"Unworthy" victims

politics > former Yugoslavia
While the Kosovo "success story" is being shaken (receiving scant international media coverage) - Kosovo still simmers and in the neighbouring Republic of Macedonia, the shady Albanian National Army [note the dynamic gif map in the header] has taken action and is about to cause more trouble. Encouraging irredentist nationalism- in this day and age- in the Balkans has proven yet again disastrous. [Albanian National Army's English pages and their idea about "true" Albanian borders.]
Meanwhile, back in Kosovo, there is unrest and signs (quite a few of them) that the real issue is about to explode...

Weblogs of note

weblogs > galore
Some excellent weblogs out there:
Ethno::log: Ringing the anthropological bell
Phluzein: News and musings about archaeology, culture and the ancient world
Languagehat: Language blog

Global Rich List

poor > how poor?
Rank your wealth, as a percentile of global population incomes...
via Metafilter

Al Jazeera.Com - International News

news > arab world
Finally, the english language Al-Jazeera web-site. Should prove interesting.
[Update: I must be psychic or something, Al-Jazeera is in the headlines... and they are responding to the accusations]

Mount Athos

greece > treasures > and controversies
This monastic haven is under threat of an invasion of females. For 1000 years now the "Holy Mountain" peninsula has been banned for women. This guardian article does a great job of describing the effect this has on the place and the monks.
The Greek government has argued in favour of the monks rights to keep the ban. Yet, understandably, quite a few women are pissed off about it.

In 1997 an Exhibit of Mount Athos Treasures was opened for the first time to the Greek public. This is sampled here.

Jared Diamond: The course of human history

anthropology > civilizations
A very interesting talk. The actual transcript starts here. This can be seen as a synopsis of Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, one of the most profound books in anthropology and the rise of civilisation ever written in my, most humble, opinion.
Diamond, with all of this, destroys racist fantasies in the most definitive of ways.

Have you forgotten?

iraq > occupation
A forceful piece from Riverbend's blog in Baghdad. The perfect andidote for Fox News idiocies, Bremer's invaders and warmongers cheering the "liberators".

Excerpt:
...I remember February 13, 1991. I remember the missiles dropped on Al-Amriyah shelter- a civilian bomb shelter in a populated, residential area in Baghdad. Bombs so sophisticated, that the first one drilled through to the heart of the shelter and the second one exploded inside. The shelter was full of women and children- boys over the age of 15 weren’t allowed. I remember watching images of horrified people clinging to the fence circling the shelter, crying, screaming, begging to know what had happened to a daughter, a mother, a son, a family that had been seeking protection within the shelter’s walls...
[Update, Sept. 5: I have, with riverbend's permission translated this post of hers in Greek and it is already up at the Greek Histologion.]

Posts will open in new window

histologion > users' demands
Following suggestions from some of this site's visitors, links will open in a new browser window from now on...

US sneers at 'chocolate makers'

politics > psychotic
If there was the slightest doubt that the Bush team consists of psychopaths, this should dispell it... The statement was made by a state department spokesman for chrissake.
Related map!
via warfilter

Alternative Medicine and the Laws of Physics

pseudoscience > quackery
More on the homeopathy scam: The scientific evidence for homeopathy.
Homeopathy: the ultimate fake and the first debunking of homeopathy on record (1842): Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions.
This form of charlatanism is very popular here in Greece as well...