2015

British Muslim Family Not Allowed To Board Plane To Visit Disneyland: Are US visa officials Islamophobes?

AJ+ | (Video Report) | – – “On a family trip to Disneyland, one British Muslim family wasn’t allowed to get on the plane. No reason was given. And they’re not the only ones. Their MP has taken their case to Prime Minister David Cameron, and the Council on American–Islamic Relations has called for an […]

Christianity

Would Syrian Refugee Baby Jesus be allowed to immigrate to the US?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In this political season in which Syrian refugees have become a political football, it is worthwhile remembering that baby Jesus is depicted by the Bible as being a Syrian political refugee not once but twice. In ancient times, “Syria” referred not to the area of the […]

Bernie Sanders

Poll: Bernie Sanders would beat ‘Embarrassment’ Trump by a Landslide

contributors

Wochit News | (Video report) | – – A Quinnipiac Poll has found that 61% of Americans say Donald Trump does not share their values, 50% would be positively embarrassed to have him as president, and that Sen. Bernie Sanders would defeat him 51% to 38% . Sec. Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump by 47% […]

Islam-hatred

Islamophobia in 2015: The Good, the Bad and the Hopeful

contributors

By the Bridge Initiative Team | – – Looking back at the last twelve months, it can initially appear that Islamophobia was pretty bad in 2015. And indeed it was. Attacks against Muslims in the United States and their institutions have occurred in rapid succession. Meanwhile, leading politicians and the voting public have expressed increasingly […]

Iraq

If Iraq can take Ramadi from ISIL/ Daesh, it will Need to reach out to Sunnis

contributors

By Balsam Mustafa and Scott Lucas | (The Conversation) | – – After days of mounting expectation, the Iraqi government finally announced a serious offensive to retake the city of Ramadi, the capital of western Iraq’s Anbar Province, from [the so-called] Islamic State [group] (IS). This is far from the first announcement of the imminent […]

History

ISIS and the Abuse of History

contributors

By Akil N. Awan and A. Warren Dockter | ( History Today) | – – Volume 66 Issue 1, January 2016 N. B. IC house style is Daesh, but this is a reprint from elsewhere). The defeat of ISIS can only be achieved if we take a long view and question the Jihadists’ simplistic interpretation […]

Featured

Ghoul’s Glossary: A Donald Trump Translation Dictionary

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Constitution, US: 1. An time-consuming optional document that can be abrogated for lack of time. 2. syn. politically correct (s.v.) criminal: 1. syn. Mexican. 2. syn. Hillary Clinton. family: accomplices. (As in, the families of ISIL members must be killed.) fascism: (word not found in this […]

astronomy and outer space

How SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Could Boost Commercial Space Travel

contributors

ABC News | (Video News Report) | – – “SpaceX founder Elon Musk says that the ability to reuse rockets, like its Falcon 9, will dramatically reduce future launch costs.” ABC: “How SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Could Boost Commercial Space Travel”

Barack Obama

Did Obama Really “Surrender the Middle East to Putin?”

contributors

By Brian Glyn Williams | (Informed Comment) | – – A perusal of the “writing on the hall” commentary of the Right Wing in the last two months–since a small Russian force of 2,000 was inserted into the remaining Syrian government-controlled portions of Syria on September 30th–leads to one inevitable conclusion. Namely, that Obama’s “inactivity, […]

Archives for 2015