Hoping to get some sea kayaking in on my next trip to North Wales. Spent 12 days on a beach there a few weeks back during the heat wave we've just enjoyed.
10am, high above Chamonix, clear blue skies, fresh deep powder. Top of the Aiguille du Midi with the Vallee Blanche below and ski bindings cranked up tight.
It was Pakistan that funded and armed the Taliban enabling them to take control after the Russians had been defeated in the mid nineties. Taliban leaders were all educated in Pakistan. Pakistan provided a safe haven for Taliban leaders when the Americans bombed Afghanistan after 9/11. The Taliban took control of Waziristan in the North West Territories, (an area I have visited) and by 2003 were firmly rooted in that area.
Pakistan did make eforts to take back control of Waziristan loosing around 800 soldiers in the conflict. By 2006 President Pervez Mushrraf realized they could not take control of Waziristan and signed a peace agreement with seven militant groups in Waziristan, who call themselves Pakistan Taliban or Tehrik-i-Taliban.
Under the terms of the agreement the Taliban promised to stop launching attacks against NATO and Afghan troops in Afghanistan and against Pakistani army and government. The peace agreement fell apart after the killings at the Red Mosque in Islamabad when the Taliban tried to intoduce Sharia Law. Ever since the Taliban has been a strong militant faction in Pakistan and support for them is quite widespread throughout the country.
The teachings on karma are long and complex requiring long periods of study to even begin to understand. It's not a case of what goes round comes round which is the popular Western concept, it's far more complex than that. I hope this helps...click on the link to read the full article....
"Karma is a word everyone knows, yet few in the West understand what it means. Westerners too often think it means "fate" or is some kind of cosmic justice system. This is not a Buddhist understanding of karma, however.
Karma is a Sanskrit word that means "action." Sometimes you might see the Pali spelling, kamma, which means the same thing. In Buddhism, karma has a more specific meaning, which is volitional or willful action. Things we choose to do or say or think set karma into motion. The law of karma is therefore a law of cause and effect as defined in Buddhism.
Sometimes Westerners use the word karma to mean the result of karma. For example, someone might say John lost his job because "that's his karma." However, as Buddhists use the word, karma is the action, not the result. The effects of karma are spoken of as the "fruits" or the "result" of karma.
No Judge, No Justice Buddhism also teaches that there are other forces besides karma that shape our lives. These include natural forces such as the changing seasons and gravity. When a natural disaster such as an earthquake strikes a community, this is not some kind of collective karmic punishment. It's an unfortunate event that requires a compassionate response, not judgment.
Some people have a hard time understanding karma is created by our own actions. Perhaps because they are raised with other religious models, they want to believe there is some kind of mysterious cosmic force directing karma, rewarding good people and punishing bad people. This is not the position of Buddhism. Buddhist scholar Walpola Rahula said,
"The theory of karma should not be confused with so-called 'moral justice' or 'reward and punishment'. The idea of moral justice, or reward and punishment, arises out of the conception of a supreme being, a God, who sits in judgment, who is a law-giver and who decides what is right and wrong. The term 'justice' is ambiguous and dangerous, and in its name more harm than good is done to humanity. The theory of karma is the theory of cause and effect, of action and reaction; it is a natural law, which has nothing to do with the idea of justice or reward and punishment."
California, Turkey, Greece, Siberia, Italy, Russia , Canada all have massive unprecedented fires raging out of control. Smoke from Siberian megafires has reached the north pole “for the first time in recorded history.” These are facts....the planet is burning and right now it could be as good as it gets, it could, and most likely will get much worse.
The map is quite interesting, not sure what to make of it though, certainly Scotland's population was pretty clear where it wanted to be. I'm not sure that the depth of division highlighted in the report could ever lead to a positive outcome. It seems there is no, or little appetite to negotiate and co-operate within the US as far as their politics are concerned, we see clear evidence of that here on the forums.
I think it's the degree of polarisation and the fact it's on the increase that's the concern. It would seem the US is not alone when it comes to volatile us and them mentality, we had a similar experience here in the UK over brexit. It just appears these days there's no middle ground and no appetite for compomise with either side moving futher and further apart.
"Future questions include how living in homogeneous neighborhoods influences voters, in their political participation and their own partisan attitudes,” Brown said. “The level of micro-segregation shown in the paper also motivates inquiries into what forces drive political segregation. These are ongoing research efforts by myself and colleagues.”
The study, “The measurement of partisan sorting for 180 million voters“, was authored by Jacob R. Brown and Ryan D. Enos.
It seems the political polarisation in the US is creating separation in more ways than just opinions and is getting more profound. What could possibly bring the people of the USA closer together in the 21st century......
Extreme partisan segregation goes down to a hyper-local level in the United States.
Democrats and Republicans physically cluster together even in small geographic areas, such as cities and neighborhoods, according to new research published in Nature Human Behaviour. The study indicates that American voters live in politically isolated residential environments with very little local exposure to members of the opposing party.
“The geographic separation of Democrats and Republicans is something that is easily observable in a macro sense, in that we can look at county or state maps of the presidential vote and see clear red and blue areas, and this is phenomenon has been shown in research to influence electoral outcomes, representation, and policy,” explained lead researcher Jacob R. Brown, a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard University.
“But the measurement of partisan segregation is usually quite blunt, relying on aggregate summaries, and we were interested in using individual-level data to measure exposure to Democratic and Republican neighbors with greater specificity than prior studies.”
For their study, the researchers used the residential addresses of every registered voter in the United States to calculate the partisan segregation of more than 180 million individuals.
“We measure the local residential partisan exposure of every voter in the country by identifying their 1,000 nearest registered neighbors, calculating the distance they live from each of these neighbors, and creating a weighted average of the proportion of their neighbors who are Democratic voters or Republican voters that gives greater weight to neighbors who live closer to you,” Brown explained to PsyPost.
The researchers found a high degree of partisan segregation across the country. “Many voters live with very little exposure to neighbors of the opposite party,” Brown said. Democrat exposure to Republicans tended to be lower than Republican exposure to Democrats.
The most extreme political isolation was found among Democrats living in densely populated cities like New York, with 10 percent of them encountering a Republican only one out of 10 times in their neighborhood. A high level of political isolation was also observed among Republicans living in low-density rural areas.
But this political isolation was not just a result of the partisan-leanings of urban and rural populations. Democrats and Republicans tended to be segregated from one another within suburban areas, and even within neighborhoods.
“Even when Democrats and Republicans live in the same small region, such as a city or neighborhood, we still see that they tend to live in different parts of these small geographies. This demonstrates a pervasive level of separation even conditional on living in the same larger area,” Brown said.
Partisan segregation also appeared to be distinct from racial and ethnic segregation. “Partisan segregation is correlated with racial segregation, but cannot be fully explained by it. For example, even just looking at same-race neighbors, we still see Democrats and Republicans clustering together,” Brown told PsyPost.
Previous research has found that political polarization among Americans has grown rapidly in the last 40 years, and the researchers fear that political isolation could be a driving force behind ideological extremism. But the causes and consequences of the observed segregation are still unclear.
Believe or not England is the tornado capital of the world....
"England is tornado capital of the world! More twisters per square mile than other nation.. And they are most common between Reading and London, with the Thames Valley our very own Tornado Alley."
Or you could by it ready made from your local Indian shop....
Only joking, it's my own method, tried it last week and it was good......
Cauliflower florets 1 tin chick peas 50g green curry paste 250 ml coconut milk Four small hot red peppers (optional)
Parboil the cauliflower florets for a few minutes. Add the curry paste to some light cooking oil in a deep frying pan to release the flavours. Add the cauliflower florets and chick peas, add 100ml coconut milk. Cook gently for about five mins. Add the rest of the coconut milk and the red peppers, simer for a further five to ten mins. Serve and enjoy.
bodleing2 Forum Posts (6,132)
RE: How was your summer holiday?
Yes, the currents around South Stack Anglesey provide quite a challenge even on a calm sea.