Tuesday, September 10, 2013

The Global Elite’s Favorite Strongman - NYTimes.com

The Global Elite’s Favorite Strongman - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'

Monday, September 9, 2013

Proceed with caution when updating LinkedIn | Get To Work | an SFGate.com blog

Proceed with caution when updating LinkedIn | Get To Work | an SFGate.com blog:

'via Blog this'

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Facebook

Facebook: "It's our last morning in Las Vegas. It's raining and cool for a pleasant change. After Elena's medical conference finished yesterday, I was worried about rain and flash floods north of Las Vegas. Elena insisted that she wanted to go to Valley of Fire state park. I grudgingly agreed to take her. We caught some rain on I-15 but things were beautiful in the park.We had a delightful afternoon and took some beautiful pictures. There was no rain. We came back to the hotel and had a delightful dinner at a Spanish tapas restaurant. We had great fun with the staff and socializing with other people. We saw a table full of beautiful women eating alone. They were surrounded by two large tables of very attractive young men eating alone. None of the men made any effort to meet any of the women. We leave to go home today.Ah it has been an incredible trip!!! We needed the rest. Monday it's back to the world of hard work!!!!"

'via Blog this'

Friday, September 6, 2013

In Praise Of LasVegas

Elena and I find ourselves in Las Vegas for a medical conference. We are fortunate to be at a beautiful hotel/resort; The Cosmopolitan.

Elena is very busy with a medical conference on chronic pain. She's learning lots of new things that will help her to serve her patients better.I find myself in the enviable position of "having time on my hands." Of course I have spent time by the pool, ate some great meals, and saw some incredible sights.

Elena and I do not gamble except on the stock market. We look with fascination as people gamble. We both understand that old saying: "The house always wins." Most of the people in the casino have scant chance of winning but they keep coming.

I have spent time reflecting on the miracle that this city is. Elena gave it the nickname of Saudi Arabia because it is so hot and desolate.

This is a remote dessert area with nothing much going for it. Some desserts have billions of barrels of oil underneath. Some desserts have minerals under them or a strategic location. The area around Las Vegas has none of these attributes.

How did this modern and rich city arise in such a hopeless area? Elena posed this question to me. I answered her that it began with a few people who had a vision.Gambling was illegal in most of the rest of the USA. They made it legal in Nevada.

What followed was an invasion of gangsters who got the gaming business started. The Binnion family also started casinos. They attracted people with big name entertainers. Howard Hughes then made Las Vegas his home and bought up several casino properties. Young innovators like Steve Wynn came along and turned this dessert kingdom into a world class venue.

Las Vegas is much more than "Sin City" or a mecca for gambling, prostitution, etc. It is also a place to just come,relax, and have fun. The people are friendly and nice. They make you feel at home.

Monday, September 2, 2013

My Dream Vacation-Cape Town

Israel Fears That It Is now Alone To Stop Iran's Nuclear Program

GLOBAL INSIGHT

September 2, 2013 1:12 pm

Israel fears US leaving it alone to stop Iran nuclear programme

By John Reed

Lack of US resolve on Syria chemical weapons sets a bad precedent

When Barack Obama visited Israel in March, he made a speech in Jerusalem – virtuosic in parts and cloying in others – meant to endear him to an Israeli public which felt it neither knew nor trusted him much.

Atem lo levad (“You are not alone”), he intoned in American-accented Hebrew, channelling the same spirit of solidarity that John F. Kennedy invoked when he declared “Ich bin ein Berliner” in blockaded West Berlin in 1963.

ON THIS STORY

ON THIS TOPIC

Time to talk bombing will not stop an Iranian bomb
Obama ready to cut US nuclear weapons
Ayatollah Seyed Salman SafaviEnd the nuclear stand-off
N Korea signals openness to talks

GLOBAL INSIGHT

Israelis are now recalling Mr Obama’s speech ruefully after his decision to refer any military action against Syria to Congress. Asked afterwards about how the decision made them feel, many offered up this word: “alone”.

Their worry is not that Israel is being left alone to cope with Syria, whose war Israel’s government and most of its people want no direct part in.

The fear – and it is a big one – is about the message America’s perceived wavering on Syria sends to its bigger and much more powerful ally: Iran.

Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made containing the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme the defining issue of his premiership, has said repeatedly in recent days that Syria is a “testing ground” for Iran.

Any lack of US resolve over disciplining Bashar al-Assad’s government for crossing “red lines” on chemical weapons use, Israelis feel, sets a bad precedent for efforts to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb. Israel was already worried western resolve to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions was ebbing after the election of relative moderate Hassan Rouhanias president.

Mr Netanyahu, mindful of Israel’s delicate position in a region where Mr Assad or Hizbollah might respond to a US strike by attacking it, has told his ministers not to talk to the media about Syria.

However, Naftali Bennett, economy minister and head of the far-right Jewish Home party, gave one insight into official thinking on Friday – before Mr Obama’s speech, but after Britain voted against military action – when he wrote on Facebook: “The international stuttering and hesitancy on Syria just proves once more that Israel cannot count on anyone but itself.”

Commentators in Israel put it in earthier terms when they chided Mr Obama by quoting a line from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti Western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: “When you have to shoot, shoot – don’t talk”.

“You hear more and more people in government saying, ‘Can we really rely on the US to stop Iran?” said Mike Herzog, a retired Israeli general and international fellow with The Washington Institute for Middle East Policy. “If they can’t take a decision on a red line in Syria, why should we think they could do so on Iran?”

US resolve in Syria, Israelis say, has proved weak on a chemical weapons red line that according to the British intelligence dossier was crossed at least 14 times before the attack outside Damascus that prompted a hesitant US call to arms.

If [the US] can’t take a decision on a red line in Syria, why should we think they could do so onIran?

- Mike Herzog, The Washington Institute for Middle East Policy

Whereas gruesome news pictures of gasping victims provided apparent visual evidence that chemical weapons had been used, the trigger for action in Iran is more fungible and open to interpretation, and Israel and the US define it differently.

The US has said it would not accept a nuclear Iran, but Israel thinks this is too fuzzy. Mr Netanyahu, speaking at the UN last September, said that Iran must be stopped before it had amassed enough 20 per cent-enriched uranium for a single bomb. Israel says Iran has not reached this but is taking broader actions such as building centrifuges that would make it easier to cross the nuclear threshold quickly.

“Red lines don’t lead to war; red lines prevent war,” Mr Netanyahu said in his UN speech, in which he brandished a cartoon of a sputtering bomb. “I believe that faced with a clear red line, Iran will back down.”

Israelis are this week more doubtful on that point, with many saying that US prevarication on Syria has weakened the red line’s deterrence. Some worry it is now more likely that Iran will cross it and if forced to act, Israel may need to go it alone.

“Will the US back its own red lines and do something about Iran?” asked Yoel Guzansky, a researcher for the Institute for National Security Studies. “The answer after Obama’s speech is no – we are alone. That’s a very basic feeling – this is what people here think.”

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013. You may share using our article tools.
Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.