Safi Airways, the world's best in-flight magazine

IKN has some amazingly kind readers and one has just made your humble scribe's day (hopefully yours, too). Reader 'SB' just flew on Safi Airways, Afghanistan's airline of choice, and took some photos of pages from its in-flight magazine. Without further ado.....

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And here's a close-up of that paragraph, to make sure you're reading it right

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I've gotta stay at The Serena one of these days. No other place in Afghanistan will do.

Bidding Afghanistan up

After the silliness noted earlier this week about the one trillion dollars worth of mineral suddenly discovered in Afghanistan, this morning brought an extra side order of VerySilly. AP reports that the minerals found lying around there are now worth THREE TRILLION, so it must be worth all those deaths and continuing with an unwinnable war, right?

It really makes you wonder just how stupid a) the US military is and b) how stupid the US military thinks the world is. Meanwhile, this humble scribe loved the breathless bit about how the Afghan officials are off to London next week to pitch the iron ore deposits to the Brits. After all, it was a Brit who found them in the first place.....169 years ago. Here's a quote:

"The quality of the ore is excellent, and the richest varieties are to be found," a surveyor wrote in a report on Afghanistan’s untapped natural resources.

The surveyor was one Captain Drummond, a British officer in the 3rd Light Cavalry. The year? 1841.

It's gonna be big news to the limeys, for sure. Meanwhile, if The Hawaiian really wants to know about the mineral wealth of Afghanistan, he should stop listening to the USGS and phone up Hunter Dickinson and ask them all about it. After all, it was HD who got kicked out of the country when the Chinese muscled in on the copper there.

Afghanistan Mining: US discovers $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits

Afghanistan Mining: US discovers $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits. Massive mining riches in Afghanistan. Potential Billions in Lithium.
Explore the geometry of Afghanistan through detailed Google satellite imagery. Take advantage of the search and zoom bars.
Click the figure below to interact with the Maps and News.


See more:
Maps and News: Marvel Loch Gold Mine, Australia

Utterly bizarre

This story in the NYT yesterday has been sent over by four people already. It starts like this:

WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. continues here

It's just the most bizarre thing I've read in ages. Just imagine that superduper discovery moment, folks, cos it's straight out of Catch 22....

Grunt: "Oh look what I found here, Sir!"

General: "What's that, soldier?"

Grunt: "Look Sir! A trillion dollars worth of minerals Sir!"

General: "Good work, soldier. I'll tell the President immediately."

So the NYT today informs on some strange discovery that neither the US (nor Russia before it) had any idea about? They just kinda started digging around after entering Afghanistan and found all this stuff by accident and had no inkling of its existence before? My stars, you gringos make me laugh.

UPDATE: Via mail, reader 'MP' chimes in with, "Is that 43-101 compliant?".