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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Sunday, April 24, 2011

Zainab Alkhawaja (AngryArabiya) -- Twitter Chat

By John Ballard


While saiting for Easter lunch to cook I checked the Twitter stream and caught the following conversation taking place in Bahrain. In the short space of less than an hour our hostess had contact with people not only from Bahrain, her home country, but Egypt, Gaza and the US as well. If you consider she has over ten thousand followers, anything she tweets is received by a lot of people even if two-thirds of them are not be paying attention.


The conversation begins here...


AA:  Things here get really so unbelievably unbearable here feels like we live in apartheid South Africa sometimes, any sunni can accuse any shia of anything n get them in arrested beaten n harassed


tweets4peace:  i think it's wrong to state 'any sunni' because that is not true. many of us are supporting the suffering shias in #bahrain


AA:  I said any sunni can, never said all do. Not generalizing abt sunnis. I know that its a minority of sunnis who wud do that� its real crazy, they're doin all they can 2 spread hatred amongst us.


2day a woman brought police to my relatives house, accused her 13 year old son of throwin a stone at a pic of king� They took the 13 year old boy n his 8 year old cuzn with them, like criminals� They interrogated with these children. And beat the 13 year old, and threatened him before letting him go


Its makes me so angry wat they're doing to children, for wat? To protect the monarchy from them?... Imagine the woman accuses the 8 year old boy of circling her house on his bike! I can't believe this


ArwaGaballaare: your father, husband and brother back and safe? Solidarity from Cairo


AA:  no, none of them are back or safe. We have no news of them :(


Kutalmish_Han Ali: i read about 16 Shia mosques are destroyed in Bahrain,is it true?


AA: I don't know the exact number but they've destroyed many shia mosques. Even burnt Qurans


William Clarke: I write a blog in the US and if you could I would like you to explain what is happening and why so my readers will understand.


AA:  sure I'll send u my email, u can email me any q's u have


BahrainiScribe Isa | ???? : don't let them drag you into sectarianism. many sunni are against the government's sectarian and apartheid/police state rule.


  they can't drag us into it, we love our countrymen sunni n shia. @ schools if student accused by other student of cursing king, they gets "investigated", many are getting kicked out of school�. Letters have been sent out by ministry to schools describing punishments for any student who disrespects the "leaders" aka dictators


IRONY! Wen we were @ pearl Btv propoganda was accusing the Bahraini ppl of politicizing their kids n saying that's against childrens rights�. On Radio they kept sayin, "how cud they teach their kids to srike n not go to school" now they attack children at schools


TIERD Houda Depompa: Shame on them, and they call themselves Muslems they are evil. So what happens to someone like me, a mix of both?


AA:  TIERD, I have family who r mixed, they cudnt take it anymore n have already left the country


Nalan Al Sarraj: this is awful !! like seriously bad !! i hope things gets better . stay safe . i send you my love from gaza-palestine


AA:  NalanSarraj, thx dear, love n prayers to the Palestinians, who have suffered much longer than any of us�.


When they were beating the 13 year old they kept askin him, where r ur clothes from, your money. He had to reply: the king.


Nalan Al Sarraj: Wallah I refuse to be dragged into this crazy dividing of Islam thing. Its the work of evil & haram.


AA: TIERD I refuse 2 get dragged in2 divisions at all, we're all ppl, sunni shia, muslim non-muslim.. Etc


Nalan Al Sarraj: <3 did your family came back from jail? i was following your story for a while then got involved with losing my Italian frnd!


AA:   no they still have him, n my husband, uncle n bro in law. We still don't kno how or where they r


kachoraz Ali Is it about Saudi Arabia?


AA:   no, Bahrain� any system needs cooperation, not hate & fear as the prime mover. Where force reigns, there is a weak tyrant


Here is a link to her letter to President Obama.


And here is a recent report from CNN













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