1, For all readers who use a MAC computer, you may find the following podcast to be of use.
2. North Korea’s belligerence grows, and grows more dangerous.
(Trump will likely be blamed for the war that is now inevitable and not the people who allowed this tumour to grow and metastasize)
2a. China Pushes Back on U.S. Talk of ‘All Options’ Over North Korea
Wang spoke at a briefing in Beijing with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who in Seoul on Friday refused to rule out a preemptive strike against Pyongyang if the threat from its weapons program was deemed severe enough. While that’s largely in line with prior U.S. positions, Tillerson’s comments — and Twitter posts from President Donald Trump — signal the level of concern over North Korea is rising.
2b. NORTH KOREA TESTS NEWLY DEVELOPED HIGH-THRUST ROCKET ENGINE
TOKYO (AP) — North Korea has conducted a ground test of a new type of high-thrust rocket engine that leader Kim Jong Un is calling a revolutionary breakthrough for the country’s space program, the North’s state media said Sunday.
Kim attended Saturday’s test at the Sohae launch site, according to the Korean Central News Agency, which said the test was intended to confirm the “new type” of engine’s thrust power and gauge the reliability of its control system and structural safety.
Kim called the test “a great event of historic significance” for the country’s indigenous rocket industry, the KCNA report said.
He also said the “whole world will soon witness what eventful significance the great victory won today carries” and claimed the test marks what will be known as the “March 18 revolution” in the development of the country’s rocket industry.
2c. Sirens blare as Japan, fearing North Korea, holds first missile drill
Sirens blared and loudspeakers broadcast warnings in Japan’s first civilian missile evacuation drill on Friday, conducted in a fishing town by officials wary about the threat of North Korean missiles.
The exercise comes more than a week after North Korea launched four ballistic missiles into the sea off Japan’s northwest coast, with one rocket landing about 200 km (124 miles)from the town of Oga.
Friday’s drill played out a scenario in which North Korea had fired a ballistic missile on the Japanese islands.
2d. Rex Tillerson: “All options are on the table” “The policy of strategic patience has ended”
3. Listen to BBC Asian Network Caller Live on Air: ‘Those Who Insult Islam Should be Killed
A self-identified Birmingham Muslim has told the BBC that those who “insult Islam” should be subject to the death penalty, during a discussion on blasphemy organised by the broadcaster’s Asian Network.
On March 17th, the BBC Asian Network broadcast a programme asking listeners, “What is the right punishment for blasphemy?”
4. German Intelligence Chief Says No Evidence Gulen Behind Turkey Coup
“Turkey has tried on different levels to convince us of that fact, but they have not succeeded,” Federal Intelligence Service (BND) President Bruno Kahl told Der Spiegel in an interview published March 18.
Kahl said that despite gathering information from a variety of sources, the BND could not find a direct link between what Turkey calls the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) and the coup attempt, the Daily Sabah reported. He also called Gulen’s organization merely a “civil association for religious and secular education.” Turkey classifies the group as a terrorist organization.
5. Germany celebrates Islamic migration in song
6. Afghan soldier wounds 3 US soldiers in “green on blue” attack
7. Erdogan: European Headscarf Ban ‘Started a Clash Between the Cross and the Crescent’
(Translation: Let us take over peacefully or we will take over violently but we will not change one thing about our beliefs or behaviours in your countries no matter what)
In addition to his customary invective against European governments for refusing to allow his ministers to rally Turkish expatriates behind him, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that the EU’s new ban on headscarves in the workplace would launch “a struggle between the cross and the crescent.”
“Where is the liberty of religion? They have commenced a struggle between the cross and crescent. There is no other explanation than this. I am saying this clearly: Europe is heading toward the days just before World War II,” said Erdogan, as rendered by Hurriyet Daily News.
Euractiv transcribes Erdogan’s quote as, “The European Union’s court, the European Court of Justice, my esteemed brothers, have started a crusade struggle against the crescent,” which would be even more incendiary. Jihad and Islamist groups perpetually accuse Western powers of conducting another “crusade” against Muslims.
Thank you Pym Purnell, M., Wrath of Khan, MissPiggy, Oz-RIta, ML., and many more whom I have lost track of. Please keep sending them in via the daily Reader’s links post.
For those of you that are entertained by profound levels of religious wackiness and magical thinking, check this out:
2 – Tillerson’s visit to China is a replay of Chamberlain going to Munich, the big difference I doubt if Tillerson is going to be stupid enough to give away the farm in the naive belief that China and North Korea are going to be bought off by our groveling and betraying allies. I don’t know how long before the shooting starts but Erodgan will start his moves against Europe at the same time. This time it is going to have to be Europe that takes second place and the war in the Pacific first place.
4 – I have always thought Erdogan had his people organize the coup thus drawing out the military officers who were willing to replace him (Erdogan) with a secularist.
headscarfs until recently were banned in Turkey http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11880622
Quiet end to Turkey’s college headscarf ban By Jonathan Head BBC News, Istanbul 31 December 2010 The more recent ban on headscarves in universities and for public servants dates back to regulations passed by government departments in the 1980s, after the last military coup….Emine Erdogan, the wife of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was blocked from entering a military hospital in 2007 for refusing to remove hers.Mr Erdogan tried to overturn the university ban in 2008, through a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to education. It passed through parliament, but was thrown out by the Constitutional Court. But this year, with the momentum behind him after winning the constitutional referendum in September and more compliant bureaucrats in the Board of Education, the government in effect ended the ban by stealth.
Regarding the ‘Simpsons’, they do have a track record of ‘predicting’ events which is certainly strange – far above chance, I would think.
Most of the “predictions” by the Simpsons I have seen, are the result of ferociously dishonest editing.
At one point, I think it was Alex Jones, but I can’t swear to it, said that Family Guy had predicted something but someone had actually re edited parts of an episode in a different way to make it look like they had. The original was nothing of the sort.
The Simpsons have used countless teams of writers for a couple of decades or more. In fact, I can’t even watch it anymore because Bart Simpson now sounds like an old lady, which in fact the voice actor is, and really all of them sound so old I can’t suspect disbelief.
The wife in Bob’s burgers is played by a gay man, but he sells it. The Simpsons cast sound like they all escaped the nursing home.
The point being that they make up so many insane, nearly unbelievable stories but plausible enough to happen (or you wouldn’t believe it enough to be entertained) that some of them will come close to the mark. It means nothing other than if you can cast the dice enough times, within a field of the probable, a few times you will hit something sort of like it.
Nostradamus for instance was notoriously wrong on everything. But he managed to get a few close enough that believers buy and sell it with invented rules about letter substitutions and other absurdities that make round pegs fit in square holes with a greased shoe horn of sorts.