Vladimir Putin: New Rules or a Game Without Rules — Defining Responsible Powers and Investing in Human Capital Instead of Propaganda

New Rules or a Game without Rules: “We Need a New Global Consensus of Responsible Powers” We are publishing full text of today’s address of the Russian President Vladimir Putin to the members of Vaidai International Discussion Club on 24 October 2014 in Sochi. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F9pQcqPdKo Complete Transcript Below the Fold — Strongly Recommended!

Owl: Dmitry Orlov on Ebola and Five Stages of Collapse — Financial, Commercial, Political, Social, Cultural

Dmitry Orlov on Ebola and the Five Stages of Collapse Orlov is one of the best futurists writing on society collapse, having witnessed and personally experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union. His book, Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Experience and American Prospects http://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Collapse-Experience-American-Prospects/dp/0865716854, is one of the best ever written in the collapse genre and …

Jean Lievens: PayPal Integrates BitCoin — This Is HUGE!

Why Paypal integrating with Bitcoin is a big deal: reader opinion By Malavika Nair Alabama.com, 2 October 2014 Paypal, the online payment processing giant, recently announced it would start letting its merchants accept Bitcoin by taking first steps toward integrating with three of the largest existing Bitcoin payment processing companies: Bitpay, Coinbase and GoCoin. This seemingly …

Nafeez Ahmed: How the West Created the Islamic State (ISIS) — Jordan Hosts the Command Center — Chalabi and NeoCons Ride Again…

How the West Created the Islamic State Follow the Money, Follow the Oil Nafeez Ahmed Counter-Punch, 12-14 September 2014 EXTRACTS Missing from the chorus of outrage, however, has been any acknowledgement of the integral role of covert US and British regional military intelligence strategy in empowering and even directly sponsoring the very same virulent Islamist …

Berto Jongman: Greenwald on ISIS, Rothkopf on National Insecurity Plus Spinney, Polk, Cockburn, and Steele on How ISIS and Hamas Have Won and Everything We Plan to Do Will Deepen Our Losses

Americans Now Fear ISIS Sleeper Cells Are Living in the U.S., Overwhelmingly Support Military Action Glenn Greenwald The Intercept, 8 September 2014 EXTRACTS What kind of country goes around bombing people with no strategic purpose and with little motive other than to “flex muscles” and “show toughness”? This answer also seems clear: one that is …