10 Incredible Ancient Oases

Interesting photo blog. The name says it all.

.Ancient Oases

Mother Jones interactive military presence map

Mother Jones launched an interactive map that shows US military presence around the world from 1950 to 2007. It's based on worldwide troop data from the Pentagon. From Mother Jones:

These numbers are often fuzzy: Some deployments are classified, others are temporary, and just because the Defense Department claims 30 US troops in Indonesia last year doesn't mean 1,500 didn't pass through on training missions. Even so, the map, and the associated research, should give you a good feel for what the Pentagon is up to around the world.

Mission Creep: US Military Presence Worldwide (Mother Jones)

Georgia-Russia: It's a Classic Brzezinski Project!

This is pretty heady stuff. I think it's worth a careful read. Islamo-facism is getting a little old. let's bring back the evil Great Bear!


Project Humanbeingsfirst: Georgia-Russia: It's a Classic Brzezinski Project!

The Eurasian Corridor: Pipeline Geopolitics and the New Cold War

The ongoing crisis in the Caucasus is intimately related to the control over energy pipeline and transportation corridors.

There is evidence that the Georgian attack on South Ossetia on August 7 was carefully planned. High level consultations were held with US and NATO officials in the months preceding the attacks.

The attacks on South Ossetia were carried out one week after the completion of extensive US - Georgia war games (July 14-31st, 2008). They were also preceded US-Georgia war games (July 15- 31, 2008) and by high level meetings held under GUAM, a US-NATO sponsored regional military alliance.

The Eurasian Corridor: Pipeline Geopolitics and the New Cold War

Bolivia: Historic Vote Confirms Will for Change

Federico Fuentes With 99% of the votes counted, Bolivia’s first indigenous president won a crushing 67.43% majority in the August 10 recall referendum. Surpassing the 53.7% he received in the 2005 national elections, which until then was the highest vote recorded by a presidential candidate in Bolivia’s history, the result confirmed the

Bolivia Rising

Peru: indigenous uprising claims victory for now

 

Indigenous groups in Peru ended more than a week of militant protests Aug. 20 at key energy sites after lawmakers agreed to overturn a new land law issued by President Alan García, which sought to ease corporate access to communal territories. García had issued the law by decree earlier under special powers Congress granted him to bring Peruvian law into compliance with a new free-trade deal with the US. A congressional commission voted to revoke the law Aug. 19, and floor vote is expected later this week.

Peru: indigenous uprising claims victory — for now

Kids love Coltrane

The feel-good story of the day.

A cool tale about second graders at P.S. 178 in Queens falling in love with John Coltrane, and raising funds to help restore the house in nearby Dix Hills [previously on mefi] where the saxophonist (and saint?) composed his spiritual masterpiece A Love Supreme [last four links go to Youtube].

Kids love Coltrane

The Consumer's War

Something to check out. Just finished watching this on the old computer at 6:02 am. Suggest you might try it at a more reasonable hour. Goodnight moon.


Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS

Harper/ Bush Mouthpiece in Canada

By Jim Miles
Source: Palestine Chronicle

While eastern Canada suffers unseasonable rains, the west enjoys its average warm/hot summer. In the Middle East however, the heat is rising in the geo-political field.

ZNet - Bush Mouthpiece in Canada

Don't Forget Yugoslavia

 

By John Pilger - August, 16 2008

The secrets of the crushing of Yugoslavia are emerging, telling us more about how the modern world is policed...At a 1999 Kosovo "peace" conference in France, the Serbs were told to accept occupation by Nato forces and a market economy, or be bombed into submission. It was the perfect precursor to the bloodbaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.

read more

War in the Caucasus

by Seumas Milne of The Guardian via Global Research'

War in the Caucasus is as much the product of an American imperial drive as local conflicts. It's likely to be a taste of things to come

The outcome of six grim days of bloodshed in the Caucasus has triggered an outpouring of the most nauseating hypocrisy from western politicians and their captive media.

War in the Caucasus: This is a tale of US expansion not Russian aggression

Water for All

• A gathering of international thinkers, artists, and activists is inspiring a new revolution in the right to water and what belongs to the commons.

Water for All: The Leaders of a New Revolution

LSD as therapeutic tool

Andrew Feldmár (the Canadian psychotherapist who was denied entrance to the United State last year when a US border guard Googled his name and found a research paper in which Feldmár described two acid trips he took 1967) has an essay in the Guardian about psychedelics as a useful took in psychotherapy.

Boing Boing

Georgia: The Breaking of NATO?

I guess a lot of people have the same idea that occurred to me regarding making Georgia part of NATO. The idea of this alliance of course is that an attack on one member means it's war with the rest of the alliance. So would Canada want to go and defend a so called democratic country in the heart of Central Asia: a country which was trying to invade a de facto independent province? For what- to protect a pipe line? Isn't it time for Europe to have it's own defensive military organization? And shouldn't that be to defend Europe? NATO like any institution has it's own entropy. Like any bureaucracy, it just wants to continue.

Here Gwen Dyer writes in The Embassy on the subject.   

Georgia: The Breaking of NATO?

Why Not Simply Abolish NATO?

I was thinking the same thing yesterday. Why indeed should Europe and Canada be traipsing around the globe doing dirty work on behalf of USian adventurism?

For more details, please click on the link to read the article.

Why Not Simply Abolish NATO?