Obama warns S. Sudan against military coup (via AFP) President Barack Obama warned South Sudan on Saturday that Washington and its allies would cut aid to the country over any attempted military coup, amid growing fears of civil war. And top US diplomat John Kerry called South Sudanese President Salva… South Sudan (pop. 9 […]
SNL: Not only is Santa Black, but one of his Reindeers is Gay
Kenan Thompson and Cecily Strong make fun of Fox News’ Megyn Kelly and her silly insistence that “Santa Clause is white.” (See also IC’s take on the controversy).
Iranian-Armenian Nurse taking an X-Ray in Isfahan, 1900 (Photo of the Day)
(By Juan Cole) This amazing photograph probably dates to 1900. Taken in at the Christian Mission Society hospital in Julfa, the Armenian neighborhood of Isfahan, it shows a nurse taking an x-ray of a patient. The use of x-ray technology was still relatively new even in the US and Europe, and that the medical missionaries […]
NSA bribed Encryption Companies to Install Back Doors: Was the Law Broken? Did Obama Know?
(By Juan Cole) Reuters gets the scoop: the National Security Agency gave internet security firm RSA some $10 million to use an NSA encryption formula in its BSafe software. RSA is now a subsidiary of the EMC corporation, and they have urged customers not to use BSafe since the revelations by Edward Snowden made clear […]
Real-Life “Gravity:” Space Repair Walk and NASA’s Breakthroughs 2013
CBS reports on today’s space walk by astronauts to repair the cooling system at the International Space Station: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration reports on its achievements and breakthroughs in space and on earth in 2013. NASA video here And here is the NASA press release covering these developments: In 2013, NASA helped U.S. […]
Video of the Day: Fox News wishes you ‘Happy Holidays’ (War on Christmas Fail)
Cenk Uygur of Young Turks reports on Fox Cable News’ hypocrisy in hyping a mythical “war on Christmas” that allegedly involves forbidding the phrase “Merry Christmas,” and then turning around and using the phrase themselves. Some companies prefer ‘Happy Holidays’ because they have significant numbers of customers who are not Christians. In New York, e.g., […]
Sufi Center in Hama, Syria, c. 1900 (Photo of the Day)
(From Gertrude Bell, Syria: The Desert and the Sown, 1908) Hama is a small, mainly Sunni Arab city in the center-west of Syria famed for its water wheels. For Syrian Sufi orders see this link
Obama will Veto new Iran Sanctions, Israel War Mandate pushed by AIPAC Senators
(By Juan Cole) In his end-of-the-year press conference, President Obama had to defend his Iran negotiations in the face of a revolt within his own party. Thirteen Democratic senators and thirteen Republican senators banded together to try to derail President Obama’s negotiations with Iran by slapping new sanctions on that country in the middle of […]
UN: A Million Palestinians will Need Food aid in Israel-blockaded Gaza Next Year
PressTv reports, “The UN says nearly a million Palestinians are expected to need food aid in the Gaza Strip next year” Their blurb: “About 800-thousand Palestinian refugees are currently receiving food aid from the U-N Relief and Works Agency– UNRWA– but the organization expects a 10 to 20 percent rise in demand in 2014. The […]
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