveries at an all time low and continuing to diminish, the implication is that oil can simply never fill this gap.
Technological innovation exacerbates the problem

Much trumpeted improvements in drilling rates and efficiency will not make things better, because they will only accelerate production in the short term while, therefore, more rapidly depleting existing reserves. In this case, the report concludes:

    “… the decline-delaying techniques are only masking what could be significantly higher decline rates in the future.”

This does not mean that peak demand should be dismissed as a serious concern. As Michael Bradshaw, Professor of Global Energy at Warwick University’s Sloan Business School, told me for my previous VICE article, any return to higher oil prices will have major economic consequences.

The HSBC report takes the position that prices will have to rise eventually, because the drop in investment due to declining profitability amidst the current glut will make a supply squeeze inevitable. Better and more efficient drilling creates a glut now: but it also accelerates depletion, meaning that the lower prices and oil glut today is a precursor of tomorrow’s higher prices and supply squeeze.

There’s another possibility, which could mean that prices don’t rise as HSBC forecasts. In this scenario, the economy remains too weak to afford an oil price hike. Demand for oil stays low because economic activity remains tepid, while consumers and investors continue to seek out alternative energy sources to fossil fuels. In that case, the very inertia of a weakening economy would pre-empt the HSBC scenario, and the industry would continue to slowly crush itself out of the market due to declining profitability.
Price spikes, economic recession

But what if the HSBC supply forecast is correct?

Firstly, oil price spikes would have an immediate recessionary effect on the global economy, by amplifying inflation and leading to higher costs for social activity at all levels, driven by the higher underlying energy costs.

Secondly, even as spikes may temporarily return some oil companies to potential profitability, such higher oil prices will drive consumer incentives to transition to cheaper renewable energy technologies like solar and wind, which are already becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuels.

That means a global oil squeeze could end up having a dramatic impact on continued demand for oil, as twin crises of ‘peak oil’ and ‘peak demand’ end up intensifying and interacting in unfamiliar ways.

The demise of fossil fuels

The HSBC report’s specific forecasts of global oil supply and demand, which may or may not turn out to be accurate, are part of a wider story of global net energy decline.

A new scientific research paper authored by a team of European government scientists, published on Cornell University’s Arxiv website in October 2016, warns that the global economy has entered a new era of slow and declining growth. This is because the value of energy that can be produced from the world’s fossil fuel resource base is declining inexorably.

The paper â€" currently under review with an academic journal â€" was authored by Francesco Meneguzzo, Rosaria Ciriminna, Lorenzo Albanese, Mario Pagliaro, who collectively conduct research on climate change, energy, physics and materials science at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) â€" Italy’s premier government agency for scientific research.

According to HSBC, oil prices are likely to rise and stabilise for some time around the $75 per barrel mark due to the longer term decline in production relative to persistent demand. But the Italian scientists find that this is still too high to avoid destabilising recessionary effects on the economy.

The Italian study offers a new model combining “the competing dynamics of population and economic growth with oil supply and price,” with a view to evaluate the near-term consequences for global economic growth.

Data from the past 40 years shows that during economic recessions, the oil price tops $60 per barrel, but during economic growth remains below $40 a barrel. This means that prices above $60 will inevitably induce recession.

Therefore, the scientists conclude that to avoid recession, “the oil price should not exceed a threshold located somewhat between $40/b [per barrel] and $50/b, or possibly even lower.”

More broadly, the scientists show that there is a direct correlation between global population growth, economic growth and total energy consumption. As the latter has steadily increased, it has literally fueled the growth of global wealth.

But even so, the paper finds that the world is experiencing:

    “… declining average EROIs [Energy Return on Investment] for all fossil fuels; with the EROI of oil having likely halved in the short course of the first 15 years of the 21st century.”

(https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*lAFMb_MaPfBat7YHS9QlBQ.jpeg)

Crisis convergence

Seen in this broader scientific context, the HSBC global oil supply report provides quite stunning confirmation that for the most part, global oil production is already in post-peak. That much is incontrovertible, and derived from industry-validated data.

HSBC believes that after 2018, this is going to manifest in not simply a global supply shock, but a world in which cheap, high quality fossil fuels is increasingly hard to find.

We don’t need to accept this forecast dogmatically â€" the post-peak oil market, which HSBC confirms now exists, may function differently than what anyone can easily forecast.

But if HSBC’s forecast is accurate, here’s what it might mean. One possible scenario is that by 2018 or shortly thereafter, the world will face a similar convergence of global crises that occurred a decade earlier.

In or shortly after 2018, economic and energy crisis convergence would drive global food prices up, re-generating the contours of the triple crunch we saw ravage the world from 2008 to 2011, the debilitating impacts of which we have yet to recover from.

2018 is likely to be crunch year for another reason. 1 January 2018 is the date when a host of new regulations are set to come in force, which will “constrain lending ability and prompt banks to only advance money to the best borrowers, which could accelerate bankruptcies worldwide,” according to Bloomberg. Other rules to come in play will require banks to stop using their own international risk assessment measures for derivatives trading.

Ironically, the introduction of similar well-intentioned regulation in January 2008 (through Basel II) laid the groundwork to rupture the global financial architecture, making it vulnerable to that year’s banking collapse.

In fact, two years earlier in July 2006, Dr David Martin, an expert on global finance, presciently forecast that Basel II would interact with the debt bubble to convert a collapse of the housing bubble into a global financial conflagaration.

Just a month after that prescient warning, I was told by a former senior Pentagon official with wide-ranging high-level access to the US military, intelligence and financial establishment that a global banking collapse was imminent, and would likely occur in 2008.

My source insisted that the event was bound up with the peak of global conventional oil production about two years earlier (which according to the UK’s former chief government scientist Sir David King did indeed occur around 2005, even though unconventional oil and gas production has offset the conventional decline so far).

Having first outlined my warning of a 2008 global banking collapse in August 2006, I re-articulated the warning in November 2007, citing Dr. Martin’s forecast and my own wider systems analysis at a lecture at Imperial College, London. In that lecture, I specifically predicted that a housing-triggered banking crisis would be sparked in the context of the new era of expensive fossil fuels.

I called it then, and I’m calling it now.

Some time after January 2018, we are seeing the probability of a new crisis convergence in global energy, economic and food systems, similar to what occurred in 2008.

In the end, I might be wrong. The crash might not happen in exactly 2018. It might happen later. Or it might be triggered by something else, something unexpected, that the model outlined here doesn’t capture.

The point of a forecast is not to be right â€" but to imagine a potential scenario based on the data available that one can reasonably prepare for; and to adjust the model accordingly in light of new data.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on January 19, 2018, 03:01 AM
Tonight, a documentary, titled the price of the American dream, is available on the forum (it's in English).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVtFQygX6TU


(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZGRhMzQ4ZGQtYTY3ZS00NTUzLWI0YTQtNmI2YTgyYTgwN2IzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTM3MDMyMDQ@._V1_.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on February 05, 2018, 08:06 PM
Tonight, I'm going to give you a quick insight of what's happening in Syria by talking about the new banknote.

(https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_960w/2010-2019/Wires/Images/2017-07-02/AP/Syria_The_Latest_12617-f0969.jpg&w=1484)

Well, if some of you are looking at the pictures, you must be thinking it's the Syrian Bitcoin. Or the Assadcoin.

Actually, Bashar al-Assad appears on Syrian banknotes for the first time ever.

Syria's Central Bank announced this weekend that it was introducing a new banknote â€" a 2,000-pound bill worth roughly $4 â€" because of “wear and tear” on the currency already in circulation. Noted in state media's coverage of the new note, however, is an important design detail: For the first time, a portrait of President Bashar al-Assad is being featured on Syrian money.

Assad has been president of Syria since 2000, when he succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad. Trained as an ophthalmologist, Bashar al-Assad was initially seen as a potential reformer. However, he has since been accused of human rights violations. Since 2011, Syria has been locked in a brutal and intractable conflict.

In the past, Syria's banknotes have tended to feature Hafez al-Assad or historical figures or sites. The portraits on the banknotes have attracted considerable attention in the past, given their political implications. In 2015, pro-government social media accounts urged a boycott of a new 1,000-pound bill after an image of Hafez al-Assad was removed from it.

The introduction of the new 2,000-pound bill might seem to suggest economic weakness. The note is the highest denomination yet for the Syrian pound, a recognition that since the conflict in the country began, the value of the Syrian currency has dropped from about 47 pounds to the dollar in 2011 to more than 500 pounds to the dollar this year. Many Syrians quickly found that their hard-earned savings were being rendered worthless, with the threat that hyperinflation could soon make things even worse.

Yet counterintuitively, the government portrayed the new bill as a sign of stabilization. According to the official Syrian Arab News Agency, the Central Bank governor, Duraid Dergham, told reporters on Sunday that the plan for the 2,000-pound bill had actually been approved years ago but implemented only recently after exchange-rate fluctuations slowed down. Dergham also said that there was “no need to panic” that the bill could worsen the inflation.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on February 25, 2018, 10:41 PM
This is a good documentary on 9/11 which I've seen more than ten years ago.. Yet this final cut I only watched days ago..

Loose Change - Final Cut 2007 (Full Length)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOVTpnr_qsU

I can't claim that everything on the film is true, nor is it the whole truth..
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on February 25, 2018, 10:50 PM
Quote from: aa1234779 on February 25, 2018, 10:41 PM
This is a good documentary on 9/11 which I've seen more than ten years ago.. Yet this final cut I only watched days ago..

Loose Change - Final Cut 2007 (Full Length)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOVTpnr_qsU

I can't claim that everything on the film is true, nor is it the whole truth..

Thanks, I'm going to watch it.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on February 26, 2018, 12:19 AM
If Bin Laden is not behind it, then who?
Bin Laden wanted to wage Jihad against the Unites States: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqQwnqjA-6w

(https://rasica.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/bush-at-classroom-on-9-11.jpg)

But it's interesting to note that mere planes were probably not enough for the towers to collapse.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on February 26, 2018, 12:41 AM
Quote from: scarface on February 26, 2018, 12:19 AM
If Bin Laden is not behind it, then who?
Bin Laden wanted to wage Jihad against the Unites States: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqQwnqjA-6w

(https://rasica.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/bush-at-classroom-on-9-11.jpg)

But it's interesting to note that mere planes were probably not enough for the towers to collapse.

It's true, Bin Laden is behind the attacks.. That is a well established fact.
Yet I have no doubt that some people saw it coming and saw opportunity in the events to start wars afterwards that are justified in the eyes of the masses.
American foreign policy was adjusting from Fukuyama's End of History (1992) to Huntington's Clash of Civilization and Remaking World Order (1996). Large-scale attacks such as those of 9/11 serve that purpose greatly.
We are all just subjects in a world-wide decades long psychological operation(s).

Which brings me to another film worth checking out.

Psywar - Full Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eB046f998U

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on February 26, 2018, 05:58 AM
I believe there's a big coverup regarding all this 9/11 thing the US government's propaganda machine keeps saying. Consider this:

1) As you correctly said, no building has ever been brought down by a fire. Not only that, but the building came down exactly as happens during a controlled implosion. Add to this the fact that building 7 came down exactly the same way despite the fact that it was never hit by a plane.

2) We're being told the Pentagon was hit by a gasoline-filled plane. Despite this there is no fire, no jet engines and no bodies from the crew and passengers.

3) The remains of the plane that crashed before hitting anything disappeared almost immediately. The propaganda machine kept telling us that some "heroes" overwhelmed the hijackers and force the plane down.

As Hitler used to say, the bigger the lie the more the people will believe it.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on March 04, 2018, 04:38 AM
Documentaries:

Egypt could become the most populated country in the world, before China and India.
This video explains why Egypt’s growing population places strain on resources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzNcr4H4iNI


A documentary that Vasudev could like...
If you sense that the future looks bleak, that there is little chance that this whole mess will end in joy and good humor, that there is a tiny chance that we will escape a systemic collapse of the thermo-industrial civilization, you are not far from reality. In this video, based on the available data, we try to explain why we think the situation is inextricable and that a systemic collapse is now inevitable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsA3PK8bQd8

According to a report of HSBC, the 6th bank of the world, we could have an oil crisis as soon as 2018.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1k6ezQ8BMA

A documentary in French, La crise permanente, by Marc Chesney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK3A5wat6Bk


Miscellaneous videos:
30 years ago, Terminator found a job in Los Angeles (he had to help Sarah Connor). Since then, he was unemployed, like  100 million Americans, despite the optimism of Powell concerning the American economy (as forecasted in the financial topic, the stock exchange is dropping, and it’s likely to continue).
50% of them are eating thanks to food stamps and the others are probably not eating at all. Terminator was one of those American, and if has been through a rough patch, it seems it’s over: he found a new job...in Palestine. You can watch this video to understand what I’m talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlbUEkNBcZ0

Many users of the forum gathered in Maher’s den to have a party. After a good whiskey and with some good music, they want to thank Maher, scarface and the users for the content uploaded on the forum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Li6cv1Ftg

How to turn 300 000$ into 5 cents:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxAguzN5OJQ

Is it the type of job you are looking for?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpTeiSKiCgc

Music:

Fous ta cagoule:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI9yKr39vGI

Bulletproof:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLJB4pM9Jj0

E.T club mix:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzUlQIJsQpY
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on March 10, 2018, 10:28 AM
This documentary is likely to be inappropriate for some viewers, others may vomit.
Just a heads-up.

Secret History: Kinsey's Paedophiles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb2sytLAf0s

The film is basically discussing the controversial study of sexuality which Governments around the world took into consideration in legislating/modifying laws dealing with the issue of sex...


If you want to read the study in question, here is a link for it in PDF format:
Sexual behavior in the human male   (1948)
Authors: Alfred Charles Kinsey, Wardell Baxter Pomeroy, Clyde Eugene Martin
http://gen.lib.rus.ec/book/index.php?md5=CB631307547C3F42D3EF6322A1708CAD

Tell us what you think, the subject is, as usual, open for discussion.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on March 15, 2018, 01:50 AM
Serial killer Ted Bundy's last interview, I don't have any remorse for him, but I do respect him speaking his mind on a sensitive subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlk_sRU49TI

Note:
I'm not calling for a ban on anything, nor is the interviewee.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on March 16, 2018, 08:02 PM
According to this 'study'... I'd rather not spoil the fun..

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/no-one-100-straight-sooner-men-embrace-better/?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook

Total BS..
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on March 17, 2018, 12:41 AM
A satirical documentary, broadcast a few months before the Iraq invasion in 2003, about the prologue to the war that cost so many lives, and trillions of paper money.

Between Iraq and a Hard Place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePQwwX6tCq8

Truly, a must see. Shame it is in really bad resolution.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on April 05, 2018, 10:24 AM

This two-part article explains in estimated numbers how many people were killed for the excuse of a false-flag attack perpetrated in-part by the US government:


Part 1:

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/03/22/how-many-millions-of-people-have-been-killed-in-americas-post-9-11-wars-part-one-iraq/

Part 2:

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/04/03/how-many-people-has-the-u-s-killed-in-its-post-9-11-wars-part-2-afghanistan-and-pakistan/

We live in a sad unjust world ruled by evil men.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on April 05, 2018, 01:28 PM


What is the difference between US allied forces in Afghanistan & Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi's forces..

They are both ready to kill hundreds of innocents for no reason other than killing a few of their enemy.. They are using the same Fatwa..

https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-kunduz-air-strikes-littered-with-dead-bodies-taliban-civilians/29145508.html
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on April 05, 2018, 01:39 PM
This is one of my favorite documentaries that I've watched recently..

The US government doesn't mind killing women & children by CS gas, fire, and mid-ranged automatic weapons

Waco - A New Revelation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr9pQ1pIbiU

Tear gas should be banned globally..
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on April 05, 2018, 06:54 PM
United States military veteran suicide is an ongoing phenomenon regarding a reportedly high rate of suicide among U.S. military veterans, in comparison to the general public. According to the most recent report published by the VA in 2016, which analyzed 55 million veterans' records from 1979 to 2014, the current analysis indicates that an average of 20 veterans a day die from suicide.

Read the rest here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_veteran_suicide

They were expendible during their tours, and they are not taken care of afterwards as the politicians don't give a damn about them anyways.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 23, 2018, 11:05 PM
Here are a few new links for various videos and documentaries:

For Howell, a lot of bearishness to come for the markets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0boL-t8w1c

Understanding the concept of society collapse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dgjIeR5DBY (in French with English subtitles)

Climate change in Peru: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAcJile4Idk




Get out (of the white house): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TllKdcjgJCI

The war against the baboons in South Africa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cph0D7Vdjp4

Mufti Menk is explaining whether smoking haschich is allowed in Islam: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aInN4eGkbGQ

An Israeli soldier vs Ahed Tamimi. One of them does not stand a chance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7vN56aM7sE


Bonus:
Hitler getting his electricity bill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jElYTUbRXQ




Maybe this week there will be another, smaller repack of Outlast 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLJB4pM9Jj0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-vetWW8Ums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sN2FmlE_98
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 24, 2018, 07:47 PM
Tonight, I'm going to hold another conference. Maybe humbert and topdog will be interested.


Man, serial killer of large mammals?

The study of the registers containing thousands of fossils is rather clear: at each arrival of "Sapiens" on a continent, the average size of the animals collapses. This has been going on for more than 125,000 years.

(http://img.lemde.fr/2018/04/20/317/870/2290/1526/534/0/60/0/595b133_7640-1nh95wo.cvewl.jpg)
Mammoth hunting scene. Print of 1892


It was some 14,000 years ago. The American continent was home to a fauna like no other. In Alaska and the Yukon lands, mammoths of 10 tonnes and 5 meters at the withers quietly swallowed grasses and other sedges. A little further south were the lands of the impressive woolly rhinoceros (2 meters at the withers for 3 tons) and, as far as the tropics, those of the terrible saber-toothed tiger (450 kilograms, 3.5 meters long).

And then, in a few centuries, 3,000 years at most, these giants have disappeared. Eradicated. The cause ? For a long time scientists disagreed about it. A meteorite, as when the dinosaurs died, 66 million years ago? A sudden change in climate? a disease transmitted by mosquitoes? the fault of M baboon? Or again, the man, clever and unscrupulous hunter? In an article published in the journal Science, on Friday 20 April, an American team supports the latter hypothesis. It does not only blame the conquerors of the New World, who probably arrived in the Behring Strait, with having eradicated some imposing species. It holds man responsible for "the decline in the size of mammals through the late quaternary", as the title of the publication plainly indicates. In other words, we would be guilty of the general disappearance of the largest mammals on the five continents, and that for at least 125 000 years.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on April 30, 2018, 03:53 AM
JFK II - The Bush Connection - The Assassination of John F Kennedy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLfFzgVEsRM

The Assassination of JFK Jr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vehk03v23y4

These 2 films + (RFK Must Die) are essential to understand what's going on in the sick world we live in.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 30, 2018, 11:11 PM
Tonight, I’m going to hold an exceptional conference about climate change. Maybe you have understood that times are tough. In this context, the climate negotiations in Bonn between states may be tense.


As the planet warms up, the UN Framework Convention's opening session on Monday does not look like a peaceful one.

(https://image.ibb.co/g6Omyc/bonn.jpg)
The model of the Earth exhibited at the India Pavilion on November 6, 2017, at the United Nations COP23 Conference on Climate Change in Bonn

At what pace will the negotiators meeting until May 10 in Bonn, Germany, conduct their work? This issue, recurrent at the beginning of each session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is expected to become more acute this year. For the delegates of the 195 signatory countries of the Paris agreement to contain warming below the 2 ° C threshold know that time is running out.

Outside the bubble of the Bonn Convention Center, where representatives of nations will sit, the state of the planet is deteriorating. The last three years have been the hottest in the history of weather records, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a report released in late March. "The beginning of 2018 continued as 2017 ended, with extreme episodes costing lives and destroying livelihoods," wrote Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of the agency.

The WMO also points out that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are now above 400 parts per million, while several studies conclude that CO2 emissions will increase again in 2017.

To deal with the heterogeneity of these negotiations and the reluctance of major players - the United States has announced its intention to withdraw from the agreement; Russia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia have still not ratified the text - the UN agency plans to add an extra working session in September in Bangkok. This option is not without risk: it could encourage some countries to reveal their positions only in the autumn and thus empty the substance of the discussions that open on April 30th.

This choice would have a financial cost, whereas the UNFCCC must already make up for Washington's refusal to pay. It can count, however, on the generosity of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Foundation, which, on April 22, paid $ 4.5 million to the Framework Convention.

But this good news will not be enough to ease the ever-increasing tensions over climate finance. Developed states are regularly criticized for not honoring their promise to raise 100 billion euros per year by 2020 to help the countries of the South.

Another commitment of the Paris agreement has poisoned the COP23 debates in Germany in 2017, that of the "predictability" of the financing on which the developing nations can count. "This is a legitimate question for the countries of the South, but we can not ignore the real budget constraints of some countries in the North, said Lucile Dufour, Climate Action Network (RAC).

Another point could be discussed: the wish of several developing countries to see a principle of "bifurcation" appear in the application of the Paris Agreement. It would be a matter of setting a course for the northern states, obliged to reduce their polluting emissions, another for those in the South, invited to act at their own pace and within their means. "This is a very sensitive subject, notes the RAC official, that would be tantamount to accepting a two-speed implementation of the Paris agreement", contrary to the spirit of the text adopted during COP21, at the end of 2015. According to many observers, developing countries are wielding this threat in the hope of obtaining additional financial and technical resources.

The latest unknown in these climate talks is the ability of Fiji, which is chairing debates until December, to impose compromise solutions. The small island state will run in Bonn the exchange format validated at COP23: the "Talanoa dialogue". The first stage is scheduled for Sunday, May 6, with the organization of eighteen round tables about long-term strategies. Each of these workshops will be attended by thirty states and five non-state actors. These sessions will be closed to the public, that the NGOs regret, worried about the limited space left to civil society.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 01, 2018, 04:55 PM
Today, I'm putting on the forum a few exceptional photos of the demonstrations taking place in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, as part of the "Great March of Return".

(http://img.lemde.fr/2018/04/27/0/0/5088/3352/1000/659/60/0/d71a36a_4366-cej5s8.ape9r.jpg)

(http://img.lemde.fr/2018/04/27/0/0/4260/2682/1000/630/60/0/8b90e00_5567-18e2sdk.qug6.jpg)

(http://img.lemde.fr/2018/04/27/0/0/5760/3840/1000/667/60/0/de4c322_5467-ur7oc6.abvi.jpg)

(http://img.lemde.fr/2018/04/27/0/0/5760/3840/1000/667/60/0/57ae8dd_16159-iwj3g3.xv7y.jpg)

(http://img.lemde.fr/2018/04/27/0/0/2404/1507/1000/627/60/0/23c3ef6_5661-d04stw.7d9pd.jpg)

(http://img.lemde.fr/2018/04/27/0/0/2878/1923/998/667/60/0/0b01ca4_4511-1iuoi6j.tioo.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 03, 2018, 11:59 PM
I didn't put any comments in the previous message but we can imagine easily why the Palestinians are gathering there.
Maybe the farmer with the horse has decided to compete in the race at the hippodrome of Auteuil.
Most probably, they found a link on the forum for Deus ex: Mankind divided a few months ago, and after playing the game, they decided to go to Dubai. The man with the horse is going to guide them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCDpWm5MYZM
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 05, 2018, 02:06 AM
Tonight, I’m going to talk about climate change and deal with this issue: Why cold waves do not call into question global warming.



As soon as winter becomes harsh, the ironic argument about the extent of global warming resurfaces. But do not confuse weather and climate.

In December 2017, Donald Trump mocked, in a tweet, global warming by commenting on the intense cold wave that was raging on the east coast of the United States.
 
The argument is a classic: it comes back whenever winter temperatures become negative. It seems curious - or contradictory - to a number of observers that we talk about global warming while some countries regularly experience episodes of intense cold.

The argument has a corollary widely used by climate scientists: "How can scientists predict the climate in a hundred years when they can not predict that of next week? The answer is simple: the daily weather and climate have no connection.

To summarize: the weather varies over short times, while the climate varies over (very) long periods. To be precise, meteorology refers to the study of atmospheric phenomena and conditions over short periods of time, while climate refers to the evolution of the atmosphere over the long term.

To use an analogy, if the weather is the cash you keep in your pocket, the climate is your annual income. The first varies from day to day, when the second varies much more slowly.

Evolution of average temperatures in February in metropolitan France between 1899 and 2016.
(https://image.ibb.co/h4Wd3n/temp.png)

Actually, the episodes of intense cold will not disappear, they will continue to appear regularly. Simply, global warming makes them rarer.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 14, 2018, 07:53 PM
Here are two articles in French. Maybe some of you will be interested.

A lot of rioters took to the street in the Gaza strip to protest against the ambassy of the US in Jerusalem. Despite their bravery, it turned out the Israeli Army was stronger.
http://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/live/2018/05/14/en-direct-seize-palestiniens-tues-a-gaza-par-des-tirs-israeliens_5298685_3218.html

(http://img.lemde.fr/2018/05/14/771/0/5314/2657/644/322/60/0/2af881a_5552427-01-06.jpg)

India is threatened by the depletion of its groundwater.
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2018/05/07/l-inde-menacee-par-l-epuisement-de-ses-nappes-phreatiques_5295240_3244.html
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 15, 2018, 12:10 AM
On the forum, a lot of users come from India. we can see this on this site: https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/nomaher.com
It would be interesting to have other statistics though.

But maybe some of you come from Argentina. And this country is currently going through a rough patch.
Argentine peso plumbs new low; nears 25 per dollar. Currency now down 18% over past 12 days despite interest rate hikes.

(https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6fe57536-4ef8-11e8-9471-a083af05aea7?source=next&fit=scale-down&width=700)


The Argentine peso suffered another mauling, falling 7.7 per cent despite efforts from the Macri government and the International Monetary Fund to prop up the country’s financial position.

The currency fell sharply at the opening of trading to just below 25 pesos the dollar, taking the decline in the last 12 days to 18 per cent.

The country’s bonds and stocks were also under pressure, with the 100-year bond trading back under 86 cents on the dollar and Argentina-related electronically-traded funds down more than 1 per cent.

(https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.upp-prod-eu.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb9377358-5784-11e8-bdb7-f6677d2e1ce8?source=next&fit=scale-down&width=700)



The sharpness of the fall again underlines the poor liquidity in the peso, one of the least traded of emerging market currencies. The daily average turnover in over-the-counter foreign exchange in Argentina amounts to only $1bn on a net-gross basis, according to the Bank of International Settlements.

The Argentine government last week approached the IMF about a line of credit, after its central bank’s raid on reserves and a hike of interest rates to 40 per cent failed to arrest the peso’s decline.

Analysts have warned that while the move should help reassure foreign investors, Mr Macri risks alienating ordinary Argentines and their faith in the national currency. The IMF is unpopular in Argentina because of the impact its measures had on the economy in the early 2000s.

Argentines are concerned the IMF would demand the peso be allowed to float absolutely freely as a condition for lending money. Many observers argue the peso is overvalued, but after its devaluation over the last two weeks, economists are beginning to suggest the currency is reaching its market value.

President Macri said in a statement he had spoken to US president Donald Trump to discuss the start of the IMF talks. The US has the biggest voting strength among IMF member countries.

The IMF said in a statement that discussions with the government were ongoing and that it would not attach any conditions related to the exchange rate as part of its talks.

“The exchange rate should continue to be determined by market forces, with the central bank continuing to use all the policy tools that are at its disposal,” said an IMF spokesperson. An informal IMF board meeting on Argentina has been scheduled for Friday.

But analysts said time was pressing. They attributed much of Monday’s pressure on the peso to the big test faced by the central bank on Tuesday when it holds its monthly auction of short-term securities, known as Lebacs, with notes worth 639bn pesos maturing on Wednesday, or about $26bn.

There were concerns those Lebacs not rolled over would free up pesos to buy dollars, putting further pressure on the currency. Nevertheless, analysts pointed out that as much as 60 per cent of the stock of Lebacs maturing were owned by the public sector, while high interest rates above 40 per cent meant that many investors might choose to continue holding Lebacs.

The IMF needed to provide a quick timeframe for the release of financial aid to “calm down domestic sentiment” towards the peso, said Simon Quijano-Evans, EM strategist at Legal & General Asset Management â€" “or the central bank needs to hike rates yet again”.

But the question was whether that would work, “which would raise the spectre of capital controls”, he added.

Brown Brothers Harriman said it thought another rates hike was plausible. “The plunging peso warns of a further spike in inflation, and so the bank will likely need to hike rates again,” it said.

Ilya Gofshteyn, LatAm forex strategist at Standard Chartered Bank, said: “Traders feel like there are still some people caught the wrong way who haven’t liquidated positioning yet.”

But he also attributed peso weakness to the trend running against emerging market currencies. “We have oil higher, US yields higher, and therefore broad-based dollar strengthening,” said Mr Gofshteyn. “Idiosyncratic factors aren’t helping, but if we get stability in EM forex, I still believe we will see peso pain subside.”
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on May 16, 2018, 11:19 PM
The Arrivals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLsv2e1xiCPWt-4MNDXjRkg_nfqNWEog4m&time_continue=20&v=spruVpTNMqc

This docu-series is about the Illuminati control of the world from a religious perspective, and the preparations for the coming of the Antichrist, or Dajjal (deceiver).

Even though I disagree with the Shia-Islamic point-of-view of the 12 Imams after Prophet Muhammad Peace be upon him, it doesn't hurt to watch it. It's an eye-opener in some aspects, although I'm not a fan of over-hyping conspiracies as the power of the aware free people of the world can & will overcome the ongoing and coming tribulations.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 21, 2018, 04:30 AM
For those who want to understand the situation in Gaza...
Here is an article in French, titled In Gaza, social deprivation, the breeding ground of the revolt.
http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2018/05/20/a-gaza-la-misere-sociale-terreau-de-la-revolte_1651536
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 22, 2018, 10:08 PM
I found a TV report in French, about the pollution in India, and many users of the forum could be interested in this documentary. There is a crazy economic development in India, and out of the 20 most polluted towns in the world, 17 are in India. And in towns like New Delhi, the air pollution thresholds are exceeded, sometimes 40 times the ones recommended by the WHO. After New Delhi, the documentary talks about the town of Bangalore too.
The documentary is here (the beginning in English with French subtitles, and then essentially in French..). You can skip the first part about...Syria if you are not interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmaJ82snzwg
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 25, 2018, 12:50 AM
Tonight I'm going to talk about a well-known recruiter of Mujhaideen in Syria.

Is this man going to become the next caliph of Syria? The one that Muslims have been waiting for centuries?
(https://www.pressafrik.com/photo/art/default/19998840-23662337.jpg?v=1517950045)
I don't think so. But Omar Diaby Omsen, the French-Senegalese recruiter of Jihadists said he should take advantage of the Islamic State's debacle in Syria and Iraq. This is what the French secret services predict, according to Mediapart.

ISIS's defeat in Syria and Iraq puts foreign jihadists in an uncomfortable posture.
While the majority of them prefer to follow the organization's hard-line approach to fighting until they become "martyr", others seem to opt for another choice. This is what we learn from an article in Mediapart on the prospects of jihad in 2018.

According to the journalist Mathieu Suc who draws his information from the interviews he had with the secret services, the majority of French jihadists who have joined Daesh don't want to leave the organization. On the other hand, some of those who left the IS are going to join the French-speaking katiba of Omar Diaby.

Once a subsidiary of Jabhat as Nosra, Firqatul Ghuraba (the unit of foreigners) is now affiliated with Hayat Tahrir as Sham, a coalition of Syrian insurgent groups led by the former representative of Al Qaida in Syria, Abu Mouhamed al-Joulani. For the French secret services, the transfer of jihadists to the katiba of Omar Omsen located in northwestern Syria is expected to intensify in 2018.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 25, 2018, 07:41 PM
I'm asking the users of the forum to be patient. Another conference will take place here soon. What's more, the repack of Farcry 4 is being compressed. Hopefully it wil be smaller than fitgirl's repack, If not I won't release it but it should be below 10,8 gb. Anyway, the script will be complex since files are reflated one by one before compression for a smaller size (otherwise we can't be below 13gb), and the repack will recompress them into their original format.
Some films will be released too, and I know that the users of the forum want the best ones.
Finally, maybe I will make a special message about the paintings of the Invalides that are already available on the forums. But without comments, I guess that Danill and aa1234779 don't really understand what they are looking at.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on May 26, 2018, 04:42 AM
You're right as I don't have an idea about that. Eager to know though.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 26, 2018, 06:05 PM
Today, I'm going to hold an exceptional conference about LafargeHolcim.

LafargeHolcim, world leader in cement, will close its Paris headquarters along with it office in Zurich. 200 jobs will be cut.

Four years after the announcement of the merger between French and his Swiss rival Holcim, all power will be concentrated in Switzerland.
It must have been a "marriage of equals". "Nobody buys anyone! " said Bruno Lafont, then boss of Lafarge. Four years after the announcement of the merger between the French cement champion and his Swiss rival Holcim, this fiction has definitely ended.
Friday, May 25, the world leader in cement announced its intention to close the Paris headquarters of the group. An eminently symbolic gesture. From now on, all power will be concentrated in Switzerland, where the organization will also be reviewed. In total, this restructuring should, according to the management, lead to the cut of around 200 jobs: 107 jobs in Switzerland and 97 jobs in Paris.

Since the merger, LafargeHolcim has two headquarters, one rue des Belles-Feuilles, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, the other in Switzerland. Teams are shared between the two locations. The entire internal audit and the health and safety departments are located in the former Lafarge headquarters, as well as some of the communication, human resources and legal department heads.

Lafarge in the 16th arrondissement
(http://i.f1g.fr/media/figaro/1280x580_crop/2018/05/25/XVM2d26855a-6028-11e8-a07a-5c4593c42936.jpg)

Spectacular deficit in 2017

A fragile balance threatened for several weeks. In March, on the occasion of the presentation of the annual results, the new boss of the group, the Swiss Jan Jenisch, did not hide that he wondered about the maintenance of two seats. While unveiling major losses, the CEO then announced initial cost-saving measures, including the removal of a management level and the closure of its regional headquarters in Singapore and Miami. "Nothing has been decided yet about Paris," said LafargeHolcim.

Today, the group takes action. "This painful but necessary step of simplification is essential to create a lighter, faster and more competitive LafargeHolcim," Jan Jenisch said in his statement.

In France, the reorganization is based on the historic headquarters of Lafarge, these 12,000 square meters where 200 to 300 people work. The positions that will not be eliminated will be transferred to Clamart, in the Paris suburbs, where LafargeHolcim already has a large presence.

In Switzerland, LafargeHolcim also plans to close its Zurich office and transfer posts to the town of Holderbank, where Holcim opened its first cement plant in 1912, as well as to the Zug office.

In 2017, LafargeHolcim suffered a net loss of 1.7 billion Swiss francs (1.5 billion euros), after a profit of 1.8 billion in 2016. This spectacular deficit is explained by the truth operation launched on the accounts of the group after the departure of his former leaders, the French Bruno Lafont and the American Eric Olsen. The two men were swept away in the wake of the Syrian scandal, revealed by Le Monde, Lafarge being accused of having financed terrorist groups to maintain the activity of its cement plant in Jalabiya, in northern Syria, at the beginning of years 2010.

The cement plant of Jalabiya in Northern Syria
(http://i.f1g.fr/media/figaro/680x382_crop/2018/05/15/XVM82249886-5802-11e8-9656-537e55f35539.jpg)
It was found that by September 2014 Lafarge was paying 20 000$ per month to the Islamic State to keep its cement plant. But it wasn’t enough: soon the Jihadists would take over the factory.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 29, 2018, 01:23 AM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about climate change.

Another proof of climate change? April Was The 400th Straight Hotter Than Average Month.

(https://pics.me.me/trump-demonstrates-kevinkarstens-blogspot-com-how-much-he-actually-understands-about-climate-22093081.png)

Like A Virgin by Madonna was top in the music charts last time Earth had a colder than average month. Last April marked 400 consecutive months where our planet's temperature was hotter than average, a record stretching back to December of 1984.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the milestone recently, confirming that we are unequivocally living on a warming planet. The governmental agency notes that while another warming milestone has been reached, the signs have been clear for decades.

Professors, government scientists, independent agencies, and industry scientists all use the 20th-century average as the benchmark from which they compare today's temperatures. This ensures people around the world are using the same temperatures as a baseline.

While there is cyclicity in climate and hence average global temperatures, the consistent and prolonged degree to which Earth has been on the hotter spectrum makes it clear there are external factors at play. When comparing long-term historical records, it is clear there is a warming trend.

(https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Ftrevornace%2Ffiles%2F2018%2F05%2Fnasa_annual_temperatures_resize_md.jpg)

Governmental agencies have all agreed, the warming trend seen in recent decades is mainly due to humans emitting greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. Acting like a blanket placed over Earth, increased concentrations of carbon dioxide warm the planet by trapping in heat. The simple physics can be easily replicated by at home experiments and has been confirmed thousands of times in studies across the world.

Oil companies, professors, a wide array of industries, and governmental agencies around the world have all agreed that Earth is warming and the primary cause is from humans. However, hydrocarbons remain a vital component in global energy systems, especially for developing countries without the means or technology to implement widespread renewables.

Europe just had its warmest April in recorded history and we saw extreme heat waves with southern Pakistan reaching 122.4 degrees Fahrenheit on April 30th. Looking at the other side of the same coin, carbon dioxide levels just reached 410 parts per million, higher than it has been in the past 800,000 years.

As temperatures continue to rise, they do so disproportionately in higher latitudes. We've seen significantly more warming in the Arctic and Antarctica than in the tropics, leading to more ice melted and higher sea levels. While humans are not significantly impacted by the warming temperatures, they produce an array of issues elsewhere. Here are just a few ways a changing climate will impact humans indirectly.

    Many animals and plants require specific temperature ranges to survive, making extinction much more likely.
    Humans rely on consistent weather patterns to know where to grow crops and where to live. A changing climate and disproportional high latitude warming will change rainfall patterns. This leads to multi-year droughts in populated areas, floods in previously dry regions, and lack of rain in once fertile farmland.
    Warming high latitudes melt ice, causing the sea level to rise. This exacerbates flooding in low lying and coastal cities, especially so during storms or hurricanes.

In the case for a warming planet, the past is the key to the future and by all accounts, the planet will continue to change at unprecedented rates.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 29, 2018, 11:10 PM
Here are a few videos for the users of the forum.

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0r3sqLCocRg/US7w_n2pKcI/AAAAAAAAAn8/xqvePeOWvhE/s1600/int.jpg)

The technology of the T1000 terminator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFKQ01oFQH0

Beware of this terrible worm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_7ByiYbCYM

The situation in Gaza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaTMKcYCVmw

The rise of the third Reich. Interesting for those who don't know Hitler.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTQ4TILv3RQ

You won't believe the state of the Paris metro
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuEDuye-JmE

Omar Souleyman - Warni Warni (Official Video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVlgMEFu1PI

The Alberta oil: Canadian prosperity, Global nightmare
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii932XcfdBk
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on June 17, 2018, 01:38 PM
Once again, here are some interesting videos:


Why the US stock market could fall in the next months.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIxiXIzGqiU

(http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/MWimages/MW-BS739_red_ar_MD_20140116132702.jpg)


A documentary about Osama Bin Laden, especially for aa12344779
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puApZ7xen5k

(https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/drone_origin_the_target-289x385.png)


The American dream is turned into poverty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyecUFsLue4

(http://media.breitbart.com/media/cdn/mediaserver/Breitbart/Big-Government/2012/Economy/poverty-record-level.png)


Vincent Mignerot: anticipating the economic collapse? (In French)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwXudpMdbuo


Tobacco: the big manipulation, in French
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkxNX1GD-N4


The economic decline, a necessity to avoid the collapse (conference in French, held by an engineer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-hRR7Ij2xE


Jancovici: Anticipate the energy collapse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yunlx4WWEA


Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and the cult of the Silicon Valley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta1DqI4xDRw

(https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/07/08/elizabeth-holmes-game-over.jpg?x=442&y=293&crop=1)


Misc:
Hitler reacts to Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfwsmSsYq5w

Basic Instinct, the Afghan Version.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnnk1buDVbA
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on June 20, 2018, 11:35 AM
Quote from: scarface on June 17, 2018, 01:38 PM

A documentary about Osama Bin Laden, especially for aa12344779
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puApZ7xen5k


Read this if you already haven't:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/7104143/Osama-bin-Laden-enters-global-warming-debate.html
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on June 20, 2018, 10:49 PM
Quote from: aa1234779 on June 20, 2018, 11:35 AM
Read this if you already haven't:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/7104143/Osama-bin-Laden-enters-global-warming-debate.html

Interesting.
"Discussing climate change is not an intellectual luxury, but a reality," he said. "All of the industrialised countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility for the global warming crisis." This is not Clinton who said this, but Bin Laden. For sure he would have been more useful than Trump at the COP 21.



Note that there is currently an exceptional episode of pollution in New Delhi. The concentration of pm10 is very high. If you can, flee the Indian towns.
https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2018/06/16/touffeur-et-pollution-extremes-new-delhi-suffoque_5316112_3244.html


Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on June 23, 2018, 04:04 PM
Here are other interesting videos and a few good clips.

What is the largest town in the world?
Some of you probably don't know the answer.
(https://image.ibb.co/fopJ0T/mb.jpg)

Is it Gaza city?
(https://preview.ibb.co/c5QrLT/gaza_city.jpg)
No

is it New York?
(https://image.ibb.co/jxEAfT/New_York_NYC_2.jpg)
no.

Is it Jakarta?
(http://cdn2.tstatic.net/medan/foto/bank/images/jakrta.jpg)
No.

The answer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP5QLZFsOlQ


Climate change: the crisis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nac_nIBD64


A tourist talking about Paris: 10 things he hated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeV32Gs5Ork


The fall of Bitcoin. Is it worth anything?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kn6HxSPepI
(https://image.ibb.co/bwKXuo/BTC_USD_daily_June_17_636648183957573109.png)



some music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOGSqC7xds8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFOe5sGnQK0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7X6oYg6iro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPpr__dmFHc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM58kGx_xpU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df6-4da4eBE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbgKEjNBHqM

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: Shadow.97 on June 23, 2018, 08:30 PM
Hi scarface!
You've posted so many documentaries that it's hard to keep up.

Do you have any select few ones(non depressing ones?) that are especially worth watching?
Same goes for movies; but I'd like some romantic ones if you got. I'm a sucker for that stuff.

Planning on saving a few and keeping on my phone for moments where I am not connected to this facinating fiber-connection.

I also apologize, I am a bit too lazy to search through the entire topic  ::)

Hope all is good with all of you!
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on June 24, 2018, 12:57 AM
Quote from: Shadow.97 on June 23, 2018, 08:30 PM
Hi scarface!
You've posted so many documentaries that it's hard to keep up.

Do you have any select few ones(non depressing ones?) that are especially worth watching?
Same goes for movies; but I'd like some romantic ones if you got. I'm a sucker for that stuff.

Planning on saving a few and keeping on my phone for moments where I am not connected to this facinating fiber-connection.

I also apologize, I am a bit too lazy to search through the entire topic  ::)

Hope all is good with all of you!

Hi shadow.97.
Not depressing ones? Unfortunatley, When it's informative and about society it's sometimes a bit depressing.
Well, I put a selection below, most of them are not referenced on the forum.


Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and the cult of the Silicon Valley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta1DqI4xDRw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta1DqI4xDRw)

How large is tokyo?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP5QLZFsOlQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP5QLZFsOlQ)

Avocado, a positive superfood trend? The reports also deals with the environmental consequences of the popularity of the avocado.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05oMsK0-jjA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05oMsK0-jjA)

The lost world of Pompeii (I've been there)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOEBVWc8crI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOEBVWc8crI)

The rich, the poor and the trash (you may consider that "depressing")
Actually, waste management is becoming a major issue in many countries like India, Lebanon...(And Oecd countries are not better at recycling waste, they used to export them). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_e7eFSkEjw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_e7eFSkEjw)
You can also watch with this one about plastic waste.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfcRW7sIrPI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfcRW7sIrPI)

Ancient Egypt documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuUMe-43A3E (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuUMe-43A3E)

The Nepal documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW5kRBq30m4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW5kRBq30m4)

Greek Mythology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MSEsh6jgHE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MSEsh6jgHE)

Mariana Trench: The Deepest Place on Earth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_038g_1JT0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_038g_1JT0)

The birthday of Isabella, some users of the forum were probably among the guests (joke - it's not a documentary!). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eaGjf2bVfY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eaGjf2bVfY)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on June 24, 2018, 08:36 PM
Here are a few more documentaries.

Those are in French, but a few users, like Panzer42, could be interested.

When the shareholders are destroying your jobs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjULdLxdZeg

Turkey, the end of the economic euphoria?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZuKw8nwrzI




Organic food - hype or hope? (in English)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03vWwqYPf60

Globalized capitalism explained through bananas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WBlqDeHiXI

Inside a 20 million $ apartment.
Isn't it a bit expensive? (The administrator will need your donations to buy this flat for the users of the forum).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFpa3buUe7Y
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on June 25, 2018, 06:44 AM
Quote from: Shadow.97 on June 23, 2018, 08:30 PM
Same goes for movies; but I'd like some romantic ones if you got. I'm a sucker for that stuff.

So am I. I'm sure so are more guys than we imagine, they just won't admit it.

Quote from: Shadow.97 on June 23, 2018, 08:30 PM
Planning on saving a few and keeping on my phone for moments where I am not connected to this facinating fiber-connection.

Where is the fiber connection located? Incidentally, what have you been up to. I know you moved out of your parent's house. Are you working, studying or both?

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on July 02, 2018, 12:39 PM
This is like a scene from a hollywood blockbuster yet it is reality in Paris.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-gangster-escape/french-gangster-flees-prison-after-helicopter-escape-idUSKBN1JR1IR?
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on July 21, 2018, 01:40 AM
Tonight, I’m holding a conference to talk about the situation in Gaza.

Is the liberation of Palestine coming close? Is there a new war raging between Israel and Gaza? It’s hard to say, but once again, there is a tense situation between the Gaza strip and Israel.


Lately, Israel bombed "military targets throughout the Gaza Strip"
Four Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed, according to the Gazan Health Ministry and the Israeli army. The Hebrew State has announced that it has responded to shootings targeting its troops.

Two of the Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire near Khan Younis, in the south of the territory. The shooting was aimed at a Hamas observation post, the Islamist movement in power in the Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian security sources.
The third victim was killed by Israeli forces in Rafah, also in the southern Gaza Strip, and a fourth Palestinian was killed by Israeli soldiers near the border area east of Gaza City. The military wing of Hamas announced that three of the Palestinians killed on Friday were among their "fighters".
An Israeli soldier was killed by Palestinian gunfire, also announced in the early evening on Friday, the army in a statement. "During one incident, a group of terrorists fired at Israeli soldiers. One of them was seriously injured and later succumbed to his wounds, "the army said, adding that it had fought back with a series of air raids against the Palestinian enclave. This is the first Israeli killed since the beginning of a protest movement in Gaza against the Israeli blockade.

(https://static.timesofisrael.com/www/uploads/2018/05/000_14J4EG-e1525430039139-1024x640.jpg)"

Violent riots" according to the Israeli army
Israeli planes and tanks have bombed "military targets throughout the Gaza Strip," the Israeli army said earlier today. This operation was launched in response to gunfire targeting Israeli troops, according to the military. According to the army, the shooting against Israeli soldiers took place during "violent riots along the security fence", which marks the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

"If Hamas continues its rocket fire, Israel will react much more harshly than [Hamas leaders] think," Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman warned Friday after firing three rockets the Gaza Strip, two of which were intercepted.

Israel hardens its response to incendiary kites
Since March 30, Palestinians have regularly demonstrated in the border area to denounce the Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza and demand the return of Palestinian refugees who fled or fled their lands in 1948, when the State of Israel was created.

More than 100 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli army during the clashes that erupted during some of these gatherings. No Israeli was killed.

For just over a week, Israel has been hardening its response to killers and incendiary balloons launched from Gaza, which have set more than 2,600 hectares on Israeli territory, according to the Jewish state. In recent days, the Israeli army has opened fire at groups launching such devices.

Israeli Defense Minister Lieberman has increased threats of a large-scale operation in the Gaza Strip if Hamas does not halt the launch of incendiary devices. Israeli television broadcast this week footage of army maneuvers training for a land incursion into the Gaza Strip.

Israel and Hamas have clashed in three wars since 2008 that devastated the enclave, which is now experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis. For more than a decade, the Gaza Strip, wedged between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean, has been subjected to a strict Israeli land, sea and air blockade. The strengthening of the blockade is intensifying pressure on Hamas in a territory where about 80 percent of the two million people depend on aid, according to the World Bank.



And here is an exceptional documentary to understand the perspectives of some of the 400,000 Jews who live in the occupied territory (West Bank) in defiance of international lawâ€"and to hear from the Palestinians who oppose them.
Why don't they go to another - welcoming - state, close to Isreal, like Syria, Jordan or even Turkey, instead of living in a country that has more fences than a zoo? Maybe there are no rational explanations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnf0w9UuV4s
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on July 30, 2018, 12:01 AM
Tonight, some new interesting videos are available on the forum.


Nutella, campbell’s soup, Healthy or Junk food? Here is the answer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUKOt_SvTQc

(https://s-i.huffpost.com/gen/1509772/thumbs/o-CARTE-MONDE-NUTELLE-570.jpg?1)



An exceptional documentary with specialists talking about climate change (they are not optimistic). In French
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OqbN6fcMNQ

(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/68/a4/02/68a402553f90ad2e7ca7d6a4da12adfd.jpg)



Pets You Should NEVER Release In The Wild!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-VNYP16KYI



The Real Reason Subway Is Disappearing Across The US
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbWo5Srm_M4



How to handle your first ride on the big mountain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AWnAnyTwdg



A few days ago, I was hinting at Facebook in one of my conferences. And I was selling that the US stock market was expensive. And It still is.
I hope shadow.97 and Maher sold their FB and twitter stocks before the rout.
And guess what? The following day, on 26 June, Fb collapsed by 20% on earnings, followed a day later by Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjGWJoa6Ff4
In my opinion, the decline is not over. Maybe it’s only the beginning.
(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQgg6JGNITRaurBjYqWYd3TJA3_sFFL2mq8m_49vtJezYhr8y1H3g)



Maybe some of you want to leave their country? No more Sweden, Saudi Arabia, or China?
Choosing Turkmenistan as your next destination is probably an excellent choice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp3FAZSeW-M
Known for its autocratic government and large gas reserves, Turkmenistan also has a reputation as an island of stability in restive Central Asia.
(https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/05/25/article-urn:publicid:ap.org:28bac10fb9504cab8f38ae2a2e1fb3a4-6YmmhEG22HSK2-716_634x422.jpg)
And with grandiose gold-leafed statues of the president in the streets of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan is certainly amongst the richest countries in the world. Don’t even think about putting Qatar and Turkmenistan in the same league. In May 2015, the new gold equestrian statue dedicated to current Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov,  unleashed a wave of articles castigating the dictator who is building statues in his effigy. Still, the situation is more complicated than a "simple" cult of personality. Between intrigue and flattery among some of the most secretive elites in the world, it is more of an attempt to restore unity within a regime with a declining economy.
Despite its gas wealth, much of Turkmenistan's population is still impoverished. After independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 the country entered a period of isolation that has only recently begun to end.
Turkmenistan produces roughly 70 billion cubic metres of natural gas each year and about two-thirds of its exports go to Russia's Gazprom gas monopoly.



To eat fugu is to put your life on the line.
Chef Sasaki explains how to serve this potentially lethal delicacy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cQ50i-o_GA
(http://finedininglovers-it.cdn.crosscast-system.com/BlogPost/l_5933_Fugu-Pesce-Palla.jpg)



So rich, but so poor: Why Iraq's protests began in oil-rich south a few days ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ott0SfrB2bg

(https://info.arte.tv/sites/default/files/atoms/image/opa/070087-000-A_12128.jpg)
The documentary is not really explanatory. Actually, nowadays, the canals of Basra, in Irak, are littered with rubbish. In Turkey, where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers originate, the construction of a dozen dams has reduced the flow of Chatt el Arab by 75%. The turbines of the power stations are shut down and the city of oil survives almost without electricity and without drinking water. Half of its inhabitants are unemployed.
And it is in Basra, the true economic heart of Iraq, that the future of the country is played out. With its hydrocarbon production, ports and terminals, the town generates 90% of oil revenues in Baghdad. For a long time, foreign companies dictated their conditions, forgetting the Iraqi workers during the negotiations.



Why Starbucks Failed In Australia | CNBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FGUkxn5kZQ



Titanic Real Story - New Documentary 2018 - BBC Documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72C8ihdNb5o
(https://nrkbeta.no/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/RMS_Titanic_4.jpg)



Can the 'Great Green Wall' stop desertification in China?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSn6S-H7m-8

(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fa/4a/ff/fa4affd4bc3543e92bbf568a62660798.jpg)



Hong-Kong used to be the place to be...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaDAuoBbWWg
(https://lecomptoirdetitam.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/drone-photography-hong-kong-density-andy-yeung-4.jpg?w=762)
Is the city about to lose its best and brightest as it did during the 1997 handover? A growing dissatisfaction over the lack of political freedom and social mobility are key reasons why emigration figures have been climbing.




Note that tomorrow, there will be probably a new conference with some photos, and some new movies.

(https://image.ibb.co/cMEWhT/babouin.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 02, 2018, 03:22 PM
Today, a few interesting videos are available on the forum.


But first and foremost, Let’s talk about the news that hit the headlines.
The Autolib service ended yesterday at midnight, no more car electric car-sharing scheme in Paris; Facebook has detected on its platform attempts to manipulate the US elections without being able to identify the authors; Hundreds of people remained stranded in the Paris metro last night for more than two hours; A plane with 99 people on board crashed in Mexico without casualties; Worms frozen for 42000 years were found in Siberia ... and they are still alive.



Deserts in Europe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUKr9qz_Zyg
(https://image.ibb.co/mBuhQe/density_europe.jpg)

According to estimates of the United Nations, more than 2.6 billion people in 110 countries are directly affected by progressive desertification. Deserts now cover more than a third of the entire surface of the earth, thus 65% of arable lands. More than three billion cattle, sheep and goats chomp their way through pastures faster than they can be regenerated. This program shows how desertification is changing the balance of the earth and affecting two continents in particular: Asia and Europe.



Late night party with Sammy and Rocco
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsAVmqAznfc



What is the Most Intelligent Animal on Earth?
Is it the chicken? Or the alligator?

(https://image.ibb.co/jPW7rK/Polish_Chicken.jpg)

(https://image.ibb.co/hcEhQe/alligator.jpg)

To find out, watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G6eH1KDl0s



Tesla just had a horrible earnings report, but the stock is higher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk9V--ij9X4



Inside North Korea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbuZlTBpC7I
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 03, 2018, 11:50 AM
Today, I'm holding a conference titled "The world is losing the war against climate change".



Rising energy demand means use of fossil fuels is heading in the wrong direction.

EARTH is smouldering. From Seattle to Siberia this summer, flames have consumed swathes of the northern hemisphere. One of 18 wildfires sweeping through California, among the worst in the state’s history, is generating such heat that it created its own weather. Fires that raged through a coastal area near Athens last week killed 91. Elsewhere people are suffocating in the heat. Roughly 125 have died in Japan as the result of a heatwave that pushed temperatures in Tokyo above 40°C for the first time.
Such calamities, once considered freakish, are now commonplace. Scientists have long cautioned that, as the planet warmsâ€"it is roughly 1°C hotter today than before the industrial age’s first furnaces were litâ€"weather patterns will go berserk. An early analysis has found that this sweltering European summer would have been less than half as likely were it not for human-induced global warming.


Sweden's highest peak lost 4 meters in July.
(https://preview.ibb.co/czaoFe/sweden.jpg)
Tarfala Research Center Director Gunhild Ninis Rosqvist takes action on the southern summit of Kebnekaise on July 31, 2018


Yet as the impact of climate change becomes more evident, so too does the scale of the challenge ahead. Three years after countries vowed in Paris to keep warming “well below” 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels, greenhouse-gas emissions are up again. So are investments in oil and gas. In 2017, for the first time in four years, demand for coal rose. Subsidies for renewables, such as wind and solar power, are dwindling in many places and investment has stalled; climate-friendly nuclear power is expensive and unpopular. It is tempting to think these are temporary setbacks and that mankind, with its instinct for self-preservation, will muddle through to a victory over global warming. In fact, it is losing the war.

Insufficient progress is not to say no progress at all. As solar panels, wind turbines and other low-carbon technologies become cheaper and more efficient, their use has surged. Last year the number of electric cars sold around the world passed 1m. In some sunny and blustery places renewable power now costs less than coal.
Public concern is picking up. A poll last year of 38 countries found that 61% of people see climate change as a big threat; only the terrorists of Islamic State inspired more fear. In the West campaigning investors talk of divesting from companies that make their living from coal and oil. Despite President Donald Trump’s decision to yank America out of the Paris deal, many American cities and states have reaffirmed their commitment to it. Even some of the sceptic-in-chief’s fellow Republicans appear less averse to tackling the problem. In smog-shrouded China and India, citizens choking on fumes are prompting governments to rethink plans to rely heavily on coal to electrify their countries.
Optimists say that decarbonisation is within reach. Yet, even allowing for the familiar complexities of agreeing on and enforcing global targets, it is proving extraordinarily difficult.
One reason is soaring energy demand, especially in developing Asia. In 2006-16, as Asia’s emerging economies forged ahead, their energy consumption rose by 40%. The use of coal, easily the dirtiest fossil fuel, grew at an annual rate of 3.1%. Use of cleaner natural gas grew by 5.2% and of oil by 2.9%. Fossil fuels are easier to hook up to today’s grids than renewables that depend on the sun shining and the wind blowing. Even as green fund managers threaten to pull back from oil companies, state-owned behemoths in the Middle East and Russia see Asian demand as a compelling reason to invest.

The second reason is economic and political inertia. The more fossil fuels a country consumes, the harder it is to wean itself off them. Powerful lobbies, and the voters who back them, entrench coal in the energy mix. Reshaping existing ways of doing things can take years. In 2017 Britain enjoyed its first coal-free day since igniting the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s. Coal generates not merely 80% of India’s electricity, but also underpins the economies of some of its poorest states. Panjandrums in Delhi are not keen to countenance the end of coal, lest that cripple the banking system, which lent it too much money, and the railways, which depend on it.

Last is the technical challenge of stripping carbon out of industries beyond power generation. Steel, cement, farming, transport and other forms of economic activity account for over half of global carbon emissions. They are technically harder to clean up than power generation and are protected by vested industrial interests. Successes can turn out to be illusory. Because China’s 1m-plus electric cars draw their oomph from an electricity grid that draws two-thirds of its power from coal, they produce more carbon dioxide than some fuel-efficient petrol-driven models. Meanwhile, scrubbing CO{-2} from the atmosphere, which climate models imply is needed on a vast scale to meet the Paris target, attracts even less attention.
The world is not short of ideas to realise the Paris goal. Around 70 countries or regions, responsible for one-fifth of all emissions, now price carbon. Technologists beaver away on sturdier grids, zero-carbon steel, even carbon-negative cement, whose production absorbs more CO{-2} than it releases. All these efforts and moreâ€"including research into “solar geoengineering” to reflect sunlight back into spaceâ€"should be redoubled.

Yet none of these fixes will come to much unless climate listlessness is tackled head on. Western countries grew wealthy on a carbon-heavy diet of industrial development. They must honour their commitment in the Paris agreement to help poorer places both adapt to a warmer Earth and also abate future emissions without sacrificing the growth needed to leave poverty behind.
Averting climate change will come at a short-term financial costâ€"although the shift from carbon may eventually enrich the economy, as the move to carbon-burning cars, lorries and electricity did in the 20th century. Politicians have an essential role to play in making the case for reform and in ensuring that the most vulnerable do not bear the brunt of the change. Perhaps global warming will help them fire up the collective will. Sadly, the world looks poised to get a lot hotter first.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 05, 2018, 06:06 PM
In a previous message, I talked about the re-emergence of Isis in Iraq. Trump gloated over the victory against the Islamic State, but it seems they have been active in Irak, Afghanistan, and even Pakistan lately. In this rare video, we can see they have ongoing operations in Yemen.
Note that it's the leader Baghdadi who is talking at the beginning of the video. His whereabouts remain unknown.
https://jihadology.net/2018/08/01/new-video-message-from-the-islamic-state-and-the-initiator-is-the-aggressor-wilayat-al-bay%e1%b8%8da/
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 05, 2018, 06:21 PM
Here are a few interesting videos.

A wise African tricks a Baboon into telling him where the water source is !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xl3NOoT7Pw

The Warren Buffett Indicator is saying that stocks are way overvalued. Will stocks crash as a result?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXSY5TOE0Cs

Why you should not learn to code
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrij5uTtDxE

Thrown Out Of Sydney No Go Zone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqY4Z1fTrMc
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 09, 2018, 02:20 AM
Here is a speech by Robert (Bobby) Kennedy in South Africa.. It's famous for his quote "A tiny ripply of hope"..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp81OYCjXtU

The Second Gun - An old film that proves the theory that Sirhan Sirhan wasn't the only assassin the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel there to kill RFK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjOjsOKS4gs

RFK Must Die & Bobby Kennedy for President are available on torrent sites. They are very informative.


The Real Manchurian Candidate - Do you doubt Sirhan Sirhan was 'brainwashed' .. Watch this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCU2MCxjAJ0

Enjoy!
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 09, 2018, 11:38 PM
A few interesting videos:


Saudi Arabia Feud With Canada Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_h8yxQmp64
(https://image.ibb.co/gbjxqp/saudi.jpg)


The latest podcast of Peter Schiff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZkPth2I8Us


According to strategists, the stock market should be more concerned about tariffs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrMYlIlSST0


Monsieur baboon attacked by angry geese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoHMnBWEjR0
(https://image.ibb.co/cNDCO9/baboon.png)


An exceptional conference of Vincent Mignerot, in French about the “economic collapse”.
Note that he explains that he does not consider himself a collapsologist for various reasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHa37qm3fIc
(https://image.ibb.co/gMnBGU/index.jpg)


Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on August 10, 2018, 05:34 AM
Quote from: aa1234779 on August 09, 2018, 02:20 AM
The Second Gun - An old film that proves the theory that Sirhan Sirhan wasn't the only assassin the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel there to kill RFK.

There is no question in my mind that the asassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were no accidents. They were conspiracies orchestrated at the highest levels of the US government, in particular J. Edgar Hoover who was the king of the FBI and acted with total impunity.


Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 11, 2018, 01:23 AM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about Afghanistan. Indeed, the advance of the Taliban towards Kabul hit the headlines recently, since they entered the town of Ghazni.

It is the second provincial capital seized by insurgents in less than three months. However, the army quickly regained control of Farah.

Ghazni in 2010.
(https://stream.org/wp-content/uploads/Ghazni-City-Afghanistan-900.jpg)

The Taliban entered the town of Ghazni, capital of the province of the same name, on Friday 10 August, less than 200 kilometers south of the capital, Kabul, where fighting continues, regional officials said.

According to the local police chief, Farid Ahmad Marshal, joined by the Agence France-Presse (AFP) in the morning, they "launched their assault yesterday around 11 pm, attacking the roadblocks that surround the city. Fighting with the security forces is continuing ".

"They moved into the city and fired several mortars at the houses," provincial governor Arif Noori's spokesman said, citing several dead and wounded soldiers. "The bodies of about 30 Taliban are lying on the ground," he said.

According to a security source, the special forces had been precautionary "deployed last month along the Kabul-Kandahar highway" - which passes through Ghazni - "in anticipation of a Taliban offensive." These are already "in motion" to block their progress. Joined on the phone by AFP, Yasan, a resident of Ghazni, said: "The Taliban (...) use the loudspeakers of the mosque to tell people to stay at home. We hear loud explosions and shots, we are terrified. "

Insurgent spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement that "this attack is part of the Spring offensive," launched in early May "in several directions." "Hundreds of heavily armed Mujahideen have taken checkpoints and police stations in the city," he added. And he asserted that "140 members of the enemy forces were killed, but losses in the insurgent ranks are low”.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 13, 2018, 12:06 AM
Tonight, I’m going to hold a conference about the Islamic State organization in Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, the Islamic state is training child soldiers.

(https://i.f1g.fr/media/figaro/1280x580_crop/2018/08/12/XVM21d76ce6-9e58-11e8-bebd-9680eb8f985a.jpg)

Implanted in several regions of this country, the Islamic State strengthens its ranks by forming "the lion cubs of the caliphate". Le Figaro newspaper met in Jalalabad children who left the organization.

The rustling of the fans is intertwined with the murmured prayers: first by the teacher of the juvenile rehabilitation center of Jalalabad, capital of the Afghan province of Nangarhar, then by the twelve boys sitting on the ground in front of him. At the white board on a wobbly table, Pashu phrases and excerpts from the Qur'an are mixed together.

Four months ago, Mohammed, 16, recited his prayers before another "more important" mullah. He also wanted, he said, to "fight to the death the Afghan government and foreign invaders." Before being arrested by the authorities, Mohammed was one of the many children recruited by the Islamic State group in Khorasan, the Afghan branch of ISIS proclaimed in Nangarhar in 2015. This province bordering Pakistan, where Taliban fighters, IS soldiers, Afghan and international forces are clashing, is one of the most unstable in the country.



And here is a video of the Islamic State in Afghanistan released 2 days ago.
https://jihadology.net/2018/08/11/new-video-message-from-the-islamic-state-answering-the-call-2-wilayat-khurasan/

And here is a video released one month ago titled "swords of Jihad", and coming from Irak, near Baghdad. Note: The video is particularly violent. Viewer discretion advised.
https://jihadology.net/2018/07/29/new-video-message-from-the-islamic-state-swords-of-jihad-wilayat-al-iraq-shamal-baghdad/
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 18, 2018, 10:33 PM
Tonight, I’m going to hold an exceptional conference about the United States, titled “The United States, the sick country”.
This study was published in Le Monde Newspaper yesterday.
Of course, you won’t find similar information in any US newspaper, It would be immediately censored by the American dictator (but I can assure you this is no "fake news").

(https://img.lemde.fr/2018/08/16/0/0/2705/1677/534/0/60/0/9c99b29_e_5pfOJVqci5Dimnpf35SF5M.jpg)

Two mortality studies conclude that the recent decline in US life expectancy is related to a "systemic" problem.

The United States is suffering from a "systemic" disease, and this should encourage other developed countries to be vigilant. This is, in essence, the conclusion of two studies published on Wednesday 15 August, in the British Medical Journal. The first one, conducted by Steven Woolf (Virginia Commonwealth University), reveals a worrying increase in mortality among middle-aged American adults over the past 17 years, and particularly since 2012, when US life expectancy has begun to stagnate, before declining from 2015.

That year, says the second study, conducted by Jessica Ho (University of Southern California) and Arun Hendi (Princeton University), a dozen rich countries including France simultaneously experienced a significant decline in their life expectancy compared to 2014. Sudden and unprecedented, this fall was however generally offset by a rebound the following year, with the exception of the United Kingdom and the United States.

In the United States, this drop in life expectancy recorded in 2015 was confirmed in 2016. The index then stood at 78.6 years, 0.3 years lower than in 2014. The Associated Press reported that 2017 should see another drop in life expectancy. It would be the third consecutive year of decline - a situation that has been unprecedented for several decades.

First observation: overdoses are the leading cause of increased mortality in all groups. Mortality rates due to the use of drugs or drugs increase by more than 410% among Native Americans, 150% among blacks, 80% among Hispanics ...

These are the stigmas of the opioid crisis that has hit the United States since the marketing of powerful analgesics close to morphine in the mid-1990s. These have plunged more than 2 million Americans into dependency. This observation is not new.

Strong social inequalities
But, says Steven Woolf and his coauthors, this is not the only cause. "Mid-life mortality rates," the researchers explain, "have also increased for a wide range of diseases that affect multiple functions and organs of the human body. For the Amerindians, mortality rates between 25 and 64 years have increased for twelve different causes, including diseases due to hypertension (+ 270%), liver cancer (+ 115%), viral hepatitis ( + 112%), diseases of the central nervous system (+ 100%) ... Suicides, alcohol-related or non-alcoholic liver diseases, brain tumors, respiratory or metabolic diseases or obesity increase mortality in several groups.

Mortality rates are rising across the entire US population for a dozen diseases. This signals, for the authors, that the deterioration of health in the United States is due to "deep and systemic causes". "We suspect that rising income inequality, educational deficits, social divide and stress can play a significant role," says Woolf. Other factors may include lack of universal access to care, public possession of firearms, and high rates of obesity. "

Epidemiologist Philip Landrigan (Boston College), who did not participate in the study, welcomed "very solid" work. "The data presented do not allow us to distinguish the profound determinants of this deterioration in the health status of Americans. But it is clear that when you create strong social inequalities, you create a category of the population that ends up seeing their life expectancy decrease, he says. The poor are also those who are most exposed to almost all environmental pollutants such as lead, pesticides, air pollution ... This potential factor is frequently neglected. "
In addition, this deterioration in the health of Americans comes at a time when smoking is at a historically low level in the US (about 15.5% of the adult population was smoking in 2016) and the average consumption of alcohol increased only marginally over the study period.

For Jay Olshansky (University of Illinois), who predicted in 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine, an imminent reversal of trend in the United States, it also signals that "the era where we could win a lot life expectancy is over”.



Note: I was talking in a message about a flat situated in New York for 28 million $: http://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=1020.msg29404#msg29404
But in my opinion, it’s not a good investment. Besides the view of Central Park, what’s the point in living in such a place? Imagine a mere power cut, without an elevator, this flat would just become inaccessible:
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on August 19, 2018, 07:06 AM
Quote from: scarface on August 18, 2018, 10:33 PM
This study was published in Le Monde Newspaper yesterday.
Of course, you won’t find similar information in any US newspaper, It would be immediately censored by the American dictator (but I can assure you this is no "fake news").

If you're referring to that asshhole Trump, believe me, he wishes he had that kind of power. Not only that, but censoring this article (or anything else) nowadays is ludicrous. Anyone in the USA can very easily log into Le Monde's web site and read it themselves. So far as of today's date (18/8/2018) there are NO internet restrictions of any kind in the USA.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 19, 2018, 12:22 PM
Quote from: humbert on August 19, 2018, 07:06 AM
Anyone in the USA can very easily log into Le Monde's web site and read it themselves. So far as of today's date (18/8/2018) there are NO internet restrictions of any kind in the USA.
You're right. Maybe I was a bit biased. The situation of the journalists is better in the US than in China. But I think the American media are a bit one-sided, which explains the lack of culture of the American people.
Note that Le monde is in French (I translated the article), and probably very few non-French speakers are reading this newspaper.
For information, here is the original article: https://www.lemonde.fr/demographie/article/2018/08/16/les-etats-unis-l-homme-malade-des-pays-du-nord_5342838_1652705.html



Here are a few other interesting articles:
200 newspapers are responding to the attacks of Trump: https://www.lemonde.fr/donald-trump/article/2018/08/14/plus-de-200-journaux-americains-repliquent-aux-attaques-de-trump-contre-la-presse_5342404_4853715.html

White House 'quietly killed' NASA program on greenhouse gas: https://www.lemonde.fr/climat/article/2018/05/11/la-maison-blanche-supprime-un-programme-de-la-nasa-sur-les-gaz-a-effet-de-serre_5297276_1652612.html

Bangalore, one of the most modern towns of India. But water supply is becoming a crucial issue.
https://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-radio/en-direct-du-monde/en-direct-du-monde-a-bangalore-la-silicon-valley-de-l-inde-les-reserves-deau-sepuisent_2707616.html

Palestinian mail blocked by Israel arrives eight years late
https://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2018/08/18/du-courrier-bloque-par-israel-arrive-enfin-en-cisjordanie_5343806_3218.html

In Paris, the car sharing system autolib hits the end of the road. The electric recharging stations are now useless.
http://transports.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/07/22/bornes-autolib-mobilier-abandon/

Ten years ago, we used to talk about Peak oil. This article in Spanish analyzes the current issue with oil resources.
http://crashoil.blogspot.com/2018/08/perdiendo-la-guerra-antes-de-la-primera.html
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 19, 2018, 02:47 PM
Today, I'm going to hold a conference to talk about one of the pioneers of Agro Ecology: Pierre Rabhi.

Pierre Rahbi lived in the Paris suburbs, he was taking the metro every day to go to work. And he realized he couldn't do that any more, he had the impression to live in a jail.
So he decided to flee the society of consumption.

Since 1981, he has been transmitting his know-how in Africa, France and Europe, seeking to restore their food self-sufficiency to the populations. He is now recognized as an international expert on food security and has been involved in the development of the United Nations Convention to fight desertification.

He has used principles of agroecology to improve yields and living conditions across the French and West-African agricultural sectors. Through innovative training methods, he has helped over 150,000 farmers diagnose the best way to adapt and apply ecological practices to their land and cultures, effectively uniting thousands of citizens in a movement to restore and protect environmental and social ecosystems.

Pierre Rabhi calls for the “insurrection of consciences” to unite what is best in humanity and stop making our planet-paradise a hell of suffering and destruction. Faced with the failure of the general condition of mankind and the tremendous damage inflicted on Nature, he invites us to step outside the myth of indefinite growth, to realize the vital importance of our nourishing land and to inaugurate a new ethic of life towards a “happy sobriety”.

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnjFSilQCVs

(https://img.scoop.it/lys6brRLTirXqPm-Q_jpTjl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVvK0kTmF0xjctABnaLJIm9)

(http://www.panna.org/sites/default/files/user1/agroecology-farming_0.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on August 19, 2018, 06:51 PM
Quote from: scarface on August 19, 2018, 12:22 PM
You're right. Maybe I was a bit biased. The situation of the journalists is better in the US than in China. But I think the American media are a bit one-sided, which explains the lack of culture of the American people.

I have yet to see a news outlet that isn't one-sided, and not just in this country.

Quote from: scarface on August 19, 2018, 12:22 PM
Note that Le monde is in French (I translated the article), and probably very few non-French speakers are reading this newspaper.

It's not so much that the average American would want to go to LeMonde's web site. I was referring to the idea that one of the many anti-Trump newspapers (e.g., the Washington Post) could reprint the article. Finding a French to English translator isn't too hard.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 23, 2018, 01:30 AM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about the latest statement of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, who released a message today.

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has launched a scathing attack on the “arrogant” Trump presidency and urged followers to wage “jihad” across the West in his first audio speech in almost a year, according to the terror group’s media channel.



The terror group released al-Baghdadi’s putported audio speech via Al Furqan Media on Wednesday, the SITE Group reported, throwing into doubt rumours of his death.

In the speech, al-Baghdadi reportedly calls on ISIS fanatics across the world to target the "disbeliever media centers" and headquarters of "ideological wars".

If verified to be al-Baghdadi, the 55-minute long statement would bring the terror leader’s 11-month spell of silence to an end, with his last known recording on September 28, 2017.

In a veiled attack on the presidency of Donald Trump, al-Baghdadi said “America is going through the worse time of its entire existence”, condemning the “two decades of its crusade against the Muslim world”.

In the recording, he plays down the loss of ISIS territory in the Middle East, encouraging his acolytes to “stay steadfast and fight back with true passion for martyrdom”.

(https://cdn.images.dailystar.co.uk/dynamic/204/photos/996000/isis-leader-baghdadi-1430996.jpg)

“For the Mujahideen the scale of victory or defeat is not dependant on a city or town being stolen or subject to that who has aerial superiority, intercontinental missiles or smart bombs,” he said in the recording, which could not been verified.

He implored supporters in Canada, Europe and the West "to join those who bled and carried out attacks" and "follow their lead".

The elusive radical Islamist preacher, nicknamed “The Ghost”, has been reported to have died on multiple occasions in airstrikes in Syria and Iraq as his terror empire crumbles.

Various reports of his death, injury or arrest have come from Iraqi security sources in recent years, yet none have been confirmed by the US-led coalition.

In the recording, al-Baghdadi references the dispute between the United States and Turkey over the detention of Christian pastor Andrew Brunson, meaning the message dates this month.

He said America's calls for Turkey to release the pastor were rejected, suggesting its diplomatic clout has diminished under Trump.

Al-Baghdadi added "we also see the Russians and the Iranians are standing up, refusing to listen to whatever America dictates of sanctions", according to translations by journalists based in the Middle East.

A new report, published by AlSumaria News last week, suggested an airstrike had left al-Baghdadi mortally wounded and unable to continue his leadership duties.

“Iraqi warplanes launched an airstrike inside the Syrian territories in June, targeting a meeting of Islamic State leaders, where the group’s chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was present,” an Iraqi security source said.

Because al-Baghdadi is incapacitated, ISIS has nominated Abu Othman al-Tunisi as its new leader, the report claimed.

Al-Baghdadi, one of the world’s most wanted men, has repeatedly eluded capture despite the efforts of Iraqi security forces.

The appointment of al-Tunisi has caused unrest after the airstrike depleted ISIS’s top brass, according to the source.

“The strike also left a large number of ISIS commanders dead and wounded,” added the source.

Al-Baghdadi was seriously wounded in an airstrike near Shirkat in 2015 before recovering in Baaj, reports citing three intelligence agencies said.

Witnesses who saw al-Baghdadi in the wake of the Muslim festival of Ramadan last year said he “looked tired and drawn”, the Guardian reported.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on August 23, 2018, 06:24 AM
Quote from: scarface on August 23, 2018, 01:30 AM
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has launched a scathing attack on the “arrogant” Trump presidency and urged followers to wage “jihad” across the West in his first audio speech in almost a year, according to the terror group’s media channel.

Everybody hates Trump except Trump himself and that ignorant band of followers who support him no matter what he does. As you know, personally I despise the man.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 23, 2018, 06:30 AM
Quote from: humbert on August 23, 2018, 06:24 AM
Quote from: scarface on August 23, 2018, 01:30 AM
ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has launched a scathing attack on the “arrogant” Trump presidency and urged followers to wage “jihad” across the West in his first audio speech in almost a year, according to the terror group’s media channel.

Everybody hates Trump except Trump himself and that ignorant band of followers who support him no matter what he does. As you know, personally I despise the man.

Although he is hated more than anyone else, I believe that the true enemy of humanity & the American people,firstly, is Pence and the Military Industrial Complex thugs behind Trump's presidency.

Even if Trump was impeached or was forced to resign some how, the curse of hardline republican Zionists will not be over and we might see s*** really hit the fan!

(https://pics.me.me/john-bolton-wakes-from-terrifying-nightmare-of-world-at-peace-32253343.png)

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on August 23, 2018, 06:58 AM
Quote from: aa1234779 on August 23, 2018, 06:30 AM
Although he is hated more than anyone else, I believe that the true enemy of humanity & the American people,firstly, is Pence and the Military Industrial Complex thugs behind Trump's presidency.

I agree. Sadly the Military Industrial-Political Complex has acquired too much power in this country. Eisenhauer warned of this during his farewell speech in 1961. Sadly Ike's predictions have come true.

Quote from: aa1234779 on August 23, 2018, 06:30 AM
Even if Trump was impeached or was forced to resign some how, the curse of hardline republican Zionists will not be over and we might see s*** really hit the fan!

I don't think it's that bad. This is not the first time extremists have been in power in this country. Eventually they get voted out of office.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 23, 2018, 07:05 AM
Quote from: humbert on August 23, 2018, 06:58 AM
I don't think it's that bad. This is not the first time extremists have been in power in this country. Eventually they get voted out of office.

All I can tell you is that if he was removed from office by any means, it will not make things better. You'll see the puppeteers upfront doing things you thought were impossible even with the likes of the Bushes. It's the 'end game', unfortunately, and great losses are expected for everyone other than the %1, I'm speaking globally.

I hope I'm wrong in this, or that the free people of the US that truly believe in "Freedom & Justice for All" will prove me as a pessimist that under-valued their courage!

p.s. Till the day I die, I will not forget the things that my Neo-Con social studies teacher taught me as a kid. Other than his everyday Muslim-hate in class, he would always express how much he admired Eisenhower as a true patriot. The truth is, Ike was a politician like any other in his day. He knew there were red lines not to be crossed. But there was good within the bad. That's why it was in his farewell address he spoke of the dangers posed by arms traders taking over politics.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 26, 2018, 04:37 PM
Today, I’m going to hold a conference about the Hikikomori. Maybe you are one of them without your knowing it.

Aa1234779 or Vasudev must be wondering what a Hikikomori is. Is it a sumo who is on a diet? No. This word deserves an explanation.



"Hikikomori": cut off from the world, they can not get out of their room.

(http://dh1rvgpokacch.cloudfront.net/atavist/31981/image/derivative/scale~1200x1200x0x0~hiki10b-1527083077-63.jpg)

In France, there would be tens of thousands of teenagers and young adults who live a reclusive life in their room for several months or even years. This phenomenon, at the beginning of Japan, now affects several countries in the world.

Alexandre, 22, has not been out of his room for six years. Out of school, unemployed, he lives with his mother in a small village in central France and spends his days locked in, surfing the Internet, playing video games and reading. "I'm self-sufficient and never bored," he says. To eat, he heats meals in the microwave and shares them with his mother. But not always. "No day is alike," he continues. "I can get up at 2pm or 11pm. I am out of time.

Alexander presents himself as a "hikikomori". This term comes from Japan and  means "who stays inside and does not go out". The Japanese invented it in the 1990s to designate these teenagers and young adults who lived in social withdrawal, most often locked up at home, without contact with the outside world for months, even years. This phenomenon, which is linked to the school pressure and the harshness of the world of work, concerns several hundred thousand Japanese nowadays. A problem that the government takes very seriously especially since it must now deal with the aging of this reclusive population.

According to the Japanese Ministry of Health, a hikikomori is a young person who has retired to his home and is no longer part of society, without any mental pathology being identified as a root cause. In France, there is no specific word to designate them. We talk about "social withdrawal", "school dropout" or "social phobia". If this behavior is still little known to the general public, it raises many questions from researchers, more and more convinced that the hikikomori phenomenon affects many young people in France: why are they withdrawing in their room, dropping friends , studies and life projects? How are their families taking it?

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 04, 2018, 12:40 AM
Tonight, I'm suggesting these 2 interesting articles about climate change, the scholars of the forum, like humbert, usmangujjar and topdog will be certainly interested in reading them (pretty much everybody on the forum actually, and I can assure you that the graduates of HEC can't hold a candle to the users of the forum).


www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/03/far-right-climate-change-deniers-debate-ukip-emp-report-eu

www.newsweek.com/earth-major-transformation-climate-change-global-warming-1101857
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 08, 2018, 09:52 PM
Some of you have jobs (maybe a small minority?), some of you are still at school, and some of you are unemployed. But whatever your situation, maybe you will be exposed to the labour market one day.
That's why I'm going to talk about work. I hope that it won't make you depressed since it describes a harsh reality. But it gives a few solution too. You know, if I was billionnaire I would go to Saudi Arabia and Palestine to meet aa1234779 and Maher and I would give them money. And maybe, even without money we could probably start something. I don't know what though.

To get back to the book below, if I had to sum it up, I would say that the group takes precedence over the individual and that appearance is more important the real productivity. At least this is what I've seen during my previous experiences.
It’s not surprising: we live in a world where only a few workers are productive, thanks to machines usually. For example, a professional lorry driver can transport goods over long distances thanks to oil. And he replaces hundreds of people who would have to do this with ox carts. And many workers are pretty much "useless": the real productivity of an office worker is close to zero. Maybe it's useful in a tertiarized economy, but I don't think such organizations will survive the post-oil era, in a few years or decades.


"Modern management is an inefficient tyranny": extracts from a shocking book

Mantra of the "collective", heavy processes, obsession with transparency, endless meetings and fun seminars ... The economist Nicolas Bouzou and the philosopher Julia de Funès review all the evils of contemporary management. Here are a few extracts of this book.
(https://78.media.tumblr.com/38130a1e07a7a70e896b4cadb4ae04b9/tumblr_inline_peiwdeRD3j1vz8gnp_540.jpg)

They argue against the "happiness ideology" that would make happiness the condition of work when it should be the result of meaningful work. The authors suggest several ways to find a real management that stops "to scare the best" and gives back to courage and authority, cardinal virtues of true leadership.

● Endless business

At the heart of the problem, the company is seen by its shareholders and managers as a "technical organization" and not as a "finalized organization". Technique is at the service of technology and innovation at the service of change, without these transformations being part of an explicit project. This "unfinalization" has concrete consequences. Leadership disappears in favor of management and control. The result is an inflation of useless meetings, inefficient brainstorming, uninteresting PowerPoint presentations, all orchestrated by a management that destroys more value than it creates. Employees lose sight of the purpose and tangible result of their work. The most fragile suffer from occupational diseases, the now infamous burn-out, bore-out and brown-out. [...] In the end, employees are grappling with two contradictory injunctions: companies are demanding more and more work from their employees, but in fact the accumulation of processes and meetings prevents them from working; while employees need meaning and autonomy, they are urged to be happy at work.

(https://careersmart.org.uk/sites/default/files/2016-12/stress-at-work.jpg)

● The absurd

To develop the inventiveness of its employees, a company organizes creative (or rather recreational!) Workshops. Thus, some employees of a large bank were locked in a room from 9 am to 6 pm to play Lego and play dough, as if they had returned ... to the nursery. [...] The activities imposed on employees during these seminars are often ridiculous: relaxation to evacuate stress, escalation to strengthen the solidarity of the group, raid quad or escape games to defend the competition and shoot down ... The ridiculous can even kill. In a seminar during the 2008 financial crisis, A 50-year-old man succumbed to a heart attack during a football match.
● Surveillance and transparency

On the most recent corporate campuses, office architecture meets this requirement of visibility. Everything is glazed to be transparent. Everything becomes visible and observable, we can no longer hide outside the toilet. The buildings are no longer made to be seen for the beauty of an architecture, but to better see, to make visible those who are there. Surveillance and transparency thus become economic operators. This disciplinary power that Foucault describes is paradoxical: on the one hand, it is absolutely indiscreet since it is everywhere leaving no shadow zone, and on the other, absolutely discrete since it is not held by anyone and works in silence. It makes visible by being invisible: the employees submit to it by obeying no one.

The heaviness of the enterprise is not simply administrative; it is also and above all normalizing. Employees are forced to converge their behavior and appearances, including clothing, because the norm is the sign of belonging to a homogeneous social body. The problem is that this standardizing sanction can stifle employees and reduce their ability to create, take initiatives, innovate and simply act.
● The trap of the "collective"

In many companies, the "collective" is a totem. This passion for the collective is one of the explanations for the inflation of meetings and sometimes seminars. Obviously, in the conscious or unconscious of the company, what is "collective" is good and what is "individual" individualistic therefore bad. This anti-individualist bias seems to us in many cases to be a false mythology.
Of course, we do not ignore the interest of interindividual exchanges and teamwork. It is obvious that nothing great is accomplished alone, that the effectiveness of a group can outweigh the effectiveness of one, that a victory is often won by many. Simply, the collective has become a categorical imperative, and nothing is less effective than the imposture that consists of placing the "collective" everywhere, even if it does not allow the employees to work independently. Companies overvalue the collective when they under-value an individual whose autonomy and singularity can worry.

● The dictatorship of the processes

This ideology of fear leads to the accumulation of processes, one of the greatest managerial mythologies of the present time. Medical process, administrative process, recruitment process, IT process, registration process, process to join any service (to get ... type 1, to get ... type 2), process to throw garbage (blue bin, yellow , green), we live under the dictatorship of the process.

All find a rational justification but all engender reflexes of automated behaviors, such as controlled serialization of human operations. This procedural invasion must be carefully separated from the law. The procedure is not legalism. Indeed, where the law contrasts between the license and the defendant, between the legal and the illegal, and establishes prohibitions, the process establishes behavioral norms. The law prohibits. The norm obliges.

Subject to these standards, employees incorporate in their behaviors ritualised gestures and automatisms that end up removing their critical ability and common sense. But the reification of humans is bad for business and for capitalism itself.

● Leveling through egalitarianism

Authority is defined as non-negotiable. It supposes on the part of the one who obeys the recognition of the legitimacy of the giver of orders. For authority to act, it must not only be imposed, but it is only strength, but it must be recognized and accepted. But to recognize and accept a superiority contradicts the current interpretation of the modern democratic value of the equality according to which everything is worth, everything is discussed, everything must tend to uniformity. In the democratic age, inequality is frustrating, diminishing and unworthy. This widespread feeling comes from confusion. Today, any consideration of difference is equated with inequality and inequality with injustice. Discrimination becomes the exclusive reading gear for human relations, even when equality is not to be sought, for example in the relationship between the teacher and the pupil. [...]

How to run a business in these conditions? Managers are often complicit in this conceptual confusion. They prefer the controls and processes to the assumed authority. But authority, true, legitimate, grows both parties.

● Happiness ideology

Behind the game, it is the promise of happiness that invades companies. In some societies, we even wear T-shirts called "Talk less, smile more". There are countless trainings and seminars that explain the positive impact of "happiness in business" on financial performance, or corporate conventions that force employees to dance with a more or less sincere joy on the Happyde Pharrell Williams , unintentionally becoming the regular singer of contemporary management. Happiness has become a factor of production that must be maximized to increase prices. Happy employee = profitable employee. This fashion of happiness in business has even resulted in the creation of a new profession, the Chief Happiness Officer (CHO). [...]

The reasoning behind making employees well-employed is the opposite of the happiness illusion: instead of making happiness a working condition, let us consider joy as a consequence. Let's make sure that employees find meaning and fulfill their work, they will feel so much happier. Work must be able to be a cause of joy. If it contributes to happiness, so much the better. On the other hand, to maintain that happiness is a condition for good work is an inefficient tyranny. Unfortunately, all too often, foosball, green plants and express meditation at noon take the place of the project, the work and the meaning.

Happiness or joy as a consequence of a successful job, yes; happiness or joy as a condition of performance, no. Happiness would then be a notion instrumentalized for an economic purpose, but happiness must imperatively be a private affair.

● What to do? Fewer meetings!

Develop teleworking

Telework has two advantages: it is acclaimed by employees and forces companies to establish trusting relationships between management and employees. On the one hand, we can not demand the mobility of workers and on the other, we can't curb the development of teleworking. Variation in teleworking: companies must accept the children of employees when, for example, their teacher is absent. Everyone understands that businesses are not nurseries. But why not offer employees a simple help for a real need?

Decrease by 50% time spent in meetings or brainstorming

Half of the meetings are useless and could be replaced by a more fluid communication within the company or, at worst, by telephone meetings. The other half of the meetings are, most of the time, organized in spite of common sense. So remember the good organizing principles of a meeting: the theme and the exit point are announced in advance; it brings together less than 10 people; it lasts for a maximum of 45 minutes; it takes place before the middle of the afternoon; it begins with individual 4-minute lectures; it ends with a decision and never with the planning of another meeting.

Replace unnecessary training with humanities

To avoid hollow words, insignificant slides and weak reasoning, let us replace useless or entertaining formations with courses in the humanities. Instead of modeling dough and creative hobbies, let's enrich the thinking, shake the words, teach the employees how to write correctly to sharpen the minds, make them more efficient, richer in vocabulary and therefore in precise ideas. Let's help them to gain height to adopt a systemic vision of the company, its environment, its problems. Employees will feel more fulfilled by the end of these courses, they will have acquired fundamental and sustainable skills. These cross-curricular skills will serve them well in their personal and professional lives and whatever role they will occupy later. Do not always favor so-called "business" training. Let's focus on the fundamentals: thought and language.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 26, 2018, 01:18 AM
Tonight, I'm going to hold an exceptional conference about how the people of the "State" almost won the war against the Americans.

At camp Bucca, the Iraqis arrested during the invasion of Iraq lived like the Americans, drinking Pepsi and eating too much meat. When they were released, they began the Jihad against the Americans because their food contains excessive sugar: they became fat. So tonight, I'm going to tell yout the means used to build the caliphate to wage Jihad against the American food. Ormar, Abou Ahmad and Maher are answering the questions.



First and foremost, let's talk about the leader of the "State"
Where Ibrahim, aka "Maradona", turns to religious studies because he is myopic and mediocre at school.

Ibrahim al-Badri was born in Samarra, a hundred kilometers north of Baghdad, Iraq, on July 28, 1971, to a poor family of the Sunni minority, to which Saddam Hussein belonged.

After taking his bachelor's degree, Ibrahim al-Badri - who will later take the name of war "Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi" ['from Baghdad'] - settled with his parents in Tobji, a Sunni district North-West of Baghdad. His academic performance had been disappointing, severely reducing the academic choices of the bachelor who was already 20. "Ibrahim wanted to become a lawyer," recalls Omar, who used his panties on the benches of the school attended by the future caliph in Samarra, before settling, like him, in the district of Tobji, where he still resides today. "He was excellent in some subjects, but too average in others ", says Omar, who, for several years, found himself in the same class as one of Ibrahim's [three] brothers.On the statement of the baccalaureate of little Ibrahim, obtained from the" cell of the Falcons ", a elite unit of Iraqi intelligence, we learn, for example, that Ibrahim had got 98 out of 100 in mathematics, but only 57 out of 100 in English. His overall average of 80 out of 100 was largely insufficient to access popular faculties, such as medicine, engineering or law, who rejected his candidacy. [...]

Ibrahim al-Badri renounced becoming a lawyer and planned to make a career in the army, like his brother Shamsi. But he failed, because of myopia. If he had had good eyes, would Ibrahim nevertheless become the leader who would endorse, two decades later, the massacre, by his jihadist hordes, of thousands of Iraqi soldiers and policemen, at the creation of his caliphate, in 2014, on the grounds that they served the "impious" government of Baghdad? No one can say categorically that it would have changed anything in his career. But being part of Saddam Hussein's army will not prevent many of his officers from joining, after the fall of the Baathist regime, in 2003, the ranks of the Isis organization, or the jihadist groups from which it emerged.

Little Ibrahim finally enrolled the only University of Baghdad which accepted him: that of Koranic studies. A lot of consolation for graduates eager to arm themselves with a university degree, whatever it may be, despite mediocre results; a siding that also attracts many young people from conservative backgrounds. The faculty is home to enlightened professors or theologians, and is also an airlock for potential jihadists seeking academic security before they can take action. Over there, Ibrahim rubbed shoulders with future members of armed groups that emerged a few years later to fight the US occupation. His frustrated career plans did not affect him, they will prove his ability to bounce back and forth.

The future caliph invested himself fully in his studies while working, after classes, as guardian of the mosque Hajji Zaïdan. Some sources claim that Ibrahim moved to Baghdad without his parents, and that the Hajji Zaidan mosque provided him with a room he occupied [free], in exchange, he served the place of worship.

The former Samarra kid used to call Tobji's faithful to prayer, and he led with ease. Just as he would strive, tirelessly, to improve his speaking skills.

As in Samarra, faithful to his passion for football and his penchant for leadership, he created a football team gathering the faithful of the mosque Hajji Zaïdan and won as captain. "He was very talented", says Omar, his classmate in Samarra. I played in the opposing team and often I prayed that Ibrahim broke a leg so that we could beat them. In the neighborhood, Ibrahim was now nicknamed "Maradona".

Omar claims that Ibrahim was "kind, nice" at that time. But, gradually, the Maradona of Tobji became radicalized, and Omar attended helplessly to the "metamorphosis" of his childhood friend.

"He fell back on himself and became angry, he abandoned football, games, the good life, to go down the wrong path." He wanted everyone to come in, life was only suffering and everything was sin.

Then Ibrahim, a staunch supporter of Saddam Hussein during the second Gulf War, was sent by the Americans to Abu Ghraib prison and then to Bucca, a jihad-like camp.
The dates of Ibrahim's incarceration in Abu Ghraib, unveiled so far by the US military and other sources are contradictory and, moreover, sometimes also denied by the testimonies of prisoners who have rubbed shoulders with the future Caliph at Camp Bucca. But a fact is certain: he was released from Camp Bucca in December 2004. After being locked up in Abu Ghraib.

To increase his chances of being released quickly, the number 157911 was discreet and even adopted the attitude of the model prisoner. When he did not exercise his football skills with his fellow prisoners, under the astonished gaze of the guards, the "Maradona of Bucca" was referee between the prisoners, as soon as a quarrel broke out.

According to One of his fellow detainees, Abu Ahmad, who later became a senior figure in ISIS and later defected, the future lieutenant of the caliphate, was playing the role of the mediator and made himself respected by the American soldiers, that "was part of the act" of Ibrahim. "At the same time," says Abu Ahmad, "Ibrahim was pursuing a new strategy, which was taking place under their noses: building the Islamic State." And in Bucca, the ground was favorable.

Despite the decision to [isolate] the most dangerous detainees, mainly al-Qaeda members, in separate shacks, "emirs still managed to hide in the middle of the prison population. At night, the extremist elements held Islamic courts, and the prisoners who served as informants to the jailers had their arms broken. " Bucca is a real "jihad school". The best of Iraq, in the opinion of the Iraqi authorities.

But Bucca is not just a "jihad academy", a launching pad for terrorists eager to fight with the Americans and their Iraqi auxiliaries. It was the incubator of the Islamic State.
The meeting place of two terrors, in conditions of detention creating bonds stronger than those of blood. In the hell of Abu Ghraib or the "academy" of Bucca, post-Saddam Iraq is perceived as a tragedy by extremist Sunnis who, even behind bars, receive news from outside. The occupation promised to drag on and the Shia-dominated Iraqi power that was about to take hold, "carried by US tanks," was already suspected of being reluctant to reasonably integrate the now orphaned Sunni minority.

Likewise, the ousting of the Baath [Saddam Hussein's party] executives and the dismantling of the Iraqi police and army by the American administration were experienced as a humiliating injustice by the defeated Baathists.

In Bucca, the ex-servants of the Raïs "signed", even more quickly than the jihadists, the birth certificate of the caliph, promising to put in the service of the future reign their military, security and police know-how. The dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, which they served effectively, was for a long time a solid bulwark against religious extremism. It was to be a user's guide, then a perfect model of tyranny; both for those wishing, while driving out the occupier, to avenge the old regime, and for those wishing to replace it with an Islamic dictatorship, whose foundations were inculcated in prison itself.

For Abu Ahmad, "if there was no US prison in Iraq, ISIS would not be born Bucca, it built the ideology."

According to Abu Ahmad, for Ibrahim and the other jihadist leaders of the camp, Bucca was even an excellent training for future executives of the Islamic State. "For us, it was a school," he says, "but for them [senior officials] it was a management college." [Later, when an emir was killed], it never caused a vacancy. as there were people trained in prison."

One after the other, the "graduates of the academy" were released. Before leaving the camp, they wrote on the elastics of their panties, addresses and phone numbers that would allow them to meet or contact the insurgency. "Once free [thanks to the precious information hidden in the panties], we called the others and began to work," says Abu Ahmad, saying that this "elastic technique" was adopted by number of prisoners. "It was really that simple,"[...]

In 2011, part of the Syrian people revolted against their leader, Bashar al-Assad. Several secular and religious movements take up arms to overthrow the dictator. The emir Ibrahim, in decline in Iraq, joined the jihadist factions to associate them with the group he created there. He settled in the Syrian city of Raqqa to run his movement.

"Dr. Bachar" inherited the presidency and absolute power of his father, Hafez, in July 2000; and when the first demonstrations burst, on 15 March, 2011, the repression was relentless. In the image of the reign of Assad, whose brutality fell on the country forty years ago.

The population was resisting and hundreds of soldiers defected; joining the protest movement, often with their only service weapon, to protect the protesters[...]
It was A boon for Emir Ibrahim, who saw the opportunity to expand his field of action. Syria would be an ideal rear base, with a vital space for the caliphate in Iraq, where the Islamic State in Iraq was losing ground. gaining a foothold in a [second] country would boost its moribund organization, and perhaps even allow it to establish a transnational state. [...]

A few months after the start of the revolt, Al-Baghdadi sent one of his men to Syria, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, to establish a branch of the IS. The jihadization of the Syrian revolution was now underway, in the shadow of a peaceful movement that would be the first target. And the first victim.

In May 2011, two months after the start of the revolt, Bashar al-Assad freed hundreds of Islamists from the military prison of Sednaya, located 30 kilometers north of Damascus. A prison hell where, alongside prisoners of conscience, there are some 1,100 jihadists, including many veterans of the Iraq war. Among the detainees released by Damascus, Salafist leaders, who were soon to lead the most formidable Syrian armed factions.
In Sednaya, jihadist prisoners made the law. A jungle cleverly maintained, and strictly controlled by the Machiavellian Assadian system. Because it is the gotha ​​of international jihad that is gathered there, by the Syrian regime: veterans of Iraq, but also of Afghanistan, jihadists of the region, but also of the Gulf and the Maghreb, who are walking around in the prison, dressed with Afghan clothes, and armed with knives.

Maher Esber, an opponent of Bashar al-Assad who spent six years in Sednaya is saying: "In total, during my incarceration, the Islamists murdered about sixty people, eight of them in front of me, dead beheaded or killed with sword, chopper or iron bar. The regime knew what was happening, but, it was a kind of laboratory, as if it wanted to test, at the level of this prison, what it could do in Syria, and what it had already achieved in Lebanon and elsewhere ... Power had turned Syria into a jihad launching pad in Iraq, where it sent these jihadists, and released them into its own territory to discredit the rebellion and divide its ranks. A game involving risks that Damascus had always been able to take. [...] The release of these elements was for the regime a highly risky bet, but it took it because it knew it would have no impact on the first circles of power, and that it would serve them politically. " [...]

In 2014, Al-Baghdadi took the city of Mosul and proclaimed himself "caliph" of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, a proto-state that spanned part of Syria and Iraq.
Lined with oil fields and located 450 kilometers east of Raqqa, Mosul was teeming with dormant cells. Former Baathists as well as members of tribes and armed factions.
A heterogeneous group, but united against the sectarian Shiite power of Baghdad, accused of being loyal to Iran. It was on this alliance that Al-Baghdadi counted to take Mosul, sending only 1,500 jihadists to conquer a city officially held by 80,000 Iraqi military and police.

The mission was completed in less than four days, following a brief battle that caused virtually no casualties in ISIS ranks. Al-Baghdadi called it "revenge of Bilaoui", a military leader and former friend of Bucca, who fell a few hours before in the assault on Mosul. This ISIS blitzkrieg artisan was also immediately replaced by Abu Muslim al-Turkmani, [a former Iraqi intelligence officer under Saddam Hussein, killed in 2015] a former Baathist officer whom Ibrahim was seeing in Bucca ten years earlier. A veteran of all the wars of Saddam in whom the future caliph had full confidence. The future would prove him right. [...]

To his new chief of staff, Al-Baghdadi gave the order to advance towards the autonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq, and to march on the capital, to bring down the regime. Iraq seems on the brink of implosion. As in Mosul, where police and soldiers abandoned weapons and uniforms before fleeing, followed by half a million civilians; the rest of the province of Nineveh, near Syria, fell almost without firing a shot.

With shiny new four-wheel-drive vehicles, holding stacks of cash, and equipped with rocket launchers and anti-aircraft weapons, Al-Baghdadi's black-hooded hordes also captured large swathes of territory in the neighboring provinces of Kirkuk, and in Salaheddine, brutally executing on their way hundreds of Shiite soldiers ...

Their breakup in the Central Bank of Mosul would make Al-Baghdadi the richest terrorist leader in the world. A jackpot of $ 430 million, adding to the colossal revenues generated by the oil, antiquities and human trafficking in which the organization operates, in addition to the confiscation of property and the imposition of "taxes" to the people living under its yoke.

Since 2014 and his self-proclamation at the head of the caliphate, Al-Baghdadi was holed up. It is most often at a distance that he directed his troops, receiving his lieutenants "at home", sometimes in house clothes, surrounded by his family and sexual slaves.

And yet, Despite their initial success, the Jihadists were still eating too much American food, Pepsi and hamburgers. They were too fat and not tough enough. That's why they were losing the war.

When the Iraqi army launched its massive offensive in October 2016 to liberate Mosul, "capital" of the caliphate, Ibrahim urged his men to fight to the death; preferring to shelter in the vast desert area between Syria and Iraq, serving as a base fallback to the executives of the Islamic State.

In November 2017, Al-Baghdadi is in Rawa, 400 kilometers south of Mosul. His caliphate was in retreat, driven out of almost all its territories. Nevertheless, he urged his followers, in an audio recording broadcast by his propaganda organ, to "resist" and "unleash the war [...] everywhere" in the world.



Note: Abou Ahmad and Maher may remind you of the names of some administrators of the forum. They are not related to them.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on October 13, 2018, 07:39 PM
This is in french. Enlightening or frightening?

https://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2018/10/11/avant-jamal-khashoggi-d-autres-dissidents-saoudiens-ont-disparu-dans-de-mysterieuses-circonstances_5367933_3218.html
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 14, 2018, 11:36 PM
Quote from: aa1234779 on October 13, 2018, 07:39 PM
This is in french. Enlightening or frightening?

https://www.lemonde.fr/proche-orient/article/2018/10/11/avant-jamal-khashoggi-d-autres-dissidents-saoudiens-ont-disparu-dans-de-mysterieuses-circonstances_5367933_3218.html
Here is another one: http://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/disparition-jamal-khashoggi-prince-heritier-saoudien-mohammed-ben-salman-mbs-vient-se-priver-future-couronne-roland-lombardi-3532084.html

I don't feel concerned. Maybe you do if you are involved in politics in the region. I guess the Saudi royal family doesn't like criticism. Unfortunately, even if evidence is found that Ben Salman is behind the disappearance, nothing would change. Even if he was leaving Saudi Arabia to wage Jihad in Syria, it wouldn't change anything. The only thing that matters in Saudi Arabia and for the rest of the world is how many barrels of oil they produce, and how many subsidies are given to the Saudis.
There are more important and urgent matters and we don't find solutions. Or we are not unable to change anything to address the issue.

Let's try a syllogism:
-Everything is decided by God.
-Jamal Khashoggi disappeared in Turkey.
-Therefore the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi was the will of God.
If we assume that the first premise is true, we can say that the Saudi royals are not responsible at all because everything is decided by God. In this case we have to accept that nobody is responsible of anything

If the syllogism contains false or incomplete premises, it can turn out to be a sophism.
For example:
aa1234779 likes the photos of the forum.
God likes the photos of the forum too, otherwise they wouldn't be on the forum.
Therefore aa1234779 is God.
It could be the case since the Koran doesn't say that aa1234779 is not God. But since God and aa1234779 can't be reduced to their mere presence on the forum, this syllogism doesn't prove anything.

Note that a lot of photos are available again on the forum.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 15, 2018, 08:26 PM
Here is an interesting photo. Maybe some of you have already seen it, and if it's not the case, maybe you guessed where it was taken.
(https://i.f1g.fr/media/figaro/680x382_crop/2018/10/14/XVMa067bdf2-cf92-11e8-81a3-d8f987bd6afe.jpg)

Already awarded in 2007 in Bayeux (photo prize and public prize), Mahmoud Hams, 38, is again awarded the photo prize for "Clashes at Gaza's border", made in an difficult-to-access and dangerous area, which is part of these "places to cover without places to be protected" said Thomas Coex, head of the photo coverage of Israel and the Palestinian territories of AFP.

The award-winning photo shows a 29-year-old Palestinian, Saber al-Ashkar, throwing stones during clashes with Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip on May 11, 2018. At least 205 Palestinians were killed by gunfire, most of them during protests along the border, according to Palestinian sources.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 18, 2018, 09:22 PM
Here are a few other interesting articles.


A Saudi execution squad was sent to kill the journalist Khashoggi, using Jihadist methods. It's clear that Bin Salman could be involved.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2168982/decapitated-pompeo-turkey-grisly-details-jamal-khashoggis-alleged

If you are currently visiting Syria, beware of the Islamic State which is currently holding 700 hostages in Hadjin, near the Iraki border. Some of them are American and European.
Allegedly, the caliph is wandering in this area.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2018/10/18/01003-20181018ARTFIG00257-l-etat-islamique-detient-700-otages-en-syrie-et-menace-d-en-tuer-10-par-jour-selon-poutine.php

The death toll of the war in Syria.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2018/03/14/01003-20180314ARTFIG00343-guerre-en-syrie-sept-ans-apres-les-chiffres-chocs-d-une-tragedie-colossale.php
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on October 23, 2018, 06:36 AM
Quote from: scarface on October 18, 2018, 09:22 PM
A Saudi execution squad was sent to kill the journalist Khashoggi, using Jihadist methods. It's clear that Bin Salman could be involved.
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2168982/decapitated-pompeo-turkey-grisly-details-jamal-khashoggis-alleged

How did they know he was coming? Did he have an appointment or something?
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 23, 2018, 11:50 AM
Quote from: humbert on October 23, 2018, 06:36 AM
How did they know he was coming? Did he have an appointment or something?
Yes he did. He wanted to get papers because he was getting married. And he probably didn't think that mbs had sent a dream team to welcome him.
But mbs is like a gaddafi under steroids. The war in Yemen is in a stalemate. And he's jealous of Qatar because its 200 000 inhabitants are rich, while a large number of Saudis are poor. He decided to isolate Qatar by digging a canal and turn it into an island.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on October 23, 2018, 06:38 PM
Quote from: scarface on October 23, 2018, 11:50 AM
Yes he did. He wanted to get papers because he was getting married. And he probably didn't think that mbs had sent a dream team to welcome him.

Why would he need Saudi documents to get married, especially if his relationship with the Saudi government wasn't very good? He could have gone to [for example] Las Vegas and gotten married there. He could have also applied for the papers to be sent by mail. Many consulates have that service presicisely to avoid long lines.

Quote from: scarface on October 23, 2018, 11:50 AM
But mbs is like a gaddafi under steroids. The war in Yemen is in a stalemate. And he's jealous of Qatar because its 200 000 inhabitants are rich, while a large number of Saudis are poor. He decided to isolate Qatar by digging a canal and turn it into an island.

There is no question that the KSA is run by a brutal theocratic dictatorship who justify their repression with their Wahabi interpretation of the Qu'ran. Kaddafy, by comparison, was a madman and a total psychopath. I suppose who's worse is a matter of debate. Clearly this was the reason that in 2011 NATO intervened to oust him, with the blessing of the Arab League.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 24, 2018, 10:32 AM
Quote from: humbert on October 23, 2018, 06:38 PM
Quote from: scarface on October 23, 2018, 11:50 AM
Yes he did. He wanted to get papers because he was getting married. And he probably didn't think that mbs had sent a dream team to welcome him.

Why would he need Saudi documents to get married, especially if his relationship with the Saudi government wasn't very good? He could have gone to [for example] Las Vegas and gotten married there. He could have also applied for the papers to be sent by mail. Many consulates have that service presicisely to avoid long lines.

Quote from: scarface on October 23, 2018, 11:50 AM
But mbs is like a gaddafi under steroids. The war in Yemen is in a stalemate. And he's jealous of Qatar because its 200 000 inhabitants are rich, while a large number of Saudis are poor. He decided to isolate Qatar by digging a canal and turn it into an island.

There is no question that the KSA is run by a brutal theocratic dictatorship who justify their repression with their Wahabi interpretation of the Qu'ran. Kaddafy, by comparison, was a madman and a total psychopath. I suppose who's worse is a matter of debate. Clearly this was the reason that in 2011 NATO intervened to oust him, with the blessing of the Arab League.

I don't know if it's possible or suitable for a Muslim to get married in Las Vegas, with a priest. Likewise, I'm pretty sure it's not possible for me to get married in Mecca. If I tell them that I'm Catholic (I didnt choose) and Muslim (thanks to the teachings of aa1234779 and Maher on the forum), it could work.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on October 26, 2018, 06:31 AM
Quote from: scarface on October 24, 2018, 10:32 AM
I don't know if it's possible or suitable for a Muslim to get married in Las Vegas, with a priest. Likewise, I'm pretty sure it's not possible for me to get married in Mecca. If I tell them that I'm Catholic (I didnt choose) and Muslim (thanks to the teachings of aa1234779 and Maher on the forum), it could work.

Marriages in Vegas are purely civil and not managed by any religious authority. He could have legally married there and then have an Imam perform a religious ceremony. All this assuming he's a devout Muslim to begin with. Even so, Kasshogi's dispute is with the Saudi Royal Family, not with his supposed religion.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 04, 2018, 10:41 AM
Today, I'm going to give you some news about the Islamic State in Irak. A bit later, I'll try to hold a conference about a different matter, the Bayer Monsanto company.


Iraq declared itself to be the winner against the Islamic State group at the end of 2017 and the violence has drastically decreased in the country, however jihadist cells remain present, especially in the mountainous or desert areas, and are still carrying out attacks.

Lately, three village chiefs were executed by jihadists in less than a week in northern Iraq, local officials told AFP, bringing to nine the number of local officials killed for the past seven months in the area.

In the Hawija area, one of the last bastions of IS in Iraq, 230 km north of Baghdad, and more widely in the province of Kirkuk, jihadists regularly attack public infrastructure.

They attack, in particular, oil or electrical installations, but also state representatives. In the small villages of this mountainous and rural region, the "mokhtar" in Arabic, the village chief, has therefore become a prime target for IS.

Last night, the mokhtar of Mahmoudiya village, near Hawija, was the last victim. "Abdallah al-Ouasmi was executed by IS members who attacked his house," an official told AFP today.

Wednesday evening, it was the mokhtar al-Hanoutiya, a village in the area, who was executed in the same circumstances, he added.

And already on Monday, a provincial official told AFP that "ISIS fighters attacked the house of the mokhtar of al-Jassemiya village, Mohammed Joumaa". "They took him out of his house and executed in front of his home before fleeing," he told AFP.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 04, 2018, 02:05 PM
Today, I'm going to hold a conference about Bayer-Monsanto.

That day, the Bayer stock tumbled and never recovered. On August 9, 2018, Dewayne Johnson, a former, terminally ill non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma gardener, succeeded in his lawsuit against Monsanto, who did not inform him of the risks he was running by using his flagship product, Roundup. The famous glyphosate product, the most widely used herbicide in the world, is for the first time made responsible for cancer by a court, which condemned Monsanto to pay the plaintiff 289 million $. Bayer, which bought the seed company Monsanto in June 2018, was visibly affected: 10 billion euros in stock market value evaporated in a few hours.

The "Monsanto risk" now corresponded to a monstrous number. And the descent into hell began. Bayer assured investors that the trial would be overturned on appeal, that the sentence would be lightened and that the judge would go to the conclusions of "800 scientific studies" proving the safety of the molecule. But on Monday 22 October, the verdict came down: the judge Suzanne Bolanos will not reopen the trial and upholds the judgment but eases the financial penalty, bringing it down to $ 78.5 million. The stock collapsed again, reaching its lowest level in five years. On November 1, Dewayne Johnson accepted - in order to avoid the weight of a new trial - the reduced damages. Since the acquisition of Monsanto, Bayer lost the gigantic sum of 30 billion euros in market value, while the group made a capital increase of 9 billion euros to complete the merger.

Was the "marriage of the century" at the top of world agrochemistry a mistake? Already condemned by the ecologists, it is also challenged by the markets. Everything in this alliance is disproportionate: the price of the transaction ($ 63 billion); the size of the new group, which has become the world's leading producer of glyphosate and the world champion in agrochemistry; the reputation of Monsanto, a name so negatively charged that Bayer planned to make it disappear. But it is especially the magnitude of the new legal risk that freaks the investors: 7 800 lawsuits are currently brought against Monsanto in the United States, that are billions of dollars of damages and potential interests.
"Monsanto's operations bring high environmental, social and governance risks," said Ingo Speich, fund manager at Union Investment. Has Bayer sufficiently measured the risks? Shareholders are all the more worried that the group's other activities are showing signs of weakness: the nonprescription drug department saw its results decline in the last half of the year. In conventional pharmacy, several Bayer patents are coming to an end, and the new molecules currently being approved will not be able to compensate for the loss of turnover.
Internally, since August, it's the jerk of the fight. "The atmosphere is disastrous. Many had already struggled to swallow the decision to buy Monsanto, given the image they have. But here, the situation is not sustainable in the long term. If a hedge fund wants to buy us, it can do it cheaply, "worries an internal source. To save the merger, even the family jewels are examined. At the end of September, the German press reports that Bayer is closely studying a sale of its animal health business, which could bring in 6-7 billion euros. Information not confirmed by the group.

At the end of September, at a staff meeting in Leverkusen at Bayer Headquarters, Werner Baumann, boss of the group, discussed the possibility of separating from parts of his research department in medicine, one of Bayer's traditional hearts. Employee representatives are alarmed.
Above all, Bayer wants to save the glyphosate soldier. The controversial herbicide is of crucial importance to the group. It accounted for a quarter of Monsanto's sales. In the consolidated Bayer Group, it has a turnover of 3 billion euros.  The pro-glyphosate speech of Bayer's boss is a surprise. Because, since the beginning of 2018, it is quite another speech that was put forward. Liam Condon, director of the Crop Science department, has multiplied the interventions in the press and with environmental associations to explain the approach of the new group. He plays the card of dialogue and appeasement.
At the end of March, in the magazine Capital, a discussion is organized with the co-chairman of the German environmental party, Robert Habeck, on the question of how to feed the planet with 10 billion inhabitants in 2050. This is the first time that such a debate is organized in the country, symptomatic of a double movement: the will of Bayer to cut the ties with the past of Monsanto, which systematically refused the debate with its opponents, and the new orientation of the German environmentalists, traditionally a party of highly educated urban, who no longer want to be seen as enemies of innovation. Positions remain antagonistic, especially on the issue of patents on plants, but some points of agreement are identified. The question is hot: in the context of an increase in population, a climate warming and a species extinction, how to increase agricultural production without extending the arable land to the detriment of wild spaces?
How to adapt agriculture to rising sea levels? How to do it with less water, less fertilizer and less synthetic pesticides?

Liam Condon is Bayer's weapon in this sensitive debate. In mid-June, in the weekly FAS, he gave a glimpse of what Bayer's agriculture of the future might look like: more technique and less chemistry. Even if he continues to defend glyphosate as a "safe" herbicide. "The big solution that will save the world does not exist," he says. Agriculture is too varied. But there will be a series of small contributions. He names three. The first is the Crispr-Cas technology, or "genetic scissors", a technology discovered in 2012 by the French Emmanuelle Charpentier, which makes it possible to modify the DNA of a plant more quickly than before, without resorting to the genetic material of another plant. It could create more drought-resistant and more productive organisms that can grow in salt water, say scientists, who call it a "revolution in agriculture." The method currently divides German ecologists and the case is very controversial in Europe. A judgment of the European Court of Justice in late July has put a brake on the development of technology on European soils. Plants treated with the Crispr-Cas method are considered as GMOs and must be properly labeled.
Bayer's second technology is "digital farming", which involves, for example, the use of autonomous robots in fields that spot harmful plants and destroy them with lasers. Or that of sensors, able to measure as closely as hygrometry and the amount of inputs to use. The third innovation is based on a better knowledge of the microorganisms or microbes present in the soil and their relation to the growth of the plant. It offers biological solutions for soil fertilization or protection against diseases. Some preparations already on the market are also used in organic farming.

Asked by Le Monde, several sources in ecology agree, that these innovations are "interesting" and that they are the emergence of a "post-chemistry" agriculture. But they maintain their condemnation of the concentration of the agrotechnology sector. For shareholders, these new methods do not promise short-term profits. But the stock market is cruel: it measures the environmental risk, but does not want to give up the safe profits. For Bayer, the challenge is twofold: it has to convince that this model of agriculture of the future is as "sustainable" as it claims, and that it can generate as much profit as glyphosate.

The brands that use Monsanto products and therefore containing glyphosate
(https://naturalathleteclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/MARQUES-MONSANTO-big.jpg)

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 08, 2018, 09:52 PM
Maybe some of you noticed there was a little piglet on the forum. But an expensive piglet. And its wealthy owner is not even talented. humbert and shadow.97 must be thinking I'm talking about Sammy, the one you can see in the "best clips". Actually, I'm talking about the piglet here: http://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=2283.msg16077#msg16077

The American artist Jeff Koons has been condemned today by the High Court of Paris for plagiarizing an advertisement of the clothing brand Naf-Naf.
(https://e00-elmundo.uecdn.es/assets/multimedia/imagenes/2018/11/08/15417012204094.jpg)
On the left, the sculpture of Jeff Koons 'Fait d'hiver'; On the right, the advertising announcement of Naf-Naf.

The controversial artist, 63 years old, the company Jeff Koons LLC - of which he is manager - and the Parisian cultural institution must pay 148000 â,¬ in damages to Franck Davidovici, the publicist and author for Naf-Naf of the advertisement conceived for the brand in the 80's and that bears a strong resemblance to the sculpture Fait d'hiver (the name is the same too).

In the initial lawsuit, Davidovici had claimed 300,000 â,¬ and the confiscation of the sculpture that was the subject of the controversy, which recreated that advertisement in which a pig was shown helping a young woman in the snow .

Koons, one of the most sought-after artists in the world, was already convicted of plagiarism in March 2017 by the same French court.

On that occasion, his company and the Center Pompidou had to pay 20,000 â,¬ in damages and another 20,000 â,¬ in legal costs to the heirs of the French photographer Jean-François Bauret who denounced the plagiarism of the work "Naked".

In addition, Koons was forced to deliver an additional 4,000 euros to the family for having reproduced the work in question on his website.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 09, 2018, 08:59 PM
Maybe some of you know the Baywatch TV series. I assume that Maher and usmangujjar were huge fans in the 90’s.
If Vasudev or humbert don’t know this series, you can see the credit openings here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Epz2D5cW7Ss

I’m talking about this series because there are currently huge fires in California.
The town of Paradise is already destroyed and Malibu is threatened. About two-thirds of the city of Malibu was ordered evacuated early Friday as a ferocious Southern California’s wildfire roared toward the beachside community that is home for many Hollywood celebrities.

(https://image.ibb.co/cE4KtV/2000.jpg)
A wildfire comes down from a hilltop Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018, near Newbury Park, Calif. The Ventura County Fire Department has ordered evacuation of some communities in the path of the fire, which erupted a few miles from the site of Wednesday night's deadly mass shooting at a Thousand Oaks bar

In September, the Mendocino Complex Fire was under control after nearly two months of struggle. It had ravaged nearly 190,000 hectares, becoming the largest forest fire in California in recent history of this state.

North of Sacramento, the Fire Camp Fire devours everything in its path since Thursday morning. Paradise, a town of 26,000, has been partially destroyed. Fueled by high winds, the fire threatens nearly 17,000 homes, according to firefighters.

Medical teams move equipment while the Feather River hospital in Paradise was partially burned.
(https://image.ibb.co/bU4ptV/med.jpg)

In the city of Paradise alone, firefighters are already estimating that more than a thousand homes have gone up in flames.
(https://image.ibb.co/dGwKtV/fire.jpg)

The fire started in the Feather River canyon near Highway 70. It then spread to the west.
(https://image.ibb.co/eUdPtV/west.jpg)

Bearadise Hostel, in the city of Paradise, was completely destroyed.
(https://image.ibb.co/kHFXfA/bear.jpg)

A firefighter tries to control the fire in Paradise.
(https://image.ibb.co/hw7TLA/paradise.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 28, 2018, 01:17 AM
Here are a few interesting articles, in French.

Comment Trump a décidé de quitter l’accord de Paris sur le climat : le récit de Bob Woodward.
https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2018/11/26/comment-trump-a-decide-de-quitter-l-accord-de-paris-le-recit-de-bob-woodward_5388561_3232.html

Le monde s'éloigne de son objectif de ne pas dépasser 2°C de réchauffement climatique
http://www.lefigaro.fr/sciences/2018/11/27/01008-20181127ARTFIG00259-le-monde-s-eloigne-de-son-objectif-de-ne-pas-depasser-2c-de-rechauffement-climatique.php

A Tunis, la visite controversée du prince héritier saoudien « MBS »
https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2018/11/27/a-tunis-la-visite-controversee-du-prince-heritier-saoudien-mbs_5389398_3212.html

Un fournisseur de volailles de l'Elysée pousse un coup de gueule contre Macron.
https://www.capital.fr/economie-politique/un-fournisseur-de-volailles-de-lelysee-pousse-un-coup-de-gueule-contre-macron-1317420
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 28, 2018, 01:54 AM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about Syria.

A few months ago, the media were stating that Isis was defeated. But it's not true. 30 000 Isis fighters remains in Iraq and Syria and Isis is well positioned to rebuild. Besides, the caliph has still not been found. Meanwhile, Assad was promoting tourism in Aleppo...
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/assad-regime-promotes-syrias-ruins-in-aleppo-as-tourist-destination-1802648
On an official and authorized website, another video was published recently and it seems the soldiers of Isis are very pissed off. Their cheik seems a bit virulent too. And he looks obese and I guess he must be eating the daily food rations of 20 Syrians.
In the tunnels of the Islamic state, it's probably a major drawback. At the end of the video, the caliph is speaking and no doubt he's recommending him a good surgeon for a gastric stapling surgery procedure. He might lose his head pretty soon otherwise.
The end of the video is particularly violent, and I advise you not to watch it.
https://jihadology.net/2018/11/24/new-video-message-from-the-islamic-state-mesaage-to-the-families-of-the-pkk-prisoners-wilayat-al-sham-al-barakah/
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on November 30, 2018, 05:26 AM
Quote from: scarface on November 28, 2018, 01:54 AM
A few months ago, the media were stating that Isis was defeated. But it's not true. 30 000 Isis fighters remains in Iraq and Syria and Isis is well positioned to rebuild. Besides, the caliph has still not been found.

Terrorist organization like ISIS never go away completely. Here in the USA the Ku Klux Klan isn't totally dead. There are still Nazis and Communists in Europe and elsewhere. As long as these people don't represent a serious threat everything is OK. If ISIS tries to regroup they'll be squashed once again. Fighting against the entire world and expecting to win is sheer lunacy.

As for Assad, he enjoys the luxury of having Russia and Iran win the war for him. I don't know why I keep thinking that if Assad were overthrown, an even worse government will come to power. History is full of examples.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 30, 2018, 07:46 PM
Here is an interesting article about the Gaza strip:
https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2018/11/30/palestine-noces-ruineuses-a-gaza_5390601_3210.html

We learn that in Gaza, weddings are paid on borrowed money.
In the Palestinian territory under Israeli-Egyptian siege, thousands of families in financial distress are unable to repay their debts.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on December 02, 2018, 06:37 AM
Quote from: scarface on November 30, 2018, 07:46 PM
We learn that in Gaza, weddings are paid on borrowed money.
In the Palestinian territory under Israeli-Egyptian siege, thousands of families in financial distress are unable to repay their debts.

I can't understand these people. Having elaborate ceremonies for weddings is useless and a totally unnecessary waste of money, even more so if you just plain can't afford it. If they gave this some thought they'd live in the real world and not be tied down by tradition or cultural constraints.

I don't know what the divorce rate is in Gaza, but here in the USA it's about 50% last I heard.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on December 02, 2018, 06:37 PM
Tonight, an exceptional conference is taking place on the forum about "Degrowth". I've translated articles and gathered information, I hope there is no grammar or spelling mistake. The scholars of the forum like humbert, Vasudev or akaubee are invited to react to this conference.

(https://i.ibb.co/frdZJmW/monde.jpg)


The growth, an old moon to forget ?
Economic expansion being no longer able to reduce inequalities and fueling global warming, the debate on post-growth resurfaces.

For Camille Grandjean, it starts with a simple question about supermarket products: "Do I really need it? At home, this is followed by a series of small actions: limiting waste, recovering some of the shower water to water the plants. "I also make a lot of my cosmetics and household products," says the 34-year-old nurse at the University Hospital of Nice. I have always been sensitive to ecology, but my path towards decreasing has been very gradual. "
Her children still struggle to convert to the white clay toothpaste they are preparing, but they support her. Just like her husband. "I live more in coherence with my ideals," she explains, "before nuancing: even if I am still in the middle of a contradiction. Because some habits are more difficult to let go than others, confides the one who "confesses" to own an iPhone.
In a few days the COP24 on global warming will be held in Katowice (Poland) from December 2 to 14, and these questions and doubts torment more and more people.
At least those who were shocked by the resignation of Nicolas Hulot of the Ministry of the ecological and solidarity transition, and scared by the lack of commitment of governments.
Those, finally, that the multiplication of the alarmist reports on the climatic disorder caused by the human activity questions:
how to come out of a model that, if nothing changes, will lead us into the wall? How to change our lifestyles and consumption habits to limit our impact on the environment? And this, while the episode of "yellow vests" has brutally highlighted how delicate the ecological transition is when it is not accompanied by social justice. The debate is emerging even within the Church, usually not involved in the economic debate. "The time has come to go towards a certain decline, "said Pope Francis in the encyclical Laudato si, in 2015." The climate and social emergency is such that the society is willing to find another model", notes Eddy Fougier, political scientist, associate researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS). Even though this is not yet visible on a large scale, practices are changing. "

"An UMBRELLA CONCEPT"
However, thinking about the environmental misdeeds of growth is not new. It began in the early 1970s, around the Meadows report entitled The Limits of Growth (1972) for the Club of Rome, calling for curbing economic expansion, and written by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. This statistician was one the first to emphasize that an infinite development of activity is incompatible with a world where, by definition, natural resources are limited.
In France, those who are sensitive to these ideas have gradually regrouped during the 2000s under the banner of "degrowth", based on a critique of the consumer society and liberalism. Today, they form a current crossed by several theoretical schools. In Europe and in the United States, some people also work on this subject. "Degrowth is an umbrella concept, both political, economic and social, and includes several more or less radical ideas, "says Giorgos Kallis, an economist specialized in ecology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Some of them reject violently the notions of "green growth" and "Sustainable development", judging them as a marketing stalemate hindering real change. Other estimate On the contrary that all means to transform our lifestyles are good to follow. Some, again, insist on the need to curb the growth of the world population. But all agree on one point: the criticism of the gross domestic product (GDP), today at the heart of our public policies.

It is true that in the post-war period, and until the 1980s, economic growth was mechanically translated into increase in well-being, in both industrialized and emerging countries. "But since then, the relationship is no longer true," says Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at Surrey University.
First, because industrial activity generates pollution that further deteriorates the quality of life. In addition, some of the growth is now driven by spending related to problems caused by climate change - floods, droughts, rising waters ... Finally, the fruits of this growth are less and less well distributed among social classes. "Not only does it deteriorate the conditions of life on earth, but it does not allow reduce inequalities and promote well-being ", summarizes Dominique Bourg, philosopher at the University of Lausanne, committed alongside Delphine Batho, the president of Génération Ecologie.

The work of economist Thomas Piketty has also highlighted the increase in inequalities over the last 30 years in developed economies. In particular in the United States, where the share of national income going to 10% of
The wealthiest taxpayers have risen from 34% to 47% since 1980, while it has risen from 33% to 37% in Europe. This is why supporters of another model suggest changing the compass. And giving priority, instead of GDP, to a set of indicators to measure the degree of equality, health and carbon footprint. Above all, they call on governments to no longer base their strategy on the quest for growth, but rather that of the well-being of the population. "It involves transforming individual behaviors, but also how the state, taxation, and social systems work.  How? By increasing taxes on fossil fuels in order to accelerate the development of renewable energies,
or goods and services that have a negative impact on the environment. By raising taxes on wealthy households to limit inequalities.
In September, these questions were debated in the European Parliament at a conference devoted to "post-growth". The first of its kind, celebrated as a great advance by the movement. In the process, François Ruffin, the French deputy for France, made a long speech in front of the National Assembly, describing the economic expansion as a "scam": "You will depict your growth with all the adjectives of the world - green, sustainable ... Who will believe that we will produce more and pollute less? But beyond that, these ideas still struggle to find a serious echo in the political arena, where the fundamental debate on the socio-economic model remains difficult. Moreover, Its supporters are often caricatured as sweet crazy advocating the return to the candle, or moralizing technophobes tightening their belts. This may be due to the vocabulary they use. Originally conceived as a good marketing move, the word degrowth, evokes regression and withdrawal, and not a dream.
"Any political proposal from a movement by this name will be ignored or rejected by political and economic leaders," says physicist Dennis Meadows. Conscious of this limit, its promoters try to replace it with notions such as a-growth or post-growth. And insist on the positive spin-offs that a change of model would generate: relocations in the face of globalization, cooperatives in the face of competition...

But the skepticism that arises from their proposals is not just about semantics. Many economists outside the movement believe it is lack of realism and therefore difficult to apply. "With equal world GDP, a better distribution of wealth between continents would imply a decline in income in rich countries that would not be socially accepted. In addition, doing better using less resources can be done in the context of growth, "said Alexandre Delaigue, economist at the University of Lille-I. "In theory, going to post-growth is quite simple, but it gets complicated when you get down to the practical matters, recognizes Fabrice Flipo, philosopher of science and technology, environmental risk specialist."
Admittedly, the academic research devoted to the subject is expanding. But without a turnkey solution, it’s difficult to be heard by the greatest number. Especially since the movement suffers from a self-esteem. "White and over-educated people are clearly over-represented for Vincent Liegey, coordinator of the collective organization of international conferences on degrowth.
Moreover, the change comes up against a generational gap. "Questioning growth is difficult to apprehend in those aged over 50, raised during the" thirty glorious ". The majority of them are at the head of companies, large administrations and in political circles. So they basically have no interest in reforming the system. "There is no political relay to change the number of its initiatives that abound at the local level, "regrets Mr. Bourg.
Even those who want it face a big problem: that of time. Measures likely to limit global warming will have a tangible effect only in several decades, while most are very costly in the short term. "No party will win an election with such a program," says Mr. Meadows, pessimistically. Others, like Trebeck, remain convinced that changes can happen faster than people think. "They will go through the new generations, who have not grown up in the myth of happy growth," says the young woman. It is they who will transform the heart of the system. "
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on December 08, 2018, 02:04 AM
Tonight, an article of the New York Times will be discussed.

Maybe some of you heard of the Paris agreement about climate change.
The New York Times released an interesting article, where it states that 3 years after nearly 200 countries signed a landmark climate agreement in Paris, they are still far off-track from preventing severe global warming in the decades ahead.
The article does not precise it, but emissions in Europe kept increasing, and the black sheep is...France. Its CO2 emissions rose by...3% in 2017. It’s a paradox for a country which hosted the conference about climate change.
But the bad students are the Asian countries. If globally emissions are still increasing, it’s essentially due to 2 countries in Asia, India and China.
As for The US, The Trump Administration has spent 2018 systematically gutting US federal climate policy. If the proposed actions are fully implemented, greenhouse gas emissions projections for the year 2030 could increase by up to 400 MtCO2e over what was projected when Pres. Trump entered office. That’s almost as much as the entire state of California emitted in 2016.
And yet, the US could be considered as the good student, since it had in 2017 the largest decline in CO2 emissions in the world for 9th time this century.
Here is a link for the article of the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/12/07/climate/world-emissions-paris-goals-not-on-track.html
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on December 16, 2018, 02:11 AM
Here are a few interesting articles released today...


Climate Negotiators Reach an Overtime Deal to Keep Paris Pact Alive
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/climate/cop24-katowice-climate-summit.html

France 'yellow vest' protesters defy government to gather
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46577598

Yemen war: Can ceasefire deal finally bring peace ?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-46575544
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on December 23, 2018, 09:29 PM
Tonight, I'm going to hold a conference about Mozambique. Maybe some of you know this country, located in Africa.

(https://www.worldatlas.com/img/areamap/40ea6c2326057d2cd14b44fc14f0ef93.gif)


Mozambique in the hell of debt

Mozambique has increased infrastructure spending and concealed the cost. It is now the most indebted country of Africa and plunges into the crisis.

Leaning on a barrier at the end of the pier, Henrique Maundzi nonchalantly watches the passengers get on his boat. Behind him stands, majestically, a bridge, with gigantic dimensions, which spans the bay of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. For the boatman, who has been transporting hundreds of people from one bank to another for ten years, this bridge, just inaugurated, has all the signs of a Nemesis: "Passenger traffic has decreased by 75% since its opening" he explains, while his boat, with ten seats, is filling up in dribs ad drabs. Nevertheless, the forty-year-old can not help but feel a certain pride. "Yes, we have fewer people ... But that's it, development. And not all countries have that!".

Open to traffic on November 10, the book aligns the records. Largest infrastructure erected in Mozambique since independence in 1975, it is also, according to its promoters, the longest suspension bridge in Africa, with its 3 kilometers long. Its price is also colossal: 785 million dollars (688 million euros), of which 85% comes from a Chinese loan, which are added to a mountain of problematic debts. A symbol of the dreams of greatness of a nation ravaged by civil war and blessed by the discovery of immense gas reserves, this bridge has become especially a wake-up call for all of the abysmal debt that curbs the economy.

On Wednesday, December 19, President Filipe Nyusi, in his annual keynote address to Parliament, assured that the state of health of the nation was "stable and inspiring confidence", while avoiding to expand on the subject of debt. Last week, however, his government approved a budget that widens deficits, while the central bank sounded the alarm on the slippage of domestic debt. Mozambique now has the highest public debt, as a share of GDP, of the African continent, rising from 40% of GDP in 2012 to 113% in 2018, according to IMF figures. And It will have to pay 30 million euros of interest per year.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on January 01, 2019, 06:37 PM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about climate change with an interesting article.

The Paris agreement set a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels. Climate Action Tracker measures countries’ progress toward meeting this goal and the latest report finds that just two countries, The Gambia and Morocco, currently have policies that meet the 1.5-degree target.

Wind turbines along the Morocco coast, near the town of Tarfaya.
(https://i.ibb.co/KKTm0DX/tracker-wind-turbines.jpg)

Scientific evidence shows that a 2-degree warmer world will be far more disastrous for civilization than a world that warms by 1.5 degrees or less.
Climate Action Tracker’s Yvonne Deng notes that the group’s ratings take into account the unique situations of each country.

“When you look at the overall emission reductions that we need to see globally, it doesn't mean that every country has to reduce their emissions,” she explains. “Countries that are still developing need to be allowed to increase their emissions from current levels. Countries that have already developed really need to look at decreasing emissions.”

When it comes to global emission reductions across different counties, wealthy countries simply need to do more than their poorer counterparts.
There are various approaches to figuring out how to share global emission reductions across different countries, Deng says. One approach looks at per capita emissions and tries to calculate reductions between now and some future date; another approach factors in what some countries have already emitted to further their own development; a third approach says that wealthy countries simply need to do more than their poorer counterparts.

Climate Action Tracker looks at “the whole range of possible emission levels per country, in any of these approaches,” Deng says, “and then determines what we call the ‘fair share range’ of emission reductions â€" and that informs our rating scale.”
In addition to rating each of the countries’ commitments under Paris, Climate Action Tracker also uses what they call their CAT Thermometer, a tool that measures global temperature rise under various scenarios. For example, they’ve calculated that if countries do what they've committed to doing under the Paris agreements, the world will see a rise of about 3 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.
“The good news,” Deng says, “is that we have almost all the technologies available that we need for this. … [T]he challenge really is in getting them out there and getting them scaled up. So, this is a political problem. It's a question of willingness to do it. It's not a question of figuring out how to do it technically; that would be even scarier. But we know how to do it.”

Most countries have not yet met their commitments under the Paris climate agreements, and Climate Action Tracker rates a small group of countries as “critically insufficient or highly insufficient.” These include Russia, Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the US.
Deng notes that in the US, state and local level governments are working to find ways to reduce emissions, but at the federal level, under the Trump administration, there is not only a lack of action but a reversal of direction.

Morrocco’s former environment minister, Hakima El Haite, finds this inexplicable.
“I’ll be very frank,” El Haite says. “When you see America withdraw from the Paris agreement, I'm not only disappointed, I'm feeling that politicians are not taking their responsibilities seriously. The United States was a leading country during the negotiation, and now, as President Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris agreement, they are still blocking the negotiation. This is not right.”
Morocco has been on a path to a low-carbon economy for decades, El Haite points out. She says her country has understood since 1964 that climate change is a problem they need to address. What’s more, she points out, the whole of Africa accounts for only four percent of global carbon emissions.
“The ones who are impacting the world are the fuel producers and industrial developers,” she says.
“Those countries should lead the negotiations. I’m thinking about the United States, Russia, China, Europe, et cetera. So, I'm really feeling disappointed â€" as a Moroccan, as an African, as a citizen of the world â€" and feeling that those who are blocking the negotiation now are not taking responsibility. Many millions and millions of people will die because of this decision.”
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on January 05, 2019, 11:31 PM
Here are a few interesting articles.

In Pakistan:
By building a wire fence at the Afghan border, Islamabad, suspected by the international community of nurturing the Taliban, is trying to prove that it wants to keep them away.
https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2019/01/04/au-pakistan-la-cloture-du-double-jeu_5405172_3210.html

The yellow jackets.
"The yellow vests" want to escape the feeling of dispossession.
For researchers Ivan Bruneau and Julian Mischi, the social protest movement reflects the malaise of the populations established in the rural communes that are lacking everything, including the political organizations that are absent from these areas.
https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2019/01/03/les-gilets-jaunes-veulent-rompre-avec-le-sentiment-de-depossession_5404581_3232.html

Climate 2019. Democracy under pressure from the environment
To comply with the Paris agreement, governments must put in place radical and unpopular measures. Or accept to suffer the effects of global warming which, moreover, bring the least democratic political movements to power.
https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2019/01/03/la-democratie-a-l-epreuve-de-l-environnement_5404750_3232.html


I assume that if some users like shadow.97 or Maher are currently so busy, maybe it's because they have decided to become some..yellow jackets.
(https://cdn-s-www.ledauphine.com/images/6FA8EF0F-8D68-47FC-A735-3E5ED5193EC6/LDL_V0_12/manifestation-de-gilets-jaunes-a-frontignan-pascal-guyot-1542659016.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on January 06, 2019, 09:49 PM
Maybe some of you have seen the video with a former champion French boxer, caught on camera punching riot police as Yellow Vest activists clash with officers, on Saturday 5 December.
As riot police struggled to prevent yellow vest protesters from crossing the Leopold-Sédar-Senghor bridge several protesters can be seen forcing officers back.
He was identified as Christophe Dettinger, 36. On Sunday, he was on the run after investigating sources in Paris confirmed he was the boxer who won France's Light Heavyweight title in October 2007.
video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWPY37xJNhA
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on January 12, 2019, 02:26 PM
On Saturday morning, a powerful explosion destroyed a bakery in central Paris on Saturday morning, injuring at least 12 people and blowing out dozens of nearby windows after a suspected gas leak. We don't know if it was an attack or an accident yet.

According to reports, at least five people were critically injured in the explosion, which smashed windows in surrounding buildings and damaged a number of parked cars.

A fire broke out after the blast at around 9am, which occurred at a bakery (boulangerie) on Rue de Trévise in the busy 9th arrondissement of the city. 
Around 200 firefighters were mobilised to battle the fire and rescue residents in neighbouring buildings, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told reporters at the scene.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DwskKPIWkAArLiK.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on January 12, 2019, 03:34 PM
Today, some interesting new hit the headlines, and I finally decided to translate an article about Israel.


On Friday, hundreds of rioters demonstrated in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Haifa in Israel. The users of the forum like Maher or aa1234779 must be thinking: “It must be very important. Maybe they are protesting for actions against climate change. Or they are demanding the liberation of Palestine”

Actually, hundreds of Christians demonstrated in front of the Haifa Museum of Contemporary Art Friday to protest against a work of art titled Mc Jesus depicting a crucified Ronald McDonald's.
Apparently, the son of God has become the son of the junk food God:

(https://i.ibb.co/8990zm8/XVM030dcbd6-164c-11e9-9c06-0c291deb7893.jpg)

The demonstrators tried to force the doors of the establishment to take down the work of art. Incidents broke out with the police who were stoned. Three members of the police were wounded in the head. The night before, an incendiary device had been launched against the museum.

MC Jesus represents Ronald, McDonald's yellow and red clown, nailed to a thick wooden cross. The Finnish artist Jani Leinonen created the work as part of an exhibition called Sacred Goods whose theme is, as the name suggests, the sacralization of consumer goods. Jani Leinonen, 41, specializes in misappropriating brand images and strategies. He was sentenced in 2012 for stealing a plastic pillar from a McDonald's restaurant that he later destroyed. Two of his installations were exhibited in August 2015 at Dismaland, an ephemeral and artistic attraction park designed by the street artist Banksy in Great Britain.

Warning signs in the museum
On Thursday, the Minister of Culture Miri Regev wrote to the Director General of Haifa Museums, asking for the withdrawal of the work. In her letter, she indicates that she received "many complaints" for "serious insult to the feelings of the Christian community". "The contempt of sacred symbols for religions is illegitimate and can not be displayed in a cultural institution backed by public funds," she wrote.

The museum management refuses to do anything. However, she decided to place warning signs at the entrance of the exhibition to indicate that the work could be perceived as offensive. According to the Haifa Museum, the debate on art should not sink into violence. As for Mc Jesus, it is part of an exhibition on consumerism that "refers to the cynical use of religious symbols by multinationals".

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on January 16, 2019, 03:12 PM
Today, I’m going to hold an exceptional conference about the latest book of Houellebecq, titled Serotonine and released in January 2019.  I guess that some of you like shadow.97 or humbert heard of it, even though I doubt you can buy this book in an American library or in a Saudi grocery store, since the English translation won’t be published until September.


Provocative French author Michel Houellebecq gives voice to the simmering anger behind the rural “yellow vest” revolt in his eagerly awaited, prophetic new novel.
I remind you that Houellebecq, as a a fierce eurosceptic, became a pin-up of the far right after his last book, Submission, which envisioned a France subject to sharia law after electing a Muslim president in 2022.

The deeply depressed hero of his latest book Serotonin is an agricultural engineer who returns to his roots in a provincial France devastated by globalisation and European agricultural policies.
The protagonist of serotonin, Florent-Claude Labrouste works for the Ministry of Agriculture and lives in the Totem tower in Paris accompanied by his partner, the young Yuzu.

The totem tower in Paris
(http://img.over-blog-kiwi.com/1/47/74/15/20161223/ob_81adda_dsc-1000.JPG)

He is not a happy man: Labrouste, a narrator in the first person, admits in the second paragraph of the novel that the "most painful moment of the day" is to "wake up": he hates knowing that he continues to exist. He also hates the woman with whom he lives. He regrets the absence of sexual relations with her, and uses it to disdain the work he does on the house of Japanese culture ("it would be enough to organize one or two exhibitions on the manga, one or two festivals on the new Japanese porn trends") and he says that one afternoon, spying on his email, he discovered a video in which the girl is" at the center of a gang bang classic account: some men waited their turn quickly, using a condom for vaginal and anal penetrations; Nobody called anything. "
Labrouste's misogyny, however, ends up in the background, because the contempt is greater than the feeling of the character. serotonin it is a novel about a man who makes a last attempt to straighten out his decline. Initially, Yuzu is about to kill, but ends up deciding to leave him and, installed in a hotel, Labrouste visits a psychologist to receive antidepressants. The effects of the tablets used to increase serotonin, the Captorix, are "nausea, the disappearance of libido, impotence". "Was he able to be happy in solitude?" I thought not, "says Florent-Claude. Was he capable of being happy in general? It's the kind of questions, I think, it's better to avoid planning. "Speaking of the ability to feel good and at peace with himself, the protagonist of serotonin Invite readers to immerse themselves in their depressive minds.

Finally, Labrouste decides to “disappear” and returns to Normandy, where he once worked promoting Camembert and other regional cheeses. There, he stumbles across the distress of local farmers, among them an old college contemporary, Aymeric. The novel’s central, and fatal, drama takes place on a junction of the A13 motorway, where French riot police confront a blockade of armed farmers and blazing agricultural vehicles, all filmed by a 24-hour news channel. The parallel with the gilets jaunes is inexact, not least because Mr Houellebecq’s modest group of rural protesters are farmers, not employees, and their grievance is with the European Union’s policy on milk quotas, not Mr Macron. The sense of provincial neglect, disarray and violence nonetheless feels eerily familiar, as does the uneasy reaction of politicians who agree on the need “to understand the distress and the anger”.

Although there are touching moments, the women who pass through Labrouste’s life, like those who feature in Mr Houellebecq’s previous work, are bleakly two-dimensional, more often than not there to serve the narrator’s (dwindling) sexual needs. One is described as “pre-feminist”. That said, the novelist’s wit, and skill at shifting from the banal quotidian to the existential, are intact. Labrouste detests Paris, “a city infested with eco-responsible bourgeois”, but ends up there in a hotel room consoled by day-time television and hummus. His life’s possessions are the files on his Macbook: “my past weighed 1,100 grammes”. Overhyped he may be, but Houellebecq has once again managed to put his finger on modern French (and Western) society’s wounds, and it hurts.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on January 17, 2019, 01:31 AM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about Syria.

The Syrian Civil War has gone through several phases over the course of seven years and it now appears to be entering another one. Government forces have regained control over much of Syria with Russian air support and Iranian ground forces. Only Idlib and the territories east of the Euphrates river remain out of the hands of President Assad’s regime. With the U.S. planning an imminent withdrawal from Syria, things could soon shift again.

If the US has soldiers in Syria, it's mainly because the region has oil. The United States is not intervening to liberate Palestine. It's not intervening in the African dictatorships like Mozambique or Eritrea either. Maybe Trump will announce an intervention in Mozambique very soon, to overthrow Mugabe, but it's highly unlikely.

In the meantime, the Islamic State is still waging Jihad against the Americans.
Yesterday, Four Americans were killed in an explosion while conducting a routine patrol in northern Syria, according to the Pentagon. The Islamic State has claimed responsibility, indicating that it was "brother Abu Yasin al-Chami" who conducted the attack.
Two U.S. service members, one civilian employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency and one contractor working as an interpreter died in the attack in Manbij. Three service members were injured.

(https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2019/01/16/ap_19016456803049_wide-11369085a877507818d6b4dec478ff6822b39a38-s800-c85.jpg)
The explosion damaged a restaurant in Manbij, Syria, on Wednesday, as shown in a screen grab from the Kurdish Hawar News agency.

A local news site reported that a huge explosion erupted in the city center near a girls' school and a restaurant. The site reported that both civilians and troops were killed and wounded. Local groups say at least 16 people were killed in total.

The town of Manbij, located close to the Turkish border in northern Syria, was retaken from ISIS in 2016. U.S. troops have been working in the city with the local military council, as well as patrolling outside the city with Turkish troops, NPR's Tom Bowman reports.
"It's a vibrant, bustling city," says Bowman, who visited in early 2018. "[It] has a huge market selling all sorts of goods and produce."
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on January 20, 2019, 06:39 AM
Quote from: scarface on January 17, 2019, 01:31 AM
If the US has soldiers in Syria, it's mainly because the region has oil. The United States is not intervening to liberate Palestine. It's not intervening in the African dictatorships like Mozambique or Eritrea either.

MAINLY?? How about ONLY? Oil also is the reason the US and others rushed to the defense of Kuwait in 1991, and yet a few years later the world stood idly by and watched nearly 800,000 people massacred in Rwanda. No oil, only innocent "niggers" who, in their view, probably aren't even human.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on January 28, 2019, 01:10 AM
Here is a little article about climate change.

Thousands gathered on Sunday to denounce political inaction on battling climate change. The protests didn't take place in the US among supporters of Trump. Im not speaking of bird brains. Im not talking about Saudi protesters either. The morality police would have cracked down on them immediately. Once again the protests are happening in France. More here: https://www.france24.com/en/20190127-france-climate-change-paris-environment-protest
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on February 02, 2019, 12:01 AM
Tonight, I'm going to hold another conference about climate change, inspired from an article published in Le monde.

In the Bible, God sent 10 plagues on Egypt. But today's humanity has suffered the wrath of climate change in at least 467 different ways. Above all, these punishments will intensify, since in 2100, half of the population could be threatened by three to six climatic catastrophes (droughts, heat waves, floods...) of maximum intensity simultaneously if the gas emissions greenhouse gases are not drastically reduced.

(http://www.optipess.com/comics/2015-11-30-682_Climate-Change.png)

These are the two conclusions of a groundbreaking, original and very disturbing study published in Nature Climate Change on 19 November 2018 which addresses for the first time the cumulative risks brought about by climate change.

To estimate the danger to the population, the authors - about twenty international researchers, mainly from the University of Hawaii - began by studying the past by compiling data, close to 3,300 scientific studies published since 1980 relating to to climate change, due to human action or natural climate variability - knowing that greenhouse gas emissions are already responsible for increasing the temperature of the planet by nearly a degree.
The greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change are already responsible for increasing the temperature of the planet.

(https://i.ibb.co/hFj7ZKs/content-php.gif)

In dry areas, this can lead to drought or even devastating fires. In wetter areas, rains and floods are on the rise as super storms form over warmer oceans.
So far, scientists have focused on these disasters primarily by type. But the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change warns against the possibility, or even the probability that they are cascading.

Last year Florida suffered a severe drought, record temperatures, a hundred fires and Hurricane Michael.
"Focusing on risk can hide the impacts of other hazards, leading to an incomplete assessment of the consequences of climate change on humanity," said lead author Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii.
The likelihood of this simultaneity depends on geography and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
If, as foreseen by the Paris agreement on the climate of 2015, the world manages to limit its warming at the worst to + 2 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, New York will probably undergo a unique climatic hazard each year at the end of the century.
But if C02 emissions continue at the current rate, the mega-city could be up to four at the same time, just like Mexico.
Even under optimistic scenarios, "cumulative and increasing exposure to a multitude of climatic hazards will hit rich and poor countries in the same way," says the study.

"If we take into account only the most direct effects of climate change, heat waves or storms for example, inevitably, we will be caught short by more important threats that, by combining, can have a wider effect on society" commented another author, Jonathan Patz, from the University of Wisconsin.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on February 07, 2019, 03:13 AM
This guy was so against Islam, he wanted to write a book probably to defame or debunk it.
Instead, he accepted it.

Former MP, and a member & right-hand of Geert Wilders anti-Islam party.

Full story:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/joram-van-klaveren-islam-muslim-converts-religion-netherlands-geert-wilders-a8765476.html

Omar, the 2nd Caliph, hated Muhammad (SAWS), Islam, and Muslims so much, he used to torture Muslims, especially slaves like Bilal because they accepted what they saw as a better religion than worshipping 360+ stone idols instead of the Creator. One day, he went to his sister's house, and found that she and her husband became Muslims. He felt that would bring him & his tribe shame so he beat them up. When he saw their blood, he wanted to know why? So he read what Chapter they had with them that was revealed that time to the Prophet, it was "Ar Rahman" the most merciful.

(1) The Most Merciful
(2) Taught the Qur'an,
(3) Created man,
(4) [And] taught him eloquence.
(5) The sun and the moon
by precise calculation,
(6) And the stars and trees prostrate.
(7) And the heaven He raised and imposed the balance
(8) That you not transgress within the balance.
(9) And establish weight in justice and do not make deficient the balance.
(10) And the earth He laid [out] for the creatures.
(11) Therein is fruit and palm trees having sheaths [of dates]
(12) And grain having husks and scented plants.
(13) So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny?

He was feared by Muslims because he was strong both in his body & his tribe.
That day he became Muslim, and Muslims demonstrated their Monotheism w/o fear of oppression.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on February 07, 2019, 12:03 PM
A caliph of Islam who despises Islam, it looks like an oxymoron.
But you must be right, because the Shiites are questioning his legitimacy, since he didn't put an end to the ordeal of the prophet Muhammad.
But for some, he's also a "good caliph":
https://books.google.fr/books?id=Q_1sDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA29&lpg=PA29&dq=omar+caliph+muslims+eat&source=bl&ots=dOR78S3jEC&sig=ACfU3U2YzQMtZjiiGwgaF-evAkVrY9DhVQ&hl=fr&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiTraerw6ngAhUN3RoKHSPpBc44ChDoATAHegQIBRAB
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on February 07, 2019, 08:23 PM
Tonight, I’m going to hold a conference.

First and foremost, note that I found a video talking about Master Omar, the caliph depicted earlier by aa1234779.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8ZqswygSP8
(https://i.ibb.co/chY4ZNp/omar.png)




Now I will talk about the latest news concerning climate change. And they are not good:
http://www.leparisien.fr/environnement/climat-la-periode-2015-2018-est-la-plus-chaude-jamais-enregistree-07-02-2019-8006274.php
That’s why, in the years to come, everything could come to a halt. If the Prince of Arabia decides it’s over, that he won’t export oil any longer, Western economies would be doomed.

And I don’t know what is going on, but it seems that banks are pretty ill.
Today, Société Générale hit a record 6-year-low. Maher might have sold the stocks of his great grand mother.
(https://i.ibb.co/ncSh6XG/sg.png)

As for Deutsche Bank, it could go bankrupt. It’s not new, I remember that our friend harkaz talked about it a while ago. In this video, the specialist Pierre Jovanovic shows the parallel between DB and Lehman brothers.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEUOSKmSx80


In this context, maybe our move to sunnier shores together could happen sooner than later. The Palestinian outback could be an interesting place (and I use outback to highlight the wilderness and the untouched nature).
Of course, Palestinian olive groves around settlements in the West Bank are subject to uprooting, vandalism and blazing by settlers, that’s why we’ll have to settle a long way inland to find a hospitable place, and people who don’t know the sins of modernity. However, I think we’ll have to find a place with dentists and doctors, it would be a pity to die of a toothache.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YptSJVw110
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: Shadow.97 on February 09, 2019, 01:34 AM
Just thought i'd mention that this may be my fave thread on the forum. Thanks alot for keeping it alive with knowledge, and shared ideas. Although, as always its not always things that are to my liking.
And, I'm having a hard time keeping up with the posts.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on February 09, 2019, 06:24 AM
This is my theory as for the motive of the Trump administration's insistence to get rid of Venezuela's Maduro

https://twitter.com/MajedAlasmariAP/status/1094086303195586561
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on February 11, 2019, 05:47 AM
There is no question that Venezuela's massive oil reserves are a big factor for wanting to bring down Maduro. It's not the only one. Maduro is a tyrant who has trashed his country. The Venezuelan people are fed up, protests continue unabated. Most of the countries in this hemisphere as well as the European Union also want him out.

My family experiences a similar thing in Cuba. Fidel Castro was a despot who murdered tens thousands of people. We, as well as millions of more Cubans, were forced to go into exile and, sadly, stay there.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on February 19, 2019, 04:30 PM
Today, I'm going to hold a conference.
Because I think some of you don't know what the picture below depicts.

(https://i.ibb.co/X88ccFV/peanut.jpg)

Some scholars of the forum, like Vasudev or aa1234779 could probably find the answer: it's a peanut, indeed. But what else?


Pirouette and peanut have been in touch for a long time. Well beyond the nursery rhyme because the little seed, prank queen, has more than one trick up its pod. It is never where we expect it to be, plays with clichés, without denying its status, faithful companion of the aperitif at any time in any place.
It is first of all by its nature that the peanut tricks us: we would swear it is a member of the family of oleaginous, cousin of almonds, hazelnuts and nuts of all kinds... Well, no, it is a vegetable, as well as peas, beans and dried beans, with which it can share the same culinary destiny. It is then by its spelling that the little seed confuses us: the French word “cacahuète” is borrowed from Spanish, and from tlalcacahuatl, in Nahuatl language ( Aztec), designating an "Earth cocoa ". Adapted to tropical and subtropical regions, the cultivation of the peanut is widespread in Latin and Central America where it originated and has spread to Africa and Asia (China and India are now the first countries producers).

In small doses, the peanut is extraordinary because it has assets compatible with the requirements of contemporary food, which no longer excludes the "good fat", an excellent source of vegetable protein, zinc, copper, and its neutral oil, rather average in terms of taste and diet, withstands very well the highest temperatures. In gastronomy, it is particularly distinguished by its powerful and original taste and a crisp stimulant, when it is grilled or roasted. Qualities that have made it accessible to luxury tables; a pretty pirouette again. At the Plaza Athénée in Paris, the young pastry chef Jessica Préalpato makes a sublime dessert with it, both light and gourmet, in combination with vegetable milk.
The peanut is therefore much better than its poor reputation, as evidenced by the African recipes (Senegalese mafé...) and Asian (Indonesian gado gado, Thai Pad, green papaya salad, Vietnamese bo bun), in which it sometimes compensates for the lack of meat. In the purified version of peanut butter, the mashed peanut nature and bio can compete with tahini (crushed sesame) to form a sauce, give body to a dressing, thicken and raise a soup, enrobe roasted vegetables, replace the butter in cookies, spice up a cake , or welcome the apples on a pie...
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on February 27, 2019, 05:47 AM
Shame on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/March22Movement/status/1100600703733645313

It's not me anymore!
We will never stop!
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: Shadow.97 on February 28, 2019, 12:00 AM
Quote from: aa1234779 on February 27, 2019, 05:47 AM
Shame on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/March22Movement/status/1100600703733645313

It's not me anymore!
We will never stop!
I was also suspended.
Twitter is very trigger happy on suspending accounts.
Do you have any options on getting it back?
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on February 28, 2019, 05:40 AM
I wouldn't be surprised if MBS and others were sending Twitter generous "donations". Supposedly it's a forum for people to air their views freely. If that were true then why are some opinions OK when others aren't?
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on February 28, 2019, 06:35 AM
Quote from: Shadow.97 on February 28, 2019, 12:00 AM
I was also suspended.
Twitter is very trigger happy on suspending accounts.
Do you have any options on getting it back?
Sorry to hear that.
It's a common problem for dissidents where I come from for their accounts to be suspended.
As to getting my account back, I hope so, but the probability of that happening is very slim.
I didn't receive an email as to the violation(s) that led to suspending my account.
Nor did I receive a confirmation email for the appeal I made.
It seems the Abu Dhabi Twitter office is might be doing a nice job protecting corrupt bone-saw killing dictators in the Middle East, not to mention the thousands of employees that manage troll accounts that report accounts deemed dangerous to the fortunes of tyrants.

Quote from: humbert on February 28, 2019, 05:40 AM
I wouldn't be surprised if MBS and others were sending Twitter generous "donations". Supposedly it's a forum for people to air their views freely. If that were true then why are some opinions OK when others aren't?
If you remember a few years ago, the filthy rich businessman prince Al-Waleed now turned an MBS puppet after imprisonment & probable torture to forfeit his fortunes, bought around $100 million in Twitter shares.
Could that stake in the company be the price for twitter's Jack to sell his soul to criminal dictatorships?
I wouldn't discount that from being true. US presidents do that all the time w/o any consequences.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on March 14, 2019, 10:02 PM
Tonight, I'm going to hold another conference to talk about a special goat.
If humbert invited the mayor of Fair Haven at the restaurant, then he must know this goat.


In a divided America where politics seems increasingly to get people's goat, a small town in Vermont has taken the concept to heart -- this week electing one as mayor.
Indeed, Lincoln is a 3 year old Nubian goat and has become the mayor of the small town of Fair Haven, Vermont (Fair Haven had no official mayor).
In Tuesday's poll, Lincoln was victorious over 15 other candidates including Crystal the gerbil and many dogs and cats. Lincoln's 13 votes were enough for him to squeak past Sammie the dog.
(https://i.ibb.co/mS56bH5/lincoln.jpg)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOYeo22PHFE
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on March 16, 2019, 07:01 PM
Yesterday and today, some protests took place all around the world called Climate strikes.

Over 24 hours of climate action, organizers of the climate strike believe more than 1 million students skipped school on Friday or protest government inaction on climate change.
From Australia and New Zealand, to Asia, Europe, Africa, North America and South America, students from all over the world took to the streets to demand change.
Organizers said there were more than 2,000 protests in 125 countries.
The student movement was inspired by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, now nominated for a Nobel Prize, who kicked off a global movement after she sat outside Swedish parliament every Friday beginning last August.
Many students expressed anger, fear and disappointment that adults have not acted.
Many also expressed hope for a green economy within 11 years, the timeframe experts at the United Nations believe is necessary to forestall catastrophic climate change.
Even as students demanded change, some ignored their pleas, including diplomatic delegations from the US, who watered down agreements to eliminate single-use plastics.


In Washington
(https://i.ibb.co/dJVj6Fd/washington.jpg)

in Paris
(https://i.ibb.co/fS1FNVm/France-Climate-Student-Protests.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on March 28, 2019, 05:16 PM
I've stumbled upon a bizarre story in the news: Was the passenger a terrorist?

A man with strange behavior was arrested Monday in a TGV linking Paris to Brest. After donning a hood, he was first restrained by three passengers.

(https://img.20mn.fr/jtgA5q-2SuC-ESwaEQHlwA/590x378_un-tgv-est-arrete-en-gare-de-langon-a-cause-de-la-chute-d-un-ulm.jpg)

"It does not seem to be terrorism," said the prosecutor of Saint-Brieuc, Bertrand Leclerc, evoking rather a "somewhat delusional behavior". The 35-year-old man, unemployed and from Chambéry, boarded the train in Paris "with a lot of luggage", according to the magistrate. His behavior and his "weird accoutrement" intrigued the passengers of the train. "He used to say things like 'I'm going to break their mouths' without talking to anyone, and he went to the bathroom with his suitcases, according to witnesses," the prosecutor explained.

Then the man put on a hood and a woman exclaimed "he is armed", causing a panic in the train, according to the same source.

He was initially controlled by three passengers including a gendarme out of service and was arrested by Border Police officials who were on a mission to secure the train, according to a source close to the investigation. No weapons were found on him or in the wagon. "It is not clear that he was armed or threatened anyone in particular," the prosecutor said.

Placed in custody, the man should be subjected to psychiatric expertise. A train passenger described a "weird, agitated man" who "tried to block the doors," according to an AFP correspondent.

The TGV was placed on a service road in order to allow the deminers to intervene safely. Closed around 17 hours, the station of Saint-Brieuc was reopened soon after and the circulation of the trains had resumed at the beginning of evening. Some travelers were waiting in the station to pick up the luggage left in the stationary train.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 09, 2019, 12:59 AM
Tonight, I’m going to speak about a case you probably heard of.

He was a friend of a young Osama bin Laden and a Muslim Brotherhood sympathiser.
When he was sent to Afghanistan, he was seen holding an assault rifle and dressed in Afghani clothing. He did not fight in the country, but sympathised with the Mujahideen in the 1980s war against the Soviet occupation, which was funded by the Saudis and America’s CIA.
The description almost fits aa1234779, but it’s not him, because he would have certainly won the Afghan war if he had been there. Actually, I’m talking about Kashoggi. A recent video shows that he was ambushed by suspected Jihadis coming from Saudi Arabia worrying about the legitimacy of their king.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaeYMysnuvY
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 10, 2019, 09:28 PM
Tonight, I found an excellent article in French titled "Letter to my daughter: Tomorrow, hunger if we do nothing"
It's about the end of oil. You can try to read it if you are interested.
https://blogs.mediapart.fr/vincent-rigoulet/blog/100419/lettre-ma-fille-demain-la-faim-si-l-ne-fait-rien
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 15, 2019, 08:03 PM
Tonight, president Macron will address the French people in a press conference at the Elysee palace at 8pm on Monday night, the French presidential team announced on Sunday.

In his address to the nation, the president will be expected to detail measures as a way forward for the country in response to the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement.
The measures are expected to be based on the results of Macron's three-months-long "great national debate", which the French government published last week.
The Gilets Jaunes have been protesting every Saturday for 22 consecutive weeks.

(https://cdn-s-www.ledauphine.com/images/42b06855-ae70-457f-ac36-01cd82cc4ab1/LDL_v1_03/photo-thomas-samson-afp-1555345540.jpg)


Note that I received a pm of Maher saying that he's fine this morning.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 15, 2019, 09:02 PM
Note that Macron delayed TV speech due to Notre Dame fire.
The 850-year-old Notre Dame cathedral in Paris is currently on fire, and images and videos are starting to hit Twitter.

Flames are shooting out of the roof behind the nave of the 12th cathedral, one of the world's most visited landmarks.
Reports say the roof of the cathedral has "entirely collapsed."
What caused the Notre Dame fire isn't immediately clear, but France 2 television is reporting that police are treating it like an accident.


(https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/smoke-and-flames-rise-during-a-fire-at-the-landmark-notre-news-photo-1137422977-1555350306.jpg?crop=0.668xw:1.00xh;0.179xw,0&resize=768:*)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 15, 2019, 11:18 PM
The Northern belfry of Notre dame may burn pretty soon too.
In spite of 400 firefighters, it's not known if Notre Dame will be saved.
Cathedral spokesman Andre Finot told French media that the building had sustained “colossal damage” and that the Medieval wooden interior â€" an engineering and artistic marvel that has inspired awe and wonder for the millions who have visited over the centuries â€" had been gutted.
“Everything is burning,” he said. “Nothing will remain from the frame.”
The cathedral has been under renovation, and officials said they were considering the blaze an accident relating to construction.
The fire began in the late afternoon, with yellow clouds of smoke billowing into an otherwise perfect blue sky and orange flames assaulting the belfry. As evening began to fall over the city, a gaping hole could be seen where the enormous vaulted roof once had been. Flames continued to lick the night sky as an impromptu chorus in the streets below somberly sang “Ave Maria.”

a Photo taken on 29 July 2018 by me, on top of the Arab world institute.
(https://i.ibb.co/NWR8DHB/20180729-153649.jpg)

I know that some of you are speaking Arabic like aa1234779 or panzer24.
Note that it's now possible to have a certification in the Arabic language.
Eight cities in the world (Paris, Geneva, Rabat, Tétouan, Cairo, Doha and Amman) will organize for the first time in the world an official certificate in Arabic developed by Institut du monde arabe in Paris. The selected institutions have been chosen for their quality education. The French Institute in Jordan is one of these institutions. This certification is intended for anyone over the age of 15 for either academic, professional or personal reasons, seeks a reliable and recognized validation of their knowledge and competence in Arabic.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: Shadow.97 on April 16, 2019, 04:22 AM
Sitting at work currently and watching it go down live. Interesting things.
Expected to see you post about it, so came here to read it :)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on April 16, 2019, 04:59 AM
Quote from: Shadow.97 on April 16, 2019, 04:22 AM
Sitting at work currently and watching it go down live. Interesting things.
Expected to see you post about it, so came here to read it :)

Glad to see you back. What kind of work are you doing nowadays? Are you still in Vaxjö or did you move?
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 17, 2019, 11:59 PM
Today I found 2 interesting articles in Le Monde newspaper. I'm going to paste them here. They are in French, but you can translate them easily with Google translate.



"A total loss of meaning": the growing malaise of young engineers facing climate change.
(https://img.lemde.fr/2019/04/12/0/0/1800/1200/688/0/60/0/e40873f_9xpYHq8g-tYcGxDkCnwtCvtv.jpg)

« Une perte de sens totale » : le malaise grandissant des jeunes ingénieurs face au climat
Tiraillés entre les réalités des entreprises et l’impératif climatique, de jeunes ingénieurs disent vivre une « dissonance cognitive ». Certains renoncent à une carrière traditionnelle.

C’est un discours de remise de diplôme plutôt inhabituel que Clément Choisne, jeune ingénieur de Centrale Nantes, a livré devant ses camarades, le 30 novembre 2018. A contre-courant des discours louangeurs de ce type d’événement, il a choisi de parler de son dilemme : « Comme bon nombre de mes camarades, alors que la situation climatique et les inégalités ne cessent de s’aggraver, que le GIEC [Groupe d’experts intergouvernemental sur l’évolution du climat] pleure et que les êtres se meurent : je suis perdu, incapable de me reconnaître dans la promesse d’une vie de cadre supérieur, en rouage essentiel d’un système capitaliste de surconsommation. »

Devant une assemblée de futurs diplômés, parents, familles, anciens élèves, professeurs, direction et industriels, l’ingénieur de 24 ans a profité de la tribune qui lui était offerte pour se faire le porte-parole d’un malaise que vivent de plus en plus de jeunes diplômés face au réchauffement climatique : « Quand sobriété et décroissance sont des termes qui peinent à s’immiscer dans les programmes centraliens, mais que de grands groupes industriels à fort impact carbone sont partenaires de mon école, je m’interroge sur le système que nous soutenons. Je doute, et je m’écarte. » La vidéo, qui a fait plus de 270 000 vues sur YouTube, est l’un des nombreux échos de ce désarroi éprouvé par les jeunes diplômés face à un monde économique qu’ils jugent en décalage avec l’urgence climatique.
Link: https://www.lemonde.fr/campus/article/2019/04/16/une-perte-de-sens-totale-le-blues-des-jeunes-ingenieurs-face-au-climat_5450927_4401467.html





Unjustified flights must be removed
(https://img.lemde.fr/2019/04/16/0/0/6000/4000/688/0/60/0/08334ba_7us6kcQpXEenU0hYlHs7y0W0.jpg)

« Les vols en avion non justifiés doivent être supprimés »
Pour lutter efficacement contre les gaz à effet de serre, Julien Goguel, auteur d’un manifeste appelant à boycotter l’avion, explique, dans une tribune au « Monde », que la transition écologique ne pourra se faire sans une amputation énergétique.

Dans une tribune publiée sur le site du Monde, samedi 13 avril, Jean-François Rial propose une alternative à la diminution du trafic aérien pour lutter contre le réchauffement climatique. Il propose de planter 1 200 milliards d’arbres.

Au-delà du fait que cela suppose qu’en plantant 1 million d’arbres chaque jour il faudrait plus de trente-cinq siècles pour y parvenir, cette idée baroque prouve que le chemin est encore long pour conduire certains de ceux qui se définissent comme écologistes à revoir complètement leur manière d’envisager la crise environnementale et ses conséquences.

Pour Jean-François Rial, une « compensation planète » pourrait financer une industrie de l’absorption. Or aucun artifice financier, quel que soit son nom, ne pourra rivaliser d’efficacité avec l’arrêt pur et simple d’une émission de carbone. Comme le demandait un collégien au président de la République Emmanuel Macron en mars, peut-on acheter une deuxième planète avec de l’argent ?

En signant l’accord de Paris en 2015, la France s’engageait à réduire ses émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) de 40 % à l’horizon 2030 par rapport à celles de 1990. Non seulement cet objectif ne sera pas atteint, mais nos émissions de GES continuent d’augmenter.

Les décideurs politiques, trop absorbés par la gestion des crises du quotidien, se montrent incapables de prendre des mesures susceptibles de nous éviter le chaos climatique et ses conséquences funestes. La préoccupation écologique est présente dans les discours sur l’ensemble de l’échiquier politique, mais le constat est sans appel : cela ne suffit pas et nous courrons à la catastrophe.
Link: https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2019/04/16/les-vols-en-avion-non-justifies-doivent-etre-supprimes_5450895_3232.html
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 19, 2019, 12:43 PM
Following the example of London, Climate protesters are blocking Ministry of Ecology and headquarters of multinationals at La Défense.

(https://static.euronews.com/articles/stories/03/81/13/94/880x495_cmsv2_33c11184-468b-5cc2-8ae8-572b1dec5209-3811394.jpg)

Hundreds of climate activists are blocking access to the French Ministry of Ecology, Energy and Sustainable Development and the headquarters of Société Générale, Total and EDF in Paris.

As part of the International Rebellion Week led by Extinction Rebellion, more than 14 climate groups called to ‘block the Republic of Polluters’. They denounce the ‘immobility’ of President Macron and his ‘toxic alliances with big polluters’.

This is one of the biggest civil disobedience mobilisations ever organised in France.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 22, 2019, 07:49 PM
A country is already preparing for the end of oil, even if the shortages of gasoline are not intentional. Factories are closing, there are no more noisy cars and many can't go to work any more, but on the face of it, most people are taking it well.


Today, I’m going to talk about Syria, and the shortage of gasoline.
(https://i.ibb.co/2yCTcMS/syria.jpg)
Syria was a country at war, it is now a country at a standstill. While the fighting has almost stopped, except in the small pocket of Idlib in the North West, the population faces a calamity of a new kind: the shortage of gasoline. Recurrent since the beginning of the civil war in 2011, this problem worsened at the beginning of the month, because of the increased US economic pressures on Syria, paralyzing transport and activity in areas under government control.

A flow of photos and videos, taken in Damascus, Aleppo, Homs or Hama, the country's major cities, and broadcast on social networks, show scenes never seen in eight years of civil war: queues of hundreds of meters in front of the rare pumps still open, traditionally congested avenues almost empty of cars in the middle of the day, streets cluttered with garbage because the pick-up trucks can not start any more, and abandoned vehicles on the side of the roads.

"This crisis is much more severe than the previous ones," says Saeed Abu Zafer, an Aleppo engineer, joined by WhatsApp. The streets of the city are deserted, it is as if there was a curfew. "I had to give up going to work, because there are almost no collective taxis," says Mohamed Abu Ahmed, a teacher, who lives in the same city. "Most of the factories have stopped working and the ones that are running still have a little bit of fuel left," said Mohamed Nahhas, an economist from Damascus. "It's like being sent back to the Stone Age. "
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 23, 2019, 02:31 PM
Today, I'm going to hold a conference about the lemurs.

(https://img.lemde.fr/2019/04/22/461/939/2060/1030/688/0/60/0/2b7f21f_w2K4SVxsbRYi_wgTIE02iQfi.jpg)


Under a leaden sky, six rangers walk silently in single file through Vohibola, one of the last primary forests in eastern Madagascar.

Alert to the slightest movement and sound, Michael Tovolahy's patrol is tracking poachers who are inflicting grievous harm to this jewel of biodiversity.

The poachers are targeting lemurs, primates battling the threat of extinction, and are chopping down trees, some of them rare hardwoods, to burn for charcoal.

"In this forest, there are at least 20 indigenous animal species, including six types of lemur, and 150 species of tree," says Tovolahy, whose nickname is Nabe.

"Because of these logger-poachers, I fear that this forest will one day be no more -- it will be just an empty space, where developers will grow walls of concrete."

A terrible irony is that a 2014 documentary, "Island of Lemurs," which did so much to draw attention to the cuddly animals' plight, unwittingly encouraged a market to have them as caged pets.

Some kill the harmless creatures for food, others sell them as pets -- and to get to their prey, they chop down precious tropical trees.

"Nocturnal lemurs are very easy to capture because they sleep in the daytime," explains Tovolahy.

The poachers cut down the trees surrounding their nest, which provides the lemurs with a means of flight. All they have to do then is to shake the tree until the animal falls out.

Lemurs are among the many wildlife treasures that are unique to Madagascar.

Out of 111 recorded lemur species, 105 face the threat of extinction, says the Lemur Conservation Network (LCN).

Other damage to Vohibola and its natural population is being inflicted by the simple need for wood for cooking.

The forest patrol frequently encounters the dismayng sight of empty spaces and mounds of bark -- the traces of illegal logging to take trees, burn them and sell the charcoal to Madagascans.

Vohibola itself is a haven for an extraordinary species -- the mouse lemur.

From its head to the tip of its tail, this nocturnal animal (genus Microcebus) measures under 27 centimetres (11 inches), making it the world's smallest primate -- and, according to the International Conservation of Nature (IUCN), among the most endangered of all vertebrates.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 23, 2019, 07:05 PM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about the International non-profit organisation Global Witness that published a report yesterday, stating that the $4.9 trillion invested in oil and gas exploration is incompatible with global climate goals.


(https://www.offshore-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/04/Angola-Kizomba-A_inline-16x9_132638.jpg)
Exxon Mobil is forecast to spend the most in new fields over the next decade.


The report, Overexposed, compares industry forecasts for investment and production with climate scenarios used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Overexposed finds that oil and gas production from fields in development or not in production would exceed what climate scenarios indicate could be produced while still limiting global warming to 1.5°C, as per the terms of the Paris Agreement.

According to the report, the $4.9 trillion worth of investments in oil and gas are only compatible with the Paris climate goals scenarios that assume massive carbon capture and removal are used in the future. Overexposed claims this cannot be assumed as the technologies for such carbon removal are unproven at scale, with only two power stations in the world capturing COâ,, following investments of $28bn.

The report adds that ExxonMobil is expected to spend the most in new fields over the next decade, followed by Shell. These two multinationals, along with Total, BP and Chevron are expected to spend over $550bn on oil and gas production and exploration.

Senior campaigner at Global Witness and author of the report Murray Worthy said: “There is an alarming gap between the plans of oil and gas majors and what the latest science shows is needed to avoid the most catastrophic and unpredictable climate breakdown.”

“Investors will rightly be concerned that despite industry rhetoric to the contrary, the oil and gas sector’s spending plans are so drastically incompatible with limiting climate change. This analysis should encourage the escalation of investor engagement efforts to challenge oil and gas majors to credibly align their business plans with the Paris goal.

“Blindly pushing ahead comes with huge financial risks for investors, either as a result of the transition to a low carbon economy, or as the devastating consequences of a changing climate stack up.”

The report comes ahead of BP and Shell’s annual general meetings in May, in which they are expected to face questions from investors about their global climate goals. Both oil majors have recently made efforts for transparency in its climate change targets, with BP and Shell publishing an audit of its trade associations’ climate positions on 3 April.

Despite this, Global Witness reports that “both companies forecast investments are far from aligned with achieving the Paris goals”. BP also came under criticism in March for lobbying against key methane regulations in the US despite claiming to support the Paris Agreement.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 24, 2019, 03:34 AM
I found an interesting article in the Sydney morning Herald, and I'm going to paste it here, I'm pretty sure that the ones living in the Arabic Peninsula will read it with great interest.

Saudi mystery: World's largest oil field is fading faster than anyone knew.

It was a state secret and the source of a kingdom's riches. It was so important that US military planners once debated how to seize it by force. For oil traders, it was a source of endless speculation.

Now the market finally knows: Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest conventional oil field, can produce a lot less than almost anyone believed.

(https://i.ibb.co/T0QvCx7/saudi.jpg)

When Saudi Aramco on Monday published its first ever profit figures since its nationalisation nearly 40 years ago, it also lifted the veil of secrecy around its mega oil fields. The company's bond prospectus revealed that Ghawar is able to pump a maximum of 3.8 million barrels a day -- well below the more than 5 million that had become conventional wisdom in the market.

"As Saudi's largest field, a surprisingly low production capacity figure from Ghawar is the stand-out of the report," said Virendra Chauhan, head of upstream at consultant Energy Aspects in Singapore.

The Energy Information Administration, a US government body that provides statistical information and often is used as a benchmark by the oil market, listed Ghawar's production capacity at 5.8 million barrels a day in 2017. Aramco, in a presentation in Washington in 2004 when it tried to debunk the "peak oil" supply theories of the late US oil banker Matt Simmons, also said the field was pumping more than 5 million barrels a day, and had been doing so since at least the previous decade.

The prospectus offered no information about why Ghawar can produce today a quarter less than 15 years ago - a significant reduction for any oil field. The report also didn't say whether capacity would continue to decline at a similar rate in the future.

Aramco wasn't immediately able to comment.

The new maximum production rate for Ghawar means that the Permian in the US, which pumped 4.1 million barrels a day last month according to government data, is already the largest oil production basin. The comparison isn't exact - the Saudi field is a conventional reservoir, while the Permian is an unconventional shale formation - yet it shows the shifting balance of power in the market.

Ghawar is so important for Saudi Arabia because the field has "accounted for more than half of the total cumulative crude oil production in the kingdom," according to the bond prospectus. The country has been pumping since the discovery of the Dammam No. 7 well in 1938.

On top of Ghawar, which was found in 1948 by an American geologist, Saudi Arabia relies heavily on two other mega-fields: Khurais, which was discovered in 1957, and can pump 1.45 million barrels a day, and Safaniyah, found in 1951 and still today the world's largest offshore oil field with capacity of 1.3 million. In total, Aramco operates 101 oilfields.
Aramco produces about 10 per cent of the world's crude.

(https://i.ibb.co/YTNDV3J/aramco.jpg)

The 470-page bond prospectus confirms that Saudi Aramco is able to pump a maximum of 12 million barrels a day - as Riyadh has said for several years. The kingdom has access to another 500,000 barrels a day of output capacity in the so-called neutral zone shared with Kuwait. That area isn't producing anything now due to a political dispute with its neighbour.

While the prospectus confirmed the overall maximum production capacity, the split among fields is different to what the market had assumed. As a policy, Saudi Arabia keeps about 1 million to 2 million barrels a day of its capacity in reserve, using it only during wars, disruptions elsewhere or unusually strong demand. Saudi Arabia briefly pumped a record of more than 11 million barrels a day in late 2018.

"The company also uses this spare capacity as an alternative supply option in case of unplanned production outages at any field and to maintain its production levels during routine field maintenance," Aramco said in its prospectus.

For Aramco, that's a significant cost, as it has invested billions of dollars into facilities that aren't regularly used. However, the company said the ability to tap its spare capacity also allows it to profit handsomely at times of market tightness, providing an extra $US35.5 billion ($50.2 billion) in revenue from 2013 to 2018. Last year, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said maintaining this supply buffer costs about $US2 billion a year.
Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih.

Aramco also disclosed reserves at its top-five fields, revealing that some of them have a shorter lifespans than previously thought.

Ghawar, for example, has 48.2 billion barrels of oil left, which would last another 34 years at the maximum rate of production. Nonetheless, companies are often able to boost the reserves over time by deploying new techniques or technology.

In total, the kingdom has 226 billion barrels of reserves, enough for another 52 years of production at the maximum capacity of 12 million barrels a day.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 26, 2019, 03:15 PM
Today, I'm going to hold a conference about Arjowiggins papiers couchés.
It's a sad story, since the main factory of Arjowiggins is closing and I advise shadow.97 or Vasudev not to read this piece of news if they find it depressing.

The failure of the biggest Arjowiggins mill in France has resulted in many layoffs in France and knock-on job losses in the UK.
At the end of last week it was announced that the Bessé-sur-Braye mill was going into liquidation, with the loss of 580 jobs.
Following the order of the French Court on Friday 29 March for the liquidation of Arjowiggins Group subsidiary Papier Couches, Performance Papers has been forced to cease operations in the Uk too, resulting in all 10 members of staff based in Basingstoke being made redundant with immediate effect.
(https://img.lemde.fr/2019/03/27/0/0/4928/3280/688/0/60/0/e2b3052_5524634-01-06.jpg)

Bessé-sur-Braye was part of the Arjowiggins Graphic Papers business unit. It made a number of well-known papers including Cocoon and Cyclus.
The 580 employees of Arjowiggins Papers lying Bessé-sur-Braye began receiving April 17 their letter of dismissal. On 29 March, the Nanterre Commercial Court ordered the liquidation of Arjowiggins Papiers Couchés in Bessé-sur-Braye and the partial sale of the Bourray factory.
Note that a few days ago, a dismissed employee put an end to his days. The 53-year-old was working for Arjowiggins Coated Papers for 33 years. Married and father of a child, he killed himself on April 23, after receiving his letter of dismissal.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 29, 2019, 10:58 PM
He was believed to be dead or sick. Many were worried about his fate, including the American government.

(https://img.lemde.fr/2019/04/29/0/0/2500/1453/688/0/60/0/d0b2a31_be5c18936b5c43cdafd59dd930026b49-be5c18936b5c43cdafd59dd930026b49-0.jpg)

Al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State organization, appeared in a new video for the first time in five years. He declared that the attacks on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka were fomented in retaliation for the loss of the city of Baghouz, Syria.
The man, who appears sitting cross-legged on a cushion, claimed that the IS will "take revenge" on behalf of its killed members and that the fight against the West is "a long battle".
This city was the last stronghold of the jihadist group in eastern Syria, which fell on March 23, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7QVY7nq4Zc
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on April 30, 2019, 01:11 AM
Here is an interesting article found on the Newspaper Le figaro that explains the movement of the yellow vests.
http://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/pierre-vermeren-les-vraies-causes-de-la-secession-de-la-france-peripherique-20190429

Since I'm not a suscriber to the Figaro I will try to find the whole article later and translate it. For those who want yesterday's edition of the Figaro, here it is: https://ufile.io/7twd2tf7

(http://static.milibris.com/thumbnail/issue/7952b880-eac0-48ea-b5a8-fe1b0e4692e7/front/catalog-cover-large.png)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 05, 2019, 08:12 PM
Here is a disquieting picture.
(https://img.lemde.fr/2019/05/04/2/0/2923/1950/664/0/75/0/4e1a463_5770648-01-06.jpg)

It looks like nuclear bombs and this place seems crowded. Is Trump testing some weapons of mass destruction in Washington? No.
Actually, the scene is taking place in Gaza.

The fever continues, and it not fall. A fresh bout of violence has plagued Israel and the Gaza Strip since Friday, May 3rd. It demonstrates the immense difficulty for Hamas and the Israeli government to respect a tacit ceasefire agreement reached several weeks ago in return for substantial humanitarian improvement in the enclave.

Nearly 450 mortar and rocket attacks have been fired by Palestinian factions towards Israel since Saturday morning. Numerous shootings - nearly 150 of which were intercepted by the "Iron Dome" defense system - forced the population to take refuge in the shelters.

Three Israelis were killed in Ashkelon in southern Israel by Palestinian rockets, police said. In response, Israeli raids hit more than 200 targets in Gaza, where at least nine people died.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 26, 2019, 06:53 PM
Today, I'm going to talk about the attack that took place in Lyon on Friday.

Is it a politician? Is it a Jihadist? Is it a Buddhist monk? Nobody knows.
indeed, no claim of responsibility has yet been made for the bomb attack in Lyon on Friday that left at least 13 people injured.
The man is believed to be in his early 30s, was wearing light-coloured shorts, a long-sleeved dark top, and riding a mountain bike in the area immediately before the explosion according to the photo caught on CCTV.

(https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AABU8rj.img?h=416&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 26, 2019, 09:21 PM
Tonight, I stumbled upon a good article titled: In Algeria, it is difficult not to observe Ramadan.
I translated it for the users of the forum.

(https://img.lemde.fr/2019/05/24/0/0/4194/2791/688/0/60/0/9daad89_WkFz-2GvFrIbJJMS0pu3X_oL.jpg)
The seafront in Algiers, where locals prepare the meal to break the fast of Ramadan.

They are young and refuse to observe Ramadan, which they think is more dictated by habit than religious motives.

First, Anis had made an appointment at the headquarters of a political party on the heights of Algiers. Over there, at lunchtime, sympathizers and activists are used to ending up in a room with opaque windows to share "gueuletons" and cigarettes. Even in this period of Ramadan.

Finally, this progressive party refused to welcome the group of friends for an interview: the officials were warned too late. After walking a few kilometers to the city center under a hostile sun, the group of friends landed in a corner of the Park of Liberty, out of sight and ears, to discuss the reasons that led them to no longer follow the ritual of Ramadan, a sacred month for Muslims. "I would have liked to invite you to drink a coffee to discuss the subject", apologizes the young man. But, in this month of fasting, restaurants and bars of the capital are closed all day.

Anis can no longer bear the weight of traditions and social pressure that suffocate some Algerians. "I discovered that the majority of young people in my neighborhood did not observe Ramadan. But they do not show it" he says. In his world, non-fasters hide to eat: car, toilet, building hall ... Never on the street in public. "It's better, because it's dangerous," he says, recalling that on May 11 students were violently attacked in the Bouzareah campus, northwest of Algiers, after been caught sniffing. "I too have come several times," said Nazim, 22, a computer science student living in a city in Bordj Al-Kiffan, east of the capital. "But I, I do not hide, says the boy with long hair, quick geek. I feel the frustration of other young people, their lack of freedom. They are Muslim by inheritance without being able to question the bases of their convictions. "

"It's hypocrisy," says Mehdi, dry throat. The thirty-year-old dreams to drink his bottle of water in one go. Unemployed construction worker for several days, he is an anarchist. "I'm for freedom," he says soberly. So, fasting or not is a problem that, in his opinion, should not even be asked, he says, regretting that "spirituality has become a mechanical practice". "So, if I do not fast, they say I'm a bad person. That's why I fight Islam. If they see me drinking, people will be afraid of me, think that I am different, that it is provocation, that I will ruin society. It's a psychological problem" he lashes out.

For this group of friends, Ramadan has nothing "sacred". "We see people getting drunk, smoking ****, smuggling, but they dare to say," Do not touch Ramadan, it's sacred, "says Mehdi. "They would like to be free like us, but they suffer, "observes Anis who tenderly holds Zora's hand. But Zora remains wrapped a black veil. "I've been wearing it for a long time and can not take it off, people would not understand," she explains softly. "That's the social pressure."
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 27, 2019, 09:13 PM
Maybe some of you watched the American movie "Saving Private Ryan". But I'm sure you never heard of the Iraqi movie "Saving the French Jihadists".
That's why I'm going to tell you what is going on in Iraq.

(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/5bf0592c9eea44e03b13a412726ca5c2aa5251a9/0_14_3000_1800/master/3000.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=0c1601a0b835c681071d9b18567ef6db)
The SDF in Syria in March 2019.

French citizens Mustapha Merzoughi, Kevin Gonot, Leonard Lopez and Salim Machou were sentenced to death after they were found guilty of pledging allegiance to IS supremo Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi by An Iraqi court on Sunday.
In recent months Iraq has taken custody of thousands of jihadists including foreigners captured in neighbouring Syria by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during the battle to destroy the Isis caliphate.
The trials have been criticised by rights groups, which say they often rely on evidence obtained through torture. They have also raised the question of whether suspected Isis jihadists should be tried in the region or repatriated.
France has long insisted that its citizens captured in Iraq or Syria must face trial locally, refusing to repatriate them.
And yet, it reiterated its opposition to the death penalty, saying it would take “the necessary steps” to prevent Iraq from carrying out capital punishment against its Jihadists.

Mustapha Merzoughi, 37, was sentenced to death by hanging.
Before handing down the sentence on Monday, the Iraqi court judge told Merzoughi: “The evidence and the confession show that you joined the Islamic State group, that you worked in its military branch.”
Wearing a yellow prison uniform, Merzoughi said he was “not guilty of crimes and killings” but simply of travelling to Syria. Merzoughi told investigators he had served in the French army from 2000 to 2010, including a tour in Afghanistan in 2009.
Merzoughi passed through Belgium and Morocco, then on to northern Syria where he allegedly underwent “religious and military training in Aleppo”.
He allegedly told investigators previously that he pledged allegiance to a masked Isis leader in Mosul, claiming that many senior jihadists worried about being “recognised or identified by foreign fighters they feared were spies”. But in court on Monday he said he never pledged allegiance to the jihadist group.

Leonard Lopez, one of three sentenced on Sunday, is a 32-year-old Parisian convert to Islam long known to French authorities.
His French lawyer, Nabil Boudi, denounced “summary justice” and said he and his Iraqi counterpart would appeal the decision.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on May 29, 2019, 01:20 AM
You didn't leave Paris yet? Maybe you should, at least if you are a driver.

(https://i.f1g.fr/media/eidos/680x382_crop/2019/05/28/XVM7c005998-812f-11e9-8f71-d03eaab910cb.jpg)

In 2014, the speed limit on the Parisian Ring road was reduced from 80km/h to 70km/h. Like humbert or Maher, I used to drive on the Parisian ring road at 70 km per hour, but it seems the Mayor of the town wants to limit the speed to 50km/h now.
An interesting article is available here: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/05/paris-beltway-speed-limit-traffic-congestion-lane-removal/590362/


And here is a video of Ghost rider, a swedish biker. (No, It's not Mr baboon on the motorbike). It's a new record for the tour of the périphérique, with an average speed of 210 km/h, after the record of the black prince in the 80's.
Note that this record was made in 2004, at this time there was no radar on the road.
I advise you not to try this at home. If Vasudev is hitting a cow at 200km/h, there is no more cow and no more motorbike.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2kce7
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on June 08, 2019, 07:04 PM
Today, I'm going to hold a conference about climate change.


America's biggest cities could avoid hundreds of deaths during future heat waves if the world reduces its greenhouse gas emissions enough to meet the Paris climate agreement goals, a new study shows.

(https://i.ibb.co/kq4f63R/heat-wave-0900-anne-cusack-la-times.jpg)
A groundskeeper in Los Angeles sweats through another heat wave. A new study looked at what rising global temperatures will mean for heat wave deaths there and other major U.S. cities, including Miami, Chicago and Detroit

Even half a degree warming matters. A new study shows how meeting the Paris climate agreement goals would make a difference in lives saved or lost.


"At the path we are on, toward 3 degrees Celsius warming, we get into temperatures that people have not previously experienced," said Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy and chief climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a co-author of the study published Wednesday in Science Advances. "The core point is, across these cities, thousands of deaths can be avoided by keeping temperatures within the Paris target."


The scientists used detailed data on the deaths that occurred during past heat waves in 15 major U.S. cities, then applied climate models to show what future extreme heat waves would look like as global temperatures rise.

They compared three scenarios: If countries meet their Paris climate pledges, expected to result in about 3 degrees Celsius (5.4°F) of warming this century compared to pre-industrial times; if global warming is instead kept to 2°C; and if countries are able to cut greenhouse gas emissions enough to keep warming to 1.5°C.

With each of those baselines, they explored what temperatures would do to people in the kind of extreme heat wave expected to occur two to three times in a person's lifetime.

"Rising global temperatures mean more people in major U.S. cities will be exposed to extreme heat, and more heat-related deaths will occur. This is relevant to climate policy, especially with the next round of climate pledges taking place in 2020," said University of Bristol climate researcher Eunice Lo, lead author of the study. "This shows the substantial public health benefits of reaching the Paris goal."

(https://i.ibb.co/7tDCfFz/Heat-Deaths-study-529px.png)

Cities vary in their vulnerability to extreme heat for several reasons. Demographics, such as age and poverty, can mean a larger percentage of the population is at risk. Miami, for example, has a large proportion of elderly residents.

Some of the cities are also warming faster than the global average. And dense cities often have a stronger urban heat island effects.

How well the city is prepared also has an effect on survival rates. For the comparison, the study didn't factor in future changes in population, and cities might develop adaptation plans as the heat rises.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on June 17, 2019, 09:59 PM
For those who are in the organisation of the Muslim brotherhood on the forum it’s a day of mourning.

Indeed, Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Morsi has collapsed during a court session and died, almost six years after he was forced from power in a bloody coup.

(https://i.ibb.co/QXLZzcw/f67ab17-FW1-EGYPT-MURSI-0617-11.jpg)

Morsi, 67, was attending a session in his trial on espionage charges on Monday when he blacked out and then died, according to state media.
“He asked the judge to speak, and was allowed. After the case was adjourned, he fainted and died. His body was then transferred to the hospital,” reported the Egyptian state newspaper al-Ahram, referring to Morsi’s retrial for allegedly spying for the Palestinian Islamist organisation Hamas.
Morsi became president in 2012, following Egypt’s first and only free elections after the dictator Hosni Mubarak was forced from power. He won 51.7% of the vote and his rule marked the peak of power for Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which had functioned for decades as an underground political organisation.
But his time in power was cut short a year later as demonstrators once again took to the streets â€" this time to protest against Morsi’s rule. Egypt’s military seized power in a coup days later on 3 July 2013, bringing the then defence minister, Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, to power.

(https://i.ibb.co/0fKwGnt/3392.jpg)

As president, Sisi has overseen an extensive crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and anyone suspected of supporting the group, which Egypt now considers a terrorist organisation.
Morsi was arrested after the 2013 coup and has faced trial on three separate counts of leaking state secrets to Qatar, killing protesters during a sit-in outside the presidential palace, and spying for Hamas.
He received multiple long sentences, including a life sentence for spying for Qatar and a 20-year sentence for killing protesters. A death sentence for charges relating to a mass jailbreak during the revolution was overturned in a retrial in November 2016.
The former president, who had a history of ill health including diabetes and liver and kidney disease, was held in solitary confinement in Tora prison in Cairo.
In 2018, a panel of three British parliamentarians reported that Morsi was being kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, with just one hour allowed for exercise. The group, led by Crispin Blunt, said the conditions of Morsi’s confinement could be classified as torture and could also cut short his life.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on June 19, 2019, 06:27 AM
Quote from: scarface on June 17, 2019, 09:59 PM
For those who are in the organisation of the Muslim brotherhood on the forum it’s a day of mourning.
Indeed, Egypt’s ousted president Mohamed Morsi has collapsed during a court session and died, almost six years after he was forced from power in a bloody coup.

It's pretty obvious that Morsi was killed by al-Sisi and his thugs. It just didn't happen in a single day. I suppose the only thing positive about al-Sisi is that he's not a radical Islamist. Other than that he's another Mubarak.

Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on June 24, 2019, 10:54 PM
Quote from: humbert on June 19, 2019, 06:27 AM
It's pretty obvious that Morsi was killed by al-Sisi and his thugs. It just didn't happen in a single day. I suppose the only thing positive about al-Sisi is that he's not a radical Islamist. Other than that he's another Mubarak.
A mass murderer, yet you see the brights side in him.
How humane of you!
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on June 26, 2019, 05:41 AM
Quote from: aa1234779 on June 24, 2019, 10:54 PM
A mass murderer, yet you see the brights side in him.
How humane of you!

Of course al-Sisi is a murderer! I don't question that for a second. At least under his rule no religion has dominance over any other and people can visit a Mosque or Coptic church as they please. Similarly, if you [for example] bake bread and sell it for a living, al-Sisi will probably just leave you alone. This is in sharp contrast to true totalitarian regimes such as the Saudi government or the Islamic Republic of Iran where the government is in every facet of your life.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on June 30, 2019, 04:08 PM
Here is an article about Paris, in French, which might pique the interest of the users of the forum like aa1234779. But it's not very positive.

Paris étouffe, même sans canicule
Paris paralysé, Paris pollué, Paris enlaidi. Ce n'est ni un hasard ni une nécessité. Seulement le résultat de décisions politiques aberrantes.

(https://media.lesechos.com/api/v1/images/view/5d1590d1d286c22c611f4663/1280x720/0601486333057-web-tete.jpg)

Il n'y a pas si longtemps, on venait vivre en ville parce que c'était mieux qu'à la campagne : plus de confort, de loisirs, de services, de soins… Ces perspectives décidaient des ruraux à s'installer dans les capitales, qu'elles soient régionales ou nationales. C'est toujours le cas, du moins en grande partie. De fait, les grandes villes de France demeurent, dans l'ensemble, agréables à habiter.

Sauf Paris. Le quotidien y a viré à l'enfer. Les malheureux résidents de cette cité, qui fut autrefois Ville Lumière, subissent l'entrelacement de  transports publics bondés , de  travaux sur la chaussée en nombre démesuré , d'embouteillages interminables, d'une pollution de l'air croissante, d'une insécurité sans précédent de la circulation, mêlant dans le plus anarchique désordre trottinettes, vélos, motos, voitures, bus et piétons… Le tout, en ce moment, par 40° à l'ombre. Evidemment, personne n'est responsable de  l'actuel pic de chaleur . Mais la cause de ce chaos urbain est directement politique.

Car ce n'est pas un effet du hasard si cette ville joyau est à présent invivable, encombrée, polluée, laide et vulgaire. Il n'y a là aucun effet du destin, aucune nécessité. Rien que des erreurs, des entêtements absurdes, des fantasmes idéologiques, des décisions contre-productives. Bref, une gestion délirante et néfaste. La liste détaillée des bourdes funestes de la maire de Paris au cours de son mandat occuperait plusieurs volumes. Les principaux exemples suffiront.

Il est urgent de purifier l'air de Paris, tout le monde en convient. Or il n'existe pour y parvenir qu'une seule méthode immédiatement efficace : commencer par rendre la circulation automobile la plus fluide possible. C'est le premier pas. Ensuite, on peut s'efforcer de diminuer le trafic, comme l'ont fait Londres ou Rome. A Paris, au contraire, la mairie s'est appliquée à paralyser systématiquement le trafic en bloquant le souterrain du Louvre, en fermant les voies sur berges à la circulation, en multipliant les voies cyclables et les chantiers. Résultat : les temps de trajet doublent, et surtout les taux de pollution augmentent. Est-ce cela qu'on appelle le sens de l'écologie ? Et de la gestion publique ?

Il est souhaitable de rénover la cité, là aussi tout le monde est d'accord. Pourtant, la multiplication de mobiliers urbains disparates et hétéroclites, la dissémination de nouvelles poubelles hideuses, le remplacement des kiosques à journaux stylés par des cubes de plastique sans grâce ne semblent pas aller dans ce sens. Ni les aménagements pseudo-festifs qui fleurissent un peu partout. Pas question de souhaiter que tout reste identique, mais il faut éviter que tout ne devienne abject.

Parce que cette ville n'est pas un amas de distractions. Elle fut aussi, et peut-être avant tout, un spectacle étonnant et sublime, une esthétique, un univers de détails innombrables et infimes en corrélation. Au lieu de respecter ces traits, d'améliorer le quotidien en tenant compte de leur existence, on les néglige, les détériore, les détruit. Si je tiens à le dire, c'est que je suis né à Paris, que ma mère y était née, et que j'aime ce lieu du monde. Pour en connaître pas mal d'autres, j'ai la faiblesse de croire celui-ci singulier entre tous. Mais fragile, éminemment. Et en péril, à présent.

Il faudrait appeler à la rescousse François Villon et Clément Marot, Rabelais et Montaigne, Balzac et Hugo, Benjamin et Aragon, et tant d'autres, tous amoureux de Paris, tous piétons, tous poètes et paroliers. Qu'ils empêchent, si possible, la ville de n'être plus que l'ombre d'elle-même, et d'étouffer de mille manières. Certes, les meurtres d'âme ne figurent pas au Code pénal, mais il est urgent de délivrer Paris des forces qui la minent , et de commencer à la réparer, avec l'allégresse qu'elle mérite.

Si ce n'était pas le cas, la grande kermesse olympique qui s'annonce devrait s'agrémenter d'épreuves inédites. On inaugurerait le slalom géant en trottinette électrique, le marathon immobile sans respiration, la compétition d'extase à Paris-plage. On tenterait de battre le record de la piste cyclable la plus longue et la moins fréquentée. On se vanterait de cent mérites et de mille vertus. Et l'on remporterait la médaille d'or du pire. Avant cela, s'il est encore temps, mieux vaudrait se souvenir de ce que Pierre de Coubertin n'a pas dit : en matière d'enfer, d'étouffement et de chaos, l'important est de ne pas participer.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on July 04, 2019, 09:11 PM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about Maurice.

(https://imagevars.gulfnews.com/2019/07/04/Maurice-2019077_16bbd2be8ac_large.jpg)

Maybe some of you know Maurice. It's a rooster.

Maurice was Thursday put on trial in western France, in an unusual case that has come to symbolize the divide between urban and rural communities.
The copper-feathered cockerel is the defendant in a court battle stemming from a long-running neighborhood dispute over his early morning crowing.
His owner Corinne Fesseau told CNN that neighbors in the village of Saint-Pierre-d'Oléron, on the Isle of Oléron, first complained in April 2017, asking her to keep Maurice quiet.

"I've lived here for 35 years, it's never bothered anyone," she said.
However the neighbors accuse Maurice of causing noise pollution and the case was heard by the court in Rochefort, Charente Maritime on Thursday.
After the trial, Fesseau told CNN she was pleased with the developments and hopeful a solution could be found.
"I hope these people will understand the meaning of rurality," she said.
While a verdict is not expected until September 5, the trial has already ignited debate in France.
The neighbors in question are city dwellers who only visit Saint-Pierre-d'Oléron a few times per year, according to Fesseau.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on July 07, 2019, 11:29 PM
Tonight, I'm going to hold a conference about Sissi City, "a mirage under construction" according to an excellent article of the newspaper "Le Monde".

In the desert, East of Cairo, President Al-Sissi's dream of greatness is becoming a reality: to build a new capital, a showcase for the Egypt of the future. The exorbitant cost of the project in a context of serious economic crisis compromises its realization, and its ultra-security focus creates controversy.

Al-Fattah Al-Alim Mosque, inaugurated on January 6th, is the first completed building of the Egyptian "new capital".
(https://i.ibb.co/xDD1j5H/mosque.jpg)

Planted in the sand, the imposing Al-Fattah Al-Alim mosque flanked by its four minarets stands out on the horizon like a mirage in the desert. Covered with white marble and rich ornaments, able to accommodate 12,000 faithful, it must mark the entrance to the future Egyptian administrative capital. It is one of the first buildings of Egypt's flagship project, Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi, to have sprung up from the ground, with the Coptic Cathedral "Birth-of-Christ", the largest in the country, that is standing desperately empty  too. Between the two, a desert stretch of 16 kilometers, punctuated by construction sites and a few completed buildings.
It is here, about fifty kilometers east of Cairo, towards the strategic city of Suez, that an armada of workers, engineers and soldiers are working night and day, since May 2016, to build, on a portion of desert the size of Singapore, the showcase of the Egypt of tomorrow. "Sissi-City", as the Egyptians call it, was designed to be modern, sanitized, secure, sustainable and connected; a center of power capable of competing with the world's largest capitals. "Egyptians have the right to dream and realize their dreams" says an official who organizes the site visit. A vain project, retort his detractors, like his designer, Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi, who, since his accession to the presidency, in 2014, following the military coup against Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, could, thanks to a constitutional reform endorsed in April, remain in power until 2034. As a diplomat sums it up, "this mirage is taking shape, it is Sissi's legacy to his country ".
Faced with controversy, the authorities favor a pragmatic discourse. Cairo, with its 23 million inhabitants, and 40 million by 2050, has become a sprawling megalopolis dying under the pollution, traffic jams and anarchic construction of informal settlements. With the population explosion, which sees every year 2 million inhabitants added to the 100 million that it currently has, Egypt needs to expand its inhabited area - 7% of the territory - by nibbling the desert. "Forty years ago, the state was already thinking about an administrative capital, which shows that we need it urgently," says Khaled Al-Husseini, spokesperson for the Administrative Capital for Urban Development (ACUD), which carries the project. At the time, President Anwar Al-Sadat had thus imagined "Sadat City". Even more modest, this project had ended in failure.

If you look at the photo below you must be wondering where it is.
It's a view of Cairo from the citadel.
The Citadel was built on top of a hill during the 12th century by Saladin, the ruler of the city, to protect it from Crusader attacks.
(https://s27957.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/cairo-egypt-citadel-view.jpg)


Note that this conference might be undermined by grammatical mistakes. If it's the case I hope humbert or Vasudev will warn me.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on July 09, 2019, 01:16 AM
Tonight, I'm going to hold another conference. aa1234779 must be wondering if I'm going to talk about Maurice, the rooster. Actually, I will talk about Maurice if I have more news about the trial. Currently, I'm going to talk about Qalqilya, the biggest town of Palestine and secondarily the town of the administrator of the forum.

Here you can see a few photos of the town.

The road network seems to be in excellent condition.
(https://i.ibb.co/jHP4pHX/Qalqilya-4-of-31.jpg)

A big mosque
(https://i.ibb.co/ckd2yjq/Qalqilya-8-of-31.jpg)

The local market. It seems poverty does not exist in this country. You can't see any beggar. They must be hiding in the sewers or in the subway stations, like in New York.
(https://i.ibb.co/DzBdKX0/Qalqilya-26-of-31.jpg)

It's hard to know the population of Qalqilya. Some sources say 40 000 inhabitants, others say 90 000. As you can see on the photo, it's a major town in the Middle East.
(https://i.ibb.co/QdPBc6j/Qalqilya-11-of-32.jpg)

It looks like the X games spot.
(https://i.ibb.co/ZcGj3Jn/Qalqilya-11-of-31.jpg)


Qalqilya is a memorable city for many reasons, but there is surely no other city in the world as completely cut off from its suburbs. The Israeli division wall strangles this large and lively city, hemming it in on three sides. But it is still an attractive place once inside, and very green comparatively. There are palm trees and small orchards in abundance. The only zoo in the West Bank is to be found in Qalqilya, serving as its main attraction. But the market â€" much smaller than that of Nablus and Jerusalem â€" is a quirky and interesting place to stroll, where friendly vendors will welcome a foreigner with open arms.
Qalqilya is also famous for another reason. There are documentaries about skaters and their misfit gang, the x-games.

Note that I made a mistake: the fourth photo is not Qalqilya but Cairo. Some of you probably noticed it.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on July 29, 2019, 12:33 AM
Tonight, I'm going to hold another conference about climate change.

Note that I found the original article in French here: https://www.boursorama.com/bourse/actualites/le-dereglement-climatique-proche-du-point-de-non-retour-def5022e7536b0f4de69632f18f43756



With study-after-study showing climate impacts from extreme weather to polar melt and sea level rise outstripping initial forecasts, negotiators have a fast-closing window to try to turn the aspirations agreed in Paris into meaningful outcomes.

“There’s so much on the line in the next 18 months or so,” said Sue Reid, vice-president of climate and energy at Ceres, a U.S. non-profit group that works to steer companies and investors onto a more sustainable path.

“This is a crucial period of time both for public officials and the private sector to really reverse the curve on emissions,” Reid told Reuters.

In October, the U.N.-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned emissions must start falling next year at the latest to stand a chance of achieving the deal’s goal of holding the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

With emissions currently on track to push temperatures more than three degrees higher, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is working to wrest bigger commitments from governments ahead of a summit in New York in September.

Telling world leaders that failing to cut emissions would be “suicidal,” the Portuguese diplomat wants to build momentum ahead of a fresh round of climate talks in Chile in December.

By the time Britain convenes a major follow-up summit in late 2020, plans are supposed to be underway â€" in theory at least â€" to almost halve global emissions over the next decade.

“In the next year-and-a-half we will witness an intensity of climate diplomacy not seen since the Paris Agreement was signed,” said Tessa Khan, an international climate change lawyer and co-director of the Climate Litigation Network.

“REVOLUTION OR COLLAPSE”

As the diplomatic offensive intensifies, the latest scientific studies have offered negotiators scant comfort.

U.S climatologist Michael Mann believes emissions need to fall even more drastically than the IPCC assumes since the panel may be underestimating how far temperatures have already risen since pre-industrial times.

“Our work on this indicates that we might have as much as 40% less carbon left to burn than IPCC implies, if we are to avert the 1.5 Celsius warming limit,” said Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University.

Mann has urged governments to treat the transition to renewable energy with the equivalent urgency that drove the U.S. industrial mobilisation in World War Two.

So far, no major economy has taken heed.

Although Britain boosted the Paris Agreement in June by committing to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the country, preoccupied by Brexit, is far from on a climate war footing.

Likewise, a push led by France and Germany for the European Union to adopt a similar target was relegated to a footnote at a summit in Brussels after opposition from Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.

U.S. President Donald Trump remains committed to pulling the world’s second biggest emitter out of the Paris deal altogether.

Given the uncertain prospects for international cooperation to stabilise the climate on which life on earth depends, some are starting to steel themselves for the unravelling of the world they once knew.

“Either we radically transform human collective life by abandoning the use of fossil fuels or, more likely, climate change will bring about the end of global fossil-fuelled capitalist civilization,” wrote U.S. author Roy Scranton, in an April essay in MIT Technology Review.

“Revolution or collapse â€" in either case, the good life as we know it is no longer viable.”


A cow in India
(https://media.pri.org/s3fs-public/styles/story_main/public/photos/201511/india_street_cows.jpg?itok=SIaqnOHo)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 02, 2019, 01:49 AM
I'm sure that some of you are reading some newspapers like Le Monde or Le figaro, even if they are newspapers in French (I'm thinking about humbert, usman or Maher).

If it's the case I recommend this app (for Android): https://mega.nz/#!wBsFwYgB!-97zo4zRXsc0NYpUYa_q_uh2JbAG4YS-8Zx9hlIdz_w (https://mega.nz/#!wBsFwYgB!-97zo4zRXsc0NYpUYa_q_uh2JbAG4YS-8Zx9hlIdz_w)
With it, you'll be able to have full access to every article of Le Figaro.



Here is a selection of interesting articles:

Brexit: la perspective d’un «no deal» fait chuter la livre sterling
http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/boris-johnson-secoue-l-economie-britannique-20190801
(https://i.f1g.fr/media/eidos/1280x580_crop/2019/08/01/XVMc321f5ca-b456-11e9-ab5f-6e2ebdddf449.jpg)

Désertification des centres-villes: est-il trop tard pour réagir?
http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/desertification-des-centres-villes-est-il-trop-tard-pour-reagir-20190801
(https://i.f1g.fr/media/eidos/1280x580_crop/2019/08/01/XVM4169493c-b47b-11e9-9254-66898d8cdd96.jpg)

Afghanistan: que veulent vraiment les talibans?
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2019/03/24/01003-20190324ARTFIG00057-afghanistan-que-veulent-vraiment-les-talibans.php
(https://i.ibb.co/FhBGQF0/afghan.jpg)


Le Japon autorise la création d’embryons mi-homme mi-animal
http://sante.lefigaro.fr/article/le-japon-autorise-la-creation-d-embryons-mi-homme-mi-animal/
(https://i.f1g.fr/media/eidos/680x382_crop/2019/08/01/XVM13311f62-b47c-11e9-ab5f-6e2ebdddf449.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 03, 2019, 11:45 PM
Here are other interesting articles published recently in Le Figaro (in French).
Note that I sent a letter to Generali yesterday, 2 rue Pillet Will, Paris 9 and I tried to found the location of the building.
I realized that there were offices of Le Figaro just in front of this building, 1 rue Pillet Will.


Guerre commerciale: Trump provoque un séisme
http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/guerre-commerciale-trump-provoque-un-seisme-20190802
(https://i.f1g.fr/media/eidos/1280x580_crop/2019/08/02/XVM20269a6c-b526-11e9-9254-66898d8cdd96.jpg)


Derrière les suicides de policiers, le malaise de CRS surmenés
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/derriere-les-suicides-de-policiers-le-malaise-de-crs-surmenes-20190802
(https://i.f1g.fr/media/eidos/1280x580_crop/2019/08/02/XVM14f6fcf8-b482-11e9-9254-66898d8cdd96.jpg)


And 2 articles of Le monde here:

Quand les sangliers arrivent en ville.
https://www.lemonde.fr/big-browser/article/2019/07/30/quand-les-sangliers-arrivent-en-ville_5494965_4832693.html
(https://img.lemde.fr/2019/07/30/0/0/4534/2898/688/0/60/0/3dda6a9_yRZyYXH1rwFULTE6OZRgg54s.jpg)


La calotte glaciaire fond trois fois plus vite qu’en temps normal, impactée par le réchauffement climatique.
https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2019/08/03/en-une-journee-onze-milliards-de-tonnes-de-glace-ont-fondu-au-groenland_5496303_3244.html
(https://img.lemde.fr/2019/08/02/0/0/4608/3456/688/0/60/0/ab9043e_1a520f9276fd43aa8774c6c778ce5009-1a520f9276fd43aa8774c6c778ce5009-0.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 05, 2019, 08:05 PM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about Bruno Patino's new book, titled "the civilization of the red fish".

(https://i.ibb.co/pdC30rS/cover.jpg)

The goldfish is turning in its fish bowl. It seems to rediscover the world every turn. Google engineers have managed to calculate the maximum duration of its attention: 8 seconds. These same engineers evaluated the attention span of millenials generation, the one that grew with connected screens: 9 seconds. We have become goldfish, locked in the fiish bowl of our screens, subject to the carousel of our alerts and our instant messages.

A study by the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology estimated at 30 minutes the maximum time for exposure to social networks and Internet screens beyond which a threat to mental health appears. According to this study, my case is desperate, as my daily practice is that of an addiction to the signals that clutter the screen of my phone. We are all on the path of addiction: children, young people, adults.

For those who have believed in digital utopia, of which I am a part, the time of regret has arrived. Thus Tim Berners Lee, the "inventor" of the web, who is now trying to create a counter-Internet to annihilate his first creation. Utopia, however, was beautiful, which brought together, in an identical communion, followers of Teilhard de Chardin or Californian libertarians under acid.

Digital servitude is the model built by the new empires, without anticipating it, but with relentless determination. At the heart of the reactor, no technological determinism, but a project that reflects the mutation of a new capitalist: the economy of attention. It's about increasing the productivity of time to extract even more value. After reducing the space, it's about extending time while compressing it, and creating an infinite snapshot. The general acceleration has replaced habit with attention, and satisfaction with addiction. And algorithms are today the machine tools of this economy ...
This economy of attention destroys, little by little, our bearings. Our relationship to the media, public space, knowledge, truth, information, nothing escapes the economy of attention that prefers reflexes to reflection and passions to reason. Philosophical lights are extinguished in favor of digital signals. The market of attention is the society of fatigue.
Regrets, however, are useless. The time of the fight has arrived, not to reject the digital civilization, but to transform its economic nature and make it a project that abandons the transhumanist nightmare to find the human ideal ... "



(https://i.ibb.co/ygxmSVm/elephant.jpg)
If you see all grey, move the elephant (Indian proverb)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 06, 2019, 01:27 AM
Hi

For a while now, I haven't visited the site much, not even the usual of reading posts in Chit Chat.

I've been diving into many rabbit holes the past few months on reddit & many documentary clips & films on Youtube when not doing work.

Here is an interesting short clip on Alex Jones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8wwPAVNVn8

A person with lots of knowledge on military/intelligence Psy-Ops had told me around 2005 that Alex Jones was an CIA scare-agent, or a 'shill' if you prefer, that spreads disinformation in order to discredit 'thinking out of the box'.
I don't consider myself a 'conspiracy theorist' but keeping an open-mind has and will always come in handy in the near & far future, unless it has to do with reptilians, gay frogs, or flat earth.

The ODD TV channel that published the above video is not bad at all.

Here are two other channels that are worth exploring:

Mark Howitt
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEC3OJo1iOuWVD_D4NHTGXQ

Construuct
https://www.youtube.com/user/Construuct/videos

Peace
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 06, 2019, 02:14 AM
Quote from: aa1234779 on August 06, 2019, 01:27 AM
Hi

For a while now, I haven't visited the site much, not even the usual of reading posts in Chit Chat.
You're wrong.
Quote from: aa1234779 on August 06, 2019, 01:27 AM
Here are two other channels that are worth exploring:

Mark Howitt
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEC3OJo1iOuWVD_D4NHTGXQ

Construuct
https://www.youtube.com/user/Construuct/videos
It's not about Bin Salman, I'm relieved.
But I'm also disappointed. Frankly I think these are not videos that are worth listening to. And you say a bit later: "I'm not a conspiracy theorist". And yet you are watching this.
For instance I found this video in the first link, titled "Hitler's Escape From Germany" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owN5ZBarMfs
I'm sure that makes Vasudev and usman laugh. They even found his teeth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYfhv6vaZNU

I prefer real documentaries.
For example, about the Dikkop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFAOnPvNyQI
(https://i.ibb.co/VBYbMZ2/dikkop.jpg)
If you are asking Maher what a dikkop is, I'm pretty sure he won't be able to answer before watching this video.
Or the videos of "Bald and bankrupt". Fortunately, I'm neither bald nor bankrupt but the guy in these videos, in spite of his predicament, always releases good videos. For example the cheapest food in Europe. You may think you'll find it in London or in Paris. It's not the case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=642qAOTKcxc
Or the videos in French of Insolentiae TV, about the economy. For exampe this one which is about the..."economic collapse". Maybe it's better if you don't understand after all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jc_aJdx7_w
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on August 06, 2019, 03:50 AM
Quote from: scarface on August 06, 2019, 02:14 AM
You're wrong.
About?

Quote
It's not about Bin Salman, I'm relieved.
You like him?

Quote
But I'm also disappointed. Frankly I think these are not videos that are worth listening to.
Good for you.

QuoteAnd you say a bit later: "I'm not a conspiracy theorist". And yet you are watching this.
Watching conspiracy videos does not make you a 'conspiracy theorist'.
Watching Trump, Netanyahu, OBL, or any other does not make you the same.

QuoteFor instance I found this video in the first link, titled "Hitler's Escape From Germany" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owN5ZBarMfs
I'm sure that makes Vasudev and usman laugh. They even found his teeth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYfhv6vaZNU
I will gladly join them laughing at your joke, because yes, many theories out there are truly laughable but not all, the same applies to mainstream news media.

Quote
I prefer real documentaries.
For example, about the Dikkop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFAOnPvNyQI
If you are asking Maher what a dikkop is, I'm pretty sure he won't be able to answer before watching this video.
Or the videos of "Bald and bankrupt". Fortunately, I'm neither bald nor bankrupt but the guy in these videos, in spite of his predicament, always releases good videos. For example the cheapest food in Europe. You may think you'll find it in London or in Paris. It's not the case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=642qAOTKcxc
Or the videos in French of Insolentiae TV, about the economy. For exampe this one which is about the..."economic collapse". Maybe it's better if you don't understand after all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jc_aJdx7_w
Ok realistic guy
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 07, 2019, 02:59 PM
Quote from: aa1234779 on August 06, 2019, 03:50 AM
You like him?
He's a politician. In Arab countries they usually end up in jail. It's probably a matter of month for him.

Quote from: aa1234779 on August 06, 2019, 03:50 AM
Watching conspiracy videos does not make you a 'conspiracy theorist'.
Watching Trump, Netanyahu, OBL, or any other does not make you the same.
If you keep listening to them you'll end up like Homer Simpsons indeed.


Quote from: aa1234779 on August 06, 2019, 03:50 AM
I will gladly join them laughing at your joke, because yes, many theories out there are truly laughable but not all, the same applies to mainstream news media.
Concerning the attacks of 9/11, I'm still wondering if there was other explosions as some experts pointed out, for the collapses to be so clean.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 07, 2019, 03:05 PM
This morning, I discovered the front page of the latest edition of Charlie Hebdo.
Apparently, the mastermind of the killing of El Paso was identified. His whereabouts are unknown.

(https://i.ibb.co/PD1Jtsm/2681822.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 07, 2019, 11:41 PM
Maybe I've been a bit tough with aa1234779 in my answer here: http://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=9855.msg34515#msg34515
After all, some users might be interested in his conspiracy videos, and I justified my position by choosing the most stupid video with Hitler.

Note that I added the photo of a dikkop. I've never seen any dikkop, and I'm sure it's the case for many of you, since this bird is native to tropical regions of central and southern Africa. Maher must have been flabbergasted when he discovered a bird able to fight komodo dragons.
Note that the French translation for the dikkop is "L'Å'dicnème tachard". And I can assure you that I'm sure few know what an Å"dicnème tachard is, I had never heard of this bird before watching the video.

I'd want to add a new video too, an excellent video, a must watch, about the economy and the stock markets (titled "anticipate the monetary collapse). With Charles Sannat. Unfortunately it's in French.
(http://i.vimeocdn.com/video/802109212_640.jpg)
This specialist tries to explain why central banks keep printing money. For him, it's an attempt to conceal the energy collapse. Actually I don't totally agree with him (about the reasons). He also explains that economies are over indebted and rate hikes are now causing stock market collapses. We have seen that last December.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnH6WQ_-UXM
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on August 31, 2019, 05:50 PM
Today, the Yellow jackets are protesting for the 42th straight week.

The yellow vests took to the streets this Saturday, August 31st in Paris as part of Act 42. In addition to the French capital, demonstrations are planned near the French-Swiss border, in response to the call of Priscillia Ludosky, one of the figures of the movement.

(https://cdnfr2.img.sputniknews.com/images//104185/92/1041859269.jpg)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EDTH_VQX4Ac-s81?format=jpg&name=medium)

The main mission of the Castaner government: Serve and protect the tax evaders.
In a bar of Saint Etienne, I remember I saw this picture.
(http://thumbor-prod-eu-central-1.photo.aws.arc.pub/vMbyoyInF5d51vb_wlLT90nv_aY=/arc-anglerfish-eu-central-1-prod-leparisien/public/4K2OUDKHRA6ID27JDZDOPNIUXM.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 01, 2019, 10:50 PM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about Hurricane Dorian.

Hurricane Dorian is about to hit the Bahamas, then Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas â€" Lately it strengthened and it's the most violent hurricane ever seen.

(https://img.lemde.fr/2019/09/01/33/0/1890/1260/664/0/75/0/64362b2_5523689-01-06.jpg)

Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm nearing the Bahamas as of Sunday morning, is slowly churning towards Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, where it is expected to bring "life-threatening storm surge and devastating hurricane-force winds" starting Monday night after it moves over the northwestern Bahamas throughout Sunday.

Specifically, Google projections place the hurricane's path directly over the island of Great Abaco. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has issued a hurricane warning for the northwestern Bahamas, where tropical-storm-force winds are expected over the weekend.

The storm will reach the island on Sunday, bringing hurricane-force winds, up to 20 inches of rain, a "life-threatening storm surge" of 10 to 15 feet, and "large and destructive waves," according to the NHC.

Dorian is then projected to move towards Florida, nearing the state's east coast late Monday. While the forecast cone is wider as the hurricane approaches the coast, Google's Sunday morning projections no longer show landfall in Florida, veering north instead toward the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas.
Both Florida and South Carolina have declared states of emergency, with the latter declaring on Saturday in the wake of the new hurricane trajectory.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on September 03, 2019, 04:47 AM
Quote from: scarface on September 01, 2019, 10:50 PM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about Hurricane Dorian.
Hurricane Dorian is about to hit the Bahamas, then Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas â€" Lately it strengthened and it's the most violent hurricane ever seen.

Dorian is NOT the most violent hurricane ever seen. That honor belongs to Camille in 1969. It landed near the Alabama-Mississippi border with sustained winds of 190 mph (over 300 kmh). Fortunately in landed in an area that back then was mostly uninhabited. Andrew hit the southern part of Miami in 1992, making landfall as a Category 5 storm. I remember it vividly even though I was living north of ground zero.

I'm happy I was able to sell my house in Miami and move to San Antonio back in 2011. No more hurricanes! The bad part isn't the storm itself, it after the storm. Wreckage everwhere and no electricity. It's not easy trying to sleep when the temp is around 29°C and the humidity is 80% or higher.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 07, 2019, 02:37 PM
Quote from: humbert on September 03, 2019, 04:47 AM
Dorian is NOT the most violent hurricane ever seen. That honor belongs to Camille in 1969. It landed near the Alabama-Mississippi border with sustained winds of 190 mph (over 300 kmh). Fortunately in landed in an area that back then was mostly uninhabited. Andrew hit the southern part of Miami in 1992, making landfall as a Category 5 storm. I remember it vividly even though I was living north of ground zero.

I'm happy I was able to sell my house in Miami and move to San Antonio back in 2011. No more hurricanes! The bad part isn't the storm itself, it after the storm. Wreckage everwhere and no electricity. It's not easy trying to sleep when the temp is around 29°C and the humidity is 80% or higher.
Apparently you vividly remember Hurricane Camille in 1969.
Well, I went to Florida in December 2000 and I have good souvenirs of this trip. I remember I played tennis and I took my tee-shirt off because it was pretty warm, but it was not allowed, I was asked to get it back on. At this time I was sleeping at Gerard's. He died of aneurysm at the end of December 2017 in Bogota. He went there because it was too expensive to go to the dentist in Florida.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on September 08, 2019, 04:29 AM
Quote from: scarface on September 07, 2019, 02:37 PM
Apparently you vividly remember Hurricane Camille in 1969.

I was very young at the time but I vaguely remember the news reports and subsequently the reports of measurements taken. If this monster has hit [for example] New Orleans, the devastation would have been unimaginable. Fortunately ground zero was largely uninhabited at the time.

Quote from: scarface on September 07, 2019, 02:37 PM
Well, I went to Florida in December 2000 and I have good souvenirs of this trip. I remember I played tennis and I took my tee-shirt off because it was pretty warm, but it was not allowed, I was asked to get it back on.

Where was this? Obviously not at a private home or anything like that. Also - were you in direct sunlight? If so they did you a favor, it doesn't take too long to get a pretty bad sunburn in Florida. As you know, the lighter your complexion the worse the sunburn.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 08, 2019, 01:11 PM
Quote from: humbert on September 08, 2019, 04:29 AM
Where was this? Obviously not at a private home or anything like that. Also - were you in direct sunlight? If so they did you a favor, it doesn't take too long to get a pretty bad sunburn in Florida. As you know, the lighter your complexion the worse the sunburn.
It was at Gerard's home, in Naples. As for the sunburns, I guess the risk was pretty low since it was in Winter.
Because Earth is an oblate spheroid, when the Sun comes in at a lower angle, its rays pass through more atmosphere before reaching us. The sun's rays are spending more time getting filtered.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on September 09, 2019, 05:10 AM
Quote from: scarface on September 08, 2019, 01:11 PM
It was at Gerard's home, in Naples.

Why would Gerard be upset if you removed your shirt? It's not like you're dropping your pants.

Quote from: scarface on September 08, 2019, 01:11 PM
As for the sunburns, I guess the risk was pretty low since it was in Winter.
Because Earth is an oblate spheroid, when the Sun comes in at a lower angle, its rays pass through more atmosphere before reaching us. The sun's rays are spending more time getting filtered.

I know all that, but remember Naples is at approximately 26° latitude and even in winter the sun's rays will be more direct than at higher latitudes. Sunburn depends on factors such as the angle of the sun, time of exposure, how dark your skin is, etc. You can still get sunburn during winter in Florida, it'll just take longer.

Incidentally, did I misread or did you say Gerard died because he couldn't afford an American dentist and had to travel to Bogotá for treatment? If so it doesn't make sense unless he had something very severe.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 09, 2019, 09:52 PM
Quote from: humbert on September 09, 2019, 05:10 AM
Why would Gerard be upset if you removed your shirt? It's not like you're dropping your pants.
Apparently it was bothering some old neighbours.

Quote from: humbert on September 09, 2019, 05:10 AM
Incidentally, did I misread or did you say Gerard died because he couldn't afford an American dentist and had to travel to Bogotá for treatment? If so it doesn't make sense unless he had something very severe.
Gerard was French. he left France when he was a student and lived like undocumented migrants for years before he could obtain the American nationality. Of course, he was speaking French, English and also Spanish. He was working 60 hours a week to sell cars. Certain months, he was not even earning money. When he divorced he bought the house back from his wife. He was indebted. Despite a house in Naples, there won't be anything left.
As for the cost of the dentist, I know that it was costing 25000$ vs 5000$ in Colombia.

On the forum we have many users. Many are coming from Asia: India Pakistan or Indonesia. Others come from the Near East: Palestine, Saudi Arabia or Egypt. But few come from the US. They are probably too busy working.
If you can, watch the price of the American Dream: https://vimeo.com/242099372
Allegedly, the directors of this documentary tried to do the same one in Palestine (the price of the Palestinian dream). On the beaches of the Gaza strip, they tried to find workers. But they couldn't find any! In the streets they stumbled upon goats and chickens. All of them had a mighty grin. And they were not working either! This is why Palestinians have to ask Israelis if they can open a paypal account: they will be children all their lives.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on September 10, 2019, 05:45 AM
Quote from: scarface on September 09, 2019, 09:52 PM
Apparently it was bothering some old neighbours.

Being a guest in someone's home obviously you have to go by the rules. But a neighbor? They have no right to tell you what to do if you're not on their property. And of course, you're not a woman - what you tried to do is perfectly legal.

Quote from: humbert on September 09, 2019, 05:10 AM
As for the cost of the dentist, I know that it was costing 25000$ vs 5000$ in Colombia.

What exactly was the nature of his illness? It must have been severe. I realize dentistry isn't cheap here, but $25,000 is ridiculously high unless we're talking something very major. The same logic applies to Bogotá at $5,000. Incidentally, medicine is Colombia is pretty advanced unless you go to a cut-rate street dentist. $5000 means he either went for top-of-the-line or had the misfortune of running into a quack dentist.

As a French citizen, couldn't he have taken advantage of the EU's medical/dental system? As far as I know it's either free or at least very affordable, certainly more than here or possibly Colombia.

Quote from: scarface on September 09, 2019, 09:52 PM
This is why Palestinians have to ask Israelis if they can open a paypal account: they will be children all their lives.

It's never occurred to me to ask Maher why he can't have his own Paypal account. I don't understand why the Israelis would deny him or any other Palestinian the privelege. He has a credit card.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 11, 2019, 01:30 AM
Quote from: humbert on September 10, 2019, 05:45 AM
What exactly was the nature of his illness? It must have been severe. I realize dentistry isn't cheap here, but $25,000 is ridiculously high unless we're talking something very major. The same logic applies to Bogotá at $5,000. Incidentally, medicine is Colombia is pretty advanced unless you go to a cut-rate street dentist. $5000 means he either went for top-of-the-line or had the misfortune of running into a quack dentist.
He probably needed a few implants...
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 15, 2019, 06:57 PM
Today, I’m going to hold a conference to talk about the situation of the people of Gafsa, in Tunisia.

Located some 300 km from the capital, this mining region has the second highest unemployment rate in the country. On the spot, disillusion reigns.

(https://i.ibb.co/S6GnsPM/gafsa.jpg)

(http://www1.rfi.fr/actufr/images/108/carte_tunisie_long_200.gif)

Unemployment, corruption, lack of infrastructure and pollution: In Gafsa, in the center of the country, people lost confidence in politics. Sitting at the TamTam cafe in the city, 360 km south of Tunis, Hiab does not look at his friends, even when they go to him. He responds by keeping his eyes fixed on his phone on which he plays Free Fire, a fighting game. This is how he spends his days. Hiab, 26, and four years of unemployment behind him, seems overwhelmed by disillusionment. He smiles when asked who he will vote for: "I will not move. Elections are a game. Their game, the politicians. All they want is the position and the money that goes with it. "
“We are in prison here, "says the young man who dreams only of leaving the country. Graduated in computer science and mechanics, speaking good English, Hiab was never able to find a stable job. The governorate of Gafsa has the second highest unemployment rate in Tunisia: 25%, against a national average of 15.3%. This rate rises to 39% for young graduates, according to Rim Sai, president of the local branch of the unemployed graduates association. She is part of the "lucky": she was hired in 2018 ... after fourteen years of unemployment  for the 39-year-old woman enjoying a cream coffee.
To get a job, Rim Sai filed a file. The addition of her age, years of unemployment and points about her social situation - she is an orphan - gave her a "score" allowing her to be a priority. She was recruited, with 450 people, on more than 2000 applications. Regardless of her training - in IT, marketing and tourism - Rim was awarded a Human Resources position at the Environmental and Planting Society. The company, which is linked to the Gafsa Phosphate Company (a semi-public company), was created in 2011 to hire unemployed people and calm down social tensions. "People just go to the premises to clock in and do nothing. It's fictional work," says a Gafsa activist.
Rim says she works, and she does not seem to be asking questions about this grotesque system. She is relieved: "I have 850 dinars of salary (268 euros). It's happiness." Unlike Hiab, Rim Sai will vote. For Nabil Karoui. The media mogul has been imprisoned on suspicion of money laundering since the end of August. The candidate, whose wife is from Gafsa, has invested heavily in inner regions in recent years, thanks to a charity. "He came here with doctors, who saw the disabled. He helped social cases," argues Rim while acknowledging: "The experience makes me say that we should not expect anything. In 2014, I voted Béji Caïd Essebsi (the president died in July). I do not know what he did, but here he did not do anything. So we have to change. My vote will be a vote of anger. "
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 17, 2019, 08:53 PM
Tonight, I'm going to hold a conference about climate change. An article published today shows the severity of the situation.

Climate change effects to be worse than previous estimates, new study shows.

(https://bsmedia.business-standard.com/_media/bs/img/article/2018-10/08/full/1538980185-3084.jpg)

The world may become hotter than previously expected by the end of the century, according to a major study by some 100 of the top researchers in the field in France.

In the worst-case scenario, average global temperatures may rise 6 degrees to 7 degrees Celsius (10.8 degrees to 12.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, according to the work released by France’s National Center for Scientific Research CNRS, the atomic energy commission CEA and weather office Meteo-France.

That reading is about 1 degree Celsius hotter than previous projections. It’s also well above the 2-degree threshold endorsed by the United Nations. Beyond that level, storms are likely to become much more powerful and sea levels more than 1 meter higher.

The two updated models by the French researchers take a closer look at the regional effects of higher temperatures. They integrate the latest understanding of atmospheric physics and have higher resolution, CEA climate scientist Pascale Braconnot said in a press conference on Tuesday. All of the scenarios generated by the models predict “pronounced” and more severe global warming than the previous research completed in 2012, CNRS said in a statement.

“There’s a jump in quality in the result of the models for numerous indicators,” Braconnot said. “We have more confidence in the new version compared to the previous one.”

Updating the climate models required 500 million hours of calculations by supercomputers at Genci and Meteo-France, the weather office said in a statement. The research will contribute to part one of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report, expected in 2021.

Only one of the updated climate models used by the researchers allowed for the global temperature increase to remain below 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

The assumptions in that best-case scenario, called SSP1 1.9, include carbon neutrality by 2060 followed by a boost for carbon capture technology. That would also require lower population growth, a priority on sustainability and strong global cooperation to reduce pollution.

The worst-case scenario, called SSP5 8.5, assumes rapid economic growth driven by fossil fuels.

In the more pessimistic scenario, all summers in France by the end of the century will be hotter than the 2003 heatwave year, CNRS climate researcher Olivier Boucher said at the press conference.

Across Europe, heat waves will become longer and more intense, while the Arctic will be entirely ice-free during summer in the last two decades of this century.

“In 10,000 years, we haven’t explored anything as major as what we’re doing over a period of 100 years,” Braconnot said. The global temperature difference between the last ice age and the end of glaciation was 3 to 4 degrees Celsius, she said.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 20, 2019, 07:38 PM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about the black hole at the center of our galaxy, because according to scientists, this black hole seems to be more and more hungry.


Vasudev and Maher must be wondering what a black hole is. What does it look like?
Maybe some of you are thinking the photo below represents the black hole at the center of the universe.
(https://i.ibb.co/FDrBkjN/csm-was-gorillas-fressen-1adce0d58c.jpg)

Actually, the black hole of the universe looks like this:
(http://img.over-blog-kiwi.com/1/47/74/29/20160208/ob_d51f49_14713209.png)

This is a hearty meal that Sagittarius A, the black hole in the center of our Milky Way, has begun. UCLA researchers are struggling to find an explanation for this "appetite".
Their analysis is based on more than 13,000 observations of the black hole, made over 16 years. Some of the most recent ones would be "unprecedented".

A hole not so black.
Andrea Ghez, professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA (University of California - Los Angeles), recalls the results with amazement: "We have never seen anything like since we studied this hole. In general, it's a pretty quiet black hole. We do not know what induces such a feast.

The extent of this "feast" seems considerable indeed. Since 2003, astronomers have completed more than 13,000 observations of the 133-hole black hole using two Chilean and Hawaiian telescopes. On May 13, they realized that the area close to the point of no return (the area from which matter can not escape once entered) was twice as bright as the brightest event ever observed. However, this brightness corresponds in fact to the radiation of gases and matter swallowed by the black hole.

This year, more observations were made: big changes, described as "unprecedented" by Andrea Ghez, were also observed on these occasions. On one of the four nights of observation between April and May 2019, Tuan Do, one of the authors of the study, said: "In the first observations I made that night, Sagittarius A was so bright that I thought I confused it with the star S0-2. But it soon became clear that the source was to be the black hole.

Looking for explanations.
The star S0-2 is one of the hypotheses raised to explain the more intense activity of the black hole. Indeed, this star which was particularly close to Sagittarius A in the summer of 2018, could have released a large amount of gas, which would have reached the point of no return this year, creating a strong activity in the surrounding area. .

The high brightness, indicates, as we mentioned before, gas and dust falling into the black hole. It raises questions among researchers: is it an isolated event or a real increase in black hole activity? For Mark Morris, also professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, and co-author of the study, "the big question is whether the black hole enters a new period - for example if the gas rate falling into the black hole increased for a prolonged period - or if we simply witnessed the fireworks from some unusual gas blocks. "

In any case, the black hole, which is some 26 000 light years from Earth, poses no danger to it. Nevertheless, the team continues its observations of the phenomenon, seeking to learn more: "We want to know why this supermassive black hole becomes brighter, and how brighter it becomes." A paradox for a black hole.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 30, 2019, 01:26 PM
Here is a little article about Doha World Athletics Championships and its controversial debut:
https://www.news.com.au/sport/more-sports/world-athletic-championships-slammed-over-insane-conditions/news-story/4ceeb627f28b3f60b7deac0b80641bd9
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 01, 2019, 09:14 PM
Tonight, I'm giving you a few good articles of the newspaper Le Figaro. You know that you can have a full access with this app, if you are willing to read articles in French: http://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=9855.msg34491#msg34491

An article about Saudi Arabia: http://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/renaud-girard-basculement-du-rapport-de-forces-dans-le-golfe-persique-20191001

The policemen are taking to the streets: http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/ulceres-les-policiers-descendent-dans-la-rue-20191001

Nicolas Sarkozy to face trial for campaign finance fraud in the Bygmalion scandal after Top French court rejected bid to avoid trial: http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/bygmalion-la-cour-de-cassation-valide-le-renvoi-en-correctionnelle-de-nicolas-sarkozy-20191001
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 12, 2019, 02:30 AM
Tonight, I'm going to hold a conference about the arrest of Dupont De Ligonnès.


Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès, a Frenchman who is suspected to have killed his entire family in 2011 and has been on the run since, was arrested in Glasgow on Friday, AFP reported, citing police sources.
His family was discovered buried in the garden of their family home in Nantes.
Dupont de Ligonnès had disembarked from a flight from Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, near Paris, AFP reported.
"On Friday, 11 October 2019, a man was arrested at Glasgow Airport and remains in police custody in connection with a European Arrest Warrant issued by the French Authorities", a Police Scotland spokeswoman told Euronews.

He was travelling under a false name, but his fingerprints betrayed him. He opposed 'no resistance' to his arrest, according to French newspaper Le Parisien, which broke the news.
Dupont de Ligonnès had disappeared before his family's bodies were found, and the murders had never been solved.
Police found a message he had sent in 2010 in which he had said he wanted to kill his family.

According to the AFP quoting a source close to the case, Dupont de Ligonnès travelled on a French passport that was stolen in 2014, and had "probably spent a part of his time on the run in the UK".
Before the murders, Dupont de Ligonnès had told neighbours and his children's schools that he was a secret agent and that the family was leaving to join a witness protection scheme.

He was last seen in April 2011, appearing on the 14th on a CCTV video as he withdrew money, and on the 15th as he left a hotel. His wife and children's bodies were discovered six days later.

His arrest followed an "anonymous denunciation", AFP reported. Le Parisien reported that he had been living in Scotland for some time.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 12, 2019, 02:48 PM
It turned out that the man arrested at Glasgow Airport is not Xavier Dupont de Ligonnès.

French and Scottish investigators today ruled that fingerprints of the man detained in Glasgow yesterday do not match those of missing suspect Dupont.
It comes after sources in Paris claimed the businessman allegedly arrived at Glasgow International Airport from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.

Dupont, a devout catholic, has been actively sought by police since his disappearance, was subject to an Interpol red notice and has been “sighted” many times over the years.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 12, 2019, 06:09 PM
Today, in La Défense, anti-globalization activists wanted to put Total, Amazon and BNP Paribas out of service.

Forty activists covered the headquarters of several multinationals on Saturday to denounce their role in climate change.
On Saturday, October 12th, at 9:00, about 40 activists from Attac redecorated Total's headquarters in La Défense with banners, also covering the black gouache windows with fire extinguishers and affixing a large poster. on the glass facade, on which one could read: "Danger: Total, Out of service. Harmful for you and the planet. Dickens Kamugisha was also present, the executive director of the NGO Afiego who, with Friends of the Earth France, is preparing to sue Total for its "mega-petroleum" project in Uganda.

(https://i.ibb.co/L0V6gSV/080cd20-5816758-01-06.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 18, 2019, 06:02 PM
Tonight, I'm going to hold a conference about the onion shortage in Bangladesh.

(https://i.ibb.co/FnfMBNV/1840361-1738428172.jpg)
A man works at an onion wholesale market in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

In a bid to mitigate an onion crisis in its local markets, Bangladesh has decided to import 300 tons of the vegetable from Pakistan after nearly 15 years, despite strained diplomatic relations between the two countries in recent years.

Relations between Islamabad and Dhaka have never recovered from the 1971 war, when Bangladeshi nationalists broke away from what was then West Pakistan. Most recently, relations have been marred by the trials of prisoners taken in Bangladesh during the war nearly five decades ago. Pakistan publicly condemned the trial process by Dhaka, which the latter considered an interference into its internal affairs.

The surprise decision to import from Pakistan was taken during a government-level discussion on Friday, when Bangladesh’s Tasho Enterprise finalized the deal with Karachi-based Roshan Enterprise, as reported by Pakistan’s The News International.

Last September, following a ban on onion exports in India, the price of onions in Bangladesh rose threefold.

Experts in Bangladesh said the rise of trade relations between Pakistan and Bangladesh, especially with the new “onion diplomacy” could prove to have some positive impact over diplomatic relations between Dhaka and Islamabad.

“With this onion diplomacy, there is the chance of expanding trade relations between the countries,” Dr. Delwar Hossain of Dhaka University told Arab News, adding: “It will definitely have a good impact on diplomatic relations but I would not say it will create a new era of their relationship overnight.

“As a whole, if Bangladesh reviews its foreign policy in a pragmatic context, the latest onion import trading may take a positive turn in terms of diplomatic relations,” Hossain said.

Last year, Dhaka did not approve the appointment of a new Pakistan high commissioner in Bangladesh.

Islamabad has been waiting for the appointment’s approval for over a year, though it is expected to come soon, sources inside Pakistan’s Dhaka mission said.

Former Bangladesh Ambassador to the US Humayun Kabir told Arab News that the onion trade could open up a window for better diplomatic relations if the political leadership of both countries wanted it to, but that it was still too early to consider it a diplomatic win.

“Bangladesh needs onions and so we are importing them from Pakistan. But at this moment, there is not enough scope to attach it with diplomacy,” Kabir said.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 18, 2019, 11:10 PM
Tonight, I'm going to hold another conference about the Paris agreement which was adopted in December 2015.

Look at the maps below.

(https://i.ibb.co/wJfyLds/Map-768x576.png)

(https://i.ibb.co/FHk0GWD/Map2-768x576.png)

An environmental and economic disaster from human-induced climate change is on the horizon.

To achieve the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious goal of keeping global warming below 1.5°C (2.7°F)
above pre-industrial levels requires reducing global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50 percent by
2030.

An analysis of current commitments to reduce emissions between 2020 and 2030 shows that 75 percent of the climate pledges are partially or totally insufficient to contribute to reducing GHG emissions by 50 percent by 2030, and some of these pledges are unlikely to be achieved.
Of the 184 climate pledges, 36 were deemed sufficient (19 percent), 12 partially sufficient (6 percent), 8 partially insufficient (10 percent) and 128 insufficient (65 percent). Because the climate pledges are voluntary, technicalities, loopholes and conditions continue to postpone decisive global action to reduce emissions and address climate change.
All countries need to reduce emissions to meet the Paris Agreement targets, although not all countries have equal responsibility because of the principle of differentiated responsibility, historical emissions, current per person emissions and the need to develop. Emissions from the top four emitters combined account for 56 percent of global GHG emissions â€"China (26.8 percent), the United States (13.1 percent), the European Union and its 28 Member States (9 percent) and India (7 percent). The analysis of their pledges show that:
• China, the largest emitter, is expected to meet its pledge of “reducing its carbon intensity by 60-65
percent from 2005 levels by 2030” (or the amount of CO 2 emissions per unit of GDP).
However, China’s CO 2 emissions increased by 80 percent between 2005 and 2018 and are expected to continue to increase for the next decade given its projected rate of economic growth.
• In 2015 the United States committed to reducing “GHG emissions by 26-28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025”. However, the current administration announced the United States withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and has cut federal regulations meant to curb emissions. State and local efforts are being implemented to try and meet the United States pledge. These efforts are mainly focused on electricity generation and automobile emissions.
• The European Union and its 28 Member States committed to reduce GHG emissions “at least 40 percent from 1990 level” by 2030. The EU and its Member States are on track to cut GHG emissions by 58 percent by 2030.
• India’s emissions are growing rapidly. Its pledge to reduce “the emissions intensity (of all GHGs) of its GDP by 30-35 percent from 2005 level by 2030” is expected be met.
However, India’s GHG emissions increased by about 76 percent between 2005 and 2017 and, like China, are expected to continue to increase until 2030 due to economic growth.

The Russian Federation, the fifth largest GHG emitter, has not even submitted its plan to cut emissions yet.

From the remaining 152 pledges, 126 are partially or totally dependent on international finance, technology and capacity building for their implementation. A portion of these commitments may not be implemented because little international support has been materialized.
Thus, at least 130 nations, including 4 of the top 5 world’s largest emitters, are falling far short of contributing to meeting the 50 percent global emission reductions required by 2030 to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on November 27, 2019, 08:47 AM
Today, I'm going to talk about the predicament of the French farmers.

The users of the forum probably don't know this worrying statistic: Every two days, one farmer in France commits suicide.
The pressure to produce and earn a living is too difficult. As well as their everyday tasks, farmers also have to care for the animals day and night, all year long. Christmas, wedding celebrations and birthday parties all get cut short, because the milking still needs to be done. The work never lets up.
In Palestine or in India the fate of the farmers is certainly better since they are not subjected to a productivist pressure. What's more, in France the wholesale distribution is imposing ridiculous price levels. More and more farmers have to turn to local markets to earn a living.


That's why farmers are very pissed off. And they are to stage a major protest on Wednesday - using 1,000 tractors to form rolling roadblocks on roads in the Paris area.

(https://i.f1g.fr/media/ext/616x347_crop/www.lefigaro.fr/medias/2019/11/26/20191126PHOWWW00002.jpg)

The demonstration is being staged by the two main farming unions in protest at what they say is consistent 'agri bashing' and government policies that harm french agriculture.

The tractors, which are being driven up from regions including Hauts-de-France, Normandy, Ile-de-France, Grand-Est, Centre-Val-de-Loire and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté, will converge in the greater Paris Île-de-France region at 6am on Wednesday, November 27th. If you are currently in Ile de France, you should not use your car since there are already traffic jams and blocked roads.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on December 12, 2019, 01:45 PM
Today, I'm going to talk about the COP25. And it seems it's a failure despite the presence of Greta Thunberg.

Largest countries silent as world seeks action on climate.

(https://cdn.climatechangenews.com/files/2019/12/12064012/49203561502_d21e951696_k.jpg)
Ministers are meeting in Madrid, but they have failed to secure updated commitments from the largest polluters.

As diplomats scramble to finalise the rules of the Paris Agreement at the UN climate talks, the world awaits a concrete sign of countries’ readiness to boost climate action.
If that arrives, it will be in the form of a legalistic ‘decision’ on ‘ambition’ approved by all nations as the Cop25 talks close in Madrid. The Chilean Cop presidency had sought to convene a group of nations at into a vanguard for climate action.

On Wednesday, Cop25 president Carolina Schmidt announced that 73 small and developing countries had signalled their intention to enhance their climate plans and 72 countries working to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 joined a high ambition coalition launched in New York in September.
Meanwhile China, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia have made no indications of their willingness to enhance their ambition. The US is leaving the Paris Agreement. Australia is on the record saying it will not change its goal.
“The world’s largest countries don’t want to be pushed to declare anything this year,” said Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation.
“We should not accept any type of silence on commitment,” said Spanish environment minister Teresa Ribera.

On the day Greta Thunberg was named Time Magazine person of the year for inspiring a wave of climate activism across the world, Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace, said: “I have never seen the divide between what is happening between the inside of these walls and the outside so large.”
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on February 27, 2020, 06:50 PM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about the latest news concerning Trump:  Trump’s campaign is suing The New York Times !
Bernie Sanders calls him a dictator.

(https://i.ibb.co/MV29bTy/Trump.jpg)

President Donald Trump’s campaign sued The New York Times on Wednesday for libel over an opinion article, saying the newspaper published its allegedly false claims last year with the “intentional purpose” of damaging Trump’s chances for reelection this year.

The campaign said that the Times falsely reported “as fact a conspiracy with Russia” in the op-ed written by Max Frankel, which was published on March 27, 2019, under the headline “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo.”

Frankel is a former executive editor of the newspaper.

The lawsuit, which was filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, claims “millions” of dollars in damages, but does not give a specific monetary amount.

Among other things, the suit alleges that the newspaper “has engaged in a systematic pattern of bias” against Trump’s campaign, which is designed to damage the campaign’s reputation and cause it to fail.

A Times spokesman said, “The Trump Campaign has turned to the courts to try to punish an opinion writer for having an opinion they find unacceptable.”

“Fortunately, the law protects the right of Americans to express their judgments and conclusions, especially about events of public importance. We look forward to vindicating that right in this case,” the spokesman said.

Frankel declined to comment.

“No, I’m going to leave that to The Times,” he told CNBC.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said that Trump was “taking a page from his dictator friends around the world” by “trying to dismantle the right to a free press in the First Amendment by suing The New York Times for publishing an opinion column about his dangerous relationship with Russia.”

The so-called subhead, or secondary headline on Frankel’s article said, “The campaign and the Kremlin had an overarching deal: help beat Hillary Clinton for a new pro-Russian foreign policy.”

Frankel wrote, in the article’s first paragraph, that during the 2016 election, “There was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions.”

“The Trumpites knew about the quid and held out the prospect of the quo,” Frankel wrote.

The lawsuit, in its opening sentence, noted the article’s subhead and Frankel’s lead paragraph.

“The Times was well aware when it published these statements that they were not true,” the suit said.

“The Times’ own previous reporting had confirmed the falsity of these statements,” the suit said.

“There was no ‘deal’ and no ‘quid pro quo’ between the Campaign or anyone affiliated with it, and Vladimir Putin or the Russian government,” the suit stated.

And the suit also said that “the falsity of the story has been confirmed” by the report issued in April 2019 by then-special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“But The Times published these statements anyway, knowing them to be false, and knowing it would misinform and mislead its own readers, because of The Times’ extreme bias against and animosity toward the Campaign, and The Times’ exuberance to improperly influence the presidential election in November 2020”

Jenna Ellis, a legal advisor for Trump’s campaign, said the statements in Frankel’s article “were and are 100 percent false and defamatory.”

“The complaint alleges The Times was aware of the falsity at the time it published them, but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign, while misleading its own readers in the process,” Ellis said.

Trump has repeatedly called suggestions that his campaign colluded with Russian agents during the 2016 “a hoax.”

Last year, Times CEO Mark Thompson called Trump’s verbal attacks against individual journalists “stupid” and “dangerous.”

“The president is entirely entitled to not like everything he reads in The New York Times, I get that,” Thompson said in June at the CNBC Evolve forum in New York.

“He has every right to say he doesn’t like the way we cover him or cover anything else. So this is not saying we shouldn’t be criticized,” Thompson said.

“But actually isolating journalists, as a group, not just the Times, but the whole industry, is a really frankly hostile, stupid but also dangerous thing to do.”
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: aa1234779 on March 27, 2020, 06:16 AM
Hello everyone..
It's really nice to visit the forum again and see that scarface is still relentlessly posting his stuff for everyone..
How are u all..
I've been doing ok..
Mostly watching good stuff on Youtube which I will share some of here..

1-Joe Rogan's podcast... It's fun & educational..
Lately he's had a Michael Olsterholm who's an expert on infection disease..
13 million people have watched the episode so far to learn about Covid-19
the Corona virus.. I ask Allah Almighty to protect u all & all the good people in the world
from this unseen thing that's got the world down to her knees..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3URhJx0NSw
As you all might expect.. I also watched many of his episodes including the ones with Alex Jones.. Jordan Peterson.. Sargon of Akkad..
and the list goes on.. as I said.. fun & educational..


2-Jordan Peterson content.. interviews videos..
and I saw the documentary about him.. "The Rise of Jordan Peterson" which was on Amazon Prime..
He's a good person & a great western intellectual & thinker.. I pray that he & his wife have good health and we see him soon debating the issues of our times..

3- SomeOrdinaryGamers - an Indian Canadian's channel that absolutely kicks ***!

4- Professor Dave Explains - making scientific stuff simple.. I mostly admire how he absolutely debunks flat-earth theory..


I also watched a documentary called (Above Majestic) and I think it's either batshitcrazy or possible.. who knows..
I recommend!

Also.. If I may make a request...
How about we start a thread on what we can do during isolation due to the Corona virus?
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on March 27, 2020, 06:33 AM
Quote from: aa1234779 on March 27, 2020, 06:16 AM
Also.. If I may make a request...
How about we start a thread on what we can do during isolation due to the Corona virus?
Well, do it...
Since you are talking about isolation, I guess you are isolated.
But right here, in Clermont Ferrand, I must say I am taking the risk to go out. This morning I went to the supermarket to buy another great bottle of wine. It will be the occasion to present another recipe tonight (it is currently 4.30 am here, but I am awake). Note that there are controls mainly in public places. Therefore train stations or parks should be avoided. I read that one million people left the Paris region. It is pretty understandable since there is no more food in the supermarkets and the people go back to the countryside to find food. What is more, the police is less reluctant to give fines in the biggest towns (In Paris the police is always on the edge).
Here you can find a few pictures of what is going on: https://news.konbini.com/societe/en-plein-confinement-les-rues-vides-de-paris-documentees-par-bichara/
Besides, you can find some movies on the forum, but in all likelihood you must have already watched most of them.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on March 27, 2020, 07:16 PM
I have got some good news for the users of the forum:

France extends coronavirus lockdown by two weeks to April 15.
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in a speech the government had decided to extend the country's coronavirus lockdown by two weeks until April 15.

"After these first 10 days of confinement, it is clear that we are just at the beginning of this epidemic wave. It has submerged eastern France and now it is arriving in the Paris region and northern France," Philippe said.

He said for this reason, the confinement period would be extended by two weeks from Tuesday next week, and added that the same rules would apply. He said that this period would only be extended again if the health situation required it.
(https://i.ibb.co/znq40MY/philippe.jpg)



Note that I am going to release a new version of windows 10 x64 with new patches and drivers.
(https://i.ibb.co/swb7WK0/Windows-10-Wallpaper-1440x900-1.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on March 28, 2020, 05:57 AM
As I've said many times before, I'm sick and tired of this mass hysteria concerning Covid19. Let me remind everyone that this thing is nothing more than a very bad cold whose overall kill ratio is less than 5%. Look here (https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid-19-coronavirus-infographic-datapack/) for some hard facts. I don't believe bullshit, I believe numbers. Let me say once again: if this were Ebola or Bubonic Plague, then all this would make perfect sense. This thing is neither, not even close.

Believe me, mass hysteria is a very dangerous thing. People invent their own facts based on panic, and panic is very contagious. An excellent example of this is what happened to American of Japanese descent in 1942. Many were arrested, their assets were seized, and they were sent off to concentration camps in the desert. All this without a single shred of evidence that they were a danger to the Unites States.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: Shadow.97 on March 28, 2020, 06:05 AM
Quote from: humbert on March 28, 2020, 05:57 AM
As I've said many times before, I'm sick and tired of this mass hysteria concerning Covid19. Let me remind everyone that this thing is nothing more than a very bad cold whose overall kill ratio is less than 5%. Look here (https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid-19-coronavirus-infographic-datapack/) for some hard facts. I don't believe bullshit, I believe numbers. Let me say once again: if this were Ebola or Bubonic Plague, then all this would make perfect sense. This thing is neither, not even close.

Believe me, mass hysteria is a very dangerous thing. People invent their own facts based on panic, and panic is very contagious. An excellent example of this is what happened to American of Japanese descent in 1942. Many were arrested, their assets were seized, and they were sent off to concentration camps in the desert. All this without a single shred of evidence that they were a danger to the Unites States.
The issue isnt that it is deadly in itself, it is how fast it's spread and the toll it is taking on the hospitals by the sudden impact. They're trying to buy time by decreasing how many are infected. The more people who have to go to hospital due to corona the less people will be able to have non-critical surgury, which overtime can become critical. Just because the beds are filled.
Thats how I've interpreted the information, not that it in itself is very bad.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: humbert on March 28, 2020, 06:11 AM
Quote from: Shadow.97 on March 28, 2020, 06:05 AM
The issue isnt that it is deadly in itself, it is how fast it's spread and the toll it is taking on the hospitals by the sudden impact. They're trying to buy time by decreasing how many are infected. The more people who have to go to hospital due to corona the less people will be able to have non-critical surgury, which overtime can become critical. Just because the beds are filled.

I agree that something like this would overwhelm the health care system. What people don't factor into the equation is that 80% of people who have this thing don't even need hospitalization. They could just be sent home and they'll recover on their own. Then again there's fear of a mass contagion which prevents rational action.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on June 20, 2020, 01:11 AM
Tonight, I'm going to talk about an article released a few days ago about a mysterious egg.



After nearly a decade of mystery, scientists have confirmed that an unusual fossil from Antarctica is actually a massive egg â€" and it may have belonged to a real-life Loch Ness Monster.

The fossilized, soft-shelled egg is the biggest discovery of its kind, and the first-ever egg to turn up on the Earth's southernmost continent. The 66-million-year-old egg likely came from a giant, ancient reptile, reports a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Since its 2011 discovery, the egg fossil had puzzled researchers, who have likened it to a deflated football. The peculiar oval, which is about 11 inches long and 7 inches wide, earned a nickname among scientists that matched its mystery: "The Thing."

In the new findings, researchers used microscopic analysis to confirm that the fossil is indeed an ancient egg. Researchers analyzed the body size of 260 living reptiles, compared with their egg sizes, to estimate that the animal that laid the egg would have been more than 20 feet long.

Unlike hard dinosaur eggs, The Thing is soft-shelled, like a turtle's egg. That suggests the egg belonged instead to a massive aquatic reptile â€" like the mosasaurus, an aquatic reptilian predator that lived in the Late Cretaceous.

(https://i.ibb.co/n8BGFff/egg.png)

"It is from an animal the size of a large dinosaur, but it is completely unlike a dinosaur egg," lead author Lucas Legendre, a postdoctoral researcher at The University of Texas at Austin, says. "It is most similar to the eggs of lizards and snakes, but it is from a truly giant relative of these animals."

The researchers say that the egg is similar to modern snake and lizard eggs, which are sometimes transparent and hatch moments after they're laid.

(https://i.ibb.co/9tWLRC3/mosasaurus.png)

Who laid the egg? â€" Without a skeleton inside, paleontologists don't have any way of confirming what massive prehistoric creature laid The Thing.

But if it is indeed a mosasaurs' egg, the new finding would overturn what scientists have previously thought â€" that these ancient creatures didn't lay eggs. Since there are no living aquatic reptiles the size of a mosasaurus, the egg seems to be in a class of its own.

There are some encouraging clues: Researchers know that mosasaurs lived in Antarctica and the Antarctica rock formation where the egg was found also contained fossils from mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. Those fossilized remains have fascinated researchers and the public for centuries â€" in fact, some theories suggest that the pair directly influenced Loch Ness Monster lore.

In a 2019 study, researchers found that a type of "dino-mania" followed the discovery of creatures like mosasaurs and plesiosaurs. Essentially, people became collectively taken with the sea monsters, and they began to appear before people's very eyes. Those study authors partially proved a theory laid out by American science fiction writer L. Sprague de Camp: "After Mesozoic reptiles became well-known, reports of sea serpents, which until then had tended towards the serpentine, began to describe the monster as more and more resembling a Mesozoic reptile than like a plesiosaur or mosasaur."

It stands to reason that you can't fear what you don't know â€" and after you've been exposed to a monstrous, 20-foot-long aquatic reptile predator, there's really no looking back.


Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on July 26, 2020, 02:24 AM
Currently, in the south of the Hauts de Seine, it's raining cats and dogs out there and it is pretty cold.
I'm talking about the weather because I stumbled upon an article about the adaptation capacity of the cities to climate change, and the article is focusing on Paris and London.
I'm going to translate it and then I will put it on the forum.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 07, 2020, 12:04 AM
For those who want to read the latest edition of the newspaper Le monde, it is available here (in French):
https://easyupload.io/z127kt

Note that there is an interesting article about the port of Beirut.

(https://i.ibb.co/ccb4sgz/icon.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on September 17, 2020, 01:06 AM
You know that I am teleworking because ( or thanks to) of the Covid19. If I can finish my work tomorrow, maybe I will go to the 8th arrondissement on Saturday.
Humbert already knows the champs Elysées, but I didn't take many photos of the adjacent streets. Or maybe I'll take some photos elsewhere.

Maybe you remember the photos of Fauchon and the blond waitress, taken in 2015 here: https://www.nomaher.com/forum/index.php?topic=2283.msg16072#msg16072
Well, this store is going to close. Fauchon, one of France's most luxurious food outlets, is to close two flagship shops in Paris, blaming the combined effects of the coronavirus and months of yellow vests protests. 700,000 salaried jobs were already lost in the first half of the year.
A court confirmed the closure of the shops in the up-market Place de la Madeleine in the heart of the capital, where it has operated since it first opened 134 years ago.
The closures, which will mean the loss of 77 jobs, leave the historic company with its hotel, Grand Café and a tea shop in Paris, on top of a global network of 73 shops.
In normal times, Fauchon is major draw for well-heeled tourists from around the world. But the luxury grocers announced in June that its Paris operations would go into administration to get them back on their feet. Its sales were hit badly not just by the months-long closures imposed by the coronavirus lockdown earlier this year, but by the "yellow vest" anti-government protests of 2018-2019 and strikes over pension reforms this winter.
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 01, 2020, 07:32 AM
In this message, I'm suggesting today's edition of the newspaper Le monde (in French).
On page 18, you'll find an interesting article about Disneyland and unemployment.

Link here: https://easyupload.io/md40ov

(https://i.ibb.co/r4YFvCz/Le-monde.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 02, 2020, 04:31 AM
Today's edition of the newspaper Le monde (in French) is available on the forum.

Link here: https://easyupload.io/cy6nrr


(https://i.ibb.co/XVtYxp0/Le-monde.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 04, 2020, 03:10 PM
Today, I'm going to talk about Egypt.

Egypt's tourism and antiquities minister said on Saturday that archaeologists have unearthed dozens of ancient coffins in a vast necropolis south of Cairo.
At least 59 sealed sarcophagi, with mummies inside most of them, were found that had been buried in three wells more than 2,600 years ago.
The wooden sarcophagi are exquisitely painted and still bear their original hieroglyphs.

The most exciting part for Egyptologists, though, is that an initial analysis shows these casketsâ€"thought to be more than 2,500 years oldâ€"have not been opened since they were buried. According to a statement from the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, the finds were discovered deep in burial shafts at Saqqara.
For more than 3,000 years, this vast necropolis was where Egyptians living in the ancient capital of Memphis buried their dead.
Archaeologists are currently working to determine the origins of these caskets.

The Saqqara plateau hosts at least 11 pyramids, including the Step Pyramid, along with hundreds of tombs of ancient officials and other sites that range from the 1st Dynasty (2920 B.C.-2770 B.C.) to the Coptic period (395-642).

(https://i.ibb.co/vJmGhPL/egyptian-sarcophagi-2.jpg)

(https://i.ibb.co/LQSfnQb/cfc8cea-5447997-01-06.jpg)
Title: Re: Documentaries
Post by: scarface on October 25, 2020, 11:40 PM
Tonight, I found an interesting article in the newspaper Le monde about climate change.
Maybe you will be interested in this article.


Dominique Méda: "Climate change forces us to review our knowledge, including in economics"
The sociologist details, in his column, the failure of economists to understand the ecological catastrophe with their traditional tools


During a climate walk in Quezon, Philippines, September 25, 2020.
(https://i.ibb.co/xD2Lxhn/quezon.jpg)


Should environmentalists break with the critique of growth, productivism and capitalism, to realistically lead the “ecological transition”? In 1972, the Club of Rome report titled "Limits to Growth" (Rue de l'Echiquier, 2012) - better known as the "Meadows Report", signed by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dennis and Donnella Meadows - predicted a collapse of our societies before the end of the 21st century if drastic measures were not taken to slow the pace of growth.

These results were immediately and violently criticized by an economist, William Nordhaus, future recipient, in 2018, of the Bank of Sweden's Prize in economics. He criticized the Meadows in particular for not introducing the notion of price into their model: the price signal would, according to him, make it possible to organize the substitution of one scarce resource for another and to stop, thanks to technological progress, the risk of depletion of natural resources and pollution. With the crisis of the late 1970s, the work of the Meadows was forgotten and it is the model proposed by Nordhaus that was widely adopted, as recounted in the fascinating book Les Modèles du futur (La Découverte, 2007).

The accuracy of the Meadows projections, however, has been confirmed by an Australian researcher, Graham Turner, who compared them to real data: he demonstrated the validity of most of the MIT team's predictions. As for the work of Nordhaus, they have been the subject of strong criticism in recent years: according to his opponents, the economist has minimized the effects of climate change, considering that it would only occur in a very distant future, and would have been mainly interested in the cost of the ecological transition without taking into account physical questions, indicating for example that a warming of 6 degrees would cost 10 points of GDP and that the optimal solution would consist of a warming of 3.5 °C in 2100…

In an article published in 2019 on the Mint Magazine website and translated in French, Australian economist Steve Keen strongly denounced the work of Nordhaus. According to him, he has failed to integrate into his equations a decisive notion for climatologists: that of the tipping point, which means that changes are not linear and can experience sudden changes once certain thresholds are reached. He concluded his reflections thus: “Rather than 'integrating climate change into long-term economic analysis', as his Nobel Prize winner mentions, Nordhaus took the human species on a walk that leads them to the possibility of 'a massacre. He will take his Nobel Prize to his grave, but we, we have to get out of this death march now. Given the irreparably bad level of work economists have done on the economic consequences of climate change, this task should be left in the hands of climatologists.
like Steffen, Lenton and Garrett. They can at least be trusted to understand what global warming is."