Hard line Salafi fundamentalists (who are small fringe in Tunis) showed up at a language school in Tunisia’s capital on Wednesday to attempt to stop the filming of a video clip of the Harlem Shake, electronic-music performer Baauer’s internet sensation in the Trap genre. One of the Salafis had on military khakis and carried a […]
Archives for February 2013
Why Scalia is Wrong about Voting as “Racial Entitlement”: Texas’ Long History of Minority Vote Supression (Beckett & Lee)
Lois Beckett and Suevon Lee have updated their earlier article at ProPublica. Although published earlier, it inadvertently serves as a canny intervention in the debate kicked off by Justice Antonin Scalia’s snarky comment that the Voting Rights Act extends ‘racial entitlement.’ Scalia is attempting to erase the history of voter suppression in the South. Oral […]
Hagel Confirmed, but Bloodied by American Nationalists Seeking Wars & World Dominance
The GOP senators have their own foreign policy, and it isn’t the same as that of President Obama or Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. For them, the US is a 900 pound behemoth that can boss the world around with its high-tech military at will. Their foreign policy is to shoot first and ask questions […]
First, Shut down all the Coal Plants: AEP forced to Shutter Engines of Climate Change, Mercury Poisoning (Chamberlain)
Jacob Chamberlain writes at Common Dreams In a victory for advocates of clean air and water, energy giant American Electric Power will now be shutting down three coal-fired power plants and significantly reducing air pollution at 13 others across the Midwest and Southern United States. American Electric Power’s generating station in Rockport, Indiana (Reuters) The […]
“Argo” as Orientalism and why it Upsets Iranians
The taking of US diplomatic personnel hostage by radical Iranian activists and angry crowds in November of 1979, and then the backing for this action of the government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was profoundly illegal. I know some of the former hostages, and deeply sympathize with their trauma. Nothing justifies what was done to them. […]
Redefining Torture and the Waterboarding of Americans (Turse)
Nick Turse writes at Tomdispatch.com: Try to remain calm — even as you begin to feel your chest tighten and your heart race. Try not to panic as water starts flowing into your nose and mouth, while you attempt to constrict your throat and slow your breathing and keep some air in your lungs and […]
Bahrain’s Agony Continues 2 Years Later
Bahrain national dialogue talks began again on Sunday as two small parties came back to the table after a token protest against what they called street violence. Last week saw the commemoration by the opposition in Bahrain of the second anniversary of its Arab Spring protests, demanding a move toward constitutional monarchy and a better […]
A Different View of Iran, 2013 (Video)
Meh Heyd did a mash-up of iPhone video he just took on a trip to Iran and set it to music. In the US we seldom see this kind of footage, which humanizes the place:
Palestinian Prisoner Jaradat’s death in Israeli Cell Provokes Further Protests
Arafat Jaradat was detained by Israeli authorities near Hebron last Monday at a protest of illegal Israeli squatting on Palestinian land. On Saturday the 30=year-old was reported dead in an Israeli jail cell. Thirty-year-old men are so healthy that the major cause of death for them is accidents, so the death is very suspicious. Palestinians […]
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