WLBOTT Visits Ouarzazate Our youngest Elder, Elder DZ, is in a predicament. His student housing lease ends on the 15th of August, and the next lease, in a different apartment, doesn’t begin until September 1st. So he has to lug out all his stuff and find a place to stay for two weeks. But he’s […]
Category: Africa
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The Moroccan Sun
Morocco is investing in solar power in a big way. Ouarzazate Just a few miles southwest of the Noor/ Ouarzazate solar power station sits the city of Ouarzazate. Interestingly, Ouarazazate lies north of Austin, with a latitude that places it between Austin and Waco. It’s about as toasty-warm as Austin, but much drier. Morocco Salt […]
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Dreamtime / Cairo (CAI)
Circumnavigation series Next in the series Heraklion → Cairo (CAI): ~360 miles We continue our 16,000 mile flight from Edmonton, Canada to Perth, Australian. After leaving Crete, Elder G and I flew down to Cairo to refuel. We did not linger. To give you a sense of how screwed up Cairo is, […]
The WLBOTT Museum of History, Anthropology and Technology (WHAT?) is currently hosting A Short History of the Air Fryer. Big shout-out to our enthusiastic, unpaid interns! Air Fryer – The Nuts and Bolts An air fryer is a small countertop convection oven that is said to simulate deep frying without submerging the food in oil. […]
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Harissa
Elder JimZim is WLBOTT’s muse-du jour. Lastly, I wrote a Harissa haiku when I was out of harissa: Harissa – how I miss yaA staining red pasteTo spread on shawarma pita Droubi’s Elder JimZim was referring to Droubi’s, at 7333 Hillcroft Street, in Houston. You can see a nice video of the owners in this […]
New Crescent series “For the price of one year of missiles, we could irrigate a thousand years of fields.” “Untwine the budgets of war, and spool them into wells of life.” Elder G Yesterday we looked at the scale of resources needed to support the agricultural community of The New Crescent. The irrigation needs of […]
New Crescent series Next in the series We continue our series on The New Crescent – a Utopian agricultural community that resettles Palestine refuges in a peaceful, prosperous setting. We try to answer some basic questions: How much land? How much water? How much electricity? In our Utopia, Egypt has provided a […]
New Crescent series Next in the series Let’s get back to our Olive Orchard for The New Crescent. Time to take a practical look at the olive orchard project. Assumptions Orchard size 100 acres orchard size Trees per acre 300 high-density but not super-high Establishment (cost per acre) $5,000 initial planting, irrigation, […]
New Crescent series Next in the series We talked a bit about olive trees in a previous blott: https://www.wlbott.com/?p=25662 For The New Crescent, the communities will decide how to use their irrigated crop land. But the economic realities of irrigating the soil with desalinated water will encourage the planting of high value […]
New Crescent series Next in the series Before we get started, let’s take a moment to reflect: Q. How cool is the Austin Public Library?A. Very cool. Joe Sacco: The Nuts and Bolts Joe Sacco, journalist, satirist, and illustrator, frequently writes about Palestine, and has collaborated with Chris Hedges on several works. […]