UK will cyber-attack countries its government doesn't like.

Flannary interviewed here:

Turks could pay high price for stability promised by Erdoğan

... It was a stunning personal triumph for a man whose authoritarianism has provoked deep concern over the future of Turkey’s democracy. Hailed by supporters as the new Ataturk, mocked by enemies as a wannabe Ottoman sultan, Erdoğan now has the chance to shape modern Turkey to his liking and stamp his character, vision and conservative, neo-Islamist views on the country for generations to come.

Roundly condemned for a crackdown on opposition newspapers, social media and independent journalism and reviled for his violent crushing of the 2013 Gezi park protests in Istanbul, Erdoğan has nevertheless come out on top again. His latest triumph is a feat to match or even surpass his three consecutive AKP general election victories since 2002; this time was all the more remarkable because he himself was not on the ballot. The election should have been about picking a new parliament. But in truth, it was all about him.

The scale of the AKP’s surge, in which it apparently took votes from the nationalist MHP, whose share fell to around 12% from 16% last time, means it will hold at least 315 seats in the 550-member parliament (276 are required for a majority). If the party can attract enough votes from the nationalist MHP, it will be within tantalising reach of the 330 votes needed to allow it to amend or rewrite the constitution.

This in turn means Erdoğan is potentially now within sight of realising his most controversial and cherished ambition: to create a Putin-esque executive presidency and in effect change Turkey from a parliamentary democracy, under cabinet government, to a land of one-man presidential diktat. This has been his aim since he was forced under party rules to relinquish the prime ministership last year. Now he finally looks like getting his way...

/... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/01/turks-could-pay-high-price-for-stability-promised-erdogan

Apocalypse now: has the next giant financial crash already begun?

... A better exercise is to image what archetypes a dramatist might use if they tried to write a farce describing the state of society on the eve of yet another disaster. There would be a character obsessed with property: London is fizzing with young professionals trying to clinch property deals right now. The riverbanks of the Thames are forested with cranes, show apartments and half-occupied speculative developments that will, after the crash, make great social housing.

Then there would have to be a hapless central banker, optimistically “looking through” the figures for low growth, stagnant prices and collapsing trade in order to justify doing nothing.

But the protagonist would have to be a politician. The Kingston University economist Steve Keen points out that, in the run up to 2008, the flawed ideology of neoliberal economics made a dangerous situation worse. Economists put their professional imprimatur on the idea that risky investments were safe. Today, the stable door of economics is firmly shut. Even mainstream bank economists are calling for radical measures to revive growth: Nick Kounis, ABN Amro’s macro-economics chief, called on central banks to raise their inflation targets to 4% and flood the world with money in a coordinated survival strategy.

Instead, it is in the world of geopolitics that the danger of elite groupthink is clearest. The economic danger becomes clear if you understand that printing $12tn incentivises every country to dump the final cost of anti-crisis measures on someone else. But there is now also clear geopolitical risk...

/Read More: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/01/financial-armageddon-crash-warning-signs

I'd like to say that it is important to redefine 'productivity' in economics. More than a mere accountancy measure of the value of goods and services and a limited set of associated costs, 'productivity' should take into account a much wider array of social and environmental costs and benefits. Thus, the above discourse would more strongly emphasise the social suffering produced under the present economic paradigm and would recognise the environmental consequences. It would acknowledge that the present and forthcoming economic, um, 'slowdowns', while increasing social ills, actually decrease environmental harm. It might speculate that a future 'recovery' might well require paradigm change and a resurgent economy investing in socially progressive and environmentally sustainable infrastructure, production and consumption.

They'll take him out...

Nicely put, Diclotican.

In UK politics, I would like to see Bliar and the whole "New Labour" ideology he helped spawn expelled from the true Labour Party. The Corbyn leadership covers it... Given that the Tory party is also likely to split along EU in/out lines &/or be leached by UKIP and other nutters, UK politics could become more 'interesting', like right now here in Spain, again.