The solar-powered Solar Impulse airplane built by a Swiss concern, having flown successfully from Madrid to Rabat, has just completed a flight over the Moroccan countryside that included having to get above the Atlas mountains: This video on the earlier Europe-to-Africa passage shows the plane in flight: I like flying, but am aware that the […]
Brotherhood, Salafis, Camp out at Tahrir amid Thosands
On Thursday, protesters heeded the call of the Muslim Brotherhood to fill Tahrir Square with tens of thousands of protesters, as they continued to reject the martial law amendments to the constitution issued by the military last weekend. In a new development, major leaders of the Muslim Right are setting up tents in the square […]
UN Official: CIA Drone Strikes on Rescuers a War Crime (Serle)
Jack Serle writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism: The UN’s expert on extrajudicial killings has described a tactic used by the CIA and first exposed by a Bureau investigation as ‘a war crime’. Earlier this year the Bureau and the Sunday Times revealed the CIA was deliberately targeting rescuers and funeral-goers in its Pakistan […]
Omar Khayyam (153) “they do not even reckon them as human”
The elite and lofty crowd who hold exalted office are disgusted at the life of grief and bother that they suffer. But when they consider the ones who, unlike them, are not the prisoners of high ambition– the amazing thing is that they do not even reckon them as human. Translated by Juan Cole from […]
Campbell: Israeli PM Sharon Threatened Bush with Nuking Iraq (Mearsheimber & Walt vindicated)
Alastair Campbell’s serialized memoirs contain a bombshell that is largely being ignored in the Western press, the revelation that in conversations with President George W. Bush in late 2002, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened to nuke Baghdad if Saddam Hussein hit Israel with rockets again. (Campbell was then British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s […]
Omar Khayyam (149) “nothing left of good times but the name”
Now that nothing is left of good times but the name; and save for wine itself, not a single old drinking buddy is around any more; don’t decline the joy of the vintage you’re offered, since today your hand is empty save for the glass. Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 149
Uncertainty Grips an Egypt on the Brink
The on-again, off-again saga of the reports on deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak’s coma exemplified the uncertainty through which Egyptians are living on Tuesday. In the American game of baseball, a player can ‘steal bases.’ That is, you get on base by hitting the ball hard and far enough to confound the opposing team long enough […]
Omar Khayyam (145) “my bewilderment”
I was disturbed that he brought me into being, and nothing has grown through my life like my bewilderment at it. We’re forced to depart, and don’t even know what the point is of all this coming and going and being. Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 145
Tahrir Square Now
Egypt after soft military coup: I don’t think they’re haaapy. By the way, American news channels: this is news.
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