Category Archives: Uncategorized

About Those 300* Military Advisers

Deep dish Xi money pie?

The Dish

A small detail adds some context:

Two Iraqi advisers to Mr. Maliki said there would be more than 1,000 American private security guards coming to Iraq to protect the 300 military and intelligence advisers that will be here to help the Iraqi government fight ISIS, far more Americans than previously acknowledged. One adviser said the number of private guards would reach 1,700.

And the beat goes on.

View original post

Reform Immigration Now – GOP Nope!

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), a longtime immigration reform advocate, declared Wednesday that immigration reform in the House is “over” because Republicans are blocking legislation from coming to a vote. “Nothing’s going to happen,” he said in an interview. “My point of view is, this is over. There’s no reason to continue to wait. Every day, 1,000 people get deported. The president should stop deportations. There’s no reason to wait.” (Washington Post) Democratic leaders will hold a press conference today to mark the one-year anniversary of the Senate passing a sweeping reform bill.

Map Of The Day

The Dish

articseaice

NatGeo is making a major change to its next atlas:

National Geographic’s mapmakers drew their new rendition based on how the Arctic looked in 2012, using sea ice data collected by NASA and NSIDC. While the amount of Arctic ice grows and shrinks throughout the year depending on the season, the Atlas depicts multiyear ice — ice that’s older than an year – in solid white, and the winter’s sea ice maximum is noted with a line drawn around it.

View original post

On having tattoos and being a female athlete

Fit and Feminist

I suck at selfies.  Sorry. I suck at selfies. Sorry.

This past weekend, my tattoo artist Derek and I started work on what will ultimately become a half-sleeve, meant to commemorate my experience at the Keys ultra. The first stage is done, a bouquet of tropical flowers and palm frond on my left shoulder that is currently itching and peeling under my cardigan. When everything is complete, my upper arm will be a tropical jungle of brightly-colored flowers and birds.

When people find out that I have several tattoos, they are often surprised.  “You don’t seem like the kind of woman to have a lot of ink,” they say.  I get it.  I have that kind of middle-class, wholesome, blonde-ponytail, white-teeth aura specific to those of us brought up as Utah Mormons.  My people do garments, not tattoos.

Truthfully I don’t have any of the markers that would indicate I belong to a tattoo-friendly subculture. …

View original post 1,358 more words

Why Didn’t They #BringBackOurGirls?

Could it be that “they” just want to exchange the people they have taken for the people the government has taken from them?

The Dish

bringbackourgirlstrend

Because, writes Max Fisher, “neither Boko Haram nor its kidnapping exist in a vacuum”:

There is the deep and growing economic and political marginalization of northern Nigerians, who happen to be mostly Muslim. There is the ever-worsening Nigerian government’s corruption and incompetence, which has included a military response to Boko Haram so heavy-handed and fumbled that it has killed and alienated a number of Nigerians who might otherwise be allies against the terrorist group. There are multiple, overlapping cycles of violence and distrust and resentment.

Then there was this:

Nigerian security forces, in their campaign against Boko Haram, have actually been detaining (some might say kidnapping) the family members of Boko Haram fighters since 2011. The family members, often women or girls, are not accused of crimes, but held for what appears to be simple leverage (some might say ransom). Of course this does not excuse Boko Haram for adopting…

View original post 202 more words

Did McCain Unwittingly Help Fund ISIS?

All McCain really wanted to do was get on the evening and Sunday shows again – that is his motivation, not freedom for anyone, nor moral action.

The Dish

Steve Clemons nails the compulsive interventionist for his enthusiastic support of various Sunni powers backing the insurgency against Assad in Syria:

“Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar,” John McCain told CNN’s Candy Crowley in January 2014. “Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar, and for our Qatari friends,” the senator said once again a month later, at the Munich Security Conference. McCain was praising Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services and a former ambassador to the United States, for supporting forces fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham had previously met with Bandar to encourage the Saudis to arm Syrian rebel forces.

And where did that support end up? Clemons fingers former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan for funding ISIS, which he suspects was the reason Bandar resigned that post in February:

As one senior Qatari official stated, “ISIS has…

View original post 477 more words

unlawful maritime arrivals…

Read Between the Minds

unlawful maritime arrivals

assumptions of
civility
and
nonviolence
were made
no one
originally
thought
a code of behaviour
would be necessary
but without
a written document
breaches of
our
code of behaviour
have resulted
in
many deaths
and
to our exile
into undesirable
territories of the country
who could’ve guessed
that
european pilgrims
while praising
their god
could be
so
violent

View original post

Patriarch Raï Equates Terrorists With Atheists & Non-Religious

Free at last, free at last, thank God, I am free at last – from religious organizations, patriarchies, …

A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares

Patriarch Bechara Rai

It’s yet another Sunday in Lebanon and another opportunity for the Maronite Patriarch to offer his words of wisdom, in his weekly sermon, to the ears that would listen. It’s also yet another Sunday in a Lebanon of presidential void, security chaos and with more people listening in to the likes of Raï for possible hints at what to expect in the next few weeks when it comes to political development, the patriarch new quite well the stakes of his sermon. Here’s an excerpt, translated by yours truly, of Raï’s sermon today:

“In this occasion, we cannot forget that the Lebanese family is made up of two components: Christian and Muslim, and it has become a model for today’s societies, eastern and western, threatened by two extreme and opposite movements: religious regimes that aim to eliminate those that are different and to enforce their own faith and teachings onto others…

View original post 715 more words