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, August 20, 2009

Iran Allows More Nuclear Inspections

By Steve Hynd


For over a year, Iran's refusal to allow inspections of the heavy-water reactor at Arak has fuelled hawkish cries that "they must be up to something". Never mind that the NPT says no nation is forced to allow inspections on sites that are still under construction and non-operational.


Today, reports from diplomats at the International Atomic Energy Authority say that Iran has allowed inspections of Arak, as well as agreeing to beef up UN oversight of the Natanz nuclear enrichment site.


Exactly what you wouldn't expect from folks who were planning to build a secret nuclear arsenal.


And in an incredibly badly timed bit of agitprop, the Israelis have alledged that the IAEA is hiding data that proves Iran has a nuclear weapons program from the world. They haven't explained quite why the IAEA - the entire Agency - would want to do that.


Immediately, the Republican's top dog on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL) jumped on the Israeli bandwagon and demanded that the IAEA release the alleged secret document. No consiracy theory is too "out there" for Republicans nowadays, as we've found out with the Birther movement and their "Death Panel" fearmongering.


El Baradei has repeatedly said that the UN atom watchdog has no evidence that Iran currently has a covert nuclear weapons program, but of course if the IAEA doesn't come up with this secret report - perhaps because it doesn't exist - then that will just be more proof of a cover-up to the conspiracy theorist hawks in both Israel and the US.



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  1. hassAugust 21, 2009 at 3:52 AM

    This is the third time that inspectors have visited the yet-unbuilt reactor at Arak. And, I suspect that the "secret intelligence" that ElBaradei has allegedly been sitting on consists of unverifiable allegations obtained from another Laptop of Death aka Niger Documents -- fodder for propaganda, intended to discredit the IAEA's findings on Iran.

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