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POPSBali Hindus Challenge Indonesian Porn Legislation It's time for a clip that has nothing to do with US politics: Usually when we hear about religious minorities making a fuss about anti-porn laws, it's because they're not restrictive enough. But Bali's 93% majority Hindus fear that the new, draconian laws being contemplated by the rest of Indonesia's Muslim majority will trample on local customs such as erotic temple statuary and threaten the tourist trade - skimpy is a word that barely describes the swimwear on Bali's beaches (pun intended) Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika said, "Many people in Papua still live naked or half-naked. Are we going to arrest them all?" Bali is home to Legian beach, the only publicly acknowledged clothing-optional beach in Indonesia.
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POPSSt Kilda Visit website for lots more - including how to visit, and working holidays with the National trust for Scotland.
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POPSRussian Gulag Writer Alexander Solzhenitsen Dies At 89
"His intransigence, his ideals and his long, eventful life make of Solzhenitsyn a storybook figure, heir to Dostoyevsky. He belongs to the pantheon of world history. I pay homage to his memory." Born to a single mother in 1918 at Kislovodsk in the Caucasus amid the bloody aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Solzhenitsyn was initially a loyal Communist. But he went on to undermine the regime's moral foundations, his writings energizing dissent at home and in the West. First though he had to enter the living hell of the Gulag, a vast prison system that stretched from the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea to the steppes of Kazakhstan. Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years in the camps in 1945 and was to go on to survive cancer and a KGB assassination attempt. He was released in February 1953, a few weeks before Stalin's death. He spent three more years in internal exile in Kazakhstan, contracted and overcame cancer. "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" 1962
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POPSRussian Dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn Dead How symbolic as America has also forgotten the warning of this experienced anti-communist who railed against Stalin while the US was preoccupied with Hitler (which Pat Buchanan laments in his new book The Unnecessary War): "The Gulag Archipelago" is a non-fictional account ...great holocaust of our century-- the imprisonment, brutalization and very often murder of tens of millions of innocent Soviet citizens by their own Government, mostly during Stalin's rule from 1929 to 1953. The present generation has hardly heard of this man who warned of the Russian tyranny of his time coming to America: A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny. The next war... may well bury Western civilization forever. Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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POPSAlexander Solzhenitsyn is Dead He was the greatest witness against the horrors of Stalinism and the system of gulags and slave labor camps in the USSR. Not long after moving to the US, he critiqued the materialism of the west. In the end, he seemed to be something of Tolstoyan theocrat. His book "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" had a big impact on me in my youth. His interview with William F. Buckley on the old Firing Line series, if you can find it, is not to be missed.
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POPSMore Galapagos Than The Galapagos Yemen's Socotra island is a Dr. Seuss land of plants and critters you won't find anywhere else. Now' it's been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Natural Site. I visited in 2004 and can confirm that it's wacky and wonderful...Iwrote about it on Forbes.com in a story about the most isolated places in the world (http://www.forbes.com/2007/05/01/escape-travel-communication-life_cx_ee_07networks_0501grid_slide_3.html?thisSpeed=15000)
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POPSWierd trees They are like mushrooms. This proves a statement that we are still discovering new species every day
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POPSCity Slickers Turn Tropical Entrepreneurs: An Eco-Adventure
Imagine going after your dream business…on a tropical island. What does it really take to build an island resort? In 2002, four city slickers set out to build their dream business in the Panamanian rainforest: called Tranquilo Bay. All of the buildings at Tranquilo Bay—are constructed from steel, virtually unheard of in that corner of Panama: but they wanted to protect against termites, sea air, and earthquake damage. Jim Kimball and Jay Viola knew nothing about construction before beginning work on the buildings. They learned everything they needed from the Internet during Sunday visits to the mainland. “We built Tranquilo Bay inside the rainforest overlooking the Caribbean Sea and the beautiful Panamanian Jungle. Our central location within the archipelago of Bocas del Toro permits us to explore some of the most biologically diverse areas of Panama and Central America: an archipelago of some 68 tropical islands” http://www.tranquilobay.com/home.htm
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