The Imam behind the "not Ground Zero not Mosque"is currently touring the Middle East and making Radical speeches that are sure to inflame the protestors back in the US.

Speaking last night in Bahrain to a multi faith audience at the Majlis of the Chairman of the Gulf for Council Foreign Relations, Feisal Abdul Rauf made the following statements.

He told religious leaders in Bahrain that the most important conflicts in the world were between the children of Abraham, whether the Israeli/Palestinian conflict or the US/Iran conflict and the challenge for them was how they could play a role in bringing peace.

"We are Christians, Jews and Muslims, but one of our faults is instead of worshipping God, we worship our religion and use that to cause division between us,"

While the Senilebiker was out running a few errands on his trusty steed this morning, he stopped at the local biker treff punkt (watering hole in German), and stumbled across a photoshoot for the RWE electric Smart car.

Whipping out his cell phone, he took the picture below.

Cross posted at Eurotribune and daily Kos

In the second of this series, I want to explore some of the differences between Europe and the US, based on the interaction between how we shop, and how we allow our towns to develop. To do this, I will also look a little at how we got to where we are.

As I discussed in RwC I, Europe can be defined in different ways, but for this diary, I am essentially focussing on the EU 27, and the few non EU countries that lie within the same geographic area.  Although there are many differences between the various countries within this area ( a subject for a future diary), my conclusions are drawn from having lived in the UK, France, Germany and Belgium, (approx 42% of EU population), and my travels to some twenty other European countries.

This diary is crossposted at Daily Kos and Eurotribune

from the diaries - Nomad

Crossposted from DKos. I am sure my European based readers will be much more critical than the Kossacks, but I welcome the additional information.

You want to know what the funny thing about Europe is?
Its the little differences

Vincent Vega

When I published a photo diary last week on a small town in Germany, I received a suggestion that I should do a follow up diary on what makes Europe different from the US, and how we Europeans differ from Americans.

I was initially thinking of a photo diary, but the more I thought about it, the bigger the topic became. So I thought that I might make an ongoing diary stream on the subject, some photo diaries, other text based.

This is the first, with the object of defining what is Europe. Hop over the orange line.

promoted by whataboutbob

According to an article in the [past Monday, August 03] Independent, three quarters of the world's oil fields are past their peak, and world oil production will peak around 2020. Source: Independent

The article is based on an interview with Dr Fatih Birol, of the International Energy Agency, and discusses the result of the IEA's latest study on petroleum reserves.

from the diaries with slight edit - Nomad

Cross posted from Daily Kos

I am often amused by comments on DKos about Europe, and that most people in the US have little or no real understanding of how we live, and what we think. This comes up in the health care diaries, second amendment, eco etc.

A combination of circumstances - my partner adopting a coonhound, my daughter (starting her career as a pro photographer) giving me her old camera - led me to walking the dog with a Nikon in my hand, and I thought I would share the results.

The diary is about one small town in Germany - Hattingen - which sits in the heart of the Ruhr - the German rustbelt, between Dortmund, Essen and Wuppertal, but is not anything like Flint, Mi.

Fine photo diary - welcome to senilebiker - afew