The just-announced winner of Arab Idol 2013, Muhammad Assaf of Gaza, performs a cover of the Back Street Boys’ 1999 “I want it that Way.” The video is here: Assaf sings classical Arabic ballads in a soulful way that reminded listeners of the great Egyptian crooner of the 1950s and 1960s, Abdel Halim Hafez. Assaf’s […]
Archives for June 2013
Obama’s New Syria Strategy is Nixon’s Vietnam Negotiation Tactics Redux (Meyer)
Carlyn Meyer writes in a guest column for Informed Comment For better or worse, Obama came of age well after the Vietnam war. Had he lived through the daily body counts, he may have stood strong against arming the Syrian opposition. The President’s new ‘strategy’ is to get enough arms to the ‘right people’ in […]
So When will Dick Cheney be charged with Espionage? His Crime was the Same as Snowden’s
The US government charged Edward Snowden with theft of government property and espionage on Friday. Snowden hasn’t to our knowledge committed treason in any ordinary sense of the term. He hasn’t handed over government secrets to a foreign government. His leaks are being considered a form of domestic spying. He is the 7th leaker to […]
Snowden was Right, they’re Reading your Mail: How British Intelligence and the NSA are Tag-Teaming US
When President Barack Obama said ‘no one is listening to your phone calls,’ he was either misinformed or was being disingenuous. The British are at least gathering up the voice signals of your phone calls, and sharing 200 million of them a day with the US National Security Agency via a joint database. According to […]
Jon Stewart with Bassem Youssef in Cairo: “If your regime can’t handle a joke, you don’t have a regime.”
Almost all of the segment is in English except the first half-minute. Jon Stewart makes an appearance in Cairo on Bassem Youssef’s comedy show. He is introduced as a prominent spy, and comes in and says ‘thank you,’ ‘enough’ (the the applause) and ‘I am a simple man.’ This is the show:
Climbing the Burj Khalifa in Dubai – World’s Tallest Building (Video)
Joe McNally videos the climbers climbing the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building:
India-Pakistan Daily Border-Closing Ceremony, courtesy the Ministry of Silly Walks
Sanjeev Bhaskar and the Ministry of Silly Walks bring you the daily India-Pakistan border closing ceremony: Here is the video:
Egypt’s Morsi Provokes Anger, Astonishment with appointment of Governor from former Terrorist Group
As Egyptians demonstrated against him again on Friday, in preparation for big rallies on June 30, President Muhammad Morsi has shot himself in the foot with a series of ill advised appointments of provincial governors. Morsi continues to demonstrate that he is politically tone deaf and that his decision-making takes place in a small circle […]
Asia will Drown, Africa will Starve in 30 years: World Bank Report on Global Warming
The World Bank report, “Turn Down the Heat,” (available in pdf form here warns of severe climate effects even if we manage to limit global warming to 2 degrees C., and a much worse fate if we go to 4 degrees C. The world is now putting 35 billion metric tons of C02 into the […]
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