friend of the built environment

Are we doing stupid things like this…

…Or this?

 
How does one miss a place so much that one has never visited?

Someday I’ll visit. I swear.

Doesn’t anyone in this country realize that something seriously grave and important is happening in the Caucuses? Russia and Georgia are at war, and it’s getting even less than the scantily-covered American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. Regardless of who or which side began the current aggressions, the fact remains that a couple [...]

Yep, Georgia’s quaking in it’s boots. This should solve the recruitment problems in the US army, I suppose, since so many rednecks are thoroughly convinced that the Russkies are marching on Atlanta.
As someone else noted, “Russophiles know they live in the matrix; Russophobes think they’re free and laugh at the poor Russians, not realizing that they’re laughing [...]

Anyone wanting a fairly straight-forward explanation of what’s going on in the Caucuses without having it filtered through the propaganda machines at either end of the current mainstream press should read this.

A good interview with former German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder, which provides another good perspective that the mainstream media is simply failing to broadcast. An especially astute observation about why Russia matters to the West:
“I see Russia as part of Europe, more than as part of any other constellation…  And we in Germany and Europe should [...]

It’s interesting that, despite having much better scientific screening resources in place, America still bans healthy homosexual men from donating desperately needed blood, whilst most of the rest of the developed world, including Russia, whose social attitudes toward sexuality are somewhat more conservative, allow it.