While Turkey is insisting that the alleged perpetrator of yesterday's car bombing on a Turkish military convoy in Ankara was a Syrian Kurd affiliated with YPG, Syrian Kurds are denying that they were involved in the attack or that Salih Necar, the alleged bomber, had any ties to their organizations: The head of the PYD … Continue reading Ankara’s aftermath

I'm not a historian of American politics, but I pay a fair bit of attention to what goes on, and I honestly can't think of any primary candidate who's gotten more media traction without winning a single contest, or really having any expectations of winning any in the near future, than Marco Rubio. This is … Continue reading Marco Rubio and the problem of words and their meanings

Pope Francis said something important earlier today: Inserting himself into the Republican presidential race, Pope Francis on Wednesday suggested that Donald J. Trump “is not Christian” because of the harshness of his campaign promises to deport more immigrants and force Mexico to pay for a wall along the border. “A person who thinks only about … Continue reading Pope Francis does something nice

InfoSec is not something I write about very often, mostly because I know where my limits are at any given time, and because it's not something I write about it's unfortunately not something I'm able to follow very closely. But today at Lawfare, Nicholas Weaver does an excellent job of explaining why this Apple dust-up … Continue reading A very bad precedent

Today is the eighth anniversary of Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia, but in lieu of celebrating, plenty of Kosovars in Pristina opted to mark the day by demanding their government's resignation: Thousands of protesters marched through Kosovo's capital Wednesday on the eighth anniversary of independence from Serbia, calling for the government to step down … Continue reading Eight is enough

A car bomb targeting Turkish military personnel driving through Ankara earlier today killed at least 28 people and left another 60+ injured. While there's been no claim of responsibility as far as I can tell, and you can never rule out ISIS as a perpetrator, it looks probable that a Kurdish group was behind the … Continue reading Ankara bombing kills at least 28; suspect is Kurdish

The violence that marked Bahrain's response to the Arab Spring has gone relatively unnoticed by the rest of the world. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, in comparison with the chaos and/or violence that followed the Arab Spring in Syria, Libya, or Egypt, Bahrain's violence has been relatively minor. For another thing, … Continue reading Today in Middle Eastern history: Bahrain’s Bloody Thursday (2011)

Sorry for the sparse posting today. I actually had a social engagement that required me to leave the house, if you can believe that. I did have a nice long piece that I wrote this morning about recent reports that ISIS is using a new currency these days. Maybe you recognize it: But I liked … Continue reading ISIS’s play money