The strange disdain for bloggers

I move in circles (socially and at work) where people tend to be politically interested but surprisingly ignorant of many facts. I blame it on the fact that they spend far too much time following a few big name sources of TV and print news that they think are comprehensive and giving them the full picture, but in fact are very narrow. When I discuss politics with them and point out all manner of things that they do not know, they sometimes ask me how I get information that they were unaware of. I tell them that I read a lot of blogs that monitor a wide range of news sources and alert me to news that I would otherwise have missed, in addition to providing valuable insights and commentary. [Read more…]

Once more into the breach, dear friends

It looks like the Obama administration has gone into full-court press mode to lay the groundwork for taking military action in Syria. The ostensible reason is the allegation that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, a charge that enables the US to preach sanctimoniously of the evil of such an action, conveniently ignoring the many times in the recent past when it was the US that used, or condoned the use, of chemical weapons against civilians on a massive scale. [Read more…]

How the CIA helped Saddam Hussein use chemical weapons

As the Obama administration and congress and the media in the US get all sanctimonious about the allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria as a prelude to ramping up fervor for a bombing campaign (today’s rationale as the equivalent to Iraq’s WMD), Foreign Policy magazine comes out with an exclusive report on how it was the CIA that facilitated Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons back in the 1980s. [Read more…]

Broadening the base of NSA revelations

It looks like Edward Snowden and The Guardian are broadening the base of outlets for the NSA revelations, making it harder for governments to crack down on them. In addition to the Washington Post, the German Der Spiegel and the Brazilian O Globo that have already been part of the release program, today comes the announcement that the New York Times and ProPublica are also working on stories from the NSA documents. [Read more…]

What could be the reasons for the UK government’s actions?

The editor of The Guardian Alan Rusbridger revealed that on July 20, an extraordinary event took place in his newspaper’s London offices. After a series of increasingly threatening demands from the British government to hand over the materials that Edward Snowden had given them, they arrived at an agreement that in return for the government not taking legal action to stop further publication of the materials, which under the UK’s legal system could have held up the process, the editors would agree to physically destroy the computers and other hardware that contained the information, although they pointed out that in this electronic age, such an action was purely symbolic since copies existed in other countries. [Read more…]

Opera singing protesters

Portugal is one of those countries that decided that increased austerity for its people was the way to go in dealing with its financial crisis and the result has been massive hardship for many. This has led to protests outside parliament and other venues where prominent government leaders are assembled. A professional opera singer Ana Maria Pinto attended one such protest last October that took an unexpected turn. [Read more…]

More Snowden-based leaks today

Today the German news magazine Der Spiegel has released more information based on NSA revelation by Edward Snowden that the US has been systematically spying on UN governments and delegations.

Der Spiegel said the European Union and the U.N.’s Vienna-based nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), were among those targeted by U.S. intelligence agents. [Read more…]