GG090804: Links for to Click Upon and Read Of

1. The New Colonialism: Foreign Investors Snap Up African Farmland — Thousands of investment funds, from small to large, have recently begun applying the most basic formula in the world: Man must eat. — Sounds like Africa is about to experience what Chomsky calls an economic miracle. — stabilize the currency, increase agro-export, cut down production for domestic needs, etc. — Great for investors and the hungry hungry hippos in the homeland, not so great for the peasants in the client state.
2. Obama weighs economic warfare against Iran — …if you’re a U.S. policymaker seeking to allay Iran’s concern that giving up its right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium will leave its energy production at the mercy of unfriendly foreign powers, what do you do? Well if you’re the Obama administration … you threaten to blockade Iran’s importation of refined gasoline, upon which it is dependent…
3. Why don’t my brother-in-law and I agree politically, when, as an (albeit uncommitted) anarchist, I loathe government; and as a pro-victory American Republican, he loathes “big” government? ladypoverty explains: While anarchism shares with conservatism a natural antagonism toward government power, conservatism as it is practiced by the Republican Party is little more than the defense of an enormous power grab in the private sphere… — Read the whole thing!!!
4. Superkewl series of posts at Quiet Babylon: Cyborgs & Architects — Though “Cyborgs versus Architects” would have been a more provocative title.
5. Lastly, Your Montag’s latest work over at Agitprop. —