To say that tensions in Syria have been rough over the past 16 months is an understatement. Relations between Syria and Turkey have strained as well, since Turkey has declared itself on the side of the "Syrian people" rather than the Syrian government. 30,000 refugees have come into Turkey, including high ranking military officials defecting to ( Read more... )

It almost needs to be put as a warning, but this post will cover Jerry Sandusky, the Catholic Church and pedophilia. If you feel these are topics you cannot deal with comfortably, please tune in tomorrow. If you feel you cannot read this because they have been covered too much in the media. . .well, you're probably right. Late Friday night, former ( Read more... )

Over a year ago, the citizens of Egypt stood up for themselves and their rights, took to the streets and managed to depose a regime that had been in place for decades. It was a tremendous feat for revolution and it gave full legitimacy to the notion of Arab Spring. It was, by all accounts, relatively bloodless and did not sink to the depths of ( Read more... )

Are you an American voter who has not been paying attention to the partisan bickering going on about raising the debt ceiling? Well, either you're closing your eyes to a situation you do not wish to acknowledge Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated by the possibility of defaulting on debts owed by the government in your ( Read more... )

Last week, News of the World, a popular British tabloid, closed their doors days after it was revealed they had reporters and others hack into people's voicemails and other privacy invading measures. In this specific case, agents of News of the World had broken into the voicemail of a girl who had disappeared and was killed. Her parents held out ( Read more... )

I had been doing international stuff for too long, so here comes some random, domestic crap. As anyone within ear or eyeshot of a television, computer or phone knows Casey Anthony was found not guilty of murdering her daughter, but found guilty of lying to police on four separate occasions. For a very brief summary, Caylee Anthony was reported ( Read more... )

"Come ye cool cool conservative men ( Read more... )

Two months after bin Laden has been captured and Obama's numbers haven't spiked or fallen. They've been about the same for the past 6 months. Bin Laden is dead and the OTHER most wanted felon in the US, James "Whitey" Bulger, was arrested after years on the lam and immortalization (as character inspiration) in the movie The Departed. The head of ( Read more... )

For a presidency and a half, American foreign policy was dominated by one fact and occasionally one goal: taking out bin Laden by some means. For a lot of people this meant arresting him or otherwise taking him into custody. For others this mean we had to kill him. For others, this mean somehow neutralizing him but not killing him or arresting him ( Read more... )

Yet another in the reactions to the death of bin Laden series, but this time not from the Americas. What's most fascinating right now is the reaction from the Middle East. You can always tell good news from bad news by who is cheering about it all. Most notably, there have been no reports of mourners rending garments in the streets of Amman (Jordan ( Read more... )