Quite a bit has happened since the first part of this tale. In response to what looked like the use of chemical weapons by forces in the Syrian army against a rebel-occupied area of the Damascus suburbs, the Obama Administration pushed for a military strike meant to, depending on which person in the administration you … Continue reading Bashar’s Chemical Romance, Part 2: What Happened in Syria, and What Can America Do About It?

The Obama Administration kind of screwed the pooch on Monday. While the terrible events at the Washington Navy Yard were ongoing, in the sense that (if I was understanding the chaotic cable news coverage) the man who turned out to have been the shooter was dead but authorities were still concerned that there might be … Continue reading What is Chuck Todd’s job, anyway?

For those of us who are interested in US foreign policy, international affairs, and a little national security news now and then, it is becoming impossible to ignore the impact of climate change on real events. I'm not talking about some projection of temperature increases or changing weather patterns, or an artist's conception of what … Continue reading Trying to predict the next global hot spot? Pay attention to the climate.

There are a lot of Important Thought Pieces being bandied about around the idea that "Syria is just like X," where "X" is some other overseas episode in which America either did or didn't entangle itself. Tommy "Suck. On. This." Friedman, Wielder of the Mighty Mustache of Understanding, attempted the Grand Unified Theory of All … Continue reading Why That Tortured Syria Analogy You Just Read Is Probably (or Hopefully) Flawed

Always thinking one war ahead of the rest of America, our media is breathlessly reporting on communiques that have been issued by "Iran" to Shiʿi militias in Iraq, ordering them to strike at American interests in retaliation for any US strike against Syria. Take The Wall Street Journal (please!), whose story is headlined "Iran Plots … Continue reading BREAKING: Iran is threatening retaliation over Syria, if by “Iran” you mean this one Iranian guy

Media commentary around sexual assault is not a typical topic for this blog, but the continuing downward spiral of the media kind of is, and so can somebody please explain what the hell is going on at The Washington Post? First, over the weekend they run an opinion piece (not linking to the original, sorry) … Continue reading The Washington Post: All the rape punditry that’s fit to traumatize

Anytime I write about anything remotely related to economics, I feel like I should start with a disclaimer that I am not an economist. But if Alan Greenspan were to write something about economics, would he need a disclaimer also? I mean, he is an economist, and was Chairman of the Federal Reserve, which is … Continue reading Popping Bubbles

US American Senator from Texas (checking...no, unfortunately they still haven't seceded), and traitor to his native Canada, Ted Cruz, wants to impeach the current president, who was born in US America and not an exotic foreign land like "Calgary," sorry but not sure if I'm even rendering that into English properly. Does he know why … Continue reading IMPEECH OBUMMER, YOU HOSER!

No other story of governments mistreating their citizens this week is going to hold a candle to what happened in Egypt, obviously. The total death toll for the week is somewhere around 900, although as far as I can tell these are official Egyptian government figures and may easily be under-counting. Wednesday's attacks, which killed … Continue reading This Week in Oppressive Government Violence: August 18, 2013

Obvious anagram Reince Priebus, who is like the James Bond of RNC chairmen in that he's white and wears nice suits, got "miffed" a couple of weeks back because NBC and CNN are both planning to produce Hillary Clinton-related programming (a miniseries and documentary, respectively) in the lead up to the 2016 election. Today the … Continue reading “Also, we demand that you immediately change your network’s call letters from ‘NBC’ to ‘RNC'”