Stop Making Sense

I count myself as a fan and admirer of Salman Rushdie’s novelistic work. And in recent years I have been deeply impressed with some of his polemical efforts. He has been a steady voice of reason on the left, a voice which has exhibited – pardon the overused and much-abused phrase – moral clarity. And [...]

Sweets and Tear Gas

From Sudan, an intriguing study in contrasts. On the one hand, we have a manufactured anti-US and UN protest at the prospect of international intervention to stop the Sudanese government’s campaign of massacre in Darfur. (It should be noted though that, however orchestrated, the government can still produce a sizable and no doubt genuinely enraged [...]

Free Speech in Africa

“The conditions of press freedom and freedom of expression are deteriorating rapidly or systematically in all regions of Africa.”
So says the Network of African Freedom of Expression Organizations (NAFEO). At a June meeting in Lagos, Nigeria NAFEO took note of significant increase in the arrests, detention, repression and harassment of journalists and other media [...]

“Violence in Search of a Cause”

I don’t usually link to opinion or news analysis columns, both because it strikes me as a little cannibalistic and because my esteemed blogging partner is better at it than me. But this column from Times writer, “decent” leftist and bete noire of common-or-garden lefties David Aaronovitch is so arresting and insightful (at least to [...]

Something to Hide?

The Sudanese government has detained Pulitzer-prize winning foreign correspondent Paul Salopek and charged him as a spy after he crossed into Darfur from Chad without a visa a few weeks ago. Given that the government-backed slaughter and forced starvation of hundreds of thousands in Darfur is now common (if largely ignored) knowledge, one wonders what [...]

Candor? In Gaza?

Yes, I know: unbelieveable. But true!
Ghazi Hamad, the spokesman for the Hamas-led Palestinian government, penned an article in Al Ayyam placing much of the blame for anarchy in Gaza on the armed thugs that have come to rule the streets. “We’ve all been attacked by the bacteria of stupidity,” Mr. Hamad wrote. “We have lost [...]

Creepy Incompetence in Boulder

For the past ten years prosecutorial and investigative blunders stemming from the murder of Jon Benet Ramsey have hung heavily around the neck of the Boulder, Colorado district attorney office and the police department. And then, out of nowhere, comes news that a suspect has been found, in Thailand of all places. He is a [...]

Ask Away

After much Glenfiddich-fueled haranguing, I am making good on a promise to post the following op-ed. In it, I suggest that the best ethical and strategic solution to the Iraq crisis would be to hold a referendum on the question of whether coalition forces should stay or go and let the Iraqi people decide.
I feel, [...]

Defining Victory Down

I mentioned a few days back the curious way in which victory is defined in the Arab world when there are hostilities with Israel. Michael Young of the Beirut Daily Star expounds on this very well in an online column for Reason Magazine.
Money Quote:
So perhaps a victory it is, but in that case Hezbollah’s victory [...]

Quote of the Day

“If you’re not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin.”
– Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) in an interview with the Florida Baptist Witness, the weekly journal of the Florida Baptist State Convention.