Welcome back to our show, folks. There's a lot of world news to talk about and I'm working on a little Islamic History when I find the time, and we'll be getting to that stuff as the week rolls on and in between my attempts to do a little paid work here and there. But … Continue reading Speaker is as Speaker does

If I were a steadily employed person who regularly commuted to a workplace and had to fill his tank frequently, I'd probably be harping about low gas prices all the time. "Have you seen how low gas has gotten?" I'd say. "Man, gas was twice this expensive just a few months ago," I would remark, … Continue reading Saudi Arabia and oil prices

Forward: Kurdish forces liberated Sinjar and saved a whole bunch of Yazidis from their desperate straits in the mountains around the town. Back: ISIS has probably regained control of the key refinery town of Baiji from the Iraqi army, though while they likely have retaken the town it's not clear that they've captured the refinery … Continue reading Iraq: 2 steps forward, 1 step back

Of all the things Kiev could have done to try to defuse its conflicts with its eastern rebels and their Russian backers, this was definitely, um, a thing that they did anyway: Ukraine's parliament has voted to drop the country's non-aligned status and work towards Nato membership. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the move … Continue reading Ukraine and NATO, sitting in a tree…

Pyongyang wants you to know that it didn't hack Sony but it's also SUPER MAD about "The Interview" and it will WREAK TERRIBLE VENGEANCE on all of us for such a flagrant insult: While steadfastly denying involvement in the hack, North Korea accused U.S. President Barack Obama of calling for "symmetric counteraction." "The DPRK has … Continue reading Yappy North Korea demands attention, and we should stop giving it to them

I've been trying to think of what to say about the tragic and senseless murder of those two NYPD officers in Brooklyn last night, or the one who was killed in Florida, and about the people who are now using those deaths as an excuse to attack the Michael Brown and Eric Garner protesters, but … Continue reading Read Jamelle Bouie on police and protesters

Yesterday I noted that it's still not clear to a lot of observers that North Korea is actually behind the Sony Pictures hack. Around the time I was writing that post, the FBI was releasing a statement definitively laying responsibility for the hack at Pyongyang's door. Here's their case: As a result of our investigation, … Continue reading The undisclosed evidence better be good

Iraq's Kurds have reportedly finally broken ISIS's encirclement of Mount Sinjar and rescued the Yazidis who have been struggling to stay alive there. That's clearly an excellent thing, even if relief efforts are currently being hampered by mines that ISIS laid in the area. Also good, presumably, are reports that three top ISIS leaders in … Continue reading Good news in Iraq, terrible news in Syria

At Al Jazeera, Michael Pizzi asks: No. Well, I hate talking in absolutes about the future, so let's go with "most likely not, at least not without some conciliatory moves by the West." Pizzi makes a good case for why almost anybody else would back down in Putin's situation: But the collapse of the ruble … Continue reading Simple Answers to Simple Questions, 19 December 2014 #2

Over at EvenTheLiberalAlthoughNowItsActuallyDead New Republic, Yishai Schwartz takes a break from cheering on the killing of children in Gaza and hilariously overreacting to recent developments with respect to Cuba to ask this question: The answer is simple but multi-part: Apart from the government saying "trust us, it's North Korea" (which, you know, fool me once...) … Continue reading Simple Answers to Simple Questions, 19 December 2014 #1