Syria Welcomes, Would Comply With Russian Chemical Weapon Disarmament Initiative

Tyler Durden's picture And just like that, with the new "appeasement" initiative proposed earlier today by Putin and which Syria has just fully complied with, the US strategy of "containing" Syrian chemical weapons has been diffused. From Reuters:
Syria welcomes a Russian proposal to place the nation's chemical weapons under international control, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Monday after talks in Moscow, praising the Kremlin for seeking to "prevent American aggression".

Moualem, who spoke to reporters through an interpreter after Russia expressed hope the proposal could avert military strikes against Syria, stopped short of saying explicitly that President Bashar al-Assad's government accepted it.

Stalling growth of international reserves

By Hugo Salinas Price: I have kept track of International Reserves (excluding gold) for many years, with data helpfully provided every week by Doug Noland, at prudentbear.com, who obtained the information from Bloomberg.
Here is the graph I have elaborated with data since 1948, when there was still a modicum of reason operating in the financial world.

Lately, I worked out a graph showing in more detail the growth of these reserves in the period from August 2005 to August 30, 2013.

'Turkish Girl' in France On French Attitude to Syria

Morris: President Hollande of France (like other leaders in NATO countries) does not seem to care about the French people! Source

Nations Need to Depart from Dollar or Enter Third World - Jim Willie

Greg Hunter: According to Dr. Jim Willie, the rest of the world is tired of the money printing by the Fed and wants to use a new currency to escape the coming global inflation of a dollar that can quickly lose its buying power. Dr. Willie says, "This is financial survival. Nations need to depart from the dollar, and the first ones that do will be the survivors, and last ones will enter the third world." As far as Syria, Dr. Willie says it's not about chemical weapons, but about pipelines and our adversaries gaining economic advantage. Dr. Willie claims, "The U.S. is obstructing capitalism and commerce. That is the problem."

Al-CIA-da: Islamists seize control of historic Christian town of Maaloula - Plight of Syrian Christians gets worse

By Madison Ruppert: After extended fighting between Islamist Syrian rebels and Syrian government forces, rebels captured the historic Christian town of Maaloula, just an hour’s drive outside of the Syrian capital of Damascus.
The Christian population in Syria continues to suffer greatly, with many historic locations like Maaloula either overrun or destroyed by al-CIA-da-linked groups.
Maaloula has been the site of especially vicious activity, with the Associated Press reporting that residents said that militants were attacking Christian homes and burned at least one church.
“One resident said gunmen had tried to convert villagers to Islam on threat of death,” the BBC reports.
Rebels from the openly al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front overran the town Saturday night, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“We cleansed Maaloula from all the Assad dogs and all his thugs,” a rebel commander shouted in a video posted online over the weekend, according to CNN.
While CNN says it remains to be seen how the capture will impact the Christian residents of Maaloula, one can predict the outcome will not be positive.
Indeed, Christian bishops have been kidnapped along with a well known priest and many other Christians around the country.

Rolling Stone Profiles Barrett Brown: Journalist, Activist and American Political Prisoner

By Michael Krieger: I mean Texans and indictments…it’s like a Texas Bar Mitzvah.  My dad was indicted, you know, I have friends that have been indicted, have gone to prison…it happens.
- Barret Brown during an RT Interview, a year before being raided by the FBI and subsequently incarcerated. 

Barrett Brown is one of those figures that immediately captured my attention after first learning about him while watching the Anonymous documentary We are Legion. I soon realized that he had been incarcerated a mere three months prior to me serendipitously stumbling upon the film. It wasn’t difficult to see that he must have been onto something very, very big for the Feds to go after him so aggressively.

Narcissists are ruining America

David Sirota By David Sirota: One telltale trait of narcissists is their ability only to see how their actions affect them, and not others. In the narcissist’s mind, if doing something makes him feel good, then the act is inherently good — even if it is terrible for lots of other people and makes an overall situation a whole lot worse.
This is a good way to understand the current proposal to bomb Syria.
Narcissists are ruining AmericaFrom President Obama to British military leaders to the U.S. military planner who sculpted the attack plan, almost everyone acknowledges that sending cruise missiles into Syria will most likely not make anything better, will not stop the civil war and probably will not reduce human suffering. As the UK admits, the best (though certainly not guaranteed) chance of actually accomplishing any of those objectives is to mount a full-scale invasion.
Of course, that course of action could result in, among other things, thousands of U.S. casualties and roughly $300 billion a year in expenses. Understandably, those are costs America does not want to incur. And that’s where the narcissism comes in.