I agree with Kevin Drum; there's little to be gained from liberal/center-left groups like CAP arguing that today's Republican Party has moved far to Ronald Reagan's right. Yes, it feeds an argument that the current Republican Party is tiptoeing out on the radical right-wing fringe, but it's a hollow way to make that point. Here's … Continue reading A losing argument
Author: DWD
So much for resting in peace…
Via io9, it appears that archaeologists in the Irish town of Collooney have a bit of a mystery on their hands, as they examine a human skeleton that was unearthed when a 200 year old birch tree blew over in a storm. To add injury to insult, the skeleton, which appears to have been buried … Continue reading So much for resting in peace…
Republicans rebooting an old classic
It's no "it’s been pretty well confirmed that [Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 19 9/11 hijackers] did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack," which was really a masterful display of lying in the service of … Continue reading Republicans rebooting an old classic
Today in European history: the Battle of Vienna (1683)
So yesterday, when we talked about the Great Siege of Malta, I mentioned toward the end that the Ottomans, despite losing that siege, would remain one of the great military powers in the Mediterranean region for another century or more. Well, by 1683 it had been a century or more, and that year’s Battle of Vienna … Continue reading Today in European history: the Battle of Vienna (1683)
Today in European history: the Great Siege of Malta ends (1565)
The two most famous military orders to emerge from the Crusades were the Knights Templar, which was named for its first headquarters on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and the Knights Hospitaller, which ran a hospital in Crusader Jerusalem before it diversified into the fighting business. The Templars are easily the more famous of the … Continue reading Today in European history: the Great Siege of Malta ends (1565)
When is the AP going to explain its bogus Parchin story?
Remember how a few weeks ago, the AP's George Jahn reported that he'd seen a draft of the agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency governing site inspections at Iran's Parchin military base? And how Jahn explained that the draft said Iran would be allowed to do its own site inspections without the … Continue reading When is the AP going to explain its bogus Parchin story?
Congress considers giving the Israelis weapons that they probably don’t even want
Benjamin Netanyahu's consolation prize for losing his fight against the Iran deal is likely to be a major new outlay of military aid from the US to Israel. But the first bill out of the gate to propose new aid is Ben Cardin's "Plan B" attempt to scuttle the Iran deal via the back door, … Continue reading Congress considers giving the Israelis weapons that they probably don’t even want
Disaster at the Grand Mosque
At least 87 people (a number that's likely to rise) are dead and another 180+ injured after a construction crane collapsed and and fell onto Mecca's Grand Mosque, the holiest site in Islam. The Saudi government is planning to investigate the cause, but it's very likely that it was weather-related, as Saudi Arabia has been … Continue reading Disaster at the Grand Mosque
9/11 + 14 years
When I was in high school and college, I used to wonder about people of my parents' generation and earlier who could tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. Surely they don't completely remember something that happened 30+ years ago, … Continue reading 9/11 + 14 years
Like Obamacare on steroids
As Democrats have accumulated enough votes to defeat, one way or another, a Congressional vote to reject the Iran deal, it's started to look like the deal might become the foreign policy version of Obamacare, with deal opponents repeatedly trying to pick the deal apart piece by piece in an infinite number of future votes. … Continue reading Like Obamacare on steroids