News & Comment

Veiled4Allah: The UAE hosts a conference of moderate Muslims with the goal of taking the public discourse of the Islamic faith away from more radical elements. Saudi Arabia gets its first female pilot. Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize, talks about hijab and other issues of personal choice. The Pentagon gets a clue. An article on moving past a view of Arabic populations as inscrutable Orientals who've always been the way they are today. Terrorism as human sacrifice.

A guest poster at Matt Gross' blog tells Democrats and liberals to snap out of the abused spouse syndrome.

BOPnews' Ellen Dana Nagler shares a moving post about recovering from addiction. This was graciously shared with us as a Thanksgiving message.

DailyKos: Meteor Blades writes about the energy policy and protecting the environment under the Bush administration. Dday writes about military recruiting tactics, with excerpts from an article describing the 'hard sell' technique they employ and the NCLB rule that mandates it. Larryrant shares a sermon for American Christians. Poeschek wonders if there's common ground to be found with Republicans via cherry-picking Pat Buchanan's words. Dashbro picks up the eternal question of the real problem with the media, which I venture to predict will be far from the last word, but shares some good insights.

I hadn't stopped by Tristero's blog for a while, and when I do, I find that he's hung up his keyboard. But not before leaving the Democratic party leadership with a post-election farewell. He echoes my own sentiment when he says, "The guys in charge right now are hopeless and they have to go. All of them. Right now." Amen.

As always, Avedon Carol has packed the Sideshow with great links. She starts with continuing voting irregularity coverage, scroll down for more on the topic, the mismanagement of the media and copyright laws, all the way to the revelation of the real reason marijuana is illegal. And she's right, the government now feels sufficiently emboldened that they no longer think it's even necessary to lie about selling out the public to the corporations.

Patrick at STCF makes the case for acting on global warming now, and points to an article about new research on Arctic warming.

Pandagon shares a priceless quote from the Rev. Jerry Falwell as spoken on this past Sunday's Meet The Press, the Religion Edition. It was actually an interesting roundtable, so if you have any interest in the intersection of faith and politics, read the full transcript. The skinny is, the wingnuts are coming close to dropping all pretense of rationality, and the press may have finally discovered the moderate and liberal strains of American Christianity. Update: Media Matters points out that Falwell lied on-air about past remarks blaming 9-11 on gays, feminists, the ACLU, and others Falwell finds distasteful.

Digby marvels at the widening parallels between commies and patriots.

MyDD: It's time for Newer Democrats. The declining numbers of foreign students applying to study in the U.S., and what this means to our long-term global power curve. The religious left gets organized.

BBC: The government of Spain, member of the 'Coalition of the Willing', stands accused of backing a coup in E. Guinea. Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has her house arrest extended. An ongoing log of daily life in Iraq. Human skin has a natural mechanism for killing E. coli. It should surprise no one that the current administration, in the absence of any imminent threat, has preemptively declared a willingness to take unilateral action against Iran.

UK Guardian: The debate on introducing national ID cards for UK citizens rages on. Some perspectives on the interaction between the state and the family. British liberals are left wondering where the Labour left has gone, as they watch a rightward march paralleling what we've seen here in the U.S.

Asia Times: The growing partnership between China and Iran undercuts U.S. leverage with Iran, and we can all thank China's growing energy addiction, as they learn to be just like us. The teetering American economy. How are we doing at caring for injured soldiers and the families of the deceased? The U.S. military and intelligence services rely heavily on high tech solutions, which may leave us vulnerable to low tech countermeasures. Where policy is unpopular, propaganda fails.