The Gulf Cartel is one of the oldest and most powerful of Mexico’s criminal groups but has lost territory and influence in recent years to its rivals, including its former enforcer wing, the Zetas.
The Gulf Cartel is one of Mexico’s most storied, wealthy and established operations. Working with Colombian suppliers, this group moves drugs north from its stronghold in Tamaulipas, and is known to outsource other activities, especially those related to human trafficking, to local “enforcer” gangs. Its one-time boss, Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, was considered the country’s most powerful underworld leader at one point, and its enforcers, the Zetas, Mexico’s most feared gang.
by Dancing with Fire July 09, 2011
The Chechen mafia is one of the largest organized crime groups operating in the former Soviet Union next to established Russian mafia gangs, which originally consisted of criminals of Chechen ethnicity who later also tried to recruit former Russian special military forces, police and army officers. It has substantially decreased its presence in Moscow by 1994 after Slavic mafia groups united against their Chechen counterpart, with assistance from Russian police and the FSB (the former KGB). As it happened most of Chechen gang members returned to Chechnya and joined the rising Chechen separatist movement.
The Chechen mafia is often referenced to as the "Russian mafia" in Europe, because most people of Chechen ethnicity speak Russian and many immigrated from the Russian Federation during the wars.
by Dancing with Fire June 25, 2011
Hasta mañana amigo.
by Dancing with Fire June 26, 2013
It means that the person you are is a direct result of how you grew up. The "environment" you were brought up in influenced the decisions you make now. Your environment makes you who you are.
So for example, product of the environment implies that if one grows up in a home full of domestic violence, one of the children in that home may become violent as well when they have a family of their own. If someone grows up in the hood, that person may become a gangster. If somebody grows up in a descent home that is filled with good resources (computer, good books, television, radio, etc.), then they are more likely to become successful. If somebody grows up in a Christian home, they will most likely become a Christian. If somebody grows up in the Middle East or in a home with Muslim parents, they are more likely to be Muslim.
by Dancing with Fire June 18, 2011
A caged animal becomes a product of his environment; mankind however builds his environments to suit his needs. If someone claims that you are a product of your environment, it means the environment you live in, has become your accepted norm, and now it influences you, rather than you influencing it.
Being a product of the environment is no different than saying you are the product of your own thinking.
by Dancing with Fire July 08, 2011
Gatka is the martial art of the Sikhs, and is tied in with the religion Sikhism. It's a weapons-based martial art, which was imparted to the Sikhs in the time of Guru Hargobind Ji (the sixth Guru of the Sikhs) by the Rajputs (Hindu warriors of northern India) in the 16th century, in gratitude for their release from imprisonment by the fledgling Sikh army of that time. The Sikhs at that time opposed the Mughal Empire, which violently oppressed both Sikhs and Hindus in the name of Islam. The Tenth Master of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh Ji, was an extremely proficient martial artist.
He continued to encourage the Sikhs to train seriously in the martial arts, and in 1699 founded the Khalsa, a special Order, to which all Sikhs would thereafter aspire to joining. The Khalsa was subject to strict military and personal discipline, and were enjoined to, inter alia, always carry 5 items with them: the Kanga (a small wooden comb), Kachhehra (long drawers instead of a loincloth), Kara (a steel bracer worn on the right wrist), Kesh (uncut hair) and Kirpan (curved sword). The Khalsa was enjoined to train to fight, and to vigorously resist the oppression of any religious community, including Sikhs and Hindus. The wearing of the kirpan represented the martial character of the Khalsa, and all Sikhs, men, women and children, were encouraged to resist their Mughal oppressors, and to train diligently in gatka. Gatka was used succesfully by the Sikhs throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, in numerous battles against the Mughal forces. Eventually, the Sikhs succeeded in deposing the Mughal overlords, and in creating a new, tolerant rulership in the Punjab (the "Land of Five Rivers", a region in modern-day India and Pakistan). Gatka is, and has always been, taught as a spiritual exercise in Sikhism. Sikhism requires its followers to become absorbed in honouring the Name of God, and this is taught through the ecstatic exercise of gatka. Sikhism and gatka are inextricably intertwined, in many ways.
by Dancing with Fire May 14, 2011
Army of the Republic of Vietnam; they are sometimes reffered to as the Southern Vietnamese Army (SVA). They were fighting against the Northern Vietnamese.
Scorned by allies and enemies alike, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was one of the most maligned fighting forces in modern history. Cobbled together by U.S. advisers from the remnants of the French-inspired Vietnamese National Army, it was effectively pushed aside by the Americans in 1965. When toward the end of the war the army was compelled to reassert itself, it was too little, too late for all concerned.
by Dancing with Fire June 23, 2011