Saturday, June 29, 2013

Oil out of Iran and the shameful but real thrust for it

A raft of news stories today suggest that the Iran-Pakistan Pipeline will be completed by December, 2014, despite strenuous objections from the United States.  See e.g., The Pakistan Daily Times,  The News International, boh of which also suggested that the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline may be in rouble along the Khyber Pass because of the War on Terror, The Express TribuneThe Business Recorder, and The International News Network Online which also noted that a Pakistan Senate committee recommended "to start construction of power generation units at Gwadar and other areas to produce electricity through the gas imported from Iran, state-run radio"  reported.

Photo International News Network


The Express Tribune also reported that Pakistan's "[n]ewly-elected Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, in his maiden speech, revealed that Islamabad and Beijing have expressed a keen desire to implement the Gwadar-Khunjerab-Kashgar rail network." 

Gwadar is a deep-water port in in Balochistan Province in Pakistan, near the Iranian border and the strategically-significant Strait of Hormuz.




The New York Times Smugglers plying their trade in
 the Strait of Hormuz between Irran and Oman.

In May of this year, China took over operational control of Gwadar port, to the dismay of many Balochi.

For more on China and the Gwadar port, see the International Policy Digest, "The Preeminence of Pakistan’s Gwadar Port."

The United States has, for decades, exerted pressure in many places to keep Iran from exporting oil.  Those efforts have been dramatically increased since Iran has obtained some possibility of building The BBomb.  The United States has threaten to cut of aid to Pakistan if it goes forward with the IP Pipeline.

It looks as if shipping a lot of oil and natural gas will finally be allowed out of Iran.



If everyone may export and import oil Iran should not be stigmatized.  It may wan The Bomb, though there is no proof of it; Israel is reported to have 250 Bombs.  Start there I say.

It is a pity that any country thirsts for oil, given the climate disaster than awaits us and our descendants, and the United States and many other countries continue to hurst after it.

 It would make little difference to the World if the US were to completely eliminate fossil fuels, because he World will use every last drop in the Earth.

Some will benefit from climate change; many will die of too much water or too little; too much cold or too little.




 






If I had billions it wouldn’t make much difference to my ease who lives and dies since I can live anywhere I chose to live.  


Not many have that choice.  I assume that it is the lack of real threat to those with much money that explains our World's continued drive to use every last drop of oil.



 Prove me wrong, you who disagree.



Monday, June 24, 2013

Not the usual Oil Wrestler Gods

One pal asked for images of skinny Greek oil wrestlers.  Happy to oblige.




How about old oil wrestlers?


. . . or injured ones . . .



. . . or Texas-style oil wrestling . . .



. . . or (I'll be pilloried for showing this) what a blogger obviously from Texas calls "Roman style hog wrestling" . . ..

Peter Paul Rueben, by was of Very DemotivationaL.com

Be happy in your indignation.


Thursday, June 20, 2013

Greek and Romanian oil wrestling


Edirne, in Turkish Thrace, is as close to Greece an Bulgaria as one can get.


Every summer, a one week festival, the Kırkpınar festival is held.  This year the festival runs from July 1 - July 6, 2013.  The oil wrestling championship will be held on July 6 of this year, likely (reports on the date vary on the web).

I'll blog posts on the Kirkpinar championships when hey happen.

Greece and Bulgaria are nearby and have been Turkish provinces in the not-ditant past.

Greece, Romania, Turkey


The Turkic Ottoman Empire:

Oil wrestling is practiced in Greece and Romania.  While we await the grand Turkic event, here are images from those countries.  






.  . . and more recently from Nova Cherna, Bulgaria








Friday, June 14, 2013

Drone strikes

THEN


Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

Spanish Civil War, 1810-1845


Los Desastres de la Guerra

















Is Roosevelt a million-killer?


Is Truman a monster?


Pablo Picasso


The bombing of Guernica (April 26, 1937) was an aerial attack on the Basque town of Guernica, Spain, causing widespread destruction and civilian deaths during the Spanish Civil War. The raid by planes of the German Luftwaffe "Condor Legion" and the Italian Fascist Aviazione Legionaria was called Operation Rügen.

Guernica





AND NOW

 Salafi terrorists from Saudi Arabia and Qatar -- our prospective allies in Syria -- and their handwork.










"A villan may smile and smile and still be a villan."


Salafi, with Saudi and Qatari support, terrorize the Russian homeland.  Russia has a legitimate interest in preventing Salafi domination of Syria.

Iran's access to the oceans to export its natural resources is blocked in the Persian Gulf by the US Fifth Fleet.  Iran has a legitimate interest in a government at least neutral in Syria.  Salafi are bound by religious duty to kill Iranians.

We must stay our of Syria until those legitimate interest are assured.  We are otherwise fools.  For the third time in 10 years..

Young North Americans, brimming with innocent  zest, training for a new Guernica.  Give them a future more suited to their deserts, please.