blessed britons

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) 2005 Human Rights Annual Report identified 20 ‘major countries of concern’. In 2005, the UK approved arms export licences to 12 of these, including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Israel. Saudi Arabia has been the focus of UK arms promotion since the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979, the UK has been Indonesia’s main weapons supplier over the past decade and Israel has received a steady flow of UK arms regardless of the situation in the occupied territories.

— CAAT

mad world

On one level there is absolutely nothing wrong with importing goods and services to meet our needs; but our eyes are bigger than our planet. If the whole world understandably wanted to copy our levels of consumption, we would need the resources of more than three planets like Earth. And, we only have one. Our economy and way of life need to make contact with the real world before we eat accidentally eat it whole.

— New Economics Foundation

Britain starts eating the planet

31,000 truckloads of sand

Submitted by antarchi on August 16, 2007 - 02:52.

Army engineers say 31,000 truckloads of sand and gravel fed nine concrete-mixing plants on [US air base] Balad, as contractors laid a $16 million ramp to park the Air Force's huge C-5 cargo planes; an $18 million ramp for workhorse C-130 transports; and the vast, $28 million main helicopter ramp, the length of 13 football fields, filled with attack, transport and reconnaissance helicopters.
The chief Air Force engineer here, Lt. Col. Scott Hoover, is also overseeing two crucial projects to add to Balad's longevity: equipping the two runways with new permanent lighting and replacing a weak 3,500-foot section of one runway.
Once that's fixed, "We're good for as long as we need to run it," Hoover said. Ten years? he was asked. "I'd say so."

mostly nuggets

blessed britons

mad world

31,000 truckloads of sand