Tag Archives: the middle east

Hamza Kashgari’s Muhammad Birthday Tweets Unleash the Jihad on Him—and Silence from the Obama Administration

Saudi writer Hamza Kashgari’s handful of ambivalent tweets about Islam’s superhero, Muhammad (such as this one, “On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile … Continue reading

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Iranian Cleric Calls Israel a Cornered Cat

The Jerusalem Post today quotes Ayatollah Mahmoud Alavi, a senior cleric in Iran, as saying that Israel (which he calls “the Zionist regime” and “a cornered cat”) “will receive a crushing response from the Islamic Republic” if it tries to take out Iran’s … Continue reading

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Heart of Darkness: Kill Them All?

I find the following recent comments of reporter Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times jarring: [I]t is just plain heartbreaking to be in modern, moderate Bahrain today and watch as a critical American ally uses tanks, troops, guns and clubs to … Continue reading

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WikiLeaks: World War III Begins in December?

Based on what’s just been made public via WikiLeaks about Middle East discussions surrounding what to do about Iran, Andrew Sullivan speculates that “the Israelis could launch World War III within a month.” And at Wired, Spencer Ackerman flags this … Continue reading

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Abu Dhabi and Qatar Meet Frank Gehry and I.M. Pei: This Too Is Islamic Civilization?

A AAA+++ for effort. According to the New York Times today, the royal leadership of two tiny Muslim countries, Abu Dhabi and Qatar, seeing down the road a time when they’ll need to gather brains into their cisterns rather than oil, are turning … Continue reading

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Faust in the Middle East: I’ll Give You Oil Wells If You’ll Give Me Brain Drains

Here’s a little statistic buried in a long article at the ResetDOC (Dialogue on Civilizations) website on efforts to bring science to (Islamic) regions that are otherwise anti-freedom of thought: [T]he governments of Arab nations (led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt) are investing … Continue reading

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Ye shall be as gods

And with technology like that depicted in the video below, you can have the illusion of your home being anywhere. Over time, as technologies like this one spread, will our will to fight for real land be weakened? I mean, who will … Continue reading

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Oil Dependence on the Middle East: Jimmy Carter Tried to Break It

And Republicans demogogued the issue and, in the 1980s, reversed Jimmy Carter’s even very modest initiatives. Now it’s President Obama’s turn to get smacked around by the Republicans on this issue. But I think that he has to do it. It’s right … Continue reading

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T. Boone Pickens: Peak Oil is Here and Our Middle East Oil Dependency Needs to End

Texas oil man—and now octogenarian wind power activist—T. Boone Pickens, in an interview with Amanda Little posted at Mother Earth News, says that the world has already reached peak oil and that the U.S. better end its Middle East energy dependency pronto:   Pickens doesn’t believe that … Continue reading

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The Burj Khalifa Opened Today

It’s a gorgeous building, and gives off, at least for me, a 1920s Art Deco feel—like something out of Metropolis—a 21st century Tower of Babel (Tower of Bab-OIL). Vanity of vanities, or an inspiring human achievement?: And here it is from … Continue reading

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The Right Song for the New Year?

As we approach the end of one insanely dangerous year (in which we were extremely fortunate that war between Israel and Iran did not erupt), we begin yet another one, the same threat looming. This, unfortunately, seems the apt transition song between 2009 … Continue reading

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Religious Primitivism in a Nuclear Weaponized World

On Monday Major Adrian Agassi, one of the military court judges who holds jurisdiction over the West Bank, bluntly told the Guardian that God gave the land of Israel to the Jews, and that’s basically that:   In an unusually frank interview, … Continue reading

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The Antisemitic Ayatollah Khamenei, in His Threat to Crackdown on Protesters, Can’t Resist a Bit of Jew-Baiting and Swipes at the West

It’s a reminder of how viscerally Antisemitic and anti-Western the Iranian regime is. The Ayatollah Khamenei at Friday prayers today in Tehran: “The competition for the election was very clear. Enemies and dirty Zionists tried to show the election as a … Continue reading

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Intent and Opportunity

Benjamin Netanyahu, as Israel’s new prime minister, will be bringing renewed attention to Iran and its desire to produce a nuclear weapon, and he’ll be pressing President Obama to move swiftly on the diplomatic front, because if diplomacy doesn’t work … Continue reading

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A Lover Not a Fighter: Obama Reaches Out to Iran

This blew me away. The tone is so refreshing—and different—from the previous administration:

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