Pakistan really can’t catch a break. If you were Musharraf, would you go ahead with January’s elections knowing that everything is in even more turmoil than before, or would you risk the nation getting even more pissed after another suspension of democracy? (Or here, “democracy”, considering that independent media had been banned from election coverage.) […]
This one goes out to my senior-year apartment crew. I was once discussing political philosophy with my dad, and we both agreed that under ideal theoretical conditions, a socialist utopia could be pretty cool: from abilities according to needs and all that lot. (Before someone from the future reads that and declares me a godless […]
Last night I was hitting the new gym — this one has TVs on the treadmills, so I rocked the informative running action — when this story came on CNN: Saudi Court Ups Punishment for Gang-Rape Victim The gist of the story is that a woman was gang-raped by seven Saudi men, yet the Saudi […]
The U.S. government says attacks in Iraq are down 55 percent since last summer, thanks to the American surge and better cooperation with Iraqi police. (Although the fact that the surge is about to end is worrying.) The interesting and hopeful side note in the piece, which I’ve read in a few places, are the […]
I agreed with this sentiment from the war’s beginning: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/opinion/23galbraith.html If people fear the bloodshed that will occur in federalizing the country, well hey, it’s been underway for quite some time now.
Apparently Bolivia’s president gave the Iranian president a reception with military honors: Ahmadinejad shores up support in Bolivia, Venezuela If you don’t like the U.S., well OK, but the last time I was in Bolivia (last August, actually) I don’t remember any Bolivians expressing support for the imposition of a Shi’ite Muslim theocracy in the […]
This column was deeply unsettling and thought-provoking: The Age of Irresponsibility For a President who believes so deeply in good, evil and the need for justice, why does he think a situation with no consequences isn’t going to bring out the worst in people? And for those who argue that counterinsurgencies—from the American West to […]
Hey readaship. We’re all down for analogies. Sometimes they make you feel like some illness is on the horizon, like how G-Unit Dubs Bizzle is sadly similar to Alcibiades back in the Athens day, goading mugs into a poorly-planned military venture that then spins out of control. Other times though you watch some stuff and […]
It seems the FBI foiled an Islamist plot to attack Fort Dix in New Jersey when the potential terrorist masterminds took a tape of themselves firing assault weapons and yelling “Allahu Akbar” to the local video store for dubbing onto DVD format. The quick-thinking clerk called the cops, who called the FBI, who arrested the […]
I’m not sure why it is that Nicolas Sarkozy seems to have been anointed as the front-runner by all the commentary I’ve read, but they were right about dude, as he won a pretty commanding victory, 53% to 47%. I think a lot of the positive coverage has to do with commentary peeps simply being […]