Iraq Body Count figures for August 10: 94 killed IBC total to-date for August, 2013: 295 civilians killed At least seven more killed today in three relatively minor attacks across the country. Also, surprising nobody, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria claimed responsibility for Saturday's wave of violence (94 dead according to IBC): "The Islamic … Continue reading The Daily Iraq: 11 August 2013

Iraq Body Count figures for August 9: 4 killed IBC total to-date for August, 2013: 199 civilians killed It was too soon to hope that maybe things were calming down in Iraq. Reuters is reporting almost 80 were killed Saturday (per the headline; the article says 57, with 150 wounded, but casualty figures usually go up … Continue reading The Daily Iraq: 10 August 2013

Iraq Body Count figures for August 8: 3 killed IBC total to-date for August, 2013: 193 civilians killed Seems like a couple of relatively quiet days in a row as Ramadan came to an end, as the only piece I could find today reported that four Iraqis were killed, after three yesterday. Obviously one violent death … Continue reading The Daily Iraq: 9 August 2013

Iraq Body Count figures for August 7: 34 killed IBC total to-date for August, 2013: 190 civilians killed A vicious double attack on the home of a police officer in Tikrit that happened late Wednesday/early Thursday killed 13 and may be the first attack that can be directly attributed to July's massive prison break operation. Gunmen … Continue reading The Daily Iraq: 8 August 2013

Sometimes I think that America, in addition to being "the single greatest, best, freest country God ever gave man," is also the breeding ground of an unusually high number of foreign policy narcissists. Not personal narcissism; there aren't a bunch of Americans living their lives convinced that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is obsessing about them personally. But … Continue reading Although your mind’s opaque, try thinking more if just for your own sake

Apparently Breitbart is still looking for theirs (via).

When we left off last time (updated a little bit from the original), the Society of Muslim Brothers had been founded in Egypt as a pious Islamic social and charitable organization by Hassan al-Banna, and had grown furiously through the 1930s and 40s to become an international force, opposed to European colonialism and to the … Continue reading (Muslim) Brothers Gonna Work It Out, Part II: Sayyid Qutb and ties to terrorism

Iraq Body Count figures for August 6: 50 killed IBC total to-date for August, 2013: 156 civilians killed Six more killed today, three of them police.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators are supposed to meet in DC for a second round of talks next week, and, like clockwork, the Netanyahu government is doing everything it can to wreck those talks before they happen: The Israeli government on Sunday added 20 more illegal settlements to a list drawn up in 2009 of Jewish … Continue reading Well, those negotiations were nice while they lasted

Via Sullivan, the younger generation disappoints: My consolation is that, when I was in that age group and my choices before a party were a bottle of Stoli or a case of shitty mass-produced beer, I'd have gone with "liquor" too. We just need to get a Boont ESB or Bell's Two-Hearted into the hands … Continue reading The decline and fall of US America