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.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Friday, May 16, 2008

Iran Accuses Blogger Over Shiraz Explosion

By Cernig



Iran has accused a Germany-based monarchist weblog of being the middle man for payments to alleged bombers at the Shiraz mosque and indicated it believes Britain and the US provided the funding.

Six suspects among the 15 people detained over the explosion in Shiraz are linked to a German-based monarchist weblog, a report says, PressTV reported.



The six agents, two of them chemistry students, were in contact with a blogger, belonging to the German-based Rahe Azadi (Way of Freedom) weblog, via email, JAHAN reported.



Earlier, they had detonated bombs in Fars Province sabotaging the Sivand and another Dam in return for a sum of over $20,000 from the blogger.



The blogger then requested the 'facilitators' to target two public places, promising each bomber a $100,000 reward.



A crowded mosque in Shiraz was the site of the first blast, which left 14 people killed and some 200 others injured on April 12.



The explosives used in the blast were described as two containers of chemical material.



The bombers were next assigned to target Tehran's International Book Fair, May 1-11, at the city's congregational prayer venue.



Iran has accused the United States, Britain and Israel of funding the suspects and providing them with necessary expertise to make bombs.



Iran's intelligence minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i earlier ruled out any links between the Shiraz bombers and the Mujahedeen Khalq terrorist organization (MKO).

Credible? Maybe not. For me at least, the very fact that the Iranians are specifically exonerating their perrenial bugbear, the MeK, gives that added whiff of authenticity. Certainly, there are more evidentiary details here than in a month of ex-White House military press flack Gen. Bergner's pronouncements about Iran meddling in Iraqi affairs. But just like Bergner's claims what is lacking is proof of national complicity. The Iraqi monarchist movement in exile is a well-funded one and wouldn't have any trouble finding a few 100k if it wanted to without asking the US or UK governments for it.



5 comments:

  1. > For me at least, the very
    > fact that the Iranians are specifically exonerating
    > their perrenial bugbear, the MeK, gives that
    > added whiff of authenticity.
    Er, what?
    They've said 1 group didn't bomb the mosque months after their official statement was that it wasn't a bombing at all.
    And this lends credibility to their claims for you now does it. Awesome.
    > Credible? Maybe not.
    Well by all means, run it anyway. And tell us what Alex Jones has to say while you are at it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cain,
    I bet you believe everything the US military says, even after the Iraqi WMD hunt, Pat Tilman, Abu Graib, and the revalations about their pet stable of analyst shills. And you call me gullible.
    I said exactly what I meant - that it may not be credible but there are points to it that make it slightly more likely to be true. That's it, that's all.
    Regards, C
    PS Who's Alex Jones? I know who Aled Jones is - Welsh boy soprano back in the 80s.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "I bet you believe everything the US military says,"
    I was talking about what Iranian officials said in the official Iranian press.
    Would you like to try and address what I've said on that basis rather than evading it again?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I already did. 2nd para of my previous comment.

    ReplyDelete
  5. There are certain places in the UPS which are either designed as cooling holes or heat dissipating vanes.
    laptop hp

    ReplyDelete