Foreign Policy ?

Misery...

After months of fighting to encircle its opponents in Aleppo, Syrian authorities backed by Russia  offered safe corridors out for residents and rebels in the northern city's besieged quarters, underlining the government's determination to seal off the metropolis and force an eventual surrender by the opposition.

The encirclement of rebel-held eastern Aleppo sets the stage for a drawn-out siege with potentially huge implications for the future of the armed opposition to President Bashar Assad. The military continued to consolidate its grip, seizing a district on the northern edge of the city.

On the other hand, a representative announce "We declare the complete cancellation of all operations under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra, and the formation of a new organisation with no affiliation to any external entity," .

The supposed breakup comes less than two weeks after Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States and Russia had agreed to cooperate in Syria against al Nusra in an effort to "restore the cessation of hostilities, significantly reduce the violence.

This war went full circle with a terrible outcome and plenty of misery to the Syrian people and the expansion of migrants problems. Let us get out.   Just a thought.

Truth serum

Computer security researchers say it’s difficult to definitively say the cyber theft of files from the Democratic National Committee subsequently was the work of  Russian hackers, as some media outlets have reported.

On Friday, Wikileaks released 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from leaders at the D N C.

The documents show antipathy toward Bernie Sanders, who had hoped to win the party's presidential nomination. They infuriated Sanders supporters and led to U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s announcement she would step down.

Hillary Clinton's campaign manager,  said on ABC's that the emails had been extracted by the Russians to help Donald Trump's campaign.....?

 The Russians didn't write the e mails. Safety and Security of the Country, Terrorism, instability of the Middle East, Migrants, Immigration, trust, among others, are all pouring in together. So who do you trust at this time? Things may clear out in the coming three months.

Just a thought.

Investment

Prosecutors say the case began when several people were caught trying to sell 11 pounds of methamphetamine worth $500,000.

Court records show that Ronnie Music of Waycross pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and, being a felon, in possession of firearms. Federal prosecutors said that Music, who won $3 million in the Georgia lottery, used the money to buy methamphetamine to sell.

U.S. Attorney Ed Tarver said in a statement that Music tried to test his luck by using lottery winnings to deal drugs and now faces decades in prison because of his "unsound investment strategy."

Way to go Playa.... Just a thought.

New Problem

 A failed asylum-seeker from Syria blew himself up and wounded 15 people after being turned away from an open-air music festival in southern Germany, authorities said Monday. It was the fourth attack to shake Germany in a week three of them carried out by recent migrants.

The 27-year-old set off a backpack laden with explosives and sharp bits of metal outside a wine bar Sunday night after being refused entry to the nearby festival in the southern town of Ansbach because he didn't have a ticket.

A spokesman for Germany's interior ministry said the man had received two deportation notices.

Two days earlier, a man [German-Iranian] went on a deadly rampage at a Munich mall, killing nine people and leaving dozens wounded. Police said that he had planned the attack for a year.

And an ax attack on a train near Wuerzburg last Monday wounded five. A 17-year-old Afghan asylum-seeker was shot and killed by police as he fled the scene. 

These attacks came shortly after a Tunisian man driving a truck killed 84 people when he plowed through a festive crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, along the famed French Riviera.

The culture, perceived religion, society norm, freedom of women, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, choices, respect for life, can be shocking to so many of the migrants. Just a thought.

Boos...

Ted Cruz defended his decision not to endorse Donald Trump after the real estate mogul’s attacks on his family during the primary. He added, “That pledge [to endorse the Republican Nominee] was not a blanket commitment.

[During the primary campaign, Trump retweeted an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz along with one of his ex-model wife, Melania Trump, writing, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Trump at one point insinuated that Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz’s father, was a conspirator in President John Kennedy’s assassination.]

The boos began during Cruz’s speech to the RNC after it became clear he would not be endorsing Trump as the party’s nominee. Cruz also received a hostile reception from some Texas delegation. One held a sign that read “Cruz-Clinton,” and others broke into chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!”

Cruz called it “troubling” that he was booed. “What I wanted to do is lay out the principles I believe we stand for as Republicans,” he went on to say.  Cruz vowed that he would not to say anything negative about Trump.

Ted is for Ted .....   He had a choice. He could stay home, attend and not speak, or speak and not waste our time.   Just a thought.

Eat...*!

Sodium plays a key role in balancing the levels of fluid in our bodies by signaling to the kidneys when to retain water and when to get rid of it. A high-sodium diet can interfere with this delicate process and reduce kidney function. Less water removed, may lead to higher blood pressure. Excess strain on the kidneys can lead to kidney disease or exacerbate kidney problems.

This will lead to many serious conditions, such as stroke and heart failure. Although blood pressure increases naturally with age, according to the American Heart Association, reducing your salt intake can help prevent your blood pressure from increasing too much.

About 75 percent of the sodium we consume comes not from the salt shaker, but rather in processed and restaurant food.

A 2011 Australian study found that the brain responds to sodium similar to how it does for substances such as heroin, cocaine, and nicotine.

Canadian study on 1,200 older sedentary adults with normal brain function found that over the course of three years, high-sodium diets were linked to increased risk of cognitive decline. This result was “independent of hypertension and global diet quality” 


Excessive salt in the diet can cause swelling in the hands, arms, ankles, legs, and feet, caused by fluid retention. 

Look for the labels of any product and steer away of the high salt content.   Just a thought.

...and Alcohol

A man and a woman in Massachusetts have been convicted of charges they sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl and recorded the attack using Snapchat.

The victim told the court she remembered waking up nude and confused. "I remember saying, like, 'stop taking pictures of me'....I was naked and I was getting flashes,".

Among those watching the assault on Snapchat was teenager Syndee Enos, who took the witness stand. She said she knew the teens in the video, and that she saw the victim being restrained.  She recognized Kayilyn's blue hair.

"She was holding her down...almost in a headlock," said Enos. "She was kind of wiggling around trying to get out of it."

Screenshots from the Snapchat video were shown to jurors during the trial. The victim recalled drinking vodka with Deihim and Bonia on a couch in the woods near an elementary school in Saugus.

   Just a thought.

Needle....?

Image is not related.

The popular, needle-free FluMist influenza vaccine has not protected kids or adults against flu for years and should not be used this coming flu season, experts said.  FluMist was only 3% effective last flu season, CDC said.

The surprise decision could also leave pediatricians short of vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
                     

"In comparison, inactivated influenza vaccine (flu shots) had a vaccine effectiveness estimate of 63% against any flu virus among children 2 years through 17 years."
AstraZeneca said other research contradicts ACIP's and the CDC's findings.

The CDC recommends that just about everyone should be vaccinated against influenza every year. Even when the vaccines on the market do not work perfectly, vaccinated people are less likely to get severely ill and die from flu.

"How well the flu vaccine works can range widely from season to season and can be affected by a number of factors, including the person being vaccinated, the similarity between vaccine viruses and circulating viruses, and even which vaccine is used," the CDC said.  Just a thought.

Doing his job...

An officer with the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department died Tuesday after being shot while investigating a report of gunfire, reports CBS affiliate KCTV.

Police say three or four people were inside a vehicle when police approached the scene where gunfire had been reported, at about 1:33 p.m. An officer took a suspect into custody minutes later, but other suspects fled, according to police.

Capt. Robert Melton, 46, was searching for one of the suspects when he drove up to someone who matched that person's description just before 2 p.m., police spokesman Tom Tomasic said. Before Melton could get out of his vehicle, the suspect opened fire and hit the officer multiple times, Tomasic said. The alleged shooter was caught five minutes later about a block away, he said.
Sad story.

Trouble...

Migrants who landed in Greece.

The coup attempt took Turkey out of Europe and placed it squarely in the Middle East. It tore away the country's stability. This added to ISIS suicide attacks; fighting with the Kurdish  (PKK); wholesale destruction of Kurdish towns by Turkey's security forces [given immunity]; and the ongoing Low-level violence targeting women.

 A government witch hunt for "putschists" and massive violent reprisals means more anger, more polarization and a destabilized population that is more likely to seek protection from outside. Groups like ISIS will likely capitalize on this disenchantment to seek more recruits.

The ruling party has systematically throttled the independence of state institutions, the media, education, civil society, and the highest courts in the land. It has tried to muzzle the army through a series of court cases that jailed hundreds of officers. 

Friday's tragedy is largely self-inflicted by a government who trade in a functioning democracy for dictatorial power. .  More Migrants to Europe ahead. Just a thought.

Robbery ???

Image not related.

In a period of low inflation and sluggish economic growth, Drug makers’ power to raise prices still exceeds most other industries. The magnitude and frequency of the increases have grown in recent years.

Prices received by manufacturers of U.S.-made pharmaceuticals rose 9.8% from May 2015 through May 2016, the second-highest increase among the 20 largest products and services tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index. 

Biogen Inc.  reported that U.S. sales of its multiple sclerosis pill Tecfidera rose 15% to $744.3 million in the first quarter, the company explained it “was primarily due to price increases.” U.S. revenue for Biogen’s other biggest-selling products, Avonex and Tysabri, also benefited from higher prices, Biogen said.

Gilead Sciences Inc. said higher U.S. prices positively affected revenue for four HIV medications that had combined global sales of $2.43 billion in the first quarter. For example, sales of Truvada rose 16% to $898 million in the quarter on the back of higher prices and increased use as a preventive treatment for HIV.

Amgen raised Enbrel’s U.S. list price by 28% last year, and an additional 9.9% in July, according to Leerink.  A Pfizer spokesman declined to specifically address the company’s price increases. 

Some reports projected that per-beneficiary Part D spending will grow by 75% from 2015 to 2025, compared with a 37% rise in hospital spending and 57% increase in doctors’ cost.

Make the pills' market Fair for senior citizen.    Just a thought.              

Bull..

An American was gored and five other runners were injured in the next-to-last running of the bulls at Pamplona's San Fermin festival, officials said.  One of the six bulls crashed into a group of runners close to a fence.

More than a thousand people took part in the 8 a.m.  dash with six fighting bulls and their accompanying steer along a 930-yard  street course to the city's bull ring. The bulls then face matadors. The nationally televised run lasted 2½ minutes.

The nine-day fiesta, known also for its 24-hour street partying, became world famous with Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises." It attracts thousands of foreign tourists.

Six were arrested for suspected sexual assault, including rape, and 10 for suspected sexual harassment, officials said. Nine foreigners were arrested, including six Frenchmen, a Bolivian, a Pakistani and a Romanian.

The city government, political parties feminist and social groups cooperated to hold two major rallies to protest against sexual aggression since the festival began.

Don't mess with the bull.      Just a thought.

Again...*!

Former Valeant CEO Michael Pearson unloaded more of his personal holdings nearly 5 million shares and options for a total of $96.8 million. The news comes the same day that the Sequoia Fund revealed it is completely out of the stock. Sequoia was at one time the largest Valeant shareholder.

Wednesday also saw short seller Andrew Left say the company's stockcould be headed to zero [ $23/Share and was $264 at its high]. That news took more than 7 percent out of its shares.

The company came under fire when The New York Times reported that Valeant and other pharmaceutical companies were using a network of specialty pharmacies to sustain sales of their high-priced drugs and prevent patients and insurers from switching to cheaper generic drugs. Citron Research subsequently published a note calling Valeant the "pharmaceutical Enron."  

 Social Security annual increase for inflation was zero, yet medications' prices doubles every three years......   Just a thought.

Noah's Ark

The Noah's ark mosaic included pairs of animals, such as lions, leopards, bears, and donkeys.

Mosaics depicting prominent Bible scenes were uncovered during annual excavations of an ancient synagogue in Israel's Lower Galilee.

During the excavation in June, archaeologists found two new panels of a mosaic floor in a Late Roman (fifth-century) synagogue at Huqoq, an ancient Jewish village. One panel showed Noah's ark with pairs of animals, such as lions, leopards and bears.

The other panel depicted soldiers being swallowed by large fish, surrounded by overturned chariots in the parting of the Red Sea.

Such images are extremely rare for the time period, according to excavation director Jodi Magness, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"I know of only two other scenes of the parting of the Red Sea in ancient synagogues," Magness told National Geographic.

"One is in the wall paintings at Dura Europos [in Syria], which is a complete scene but different from ours -- no fish devouring the Egyptian soldiers," Magness said. "The other is at Wadi Hamam [in Israel], but that's very fragmentary and poorly preserved."

Worth take a look. Just  thought.

Down side..

In the late 1920s, Benjamin Graham, of Columbia University,  was considered the father of value investment. He taught his disciples to buy undervalued assets with a significant "margin of safety." Graham's risk-averse approach helped many to survive and prosper through the Great Depression.

Considering the downside is an important aspect investors must do before any consideration for gains. People think they're pretty smart because they can do something quite rapidly. 

Investors should focus first on preserving their capital, instead of aiming to shoot the lights out. "If you achieve only reasonable returns and suffer minimal losses, you will become a wealthy and will surpass any gambler friends you have . This is also a good way to cure your sleeping problems.

As the manager of Legg Mason Value Trust, Bill Miller achieved the historic feat of beating the market for 15 consecutive years. Then, in one catastrophic year, 2008, everything came tumbling down.  Legg Mason Value Trust fell 55 %.

So don't be a hot shot these coming months.... think risk averse.   Just a thought.

Hands On...*!

Gretchen Carlson, 50, an anchor at Fox News Channel for more than a decade claims that her hands-on boss, chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, 76, fired her because she refused to sleep with him but lavished lucrative attention on other women in the newsroom "who did not complain about harassment or rebuff his sexual advances."

Ailes said "This is a retaliatory suit for the network’s decision not to renew her contract, which was due to the fact that her disappointingly low ratings were dragging down the afternoon lineup".
When Fox News did not commence any negotiations to renew her contract, Ms. Carlson conveniently began to pursue a lawsuit.

Six women who crossed paths with Roger Ailes during the Fox News CEO’s rise to the top of conservative media have shared vile tales of the honcho demanding sex in exchange for career success.

Sexual favors doesn't build careers in the media, rating does. High or low rating will clearly flush any sexual harassment in the work place as it did.
....  Just a thought.

Judgment..?!!!!.

Mr. Comey’s 15-minute announcement, delivered with no advance warning three days after his investigators interviewed Mrs. Clinton in the case, riveted official Washington and is likely to reverberate for the rest of the campaign.

Mr. Comey rebuked Mrs. Clinton as being “extremely careless” in using a private email address and server.  He raised questions about her judgment, contradicted statements she has made about her email practices, said it was possible that hostile foreign governments had gained access to her account, and declared that a person still employed by the government  [Mrs. Clinton left the State Department in 2013]  could have faced disciplinary action for doing what she did.

 Of 30,000 emails handed over, 110 contained information that was classified. Of those, Mr. Comey said, “a very small number” bore markings that identified them as classified. This finding is at odds with Mrs. Clinton’s repeated assertions that none of the emails were classified at the time she sent or received them. 

The F.B.I. discovered “several thousand” work-related emails that were not in the original trove of 30,000 turned over to the State Department. 

In saying that it was “possible” that hostile foreign governments had gained access to Mrs. Clinton’s personal account, Mr. Comey noted that she used her mobile device extensively while traveling outside the United States, including trips “in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.”
Just a thought.

The lost...

        


The heavily armed sniper who gunned down police officers in downtown Dallas specifically set out to kill as many white officers as he could, officials said. He was a military veteran who had served in Afghanistan, and kept an arsenal in his home that included bomb-making materials.

The ambush started with gunshots that killed five officers and sent screaming crowds scrambling for cover. Investigators determined Johnson was "the lone shooter in this incident," Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said.

"This was a mobile shooter who had written manifestos on how to shoot and move, shoot and move, and that's what he did," Rawlings said at a news conference.

After the shooting subsided, Mr. Johnson, wielding an assault rifle and a handgun, held the police off for hours in a parking garage, claiming  to have planted explosives in the area, and threatening to kill more officers. In the end, the suspect was killed with an explosive delivered by a remote-controlled robot.