Front...*

Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar, saying it had broken promises to them about Gulf security.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have accused Qatar of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood,  a terrorist organization, accused of destabilizing their close ally Egypt.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE are big supporters of Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Iran.

In Libya, Qatar has backed some Islamist groups. UAE and Egypt had been involved in air strikes against Libyan Islamist groups.

In late 2011 Saudi Arabia pushed for Gulf Cooperation Council members to unite "as a single entity" in a bid to join the group of six monarchies into a united front against Iran and the instability caused by that year's Arab uprisings.

However, the GCC, which also includes Kuwait and Oman, appears more divided.

Add Israel, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iran to the mix and you can see where the money is coming from and the killing is going to.

Secretary of State is going to the Middle East to create a front against ISIL, or looking for a needle in a haystack.      Just a thought.   Posted 8/31/2015  

Force-Fullness...*

It's well-established that women often encounter a different set of expectations in the workplace. A new research has put a dollar figure on gender bias in the office.

A study conducted by corporate consultancy found that a woman's "perceived competence" fell 35 percent and her "perceived deserved compensation" dropped $15,088 when she spoke angrily or forcefully, Fast Company first reported.

The research featured male and female actors reading from different scripts and with varying levels of forcefulness. An observer assessed their worth and competence based on these interactions.

   

"In short, speaking forcefully creates a social backlash."  "That backlash is amplified for women and can adversely affect an individual's career and prove costly to an organization's effectiveness. [cnbc].

On the other hand it could be the same for men if the Manager is of the opposite sex. Some managers may consider a comment, a challenge or a forceful suggestion as a challenge and a threat to their positions.

Some perceive anything to be a challenge and a threat. Acting on it can simply destabilize own position unnecessarily.   Just a thought.

Stagnation...*

The steep decline in union membership in recent decades has had an outsize effect on the American workforce, a new study says.  The report argues the dwindling influence of unions is a significant but often ignored reason for wage stagnation. 

A study authored by Washington University a research scientist at Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy.

The fatter paychecks of union workers creates a more competitive labor market that forces nonunion companies to lift wages to prevent employees from jumping ship. And unions often establish labor-friendly policies that generally promote fairness in pay, benefits and worker treatment, according to the report.

The gains were not limited to nonunion workers at risk of joining unions, the study says. When those workers received raises, their higher-level supervisors who couldn't join unions also saw sharper pay increases to maintain salary hierarchies, the paper says.

But the losses engendered by shrinking union participation are most pronounced for nonunion private-sector male workers who lack a Bachelor's degree. 

Many politicians use the "anti-Union" stand knowing that they are hurting the little people. 
Enron and Arthur Anderson [Non Union companies] disintegrated in 2 months while GM is still viable.   Just a thought.  

الإنسانية

 العزيزة مس ليليان ، لم يسعدني شيئا بقدر ما شاهدته اليوم حتى تصورت إني أحلم بجنة الإنسانية التي أتخيلها دائما حتى رأيتها اليوم حقيقة رائعة ، فالعناية بالضعفاء من أطفال وأيتام وعجزة ، بنين وبنات ، رجال ونساء ، تتجلى هنا بكل ما في معاني الإنسانية من قوة ، فشكرا لمس ليليان ولجميع العاملين بهذه المؤسسة 

الرئيس اللواء أركان حرب محمد نجيب

وكتب لها عبد الناصر:
( أكتب لك شاكرا وأريد أن أخبرك إن عملك مع الأيتام يقدره كل مواطن في هذا البلد وأتمنى لك استمرارية النجاح في خدمتك الإجتماعية )

Reap...

The U.S.-led coalition said it may strike a convoy of IS militants that evacuated the Lebanon border headed toward eastern Syria under an agreement brokered by Hezbollah.

Coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon said the coalition has already struck a small bridge and punched a crater in a road to keep them from moving further east toward the border with Iraq.

The evacuation agreement had already angered many Iraqis, who accused Syria and Lebanon's Hezbollah of dumping the militants on the Iraqi border rather than eradicating them.

Lebanese troops launched an attack against IS, while Syrian troops and Hezbollah fighters launched a simultaneous offensive from the Syrian side of the border. The militants agreed to a cease-fire over the weekend once they had been squeezed into a small area along the frontier.

Reaping the love you sow.   Just a thought.

Harvee...

The Heart of some...

Ribbon...

The foreign ministers of Russia and the United Arab Emirates urged North Korea to stop its provocations and obey United Nations resolutions.

But what was left unsaid between the two ministers was their own diplomatic and commercial ties to North Korea, with the UAE in particular home to thousands of its workers whose wages help Pyongyang avoid international sanctions.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is visiting the UAE as part of a three Gulf Arab nation tour over the ongoing diplomatic crisis involving Qatar, avoided discussing that dispute. He instead focused in part on North Korea.

USA enacted new sanctions against Russia and North Korea. We need to work with other for peace. War didn't get us a peaceful existance.

My Vision...

One Bite...

The case against Steven Barnes in the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl seemed circumstantial, at best.  Two hairs that looked like the victim's; some dirt on a truck like that taken from the crime scene; a pattern on the bumper that resembled a design on the victim's popular brand of jeans, and that was enough.

He spent the next 20 years in prison before DNA testing exonerated him, becoming one of hundreds of people convicted in whole or in part on forensic science that has come under fire during the past decade.

Some of that science, analysis of bite marks, latent fingerprints, firearms identification, burn patterns in arson investigations, footwear patterns and tire treads, was once considered sound, but is now being denounced by some lawyers and scientists who say it has not been studied enough to prove its reliability and in some cases has led to wrongful convictions.

Two reports by scientific boards have sharply criticized the use of such forensic evidence, and universities that teach it are moving away from visual analysis  essentially, eyeballing it and toward more precise biometric tools.  Hope we use it right.   Just a thought.