Good site! I'll stay reading! Keep improving!

I totally disagree Mr Akbar; since the shia are not a monolithic block, the sunni either, and the kurds either.
al-sadr and al-sistani are at odds.
FYI; Saddam's army was composed of shia, sunni, cristians, atheist , etc. with the vast majority shia.
Most shia in iraq are arabs, and don't love Iran, most sunni don't love saudi arabia either, as most christians don't love the vatican.
If iraq is currently leaning too much to Iran; is because the bush administration splendidly de-baathified the government( secular government) and happiply delivered it to a shia faction that lived most of their life in Iran.
BTW in India's partition most muslim rajas and generals chose for their territories to stay under India; and not under their correligionist's Pakistan.
Religious affiliation is vastly overrated. Usually economic concerns trumps it a lot and don't underestimate usual divisions in any large community/block

Oh, on "Saving lives in Sri Lanka.." (aka Ceylon, I was there many times in Colombo around the mid 1980's and 1970's) I now see that Al Queda and gang have also infiltrated that big island. So the answer to your problems, my poor terrorized friend(s), is that Sri Lanka will have to coexist as TWO SEPERATE States. Example: like Dominican Republic & Haiti. Unless you want to commit genecide!? Dialogue is fist step to Peace. I cannot help you right now Mr. sri Lanka et al.

There is nothing like a good PHILOSOPHY. And when it comes to the laws of Nature, according to the Atomic-Chemical world of our existence, there is such a phenomonon as a LEFT handed and RIGHT handed entity. Yet, in the Hindu/Budha et al faiths, there is such a thing as taking a MIDDLE ground/path approach that one must take in the course of time which humans squander in vain. the MODERN SECULAR THINKERS will eventualy win. And the ANCIENT RELIGIOUS THINKERS of today or tomorrow will loose every step of the way. Democracy is for ALL HUMAN KIND living on SPACE-SHIP MOTHER EARTH. We came from the MAGMA and that is reality [Transfinity].

Get
the F*** up
off
your
chairs,
and look
at what is
happening in
the country of
Sri Lanka. The government
of Sri Lanka is kidnapping,
killing, and rapping innocent
people. The international communitity
must out a stop to this.

People are getting killed everyday,
and IF it is all right
for the Sri Lankan
Government to buy
there weapons
from Israel
and the
US
why
is it
not all
right for
Tamil people
to give funds
to the LTTE to
defend our people?

175 schoolchildren, 9 staff narrowly escape air strike on school

Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir bombers Monday morning bombed a school in Chundikulam,
wounding a female teacher and two
schoolboys, attending 7th grade
and 9th grade at the school,
Chundikulam Vidyalayam,
located 21 km
northeast
of
Kilinochchi,
in the southern
part of Vadamaradchi
East region in Jaffna
district. Three bombs were
dropped 25 meters from a class
room. A bomb that hit a tree
exploded in the air, wounding two
children and a teacher. Around 175 schoolchildren, 8 teachers and the principal
of the school narrowly escaped from the
aerial attack. TamilNet
correspondent who visited
the site of the attack
Witnessed a second
air strike at 11:45 a.m.
Tamil Net

More than 100,000 people have moved out of Liberation Tigers controlled areas of Batticaloa district to the Military controlled areas as Sri Lankan armed forces continued shelling for the third consecutive day in their attempt to force evacuation of large section of Tamil population with the military agenda to capture additional territory, officials providing relief assistance said Sunday.

Get the F*** up off your chairs, and look at what is happening in the country of Sri Lanka. The government of Sri Lanka is kidnapping, killing, and rapping innocent people. The international communitity must out a stop to this.

People are getting killed everyday, and IF it is all right for the Sri Lankan Government to buy there weapons from Israel and the US why is it not all right for Tamil people to give funds to the LTTE to defend our people?

175 schoolchildren, 9 staff narrowly escape air strike on school

Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) Kfir bombers Monday morning bombed a school in Chundikulam, wounding a female teacher and two schoolboys, attending 7th grade and 9th grade at the school, Chundikulam Vidyalayam, located 21 km northeast of Kilinochchi, in the southern part of Vadamaradchi East region in Jaffna district. Three bombs were dropped 25 meters from a class room. A bomb that hit a tree exploded in the air, wounding two children and a teacher. Around 175 schoolchildren, 8 teachers and the principal of the school narrowly escaped from the aerial attack. TamilNet correspondent who visited the site of the attack witnessed a second air strike at 11:45 a.m.
Tamil Net

More than 100,000 people have moved out of Liberation Tigers controlled areas of Batticaloa district to the Military controlled areas as Sri Lankan armed forces continued shelling for the third consecutive day in their attempt to force evacuation of large section of Tamil population with the military agenda to capture additional territory, officials providing relief assistance said Sunday.

I found Mr. Schlesinger's quote about liberalism to be fatuous, and quite indicative of the smug attitude of Northeastern mandarins in the middle of the 20th century.

It is quite amusing to encounter leftists/liberals/progressives who believe that they and they alone possess the blueprint for the future, and that anyone who opposes them is simply a cowardly reactionary. It is fairly clear to me that wealth is the best salve to life's problems, and that capitalism is the best way to generate wealth. You may feel an existential longing while sitting upon the plush pillow of prosperity, but would you really trade this for hunger, disease, and the daily threat of death? Are globalization, technology, private property, pollution, industrial warfare, etc. worth it? Yes.

There are indeed people on the right who want to make the world a better place, and they believe that the best way to do this is to make everyone as rich as possible as fast as possible.

The term "anti-Right" is helpful, moreso than "liberalism". But I believe that the current reaction against the Washington consensus is more a motley crew of the discontents of modernization and modernity. And like the Luddites, Romantics, Marxists, etc. before them, they will relent once the bounties of modernity become clear, and the Enlightenment will continue apace.

How come there are no "lefties" in any of Muslim majority countries? How about liberals?

Would you like to venture a guess when this great "Anti-right" will "return" to any Islamic countries? (Hint: It has to be there in the first place for it to "return").

Liberalism is philosophy of openness to change. It is hopeful. It serves broad needs.

The left/right split is artificial. Sociology has a school of thought called spiral dynamics theory, which posits that mindsets fall into several broad categories: nature-worship, authoritarian, oligarchic, consensus-seeking, etc.

These mindsets permeat political thought, and merely putting authoritarians into a rightist camp gives no perspective on their strengths and weaknesses (there are both!).

The left has traditionally been consensus building, but has some nature-worship elements. These conflict! Sprial dynamics (whose greatest success was methodologies for South Africa's peaceful ending of apartheid) can give names for these groups.

The groups have not changed in millenia. A spectrum of modes of thought will always exist.

Zero is also a circle and in an old expression "what goes around, comes around." The Taoist image of the Yin-Yang, another circle, is not static, but, like the planet, turns. Left becomes right and vice versa. Left and right are seasonal.

Zero is the fixed point of the left, i.e. all leftist roads lead to zero. Mass extinction to zero species. Zero human population, zero legacy.