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Comments posted today on this site by Sukirti and Tim Ericson discussed the benefits of Capitalism vs. Marxism.
This excerpt from Victor Davis Hanson’s latest column is relevant:
The democratic idea is contagious. We once worried about the negative Communist domino theory, but the real chain reaction has always been the positive explosion of democracy. Once Epaminondas curbed Spartan autocracy, suddenly Mantinea, Megalopolis, and Messenia went democratic and the entire Peloponnese began to adopt consensual governments. When Portugal and Spain flipped, it had an enormous positive effect on moving change forward in the Spanish-speaking world of Latin America as liberty spread, once-right-wing Chile and left-wing Nicaragua were freed. The Soviet republics and Eastern European satellites without much warning imploded in succession more quickly even than the Russians had once enslaved them in the late 1940s.
It is not a neocon pipedream, but historically plausible that a democratic Israel, Palestine, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq can create momentum that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and eventually even a Syria or Iran would find hard to resist. Saudi Arabia’s ballyhooed liberalization, Mubarak’s unease about his successor, Libya’s strange antics, Pakistan’s revelation about nuclear commerce, and the Gulf States’ talk of parliaments did not happen in a vacuum, but are rumblings that follow from fears of voters in Afghanistan and Iraq and a Mullah Omar dethroned and Saddam’s clan either dead or in chains.
This is interesting.
India-Iran pipeline may be completed by 2009: Govt
New Delhi: India expects the $4.5 billion India-Iran gas pipeline to be completed by 2009-end, Petroleum secretary Sushil C Tripathi said on Friday.
Everyone wants to get along with their neighbors; India needs oil; of course they’re going to make a deal with Iran.
Here’s the interesting part: look where this pipeline has to go to get from Iran to India:
It has to go through Pakistan. And the article continues:
Tripathi said India would build strategic storages in Rajasthan or Gujarat as an insurance against disruption in supplies of natural gas through the 2775-km-long pipeline, one-fourth of which will pass through Pakistan.
New Delhi would seek comfort from Iran in the form of commitment to supply liquified natural gas in case supplies are disrupted, he said.
India would not partner in the construction of the pipeline and would enter into a bilateral arrangement only with Iran for taking gas supplies.
“Iran would be responsible for dealing with Pakistan and insuring safe delivery of gas at our border,” Tripathi said.
Just last year there was great concern about the possibility of a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan. Yet here, India and Iraq are both relying on Pakistan not to destroy this pipeline. Surely this is a favorable indication regarding the possibility of peace between India and Pakistan.
Reported today:
The deadly tsunamis that crashed into the southern Indian coast have unearthed priceless relics, including two granite lions, buried under sand for centuries, archaeologists say.
The towering waves that killed over 285,000 people throughout Asia also appear to have swept a bronze Buddha to Indian shores from Thailand in a basket attached to a bamboo raft, they say.
Archaeologists from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) have descended on the ancient seaport of Mahabalipuram, famed for its rock carvings dating back to the great Pallava dynasty, to see the objects.
“The sea has thrown up evidence of the grandeur of the Pallava dynasty. These have been buried for centuries,” the archaeologal body’s superintending archaeologist, T Sathiamoorthy, told AFP late Thursday.
“We’re all very excited about these finds.”
The dynasty dominated much of South India from as early as the first century BC to eighth century AD and Mahabalipuram is now recognised as the site of some of the greatest architectural and sculptural achievements in India.
Among the tsunami “gifts” found in Mahabalipuram, are the remnants of a stone house and a half-completed rock elephant, archaeologists say.
There are also two giant granite lions, one seated and another poised to charge. The statues are each carved out of a single piece of granite stone, testifying to the carver’s skill.
The objects were uncovered when the towering waves withdrew from the beach, carrying huge amounts of sand with them.
The archaeologists are also excited about a report from locals that just before the waves struck on December 26, the sea withdrew a great distance baring the seabed on which lay a temple structure and several rock sculptures.
“We’ll be exploring the seabed to document these Pallava relics,” Sathiamoorthy said, adding the Archaeological Survey of India would dispatch a team of marine archaeologists next month to the area.
Experts are examining as well a 15-centimetre tall bronze Buddha found inside a bamboo basket attached to a raft to determine its age and origin.
The figure with Myanmarese writing on its back is seated lotus style and holds a begging bowl on his lap.
“It seems it might have been taken to Thailand from Myanmar at some point and then was carried out to sea by the tsunami,” B Sasisekaran, a scientist at the National Institute of Ocean Technology.
Armor Gedden has a movie up that was made by his unit during the battle of Fallujah.
It’s well worth seeing. Downloading it via the net was impossible last night—I guess his server was being hammered—but downloading it via BitTorrent was a snap. If you’re using a Mac, try the BitTorrent program called Azureus. I tried three of them last night, and Azureus worked great.
ONE OF THE COOLEST BABY-NAMING applications ever is here (requires Java). It runs right in your web brower.
