'Bigger than Franklin': Bob Brown to lead anti-Adani road convoy
The former Greens leader says his planned road convoy to protest the proposed giant Adani coal mine in Queensland will be bigger than the protest to stop the damming of Tasmania's wild rivers in the 1980s.
“Night of Philosophy and Ideas” Events This Weekend
Sixty-five cities around the world will host “Night of Philosophy and Ideas” events over the next few days, with some taking place tonight. (more…)
Josh Rosenblatt, Why We Fight: One Man’s Search for Meaning Inside the Ring.
Virginia students learn in trailers while state offers Amazon huge tax Guardian
The golden age of Hollywood tax avoidance
Here’s What Starbucks Is Telling Employees To Say About Howard Schultz Huffington Post
Howard Schultz: America’s New Banality Supervillain Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone. What a nice guy. Trashes his father.
BECAUSE COMMUNISTS: Why Did Soviets Invade Afghanistan?
One day in October 1979, an American diplomat named Archer K. Blood arrived at Afghanistan’s government headquarters, summoned by the new president, whose ousted predecessor had just been smothered to death with a pillow.
While the Kabul government was a client of the Soviet Union, the new president, Hafizullah Amin, had something else in mind. “I think he wants an improvement in U.S.-Afghan relations,” Mr. Blood wrote in a cable back to Washington. It was possible, he added, that Mr. Amin wanted “a long-range hedge against over-dependence on the Soviet Union.”
Mr. Blood’s newly published cable sheds light on what really drove the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan only two months after his meeting with Mr. Amin. Spoiler alert: It was not because of terrorism, as claimed this month by President Trump, who said the Soviets were right to invade. Among the real motivations, the cable and other documents suggest, was a fear that Afghanistan might switch loyalties to the Wes
