High-quality English language analysis and editorial writing on the news.
BBG Watch Commentary U.S. Senator Roger Wicker, R-Miss., a leading Senator on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, is urging the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) to continue operating Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) Balkan Service and Radio Free Iraq. According to a press release from the senator’s office, Senator Wicker […]
David Schussler Here we are a nation of escapists, having displaced the indigenous, having fucked up the old world as we (whether we knew it or not) looked for a new world to destroy. While escaping the harsh realities of personal responsibility for the lives we no longer wanted, we dragged a battery of philosophers […]
In the midst of growing concerns with the United States’ relations with Middle Eastern countries, many experts and policymakers have been speculating upon the best plan of action moving forward. A recent prediction of a grim future in Afghanistan shows how tensions with Iraq are also mounting. With the threat of fractured foreign relations looming […]
MariaElena at Fountain of Elias reminds us that Sept 24 is the (pre Vatican II) feast of Our Lady of Ransom. This feast was one of the church’s way of reminding folks of the many captured by various pirates and to raise money to ransom them. The origins of the Feast can be found in […]
Ah yes. If you even tried to question the original spin of the Obama administration that the attack on the Benghazi mission was about an X rated porn film clumsily redubbed to seem as if was about the Prophet, you are an evil Republican trying to politicize national defense. That spin managed to silence Romney, […]
There is little doubt that the current situation between Israel and Palestine has not moved forward in decades. The whole mess has reached the point that it is impossible to figure out what either side are actually looking for. I am a big fan of distilling data down to something that makes some sense. I […]
A lot of the news about the Middle East is politicized in the US press, but today’s reports are not good. The Reuters news agency Religion section has this article, that cautions: The fabric of Middle Eastern society has fundamentally changed. Being Muslim has replaced being Arab as the primary identifying factor. The consequences are […]
The puzzle of the Libyan attack cover-up is why the White House tried to distract the mainstream media and rewrite the attack as a “spontaneous demonstrations”. We were told over and over again that this incident started as a protest against B porno flick that someone poorly overdubbed in Arabic and placed on youtube a […]
There are a lot of blog-posts trying to bash the LDS church as not being “Christian”, usually to encourage Evangelical voters to vote against him. As a Catholic, I am old enough to remember when a similar stealth campaign was done against John Kennedy. The more things change the more they stay the same. I […]
The kerfuffle of China’s land grabs against it’s Asian neighbors is not the only story that the MSM in the US is ignoring. This is the photo being ignored in the US Press: (Pope Benedict XVI waves to the faithful from his Pope-mobile upon his arrival to conduct an open-air mass service at Beirut City […]
This report from an Iranian blog on Global Voices, says they have such a chicken shortage the price of .chickens have soared. So someone decided to censor films and TV programs that show…chickens (!) Against a backdrop of lengthening food queues, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, the head of Iran’s law enforcement forces, has warned that films depicting […]
In Syria, the war is getting nasty. One recent massacre of women and children is being touted as the reason for someone (NATO? Turkey? The UN?) to step in and stop the killing. And news reports of the government bombing civilian areas make many shudder. StrategyPage points out that a lot of the massacres are […]
An article in yesterday’s National Journal – (http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/panetta-u-s-has-potential-military-plans-for-iran-20120308) by Yochi Dreazen, details comments made by Defense Secretary Panetta this week regarding both Syria, and the Iranian Nuclear issue. This article mentions The fact that the United States is weighing options and contingencies for conflict with Iran, and obviously this is no surprise. The “no evidence […]
Concerns about an Israeli Preemptive strike against Iranian Nuclear production facilities have gained attention recently and have been the topic of numerous speculative reports in both the foreign and U.S. Press. The Wisdom and effectiveness of such an attack has been debated, and both U.S. and Israeli Government officials have weighed in on the topic. […]
While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people…
As NATO formally ended its military campaign in Libya, Al Qaeda flag was proudly flying on Libyan roof tops. It was not flying just on ordinary roof tops – it was seen flying on the roof of Benghazi’s courthouse, the birthplace of the Libyan revolution and where the new rulers have imposed Sharia law since […]
As the world is playing catch with the events in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and other Arab Spring focal points, Iran is very busy. Trying to keep people oppressed in light of Arab Spring revolutions surely keeps the regime in Iran occupied. But more than that, viewing once strongman like Mubarak and Gadaffi defeated, jailed […]
It’s been 8 months since Arab Spring revolution swept Egypt and led to the end of Mubarak’s regime. The uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak in February has hammered the economy and sparked a wave of sectarian and other violence that the ruling army and its interim cabinet has struggled to control. Fearing the radical Islamic […]
It was a cute photo, so I place it on my blog. a great photo of a happy young teenager holding a water sprayer, somewhat wet herself, and smiling happily. There is enough bad news in the world, so I like to post stuff that reminds us that not all of life is war and […]
Will the hiring policies of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia result in the loss of jobs for Filipino and Indonesian maids? Last week, the Indonesian government was upset when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia beheaded a maid working there for murder. From RaissaRobles‘ webpage: Saudi authorities had refused to give Indonesian diplomats access to Ruyati Binti […]
 The man was well until his wife baked him a “healthy recipe” from the NYTimes “Healthy recipe section: Fava bean and artichoke stew. He soon became pale and jaundiced, and it took awhile for the ER doc to figure out why the man was sick. He had an acute hemolytic crisis, where his red blood […]
It was called “Operation Vengence”. He had ordered the deaths of thousands of Americans using airplanes, and alerted the average American that a war of civilizations was now endangering them. Therefore, the president used secret intelligence networks to find where the mastermind was hiding. And after some discussions, the president approved of the mission tasked […]
Like all Americans, I am happy that the terrorist leader Osama Ben Laden has been killed. Yes, as a Catholic Christian I pray for his soul, but unlike Time Magazine, I believe in hell, especially since there is no evidence that he repented his murders of the innocent on three continents. Yet shortly after the […]
By Jefferson Flanders The reasons for American disagreement over President Barack Obama’s decision to go to war in Libya can be found in historical and fundamental differences over the proper role of the United States in world affairs. While it’s easy to see any argument over US foreign policy in the traditional terms of internationalists […]
I’ve been too busy to watch the US news on our cable network, but the BBC reports are mainly about the fighting in Libya. But here in the Philippines, the headlines are about our workers. You see, there are at least 25,000 Filipino OFW’s (“overseas foreign workers”) in Libya, and although the government has arranged […]
The temporary shutdown in Egypt of Internet and other telecommunication services, as well as similar interruptions in other Middle East countries experiencing large-scale protests and rebellions, has galvanized hackers and human rights activists as well as U.S. foreign policy makers. The consequences may be not be what anyone expected. The technologies for secure, private, fault […]
While the US headlines were full of Charlie Sheen’s rants and news of labor union protests in Wisconsin, here in the Philippines, the headlines are about our stranded OFW (overseas foreign workers) in Libya. Every paper has photos of those who escaped arriving at the Manila airport, and the Philippine Inquirer notes that the government […]
By Shimon Z. Klein, Bat Hefer  Image via Wikipedia Now the unrest has reached Libya. Muammer Qaddafi, Libya’s unpredictable maverick tyrant, whose sanity is questionable, is in deep trouble. His cruelty and autocracy, unchallenged for over 40 years, is now on the firing line. Qaddafi, the maverick and unchallenged dictator, had maintained a “divide […]
FreeMediaOnline.orgTruckee, CA, USA, February 21, 2011 — As reported by PiratesWeek and Kim Andrew Elliott, a Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) employee who publishes his own private international broadcasting website, the BBG-managed Voice of America (VOA) websites were hacked on February 21, 2011, apparently by the “Iranian Cyber Army.” In 2009, VOA websites were out […]
Protesters fed up with political repression, corruption and poverty have toppled the government of Tunisia. They threaten to do the same in other countries throughout the Middle East as pundits hail the “Twitter and Facebook revolution”. But repressive governments have as much compunction about shutting down communication services as they do about torturing dissidents. Egypt […]
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