While you're busy calling out the Missouri National Guard to Ferguson, to assist local and state police officers with such important duties as tear gassing children and threatening to shoot reporters, maybe you should put some thought into, I don't know, finding and arresting Darren Wilson? You remember Officer Wilson, don't you? He's the Ferguson … Continue reading Free advice for Governor Nixon

Iraqi officials are claiming that Iraqi and Kurdish forces have taken control of Mosul Dam back from IS: Iraqi state television quoted Gen. Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman, as saying that Iraqi special forces and Kurdish forces were in command of the dam, the largest in Iraq. Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurdish leader and the … Continue reading The battle for Mosul Dam is over, maybe?

Yes, Congressman Steve King of Iowa, you wanted to reach out? King appeared on Newsmax TV on Wednesday where host J.D. Hayworth asked him about the escalating conflict in Ferguson. When asked about the concerns raised by members of the Congressional Black Caucus about the possibility of racial profiling, King said those were unsubstantiated. "This … Continue reading Checking in on the GOP’s minority outreach

I'm slow on the uptake on this because, well, I'm slow on the uptake. But on Monday, Salon published a report by Eli Clifton that is absolutely a must-read if you care about the forces trying to maneuver this country away from a peaceful nuclear deal with Iran and toward war. Clifton looked into a shady … Continue reading The money behind the push for war

Did Russia-Ukraine turn into a shooting war last night? NATO and Ukraine said that a column of military vehicles crossed into Ukraine from Russia Thursday night, and Ukraine later said that most of them had been destroyed by artillery fire. It was not clear whether Russian soldiers or rebel separatists were driving the vehicles. President … Continue reading We got a great big convoy, rockin’ thru the night

No, that title wasn't the opening to a vaudeville routine. Turns out that Ken Isaacs was probably, and unfortunately, correct when he told Congress that the official statistics for the Ebola breakout were underestimating the problem by as much as 75%. The WHO is now saying the same thing:The magnitude of the Ebola outbreak in … Continue reading WHO says the Ebola outbreak has been “vastly underestimated”

Looks like he decided not to contest Abadi's nomination in the courts after all: He said his decision was aimed at preserving the country's "unity". "I announce before you today, to ease the movement of the political process and the formation of the new government, the withdrawal of my candidacy in favour of brother Dr … Continue reading Maliki out

Ross Pelin, of the Endangered Language Alliance, has a good piece at Foreign Policy on what IS's campaign in Iraq is doing to the Aramaic language: Despite U.S. airstrikes in recent days, IS still holds the heartland of Aramaic, now emptied of its original inhabitants. "The threat to the Christian Neo-Aramaic-speaking population of northern Iraq … Continue reading Are we watching the death of Aramaic?

I haven't commented on the terrible events unfolding in Ferguson because I think I'm self-aware enough to know when my own life experiences leave me unable to really understand the deeper issues at play. I have deep concerns about the militarization of local police forces in this country, about America's ongoing problem with respect to … Continue reading Good reads about Ferguson

Nouri al-Maliki has been quietly overseeing a very Assad-esque assault on civilians in IS-held areas, including Bashar's old standby, the barrel bomb: Sheikh Mohammed al-Bajari, a member of the interim local council of Fallujah, said the battles fought by the army and security forces in Anbar lack ethical and professional standards. He told Al-Monitor over … Continue reading First order of business for the new Iraqi PM