Quoted: The trouble is that the fighting is unlikely to end as long as the Taliban can finance themselves through drugs — and as long as the Kabul government is dependent on opium to sustain its own hold on power.

An important article from Slate about the strings that are attached to IMF loans and the corner into which they back a lot of small countries & their economies.

Quoted: Question: The International Monetary Fund often attaches strict conditions to its loans, hoping to help the economies of the recipient countries grow and become stable. For example, in order to tamp down inflation, countries have been required to limit expenditures for education, social services, and health.

Quoted: The pirates attacked on a speedboat launched from a mother ship, a captured Asian fishing ship known as a longliner. Once on board, they regaled the crew with tales of famine in their villages.

I'm writing an article about this documentary - it looks so powerful and interesting. It's screening in Seattle starting September 5th...

Quoted: Fourteen centuries after the revelation of the holy Qur'an to the Prophet Muhammad, Islam is the world's 2nd largest and fastest growing religion. Muslim gay filmmaker Parvez Sharma travels the many worlds of this dynamic faith, discovering the stories of its most unlikely storytellers: lesbian & gay Muslims.

Timothy Leary, Jackson Pollock, Georges Seurat spiced with a touch of NASA makes for some very bizarre and extremely appealing images.
Quoted: By Tom Davie and Chris Ingham Brooke The Optimist, Kalahari Desert Namibia “It is impossible to give a clear account of the world, ...