You can find it at Medium: If you’re reading this in the United States, it would be understandable if any or all of the above was news to you. Here, instead of focusing on leading an international relief effort (an Ebola Marshall Plan, if you like) to contain and mitigate the Ebola outbreak in West … Continue reading My unhinged rant about Ebola

Joshua Keating asks an important question: "Do We Have to Sell Out Human Rights to Get a Nuclear Deal With Iran?" Observing that Hassan Rouhani's moderate politics either don't or (more likely) can't extend far beyond the nuclear brief and the reintegration of Iran into the international community, Keating is wondering whether improving relations with … Continue reading No more than we already have

Just to prove that I'm not one of those liberals (whoever they are, I mean Sam Harris and Bill Maher said they exist so obviously they must really exist and not just be made up) who ignores the Islamic world's massive problem with gender relations, let's talk about a remarkable protest movement that began last … Continue reading Iran reckons with its misogynist vice groups

It's estimated that over 100,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar over the past two years in the face of state-condoned hostility from Rakhine State's Buddhist majority. over the past two weeks about 900 Rohingya a day have been boarding ships to sail someplace, anyplace, else, Thailand usually, and many more have attempted to make … Continue reading Good read on the continuing plight of the Rohingya

Amidst this fantastic New York Times report on the conditions under which James Foley and his fellow Daesh captives were held, we learn that not only did the extremist group torture its prisoners, but that it did so in ways that explicitly echoed American treatment of suspected terrorist detainees: At one point, their jailers arrived … Continue reading One reason why torture matters

It is fundamentally absurd that Mitch "one-term president" McConnell is casting himself as the champion of bipartisanship in the Senate. After almost four years of nothing but obstructionism, his message can basically be boiled down to the same thing the mafia tells you when they're running a protection racket: "Hey, nice Senate you got there. … Continue reading Gangster politics

Via Wonkette: By 2018, will EVERY Democratic candidate be a relative of someone who made it on his or her own? #DecadentLiberalism http://t.co/2laoazcKLG — Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) October 26, 2014 This is a trenchant comment coming from a man whose hard work and self-sacrifice enabled him to be born the son of the "Godfather of … Continue reading Clever trolling or pathological lack of self-awareness? You decide!

Jim Lobe, the namesake of my sometime internet home, writes that this has been a positive week for news about the Iran negotiations. For one thing, the idea of a deal was endorsed by a key player in the Iran sanctions community: In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Amb. Stuart Eizenstat, who played a … Continue reading Some positive talk on the Iran front

I wish I had something profound or unique to say about gun violence in this country, but even if I did it wouldn't be appropriate to say it today. The horror of yet another school shooting sort of leaves you with nothing to say, although plenty of people aren't letting that stop them. Thoughts and … Continue reading Tragedies

The great unveiling of Rand Paul's "conservative realism" foreign policy last night went about how you'd expect: Paul offered his usual confused mishmash of contradictions and platitudes, carefully designed to maximize his 2016 appeal to Republican primary voters without sacrificing his more non-interventionist cred with the general electorate. I had a few thoughts that I … Continue reading Rand Paul is the most important something who ever somethinged, you can be sure of that