Dive into the archives.
- The phenomenon of the “flip-flop”
The derogative (ie. political) “flip-flop” is an inconsistent phenomenon of modern day culture. Only in politics (and religion) is it considered a virtue not to change one’s mind despite evidence to the contrary. Watching the political goings-on in US these days it amazes me how the electorate attaches such great importance to the fossilization of [...]
- PKK in Kansas Update
As as a follow up on my previous post on rumors that the PKK is moving to Nagorno-Karabagh, Jamestown has a new article on the same subject that is well worth reading.
Reviving a Forgotten Threat: The PKK in Nagorno-Karabakh
By Anar Valiyev
The decades-long war between the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish army has [...]
- The sad convolutions of a pacifist constitution
Defense Minister troubled over legal issues if UFO arrives
Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba said Thursday that he was troubled over potential legal issues if a UFO arrives in Japan, requiring action by the Self-Defense Forces, Japanese media reports.The subject was triggered by a question from oppositional lawmaker Ryuji Yamane, who argued the government should attempt to [...]
- The Right People, The Wrong Way?
Recent news reports the release of several former Guantanamo prisoners of British and and update on more of French nationality. But it didn’t make the news because of the controversy surrounding their detainment, but instead because they seem to indeed have been rightly jailed. According to the BBC:
Five Frenchmen who spent time at the US [...]
- Owning the Issues
Germany’s moderately left Social Democrats (SPD) are proposing sanctions on what they deem to be wasteful American products, i.e. those that use too much energy such as cars. This comes of course as both France and Germany oppose new EU legislation that would reduce CO2 emissions from cars.
However, hypocrisy aside, the SPD’s effort sheds light [...]
- From Baku to Kars
The Caucasus isn’t just a region of overlapping ethnicity and religion, but one of clashing national interests. It is home to three regional conflicts and cursed by natural resources. Thus it is with great pleasure that we read some positive news from the region, namely the further development of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad.
When previously discussed, I [...]
- Helping Both Sides?
Today’s German Tagesschau hints at something (German link) I’ve also been wondering, namely, why the Turks are claiming such wild success having deal “strong blows” and stood up against terrorists when almost nobody has been killed and no proof has been given that anything of value was hit.
It is one thing for the Kurds [...]
- If the Romans could see us now…
Sent from a reader:
The city of Rome will light up the Coliseum, which has become an international symbol of capital punishment this evening, when New Jersey repeals its death penalty. Rome’s Colosseum, once the arena for deadly gladiator combat and executions, has become a symbol of the fight against capital punishment. Since 1999, the first [...]
- The Chavez of South Africa
UPDATE: As predicted by all, Zuma wins.
ORIGINAL POST: South African President Thabo Mbeki appears disgusting in the West. He has supported Zimbabwe’s Mugabe without apology, and over the years has made a number of conspiratorial comments on the origins and nature of AIDS. Even so, in the spectrum of South African politicians, he [...]
- Patriotism, nationalism and faith
“... to believe in something is more important than to be blessed by mere logic” writes Robert D. Kaplan in his latest article On Forgetting the Obvious. The war on terrorism is not a war of ideas, but a war of faith. Not faith in a religious sense, at least not for the Western side, [...]
