Новости за 27.11.2015

Sanders’ leftwing critics don’t get it: the trouble with Bernie is not that he can’t win or that his “socialism” is warmed over mid-century liberalism, or that, like other Democrats, he is an imperialist under the skin. This is all true, of course. It is also true that if “by their views, ye shall know More

Paris. For French President François Hollande, the attacks in Paris on November 13, carried out by French and Belgian citizens, changed everything. His prior, oft-repeated mantra that “Assad must go” was consigned to the memory hole, defeating and destroying the Islamic State became France’s urgent priority and he set out to pull together a “grand More

The coincidental and overlapping refugee and terrorism crises besetting Europe pose a unique challenge to the European Union. For it places exceptional stresses on two weak points in the still incomplete community. The first is the absence of legitimate and effective mechanisms for reconciling divergent national interests, and composing them in coherent policies, when salient More

Impossible to ignore the grave implications of this event – a Russian jet shot down by the Turks around the Syrian-Turkish border. Stern faces all round as NATO’s military council meets to discuss the first time in decades that a member nation has shot down a Russian plane. Russia’s President Putin calls the Turkish government “accomplices More

British Prime Minister David Cameron has said it is time for Britain to join air strikes against Islamic State in Syria (ISIS). After the killing of 130 people in Paris, he feels the tide has now turned in favour of military action against ISIS. Cameron has told the British public that such action is vital More

Àngel Ferrero: It has been 10 years since Humanitarian Imperialism appeared in Spanish. What made you write the book? It started as a reaction to the attitude of the Left during the 1999 Kosovo war, which was largely accepted on humanitarian grounds and to the rather weak opposition of the peace movement before the 2003 invasion More

Nigeria’s Boko Haram are now officially the deadliest terror group in the world. That they have reached this position is a direct consequence of Cameron and co’s war on Libya – and one that was perhaps not entirely unintended. According to a report just released by Global Terrorism Index, Boko Haram were responsible for 6,644 More

He gently took my hand. Almost caressed it, wishing to know how I felt. His gaze created intimacy. His eyes were kind. Both his handshake and his eyes were tender, tender but penetrating. I knew, knew immediately that he had experienced something. Something that had affected him deeply. I had had to climb over the More

Joseph in Egypt: A Myth I confess: I don’t believe in the biblical story of Joseph. Quite aside from the fanciful notion that Joseph built the pyramids for grain storage (as alleged by Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson), I don’t believe in the Bible character himself—any more than I believe in Prometheus, Rama or the Yellow More

The U.S. is transfixed by its multibillion-dollar electoral circus. The European Union is paralyzed by austerity, fear of refugees, and now all-out jihad in the streets of Paris. So the West might be excused if it’s barely caught the echoes of a Chinese version of Roy Orbison’s “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” And More

During this past week a three-year-old boy in Rock Hill, S.C., killed himself when he was playing with a loaded gun in his house. He wasn’t the only one in Rock Hill to die from a gunshot. In July, a man killed himself after shooting his wife, her son and the son’s girlfriend. The following More

Grizzly bears have been slowing down in recent weeks and denning for the winter. Hibernation comes in the nick of time, as grizzly bears in Yellowstone have been dying in droves this year (link). A few may stay up for a few more weeks or even a month, pursuing the dangerous practice of feeding on More

“US forces would never intentionally strike a hospital.” — US Commander of NATO Forces in Afghanistan Gen. John Campbell After weeks of lies, the Obama administration and the Pentagon, unable to find any way to explain their murderous hour-long AC-130 gunship assault on and destruction of a Doctors Without Borders-run hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, have More

Queen Jezebel Being Eaten By Dogs by Andrea Celesti. In his study, “Exodus and liberation,” in The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and Historical Criticism (1993), Jon Levenson tells us that when readers of the Bible are faced with the “fact that the message of the text is not what they wish, interpreters of all More

“Just because a country elects a smart president, doesn’t make it a smart country….Ignorance has life and death consequences…We should forget the town halls and replace them with study halls…” — Bill Maher, “New Rules” What I call “The Stupid” is not a personal entity, although it is difficult at a time when only the More

Black Friday discussions this year should focus less on the quickest route to get from the store aisle with the new Stars Wars Remote Control BB-8 Droid to the checkout stand. Likewise, endless debates about whether or not to boycott the Black Friday shopapalooza should be eschewed in favor of more fruitful discussion. The sorts More

We’ve had solar power energizing our house in Sag Harbor on Long Island in New York for six years now—and it’s a bonanza! Once the photovoltaic panels are up on your roof, nothing more needs to be done. They harvest electricity from the sun even on cloudy days. Never in the half-dozen years have the More

Here are a few facts to consider while contemplating the events of recent days and navigating the torrent of foolish, hateful propaganda unleashed by politicians and commentators in this country (the U.S.): * Might as well confront this right away, since so many people are thinking about it: The ISIS murderers are “Muslims” to the More

One of Alaska’s most treasured bear-viewing sites is about to be turned into a destination theme park, sacrificing grizzly bear habitat on the altar of commercial development. After a decade of development planning, EIS and public input, once aimed at major improvements in resource protection, the National Park Service has aborted earlier plans for removal More

Many Christian Churches are guardians of the status quo.   Their altar is shaped by the status quo: the invisible controlling political, economic and legal forces that determine the nature and extent of their empathy and good deeds. The aim here is not to disregard the good works of these churches: their members’ devoted spiritual More

Cecily McMillan, the New York City woman who bravely resisted an assault by an unknown assailant at an Occupy Wall Street observance, believes if a jury had been allowed to see the photos and videos of the incident, it would not have found her guilty of second-degree felony assault against what turned out to be More

I still remember that smug look on his face, followed by the matter-of-fact remarks that had western journalists laugh out loud. “I’m now going to show you a picture of the luckiest man in Iraq,” General Norman Schwarzkopf, known as ‘Stormin’ Norman, said at a press conference sometime in 1991, as he showed a video More

On Nov. 13, the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced it was charging 10 individual bankers, working for two separate banks, Deutsche Bank and Barclays, with fraud over their rigging of the Euribor rates. The latest announcement shines the spotlight once again on the scandals and criminal behavior that have come to define the world of More

The Cameron government is continuing to sideline itself from mainstream public opinion, which is strongly in favour of ethical investment in green technologies and divestment from firms involved in human rights abuses. It announced earlier this month that a further £12 billion would be invested in defence through cuts to the police, business grants and More