Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Common Knowledge

By Cernig



I can't resist this snippet from an AFP report, simply because it flies in the face of American "common knowledge".

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - Iran has played a positive role in preparations for a conference on Iraq here this week at which it was hoped US and Iranian delegates could hold bilateral talks, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said Wednesday on the eve of the meeting.



..."On the bilateral dialogue with Iran, (when) we've talked to Iranian diplomatic representatives, we find that the policies they present are constructive ones," the minister told AFP.

Some Socratic-ish dialogue:



Constructive? But, but but...we've been told that they want Iraq to fail so that America's victory over Terror fails!



Yeah...that's why their chief allies and proxies are the ones in charge of Iraq. Must be.



Update: Unsurprisingly, Arab states refused to forgive Iraq's debt. They're far more worried about an Iranian- friendly Iraqi central government than the Bush administration wants to admit. And in pre-meeting remarks Condi Rice snubbed Maliki, who had made debt relief one of his cornerstone pleas of the conference, by saying that Iraq needs technical assistance and support rather than "large sums of money." She's probably right, but it was idiotic to say so and give Arab nations an easier time denying debt relief while simultaneously causing Maliki to lose face by looking like a beggar with gold already in his pocket.



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  1. andersonMay 30, 2008 at 9:48 AM

    Don't forget who is giving Iraq debt relief: Russia, which figures that debt forgiveness will stand it in good graces for oil contracts.

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