A Shiite axis in the Middle East

Hezbollah in control in Lebanon, usurping the government.

Already the new fighting has deepened divisions in Lebanon, mostly along sectarian lines. The country's 1.2 million Shiites largely support Hezbollah, while Sunnis, Christians and Druse mostly oppose it.

The Mahdi Army patrols the streets in Iraq.

...the Mahdi Army's image as a defender of Shiites is largely responsible for its revival more than a year after American troops killed hundreds, if not thousands, of the black-clad fighters during two uprisings that al-Sadr led against the coalition in 2004.

The Shiite leadership in Iran goes without saying. Iran has a long history of providing rockets to Hezbollah. Increased lethality IED technology has apparently been transferred from Iran to Iraq.

Three of a kind.

Bomb blasts in India: echoes of al Qaida

As the news rolls in, currently over 160 have died from a series of bomb blasts on India's rail network. It appears the attacks meant to echo al Qaida's previous bombings. Multiple, near-simultaneous blasts. An attack involving transportation infrastructure. The 7th month echoes the London attack; the 11th day echoes the New York and Madrid attacks. It even appears they also targeted the financial sector.

Local reports said the bombs appeared to have targeted first-class compartments, as commuters were returning home from the city's financial district.

Suicide bombing and information processing deficit

Newman has a challenging alternate explanation for psychopathy, one which seems better able to model functional psychopaths.

The dominant scientific model asserts that psychopathic individuals are incapable of fear or other emotions, which in turn makes them indifferent to other people's feelings.
But Newman has a different idea entirely. He believes that psychopathy is essentially a type of learning disability or "informational processing deficit" that makes individuals oblivious to the implications of their actions when focused on tasks that promise instant reward. Being focused on a short-term goal, Newman suggests, makes psychopathic individuals incapable of detecting surrounding cues such as another person's discomfort or fear...
"People think (psychopaths) are just callous and without fear, but there is definitely something more going on," Newman says. "When emotions are their primary focus, we've seen that psychopathic individuals show a normal (emotional) response. But when focused on something else, they become insensitive to emotions entirely."

Given the example of the suicide bomber, it is quite plausible to posit that religious indoctrination, cultural priming, and social pressure could be applied to selectively induce an informational processing deficit, permitting a person to focus on the act of suicide bombing, becoming insensitive to other people's emotions and possibly their own. Idée fixe.