Dear Republican candidates: You are campaigning on talking points that do not actually appeal to us. Why are you doing that? Who told you we want these things? Dear Rick Perry: We don’t want our troops in Iraq. We don’t think President Obama was too quick to get them out. We think he was too […]
Archives for January 2012
Omar Khayyam (2) [Whinfield 1]
At dawn a shout awoke us in that watering hole… you crazed carousing drunk! Get up and grab that bottle let’s finish what we started before fate starts to finish us. Trans Juan Cole from Whinfield 1 (Khayyam uses a lot of bawdy language, which embarrassed the Victorians. I think it sounds contemporary, like a […]
Why the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Victory at the Polls May not be Decisive
The Muslim Brotherhood received a little over a third of the votes in the third round of elections for the lower house of parliament. Since the fundamentealist Nur (Light) Party, backed by the Salafis, also did well, Muslim religious parties will have a majority in the new parliament. There are four reasons for which this […]
World’s Stupidest Guerrillas Kill over 70 Shiite Pilgrims in Iraq
Guerrillas in Iraq staged a serious of bloody bombings targeting Shiites on Thursday. Shiite Muslims are on the move, meeting and going on pilgrimage to commemorate the 40th day after the anniversary of the martyrdom of Imam Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. He was struck down by imperial Umayyad armies in 680 at […]
Jahanpour: As US and Iran Confront Each other, where is the Diplomacy?
Dr. Farhang Jahanpour writes in a guest column for Informed Comment : The war of words between Iran and the West has reached dangerous proportions, and it may easily get out of hand. It is clear that the majority of people in the West and in Iran do not wish the hostilities to develop into […]
Tomgram: Bill McKibben, Buying Congress in 2012
My resolution for 2012 is to be naïve — dangerously naïve…
Turkey Warns against Sunni-Shiite Civil War in Mideast
Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu Ahmet Davutoglu warned Wednesday in Tehran against a Sunni-Shiite civil war in the Middle East, which he said was being encouraged by some (unnamed) forces. Among the flashpoints in the area has been the confrontation between Iran and the United States at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Iran conducted a […]
Omar Khayyam (1) [Whinfield 26]
In these one, two, three days a lifetime has passed, like cascading waters or a desert squall. But regret for two days never comes to mind: the one that hasn’t arrived and the one that long since passed – Omar Khayyam Trans. by Juan Cole from Whinfield 26 Revised. For the […]
US sees Iranian Military Spending as Threat
courtesy Ben Adler @ Reuters