Friday, March 14, 2014

The two foreign ministers (click here) met amid tight security at the US ambassador's residence in London.

I am sure it was very candid. Two diplomats don't take a walk across a lawn alone unless it was candid.

Institutional purchases of housing is due to the mortgage backed securities.

If a company is invested in those securities it isn't going to allow attrition to bring their investment down. The properties are assets and can be sold when they deem opportunistic. Basically, the institutions own their own investment portfolio. It is sort of like insider trading. If the properties are failing simply buy them rather than allow the market to fall. They'll get their money back while they support their investment.

Published: Friday, 14 Mar 2014 | 9:24 AM ET
By: Alex Crippen
Senior Coordinating Producer

...During an appearance on CNBC's "Squawk Box," (click here) Buffett told 58-year-old host Joe Kernen that he will live to see the Dow at 100,000. "I won't, but you will," the 83-year-old Berkshire Hathaway chairman said....

Military assistance is a tough call.

It is a fine balance between stability and massacre. Right now those with guns feel confident in their strength and if that changes they could seek to institute attacks. They weren't even willing to accept UN observers into the Crimea to insure their safety. 

It is like walking on eggshells. At this point, the armed militias may still be taking orders from a higher authority. People can criticize Russia for their troop movements, but, those troops are a show of force so the militias don't have to.

The Ukraine is unstable. That is completely obvious. Once the arms are in the country there is no guarantee to the outcome. I will say this, the national military needs to be stronger than any militia. However, the USA and Europe aren't going anywhere, so they are a counter balance to the Russian presence as well. The militias won't get far if they decide to act on their own. Russia will move into the Ukraine to regain stability if that begins. BUT, the militias could seek to act to insight Russia's movement as well. In other words, Russia will take over the Ukraine. 

No one involved in this, be it nations within the treaty, the Ukraine government or the militias should desire any deaths. The global community won't put up with it. Promise! Russia is not necessarily interested in being the global rebel either. The Crimea militia invited this, no other country asked for the invite to engage the treaty.

And a national Ukraine military could never defeat a Russia military advance either. This is a really difficult situation. No one wants a bad outcome and now this morning there is another death. I do not like the brinkmanship of the feeding frenzy by the militias.

The best outcome is peace within this nation. Peace is actually more important than any election or ballot or referendum. The country's people need to make their own decisions about their safety and go about their lives.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States (click here) is weighing requests for military assistance from Ukraine, including both lethal and non-lethal support, two U.S. officials said on Thursday, as a prominent U.S. senator urged approval of any arms sought by Kiev.

The U.S. officials, who asked to speak on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the diplomatic discussions, said the United States had already decided to move ahead with some aid, including military food rations....


I hope this isn't insulting, but, I'll tell you a true story. The time was WWII and Egypt was being invaded by Hilter forces. The Suez and the fact Egypt was considered a British colony. 

There was a biologist working in the natural areas of Egypt. Egypt has a very rich biotic content. He was keeping records about his investigation to the growth of a biotic area. The soldiers invaded and he got really angry because he didn't want his work interrupted. You have to know a conservation biologist and the long timeline they work with to do their work to appreciate his anger.

So, he told his wife he would not be deterred from his mission. He took his usual equipment and continued his work in the face of the invasion and occupation by Axis forces. When he was confronted by soldiers he was unarmed and he told them it was to their benefit to leave him alone if they wanted to understand their land. He made it clear the work he was doing was vital to their meals in the future and he needed to complete his work. 

The bottom line is he continued his work and completed it. He was never a threat to any soldier and was an important person. He made them understand he was important and he needed to continue his work. He didn't protest, didn't take his case to authorities, he put it plainly to the very men with guns. 

True story and one many of my friends hold dear to the truth of their work. We don't recognize borders and boundaries. We know life and how precious it is.

Think about it.
Military radar-tracking evidence suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown across the Malay peninsula towards the Andaman Islands, sources familiar with the investigation told Reuters on Friday.

Reuters
Published: 2014-03-14 15:15:08.0 BdST  
Updated: 2014-03-14 15:19:00.0 BdST
 
Two sources (click here) said an unidentified aircraft that investigators believe was Flight MH370 was following a route between navigational waypoints - indicating it was being flown by someone with aviation training - when it was last plotted on military radar off the country's northwest coast.

The last plot on the military radar's tracking suggested the plane was flying toward India's Andaman Islands, a chain of isles between the Andaman Sea and the Bay of Bengal, they said.

Waypoints are geographic locations, worked out by calculating longitude and latitude, that help pilots navigate along established air corridors....


Yep. Pilots don't need radar to fly planes or jets for that matter. The higher the altitude the slower the land below moves, so it is easy to find island chains as landmarks to a destination.

 










In the USA, small planes use highways and natural boundaries as landmarks. It is very possible the flight was continued without the passengers awareness to an alternate destination. Once at the destination, who knows? The passengers were told they had to relinquish their cell phones for security checks into China. At some point the jet could have been boarded. India would take this possibility more seriously due to Mumbai.

This is exactly what Yanukovych wanted.

No one wants to state same, but, Yanukovych couped the Ukraine government when he dissolved the national military and instilled oligarch militias throughout the country.

POSTED: 14 Mar 2014 07:39 
UPDATED: 14 Mar 2014 16:53

...At least one pro-Kiev protester was stabbed and killed (click here) in the eastern city of Donetsk when a demonstration in favor of Ukrainian unity was attacked by a Russian separatist crowd.
News of the death broke as Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk addressed an emergency session of the UN Security Council on the crisis opposing his interim government and the Kremlin.
Yatsenyuk said a negotiated solution was still possible, if Russia agrees to withdraw its forces from the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and begin a serious diplomatic dialogue.
"We want to have talks. We don't want to have any kind of military aggression," he insisted, turning to directly address Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin.
Churkin ridiculed the idea that there had been an "idyllic situation" before the crisis, but said: "Russia does not want war and nor do the Russians, and I'm convinced that Ukrainians don't want this either."
Ukraine and Russia have been locked in an escalating stand-off since February 22, when a street revolt overthrew Ukraine's former pro-Kremlin president Viktor Yanukovych....

4 New Criminal Cases Brought Against Yanukovych (click here) 
RIA Novosti
Mar. 14 2014 08:56
Last edited 08:56

KIEV — Ukrainian prosecutors have opened more criminal cases against fugitive President Viktor Yanukovych, including on charges of unconstitutional seizure of power, extremism and money laundering.
Acting prosecutor general and member of the nationalist Svoboda party, Oleh Makhnitsky, told reporters on Thursday that Yanukovych was wanted on power abuse and murder charges.
Last month, Ukraine requested Interpol to issue Red Notice, or an international wanted persons alert, for Yanukovych as part of that criminal case....

Yanukovych calls his opponents 'neo-fascists' in defiant speech from Rostov-on-Don, Russia (click here)


Thomson Reuters  
Posted: Mar 11, 2014 7:53 AM ET  
Last Updated: Mar 11, 2014 1:14 PM ET

...In a defiant statement delivered in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Yanukovych attacked what he called the "band of ultranationalists and neo-fascists" that have replaced his government, and criticized their Western backers.
"I want to ask the patrons of these dark forces in the West: Have you gone blind? Have you forgotten what fascism is?" Yanukovych told reporters in his second such appearance since his overthrow on Feb. 22....

Fascism. Let's see, what exactly is fascism. Fascism is a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Who exactly is the fascist?

By Adam Taylor


On Feb. 22, (click here) as word spread that Viktor Yanukovych had fled Kiev, a large crowd began to descend on his residence in Mezhyhirya, some 12 miles outside the capital. They were shocked by what they found.

The Ukrainian president's mansion had long been rumored to be exceptionally luxurious (some said it cost around $100 million to build), but what was inside was outside many people's wildest imaginations: Yanukovych had a huge collection of luxury cars, his own private zoo, a golf course, and, for some reason, a galleon....

...In a series of videos uploaded to YouTube under the name Виктор Хонка, security footage captures a large number of people removing goods from the home from Feb. 19 to the early hours of Feb. 22.... 

...So what is Yanukovych removing from the home? For one thing, it appears he is taking a lot of paintings, plus lots of guns and a small dog.

Ahhhhhh, fluffy.

I'll be darn the Mr. and Mrs. didn't trust the same limo to travel to the Crimean airport. 

What, no Mayflower?