Monthly Archives: February 2010

Iraqis go to the voting booth a week from today, on Sunday, March 7, to elect the second full-term parliament (4 years) since the fall of the one-party Baath regime in 2003. Given the turmoil surrounding last summer’s elections in … Continue reading →

Climate Scientists continue to see persuasive evidence of global warming and climate change when they speak at academic conferences, even though, as Andrew Sullivan rightly put it, the science is being ‘swift-boated before our eyes.’ (See also Bill McKibben at … Continue reading →

I saw Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN Friday afternoon. Oren said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had called for the annihilation of Israel, and was therefore speaking of genocide. It is dreary to see this … Continue reading →

The Afghan capital was struck by three suicide bombings early Friday morning, beginning at 6:30 am local time. Radio Azadi reports that there were five attackers, who struck in the area near the entrance of the Hotel Safi Landmark. The … Continue reading →

Al-Hayat [Life] reports via AFP Arabic on the poll just released by the National Media Center, which reports to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office. According to this sounding, the major coalitions will perform thusly in the March 7 parliamentary elections … Continue reading →

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates decries Europe for general anti-war sentiment, unwillingness to beggar itself with expenditures on war. But as far as I can tell, Europe is the world’s largest economy and got there without any recent substantial … Continue reading →

Pajhwok News Agency reports that on Tuesday, the Afghanistan senate deplored the foreign airstrikes that killed 21 innocent civilians in the province of Daikundi on Sunday, and demanded that NATO avoid any repetition of this sort of error. But some … Continue reading →

Martin Kramer revealed his true colors at the Herzliya Conference, wherein he blamed political violence in the Muslim world on population growth, called for that growth to be restrained, and praised the illegal and unconscionable Israeli blockade of civilian Gazans … Continue reading →

Operation Enduring Freedom is now responsible for the deaths of 1,000 US troops, the bulk of them in Afghanistan. It has now also gone on longer than the Revolutionary War. You have to wonder how many of those troops would … Continue reading →

Facebook keeps promising to lift the 5000-friend limit, but has not done it. So my account over there is more or less full. Just to let readers who are interested know that the Facebook Informed Comment fan page works nearly … Continue reading →