World, take note. If you want to make the most badass coat of arms in the world, you need the following five items:

1. A narwhal.
2. A caribou.
3. A house made of balanced, gigantic blocks of ice.
4. A giant pile of balanced stones.
5. Three types of flowers that SURVIVE IN ARCTIC TUNDRA ... NEXT TO AN ICEBERG.

WaPo: Health journalist Elizabeth Agnvall has an eye-opening cluster of articles about how teenage sexual health in the US compares with that in other developed countries.

I really don't have anything to add, except that I want to raise children in Sweden more than ever.*

*(see second sentence of linked post)

NYT OpEd: William Powers Explains Why Bolivia's Oil Nationalization Isn't ScaryI'm starting to wonder whether the outrage over capitalist globalization's evisceration of the Global South should be focused not on the WTO, but on the IMF/World Bank. Because it is built on continual negotiations, the WTO gives smaller and developing nations a number ( Read more... )

I've been sitting on this gem for a while...

NYT: Sampling the Sounds of Mali Without Leaving Home

Pop music critic Jon Pareles introduces us to his top 10 Malian albums. With sound clips. Amazing.

David Ignatius's WaPo column today hits the nail on the head: The problem with the Dubai ports deal isn't contained to that particular deal and its parties ( Read more... )

My favorite Iraqi blog, Baghdad Burning, has a beautiful tribute to the Askariya shrine, and some anecdotal indication of the current mood in Baghdad.All morning we've been hearing/watching both Shia and Sunni religious figures speak out against the explosions and emphasise that this is what is wanted by the enemies of Iraq- this is what they would ( Read more... )

I had three four main things to talk about in my Cultural Property paper:

1. The destruction of the Iraqi National Museum in April 2003, and the US Army's infamous failure to prevent it (compare with our successful protection of the Imam Ali shrine);
2. The occupation of Babylon, which involved rolling heavy vehicles over 2,600-year-old brick-paved streets ( Read more... )

Ex-U .N. inspector: Iran's next
http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/39053.html#
By Brandon Garcia, The New Mexican
February 6, 2006

The former U.N. weapons inspector who said Iraq disarmed long before the U.S. invasion in 2003 is warning Americans to prepare for a war with Iran.

"We just don't know when, but it's going to happen," Scott Ritter said to a ( Read more... )

Over on Opinio Juris, the ever-astute Roger Alford discusses an L.A. Times article on film piracy. In doing so, he traces yet another application of the Tipping Point principle:Thousands of pirated copies sold in almost two-dozen countries thirty days after the film's release can all be traced to three illegal recordings at Manhattan theaters on ( Read more... )

BBC: Arctic ice shrank for fourth consecutive year

It's alarming enough to warrant quoting at length:[US researchers] say that this month sees the lowest extent of ice cover for more than a century ( Read more... )