Posted on 05/30/2019 9:09:33 AM PDT by rktman
The Kyrgyz soldier stepped quietly out of the dark green bushes and swung his Kalashnikov rifle in the direction of our car. Another emerged and did the same. Their checkpoint was a skinny log dragged across a broken asphalt road heading toward an ethnic Uzbek village and the disputed waters of the Kasan-sai, a reservoir that irrigates the agricultural heartland of the ancient Fergana Valley. With a sleepy shake of his head, the special forces sergeant waved his rifle and made us turn our beat-up Mitsubishi around. There wont be any fighting here, the sergeant said.
At least not today. The quiet of the hot September afternoon was unbroken as we turned around and slowly ground off through the heat. Driving back the way we came through the parched foothills on the edge of the western Tian Shan range, a spur of the Himalayas, we did not pass any other cars.
But it has not always been this quiet. Throughout the spring and summer in 2016, tensions flared after ethnic Uzbek villagers and police blocked access to the reservoir and its water, which lies inside Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan drove armored personnel carriers into Kyrgyzstan, and both sides have captured and detained each others citizens. Fistfights and potshots have been common. For farmers scratching out a bare existence from increasingly dry land, water is lifeblood, and worth fighting for.
(Excerpt) Read more at getpocket.com ...
Next they are going to say that Floriduh may see a hurricane. And we are still waiting for our first ever tornado in Kansas. The fake tornado in Wizard of Oz doesn’t count.
What was it Mark Twain said? Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over.
I recall WC Fields exclaim “who stole the cork to my lunch?”
Hi.
“Quarrels over H2O have been going on for centuries climate related or not. Mostly NOT! “
Yep. Florida and Georgia are going at it now in Federal Court.
The Swanee river basin and tributaries.
5.56mm
Out west we have a saying. Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over.
We could have built dams and saved the TREMENDOUS snow melt runoff with the money squandered on the choo choo train to nowhere. Even though we have private wells they’re still regulated. If they come for our water they’ll have a fight on their hands.I HATE the government.
If there were no climate change every one would die, we would not need to kill each other.
And they still dump gazillions of gallons of fresh water into the Pacific each year.
Historically, I'm pretty sure every county in the lower 48 has had a tornado since records were kept.
I lived in Seattle for over six years. In that time we had one tornado. But you are right, we did have one. :)
“For farmers scratching out a bare existence from increasingly dry land...”
Umm, this is the Central Asia steppes they are talking about. It has NEVER been productive farmland, which is why every tribe that has ever lived there has been nomadic herders. They probably are only able to eke out some subsistence farming because of modern innovations in the first place.
Kind of like where the “native Americans” came from? ;-)
Much of liberal politics is driven by the mistaken beliefs:
* that empathy is charity
* that empathy determines morality
* that you’re holier than thou when you take the sins of the world upon yourself
The liberal elite seeks a divine right to rule by making themselves the sacred martyrs. I feel your pain. I will speak on behalf of the suffering masses. I will save you from yourselves.
And I will stand here and take the abuse and take the blame for all the horror in the world, because it shows I have the power to make it better.
This is a reflection of the battered wife who proves she’s more moral than the abuser by taking the abuse and having absolute faith that her moral example will redeem her abuser, who she thinks she loves. In this case, the evil West and white men inventing technology and capitalism are to blame for all the wars in the world ... including brown people butchering each other for the same religious, political and economic reasons they’ve had for centuries.
Then there is the evil enabled by misplaced compassion, that you cannot blame the official victim groups and have to direct the hate at the official oppressors instead. This is the liberal rape victim who blames the evil white men for oppressing her black or Muslim rapist - the poor babies don’t know better, I’ll fix it by tearing down the groups to blame.
And you see it in liberals hating on Christians as wanna-be Taliban despite multiple Islamic theocracies in the world oppressing women, from the Taliban to ISIS to Al Shabab. These liberals get moral points from peers for forgiving the violent Muslim terrorists and demonizing Christians who don’t want to pay for their abortions and sex change operations ... this ironically enables the Muslim theocracies, because liberals won’t confront or address it. Too busy as elitists “educating” the neighbors they smear as ignorant, stupid or crazy.
I would think that control of the Florida aquifer (half of which is in Georgia) would be an even greater bone of contention.
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