According to CBS, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's first six months in office have contradicted the "liberal" reputation he (apparently) had when he was first elected. Maybe it's a shock to some that one can be "soft spoken" and never have been a KGB spook and yet...
War Doesn’t End With Treaties
Something made me perk up this morning, going through the weekend's news. After two weeks of reading about South Ossetia's irregulars, the militiamen blamed for everything from looting to attempted genocide, in the periphery of news stories, this morning I read this...
A Step Up for Haiti?
Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, the new Haitian prime minister, is having some trouble getting ratified by parliament -- and the Haitian Constitution is no help in pointing the way to a resolution. It's about time Haiti had a female kleptocrat -- it's quite...
Greenwald Challenges Obama and Olbermann
Yesterday, Glenn Greenwald took Keith Olbermann to task for his kneejerk devotion to Barack Obama, manifested shamefully in his 180 on the capitulation of Congress to Bush on telecom immunity and the FISA law. Today, after Olbermann replied, indirectly, on another...
Liberals Silent on Iraq Atrocities
In New York, you cannot ride a subway without being bombarded with posters about Darfur and now, Tibet. Of course I have sympathy for those killed and displaced in Darfur, though the numbers have been overblown and other specifics of the situation have been...
State Dept.: Andorra’s Not in the Africa?
The Onion succeeds with humor where a serious analysis couldn't: highlighting the US's absurd foreign policy regime and the information problem suffered by those who promote and enact foreign interventions. Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept....
Several Tries Too Far, Mr Miliband
I know that if at first you don't succeed, you're supposed to try, try again. But I think that phrase needs an exception: do not keep trying the same thing over and over again, especially after you fail 100 times in as many years. British Foreign Secretary David...
LA Times: Lies Before the First Sentence
I read this article and failed to find a satisfactory explanation of the statement in the synopsis that "the U.S. troop buildup has brought down violence." I see where Sunni groups have decided that al-Qaeda was -- for now -- a worse foe than the US occupation. I see...
Bushwick Says: F*ck the Air Force
A few blocks from me, on the side of a bodega, a small wall-side billboard always has a poster for the armed forces that is quickly defaced. The latest one I noticed just the other day: a local armed with permanent marker spelled out exactly what he feels about the...
Econ Never Bush’s Strength
Our dingbat president blathered on painfully at the UN this morning about several things that have nothing to do with the United States. He wants to tighten Myanmar sanctions -- because I guess in the Bizarro World he's been sucked into, sanctions always work. He...
