Burkina Faso's last military coup, in October-November 2014, left the country under the control of a new interim "civilian" government whose (acting) prime minister just happened to be the lieutenant colonel, and former deputy commander of the presidential guard, who had come out of the coup on top of the pile. Well, you know how … Continue reading Another coup in Burkina Faso

I spared myself most of last night's low-budget remake of The Garbage Pail Kids Movie marathon Republican debate, but the conventional wisdom seems to be coalescing over a couple of related points: Donald Trump was the night's big loser, in part because Carly Fiorina was the night's big winner Now, the media that appears to … Continue reading Full credit for faking it

In my haste to get out the door for an appointment, I left out some of the juicier details of the story of that 14 year old kid in Texas who got hauled in by the cops for building a clock, mostly because his name is "Ahmed Mohamed" and not "Joe White American." For one … Continue reading More details on Ahmed Mohamed’s story

Irving, Texas, sounds like a warm and welcoming place, the kind of place where a young, budding engineer can build a clock from scratch, and, if he looks too Muslim-y, wind up getting arrested on suspicion of being a bomb-toting terrorist: A high school student in Texas whose hobby was inventing thought he had a … Continue reading Arrested for “telling time while Arab”

I mentioned Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán yesterday, and, with his willingness to say what other people are only thinking, he's really emerged as the face of Europe's anti-refugee element. Orbán is an interesting guy, a former advocate of liberal democracy against Soviet hegemony who now models himself after Vladimir Putin and openly talks about … Continue reading Hungarian PM tests the E.U.’s limits

Joshua Keating turns to recent history to explain why Eastern European countries have been so downright hostile to inbound Syrian refugees: So what accounts for this hostility in the countries that Donald Rumsfeld once called “new Europe”? For one thing, Eastern Europe (I’m using the term to distinguish these countries from places like Germany and … Continue reading It goes back further than that

The investigation into that fatal (the death toll is now 107) crane collapse last Friday in Mecca has a target: the Saudi Binladin Group: Saudi Arabia's King Salman sanctioned the powerful Saudi Binladin Group Tuesday over the collapse of a construction crane at Mecca's Grand Mosque, which killed more than 100 people days before the … Continue reading A falling out among friends?

I'm not a regular Bible reader, but some passages stuck with me from my days as a Good Catholic. Like this one, Matthew 6:5-6: 5 "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be … Continue reading They’re escaping a f***ing war, you walking pile of toxic sludge

Maybe Tony Blair is right for once (sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit), and Labour has consigned itself to the electoral hinterlands by electing Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. But his election sure does seem to be bothering a lot of Very Serious Center/Center-Right People both in the UK and … Continue reading Squealing too loudly

When last we left Libya, its two competing "national" governments were in talks to try to form a national unity government, but it wasn't going so well, mostly because the Tripoli government was dragging its feet. Yesterday came reports of a breakthrough, maybe: Libya's rival governments have reached a "consensus" on the main elements of … Continue reading Agreeing to maybe agree again at some point in the hopefully not-too-distant future