On the one hand, Al-Monitor's Laura Rozen is reporting that significant progress was made in this last round of talks in Vienna, so much so that the Iranian negotiators may actually have felt that a deal was within reach if the P5+1 principals had stayed there another week. She writes that the P5+1 negotiators are … Continue reading Dueling narratives on Vienna

Bravo to the Polish town of Tuszyn for taking a stand on something we've all long wondered about and, yes, feared: According to an Australian newspaper, one council member is heard saying: “Anyone who knows Winnie-the-Pooh knows he has no sex [genitalia],” which would normally be considered a good thing in a children's cartoon character, … Continue reading Finally, somebody is willing to take on Big Pooh

My daughter loves the police. When we lived in Chicago she saw them all the time, including at least one occasion when a couple of them came to give a talk to her preschool. She's learned, partly (and probably unfortunately, I now realize) from her mother and me that the police are "the good guys," … Continue reading Not even worth a trial?

Well, the Iran talks were a bust, kind of, and we're about to find out that the grand jury is letting Darren Wilson get away with murder, so it's been kind of a crappy day overall. But I've got a couple of cool history-related things to share with you. First up, within the general theme … Continue reading Interesting historical nice times

Chuck Hagel has, ah, "resigned" as Secretary of Defense, because somebody has to take the blame for, well, the election results I guess (full confession: I respect Hagel's stance on cutting the military budget and his skepticism for American military adventures abroad). If we're going by substance, it's not clear why Hagel had to go. … Continue reading Chucked out

As was almost universally expected by the weekend, today's deadline for resolving the dispute over Iran's nuclear program failed to produce anything more than an extension of talks through the end of June, 2015. It seems that even with the Russian uranium compromise that was floated a couple of weeks ago (which for all we … Continue reading Iran talks extended, which is, um, not the absolute worst possible outcome?

Hey, did you hear? Saturday Night Live did a show, on Saturday! Saturday night, in fact! OK, that seems pretty predictable, but then did you know that they did a sketch on this sketch comedy show? About immigration? And in this sketch they made some jokes about Barack Obama's recent executive order by playing with … Continue reading Isn’t there any actual news? (SPOILER: yes, there is)

Anti-choice math. GLORIOUS. h/t @aminatou pic.twitter.com/7pMKKP53Uv — Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) November 21, 2014 Numbers don't lie, liberals (via Wonkette).

When I said the other day that Burkina Faso matters partly because it's smack in the middle of the West African Ebola outbreak, I was remiss in not mentioning that the outbreak actually may be subsiding overall: Statistics from World Health Organization have shown in the last few weeks a steady decline in the numbers … Continue reading Good news on Ebola?

Maybe, if we here in America are really concerned about undocumented immigrants coming into the country across our southern border, we could stop engaging in the predatory "free trade" practices that are collapsing economies and societies in their home countries and forcing them to migrate in the first place? In 2004 and 2005, hundreds of … Continue reading A crazy thought about immigration