Clipmarks | invictus's 'middle east' clips

History of Religion in 90 seconds - Geographical Evolution (Flash)

Wed, 20 Dec 2006 12:35:27 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes
clipper's remarks: similar to the "Map of War" in the Middle East

How has the geography of religion evolved over the centuries, and where has it sparked wars? Our map gives us a brief history of the world's most well-known religions: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. Selected periods of inter-religious bloodshed are also highlighted. Want to see 5,000 years of religion in 90 seconds? Ready, Set, Go!

* Download .swf (?)

*View Full Screen

Tags: history, religion, flash, geography, map, evolution, faith, christianity, islam, buddhism, hinduism, judaism, visualization

"What We Are Seeing Is the Fall of America"

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:40:20 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Harold Bloom speaks...

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

Harold Bloom, Yale literature professor and cultural critic, is one of America's most prominent and provocative intellectuals.

Speaking at his home in New Haven where he is recovering from a recent health scare, a pale and weak Bloom seems to have symbolically embodied what he calls the "poor state of the nation."

"I am 77 years old and I have never seen this country in such a bad state. It is madness. What we are seeing is the fall of the Roman Empire, only now it is the fall of America, the glory of our Empire. This war is what Parthia was to Rome.

"We have caused a monstrous mess. We don't even count killed Iraqis. God knows how many Iraqi women, children and men have been killed by our accidental shootings, which we are such experts at, or by other Iraqis. No, 'Benito Bush' (Bloom's pet name for President George Bush) deserves, if we had a functioning civil law in the world, to be condemned for crimes against humanity. Bush is ultimately responsible for this war," Bloom says

Tags: iraq war, united states, middle east, chaos, war

Top Bushisms of 2006

Thu, 21 Dec 2006 05:15:32 GMT

clipped by: matteo07
clipper's remarks: Can we survive another 2 more years of this bozo??

Clip Source: politicalhumor.about.com

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound largemouth bass in my lake." --George W. Bush, on his best moment in office, interview with the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, May 7, 2006

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." --George W. Bush, interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006

"Anybody who is in a position to serve this country ought to understand the consequences of words." --George W. Bush, interview with Rush Limbaugh, Nov. 1, 2006

"I said I was looking for a book to read, Laura said you ought to try Camus. I also read three Shakespeares. ... I've got a eck-a-lec-tic reading list." --George W. Bush, interview with NBC's Brian Williams, New Orleans, La., Aug. 29, 2006 (Watch video clip)

"No question that the enemy has tried to spread sectarian violence. They use violence as a tool to do that." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., March 22, 2006

"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense." --George W. Bush, Washington, D.C. April 18, 2006 (Listen to audio clip; Watch video clip)

"The only way we can win is to leave before the job is done." --George W. Bush, Greeley, Colo., Nov. 4, 2006 (Watch video clip)

President Bush: "Occasionally. One of the things I've used on the Google is to pull up maps. It's very interesting to see -- I've forgot the name of the program -- but you get the satellite, and you can -- like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes." --interview with CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, Oct. 24, 2006 (Watch video clip)

"See, the irony is that what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this s**t, and it's over." --George W. Bush, chomping on a dinner roll while talking about the Middle East crisis with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the G8 summit, St. Petersburg, Russia, July 17, 2006 (Watch video clip)

Tags: president, bush, incompetence, politics, humor, moron, quotes

Learn Out Loud

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 14:15:29 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken
clipper's remarks: This site is fabulous and one of my favourites. When you get tired, why not just lean back and let someone else do the reading for a change. LOTS of stuff here, to make you smarter. Go rummage through the titles. Tons of stuff for FREE and all downloadable. I clipped just a few titles at the end (until I ran out of characters) to show you what sort of stuff they offer. Enjoy! .

Clip Source: www.learnoutloud.com

LearnOutLoud.com is your one-stop destination for audio and video learning.
Browse over 10,000 educational audio books, MP3 downloads, podcasts, and videos.

LearnOutLoud.com has scoured the Internet to bring you over 500 free audio and video titles. This directory features free audio books, lectures, speeches, sermons, interviews, and many other great free audio and video resources. Most audio titles can be downloaded in digital formats such as MP3 and most video titles are available to stream online. Enjoy!

Internet's largest directory of free audio & video learning resources. Free audio books, lectures, speeches, and much more.

Complete resource to audio books from some of the greatest authors in self development, business, and more.

Comprehensive database of audio publishers including resources for language learning, rental services, and more.

Zaadz: Quotes on Courage

As a Man Thinketh

Beyond Vietnam

Speech by Gandhi

Discourses on Iraq and the Middle East

Free Guided Meditation

Tags: free, e-learning, ebooks, books, speech, podcast, litterature, video

Ten Ways to Make Sure That Peace Stays Dead

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:41:24 GMT

clipped by: Kore7
clipper's remarks:

Too many people on each side see the other as wholly culpable. Too many people on each side see themselves as wholly innocent, wholly victimized, ill-served by the well-meaning, abandoned by former allies, betrayed by the media, misunderstood by people who should know better, forgotten by the world.

Too many people on each side see only the suffering that has been caused them. Too many people have learned to wall themselves off from the suffering that they have caused.

Clip Source: www.haaretz.com

Ten ways to make sure that peace stays dead

By Bradley Burston

1. There is only one side to any story. My side.

2. The people on the other side, children included, are undeserving of sympathy.

3. Even the maimed and the dead on the other side are undeserving of sympathy.

4. The term massacre may only be used to describe casualties on my side.

5. The automatic fire, bombing, shelling or other lethal action taken by my side are acts of self-defense. If there are fatalities as a result of fire by my side, whether intentional or incidental, they deserved to die.

6. The concept of drawing comparisons of moral equivalency or mutual responsibility for violence is, in all cases, obscene, disgraceful, artificial, mendacious.

All political, military, social and religious modalities can be reduced to pure victims and pure villains, which is to say, Us and Them, which is to say, Us and animals/murderers/mass-murderers/racist genocidalists/Nazis/Hitler.

Option 7A: The goal of the left, the center, this newspaper, its writers, even some of its readers, is the destruction of the State of Israel.

Option 7B: The destruction of Israel is a worthwhile goal.

8. If I am a pro-Israel extremist, responding to a pro-Israel moderate, I should attack and dismiss the writer as a whiner, a crybaby, a defeatist, a moron, a wimp, an imbecile, a self-hater, an extreme leftist, naïve, brainwashed, a pipe-dreamer, duped by the pro-Arab bias of the mass media, a traitor.

9. If I am a pro-Palestinian extremist, responding to a pro-Palestinian moderate, I should immediately dismiss the writer as a sell-out, a fool, misguided, an Uncle Tom, unaware of the real facts, duped by a the pro-Israel bias of the mass media, a traitor.

10. The depth of my conviction, that is, the degree of my extremism, is directly proportional to the distance from my home to the Holy Land. The farther away, the more foaming-at-the-mouth my fanaticism.

Tags: israel, palestine, palestinians, israelis, middle east, war, terrorism, peace, list, suffering, victimization, vengeance, revenge, compromise, enemy, sympathy, fanatacism, extremism, dead, politics

10 Reasons The Dark Ages Were Not Dark

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:07:58 GMT

clipped by: JohnWaterman

Clip Source: listverse.com

I believe that we can safely say that the period of man’s history from 476 AD to 1000 AD is the most maligned of all.

Universities Are Born

The Classical Education (still used today in some schools) was the system used by the Universities which were created in the Early Middle Ages (the first in history).

Scientific Foundations Laid

While progress in Science was slow during this period in the West, the progress was steady and of a very high quality

’ [Source: Video or audio Lecture]

Carolingian Renaissance

The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of advancements in literature, writing, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical and scriptural studies which occurred in the late eighth and ninth centuries.

Byzantine Golden Age

Religious Unity

a sticky topic

Algebra Arrived

Thanks to the learning of the Islamic people in the East, the world received its first book on algebra.

Art and Architecture

Fantastic Weather

Law Becomes Fair

Agricultural Boom

Test your Geography Knowledge

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 17:09:36 GMT

clipped by: Socratoad
clipper's remarks: I love these type of quizzes as they,at least, slow down the rotting of my brain.

Clip Source: www.lizardpoint.com

Test your Geography Knowledge

Click on an area of the map to select a quiz

World- Continents and Oceans
Continents:	Cities:
Africa
Asia	Asia - country capitals New!
Europe	Europe - country capitals New!
Australia/Oceania
South America	South America - country capitals New!
Continent zoom-ins: (regions within a continent)
Caribbean (part of N. America) Central America (part of N. America) Middle East (Western Asia)
Countries:	Cities:
Australia
Canada	Canada - provincial capitals New!
China
Germany
India
Mexico
Pakistan New!
Russia
United States	United States - state capitals New! United States major cities New!

Barack Obama on Iraq - 2002

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 18:14:33 GMT

clipped by: jmk432
clipper's remarks: I love this quote! And it was in 2002!

Clip Source: en.wikisource.org

Barack Obama's Iraq Speech

Delivered on 26 October 2002.

That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

Tags: barack, obama, iraq

7 Worst Killer Plagues in History

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 02:43:04 GMT

clipped by: CrazyRedHead
clipper's remarks: Warning: graphic photos at site.

Clip Source: www.oddee.com

Smallpox (430 BC? - 1979):
Killed more than 300 million people worldwide in the 20th century alone, and most of the native inhabitants of the Americas

Spanish Flu (1918 - 1919):
Killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide in less than 2 years

In 1918 and 1919, the Spanish Flu pandemic killed more people than Hitler, nuclear weapons and all the terrorists of history combined.

Black Death (1340 - 1771):
Killed 75 million people worldwide

Malaria (1600 - today):
Kills about 2 million people per year

AIDS (1981 - today):
Killed 25 million people worldwide

Cholera (1817 - today):
8 pandemics

Typhus (430 BC? - today):
Killed 3 million people between 1918 and 1922 alone, and most of Napoleon's soldiers on Russia

Typhus is any one of several similar diseases caused by louse-borne bacteria.

Following the development of a vaccine during World War II epidemics occur only in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa.

Tags: health, history, medicine, disease, epidemics

Artificial Islands of the Dead Sea

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:54:55 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Clip Source: io9.com

The Dead Sea, a body of water that sits at the nexus of several political hot spots in the Middle East, has been a source of contention for decades. Now a New York City architecture firm called Phu Hoang Office has proposed a way to turn the sea into a thriving center for tourism and eco-research. The firm proposed the creation of artificial islands (pictured) called No Man's Land that would house hotels, create energy, and harvest clean water from the atmosphere. Check out more pictures and a schematic below.

Salinity gradient solar ponds, water purification tanks, and water filtering processes will all be integrated into the designated “water islands” of the chain. The other two island designs will be for tourists and solar energy production, providing self sufficient power as well as creating revenue.

Tags: geo-enginering, architecture, dead sea

The key to oil independence is a new electrical grid

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:17:49 GMT

clipped by: egoldstein
clipper's remarks: It seems that with alternative sources of energy, such as wind and solar, the United States has the potential means to substantially reduce our dependence on oil - especially once plug-in cars are on the market.

But until we substantially upgrade our nation's electrical grid with modern technology that will enable the energy created by these sources to be transmitted intelligently around the county, their impact will be limited.

It's going to take a greater commitment from Congress to jump start this. Making it happen will provide a huge boost to our economy, environment and political leverage with the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela and more.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.

“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

“The windiest sites have not been built, because there is no way to move that electricity from there to the load centers,” he said.

Tags: alternative energy, grid, electricity, wind, solar

Demystifying "modesty"

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 13:39:46 GMT

clipped by: Deepti
clipper's remarks: I have seen most of these on women here in the UAE, I never really thought about there being any difference among them...

Clip Source: www.gulfnews.com

The veil takes many forms throughout the Islamic world.

Niqab: A veil that covers the face except the area around the eyes. It can be worn with a separate veil for the eyes

Al Amira: A two-piece veil comprising a close-fitting cap and a tube-like scarf

Chador: Worn by Iranian women, it is like a full body cloak that can be accompanied by a smaller headscarf under it

Khimar: A long veil that hangs just above the waist covering the hair, neck and shoulders

Shayla: A long and rectangular headscarf wrapped around the head and tucked or pinned in place around the shoulders

Burqa: It covers the entire face and body and leaves a thin screen to see through

Hijab: A square scarf that covers only the head and neck, leaving the face visible

Tags: islam, women, veils, modesty, muslim, middle east, arab, culture, religion

Living People Outnumber the Dead- fact or fiction

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:15:06 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.sciam.com

The human population has swelled so much that people alive today outnumber all those who have ever lived, says a factoid whose roots stretch back to the 1970s. Some versions of this widely circulating rumor claim that 75 percent of all people ever born are currently alive. Yet, despite a quadrupling of the population in the past century, the number of people alive today is still dwarfed by the number of people who have ever lived.

In 2002 Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau, a nongovernmental organization in Washington, D.C., updated his earlier estimate of the number of people that have ever existed. To calculate this, he studied the available population data to determine the human population growth rates during different historical periods, and used them to determine the number of people who have ever been born.

For most of history, the population grew slowly, if at all

in the Middle East in 9000 B.C., Earth held an estimated five million people.

Tags: life, human, population, demography

There's water in dem dar clouds!

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:14:55 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: www.cleantechblog.com

With seawater covering seventy-one per cent of the Earth’s surface, at an average depth of four kilometers, and another 1,000,000,000,000,000 liters of water in the first kilometer alone of the earth' atmosphere, water could hardly be described as a rare element. Its more a case of 'water water everywhere and not a drop to drink'. I'm going to highlight a few different ways in which renewable energy can be used to produce drinking water.

One of the readers last week commented that use of wind turbines or wave energy to power desalination would be a great idea. Well in Perth Australia they are doing exactly that. Perth Australia has now established one of the largest desalination plants outside of the Middle East and set up a wind farm to power it.

Speaking of windmills, another Australian, Max Whisson, an energetic septuagenarian inventor, believes he can solve the current water crisis with his Water Windmill invention

Tags: water, clean tech, wind power