Monte Dhamali is a striking black volcano in Ethiopia near the border with Djibouti. There seem to be marshes and salt flats in the area, and a strange tan mushroom formation on its southwest slope:

Satellite Image of Dhamali

Here are some recent pictures of Ethiopians:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/africa_ethiopia0s_remote_people/html/9.stm

The following site has photos of Ethiopia and everyplace else on earth, searchable by coordinates:

http://www.traveljournals.net/pictures/ethiopia/

The de facto national language of Ethiopia is Amharic. It's related to Aramaic and has a funky alphabet which you've seen if you've even been to an ethiopian restaurant (highly recommended).

There is a good article on Amharic here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amharic_language

I was unable to view the language since I didn't have an ethiopian font installed. But the above article had a link to one at:

ftp://ftp.ethiopic.org/pub/fonts/TrueType/gfzemenu.ttf

I downloaded it and double clicked on it. Font Book opened up. I pressed 'install font'. And the characters on the web page instantly appeared! I didn't have to reboot or even restart Safari. Go Apple.

The images of these wastelands fill me with an ineffable bliss and awe that becomes ectasy. Exploring these areas speaks to me in many ways. Often, I am very wordy, but faced with this grandeur I am silent and can at best refer to the images.

1. Red Mountain
2. Julia Curves
3. Turquoise
4. Black Rectangle [Chukotka ICBM base - site photos here.]

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Siberia holds a lot of interest for me and I've had some things I've wanted to share, but I just haven't. I'll skip those for now and go to surreal contemporary events.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is boycotting WalMart because after a member wrote to WalMart about their concerns about WalMart not saying "Merry Christmas" to all customers, WalMart wrote them back as follows:

“Walmart is a world wide organization and must remain conscious of this.  The majority of the world still has different practices other than ‘christmas’ which is an ancient tradition that has its roots in Siberian shamanism.  The colors associated with ‘christmas’ red and white are actually a representation of of the aminita mascera mushroom.  Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal.  It is a wide wide world.”

This response infuriated the person writing and inspired them to call for a boycott of WalMart. Now, you'd be hard pressed to find me defending WalMart, but X-Mas really is a pagan holiday, although this was the first I had heard of either the aminita mascera mushroom, or Siberian Shamanism.

Here is an article on the use of improvised music in Siberian Shamanism:

http://www.hulu.de/en/trance_siberia/music_shamanism.htm

And here is a list of links to sites dealing with Siberian Shamanism:

www.buryatmongol.com/sibshamanism.html (Update: Avoid this link, this site got hijacked by a disgusting porn site.)

So, now we know a little bit more about the mystery that is Siberia, all thanks to WalMart and the Catholic League.

I think most of us will be forced to admit that we have never even heard of the world's most desolate and horrifyingly remote desert, the insidious Takla Makan.

1. It has a lake of sorts, or would you call this a swamp?
2. A view from higher up.
3. But most of it looks like these dunes.

Geography is fun.

1. An incredible view of a river in Alaska.
2. A view from a little bit higher up.