An excellent gallery of photos up at Boston.com of Russia's recent Victory Day parade - ostensibly to celebrate their victory in World War II, but increasingly a huge nationalist/militarist propaganda display.
Very cool photos, but ICBMs rolling past the Kremlin give me the willies.
(Hat tip, oddly enough, to Le Foot for the link.)
5/14/09
MRhé: "What you guys do out there is amazing."
One of the Ericsson sailors: "It's fucking insanity."
The ICC's Commercial Crime Services division has a live piracy map which is updated with reports of piracy this year, which are increasing in both number and boldness. Every incident has a pinpointed location and report to go along with it:
This is kind of a strange phenomenon. Modern piracy seems so...anachronistic. But it's big business, especially in the Gulf of Aden. Somalia's status as a failed state means it is an excellent haven for pirates. Other hot spots include the Ivory Coast, East African waters, and the Southeast Asian seas. Don't be surprised to see this grow into a bigger issue over the next six months. I'm talking major international naval coalition-level response.
Greenland. A weird place: part of Denmark but semi-autonomous; a gigantic landmass mostly covered in ice (85%); a population of 57,000, mostly Inuit; huge untapped oil fields off the west coast; the eastern part of the island mired in poverty and pervasive social ills like domestic violence, alcoholism, underage pregnancy, sexual abuse, and a shockingly high rate of suicide (Twenty percent of girls 15 to 17 years of age have already attempted suicide once).
This article in the Spiegel Online takes a look at Greenland and an upcoming referendum, the approval of which will set in motion Greenland's path to independence. Tapping into the vast oil reserves could bring desperately-needed economic vitality to this strange place. Take a look.
Incredible. $30M? A supertanker? Insane. We might have to have Old Ironsides take to the seas again.
I've been reading quite a few articles online recently about all sorts of good stuff. For your consideration:
Benjamin Franklin: The original city slicker? A fascinating man. I need to read more about him.
How do we handle the new Russia?
The end of science? Tell that to CERN.
On Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I admit I knew nothing about the man aside from his name until his recent death. I regret to say I have not read him - but I plan on doing so.
"In Praise of Melancholy." Not quite sure how I feel about this one. I imagine it would have appealed to me more back when melancholy dominated my life. But there's something to Wilson's deceptively paradoxical point that I do agree with. The highs are never as good without the occasional lows.
Dennett on consciousness, science, and religion. Excellent stuff:
It is seldom remarked (though often observed in private, I daresay) that many, many people who profess belief in God do not really act the way people who believed in God would act; they act the way people would act who believed in believing in God. That is, they manifestly think that believing in God is—would be—a good thing, a state of mind to be encouraged, by example if possible, so they defend belief-in-God with whatever rhetorical and political tools they can muster. They ask for God’s help, but do not risk anything on receiving it, for instance. They thank God for their blessings, but, following the principle that God helps those who help themselves, they proceed with the major decisions of their lives as if they were going it alone.That pretty much sums it all up, doesn't it?
Prompted by Russia's recent invasion of Georgia, Robert Kagan in The Weekly Standard writes about how democracy must rise to the challenge of the threat posed by autocratic Russia and China.
Guy Sorman has an interesting article in the City Journal about economics as an increasingly credible science with practical applications. It enumerates ten tenets of economics. A nice piece.
You need to watch this.
Then watch the rest of the series.
Highly disturbing.
On a broader note, VBS TV appears to be the awesome - brainchild of Spike Jonze (Creative Director, i.e. Schtonk Captain) - it's a bunch of young peeps taking it to the streets straight up - Mexico City, the Pacific Ocean Trash Gyre, Jamaica - music, culture, eco-awareness, and a whole assload of upper-level schtonk mixed up in there.
Check it out.
Seriously, though, watch the TGI series.
Newspapers displayed in Nairobi, Kenya.
That's pretty effing cool (HT to The Stump).
An interesting article in the National Interest using The Godfather film as a metaphor for the status of the United States in a dangerous post-Cold War world. I found it thoughtful and well done. Perhaps you might as well.
Check out this infographic packed with data about the Iraq War and occupation. Click on the image to enlarge. I'll let you draw your own conclusions. From ForeignPolicy.com, by way of The Dough Roller.
Also came across this blog: Cool Infographics. Reminds me of Strange Maps - very specific, interesting, unique subject matter. Cool stuff. Check it out.
There seems to be a sense among many that we are on a certain path toward destruction - the war in Iraq, terrorism, the economy - there is a sense that we are on a downward spiral, both domestically and internationally. This article in the January 24th issue of The Economist argues otherwise. Indeed, by several impressive metrics our world is a significantly improved place over the last few decades. It is sometimes hard to gain the proper perspective, especially given our pressing problems as United States citizens, but the world as a whole is by many measures, despite all the doom and gloom, becoming an increasingly better place in which to live.
An interesting article, spurred by the recent incident in the Straits of Hormuz, talking about how the United States has often gone to war as a direct result of threats to or attacks on our sea power, whether it be military or commercial vessels.
These run the gamut from the (probably accidental) explosion of the USS Maine to the disastrous assault on our fleet with Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. The recent event in the Straits of Hormuz did not escalate due to the discipline of our naval officers - but it could have sparked a war with Iran.
Mead makes an interesting point, and while the Hormuz incident differs both in kind and scope than some of our past travails on the high seas, it nevertheless represents a direct threat to U.S. sea power. And that's something that we have defended vigorously in our history as a nation.
Link via Neptunus Lex, who you should put on your blogroll for great commentary on the military and foreign affairs with a naval bent.
Perhaps a peace treaty will be signed, but I'll eat my hat if anything resembling peace materializes within the next decade.
(NB: I rarely wear hats, so I may have to borrow yours for chapeau-consumption. I sincerely hope this will be the case.)
The following letter was written by a soldier in combat to the powers that be back home:
I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority because I believe that the war is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of agression and conquest. I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this war should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them and that had this been done the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation.
I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops and I can no longer be a party to prolonging these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust. I am not protesting against the conduct of the war, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.
On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practised upon them; also I believe it may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share and which they have not have enough imagination to realise.
Sound at all familiar?
It was written by Lt. Siegfried Sassoon, 3rd Battaltion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers, in July of 1917. It was a statement to his commanding officer declining his return to duty. It was read aloud in the House of Commons and printed in the London Times the following day.
I'm just posting it here without any comment on my particular feelings toward the ongoing war in Iraq because as I read it I thought, "Wow, this could very well have been written today." (Save the last paragraph; I hardly think we are "complacent" back home.) I guess my point is, in part, that history repeats itself; that the full effect of current events is not realized until years, often decades hence; and that no matter what the era, conflict, or reasons for it, violence as national policy is an unfortunate (but sometimes necessary) evil.
