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Remember: Big Crisis = Big Change:

IMF warns that world risks sliding into a 1930's-style slump

The world risks sliding into a 1930s-style slump unless countries settle their differences and work together to tackle Europe's deepening debt crisis, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned.

The IMF managing director's call came amid growing concern that 2012 will see Europe slide into a double-dip recession, with knock-on effects for the rest of the global economy. "The world economic outlook at the moment is not particularly rosy. It is quite gloomy," she said

Lagarde said that the scale of the eurozone crisis, and its implications for other countries, meant that Europe's governments could not tackle it alone. "It is going to require efforts, it is going to require adjustment; and clearly it is going to have to start from the core of the crisis at the moment, which is obviously the European countries, and in particular the countries of the eurozone," Lagarde said.

Exclusive: Iran hijacked U.S. drone, says Iranian engineer

Iran guided the CIA's "lost" stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran.

Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.

Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.

Rumors of War:

Syria deploys Russian anti-sea missiles on coast, Scuds on Turkish border

Expanded Russian military and diplomatic support for the Assad regime was underscored by the deployment Friday, Dec. 16, of advanced Moscow-supplied Yakhont (SSN-26) shore-to-sea missiles along Syria's Mediterranean shore to fend off a potential Western-Turkish invasion by sea.

Last week, Russia airlifted to Syria 3 million face masks against chemical and biological weapons and the Admiral Kutznetsov carrier and strike group was sent on its way to Syria's Mediterranean port of Tartus.

DEBKAfile's military and intelligence sources report that the rush of Syrian war moves backed by Russia indicates that both believe a Western-Arab force is on the point of invading Syria.

They are keeping an eye especially on Turkey which is suspected of having obtained a NATO marine and air umbrella, including the US Sixth Fleet, for military preparations aimed at ousting Bashar Assad, so repeating the operation against Libya's Muammar Qaddafi.

War tensions around Syria rose alarmingly Thursday night, Dec. 15, when Turkey's top military council convened "to review the armed forces' preparedness for war" in response to the deployment of Syrian missiles, some tipped with chemical warheads, on their common border.

The Turkish army has prepared operational plans for seizing parts of northern Syria if the situation there continues to deteriorate. Those plans would essentially carve Syria into two entities, with the Turkish army holding the north and protecting opposition and civilian populations, while the Syrian army and Assad loyalists would remain in control of the central and southern regions.

Also see:

Syrian crackdown enters new phase

It's a race against time for Assad, now. With the rebel army growing in numbers and capabilities, it's only a matter of time before full scale civil war begins. Assad can only be sure of about 10% of his forces, which leaves a lot of doubt hanging in the air.
There have already been some high ranking military defections and we should expect more as the fighting intensifies. There's no endgame in sight yet, but the fat lady is warming up in the wings.

The video clip below gives the most recent update:

NATO Troops On Syrian Border

How about the "last word" on the OWS protests?

Occupy Wall Street: the Id of the Liberal Elite

Occupy Wall Street has never been about what the occupying young people have had to say. It has been about creating a window of opportunity for left-leaning commentators and political activists to seize control of the national conversation leading up to the November 2012 elections. It is meant to be the launching point for a revolution. And if the revolution has to turn violent, so be it.

Occupy Wall Street belongs less to the kids who are doing the occupying and more to folks like Van Jones, Robert Reich, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Jeffery Sachs, and E.J. Dionne -- to organizations such as ACORN, SEIU, and a host of other leftist groups who have felt neutered by the Tea Party.

Promoting Occupy gives them a way to express themselves with more than just words; it is a means of engaging in vicarious violence, lashing out at those who stand in the way of advancing their ideology. They are perfectly happy to overlook all of the occupiers' extreme behavior because it is an expression of their contempt for the recent resurgence of populist conservatism.

This rising conservatism represents an existential threat to the Axis of Liberal Power in this country, which continues to reel from the powerful blows of the elections of 2009, 2010, and 2011. Liberal elites are now determined to wage an ugly war in 2012 in order to prevent what could be a fatal blow to their position of power in Washington, D.C. While the presence of Occupiers has diminished with the onset of cold weather, they will no doubt return with greater force next spring and intensify through the summer.

Through Occupy Wall Street, liberal elites reveal who they are deep down inside and how they would behave if they themselves were free to cast aside all societal restraint. Their unwavering support and cheerleading for the Occupiers prove that they are comfortable with some level of both anarchy and tyranny if either will bring about their impossible utopian vision for the United States of America. Many seem to be longing for a "Kent State" or "Tiananmen Square" moment to win public sympathy and spark the revolution.

The big story concerning Occupy Wall Street is not about the protesters. It's about the media, pundits, public- and private-sector unions, and other elites whose ideological contempt breathes life into the movement.