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, August 28, 2011

Sunday Morning Links

By John Ballard


There is no way to predict how long my current caregiving assignment will last, but since April my morning hours Monday through Friday have been squeezed. Unfortunately that's when I have the least interruptions at the keyboard and my mind is less cluttered. And with a six or seven hour time lag between here and the Middle East I'm able to grab timely news in the wee hours here after half a day has passed in places like Egypt, Israel, etc.


On the upside weekends are an excellent time to follow events following Friday services in the Mid East. And weekends tend to yield more reflective summaries of what happened during the week. It is what it is, as they say. So here is this weekends little string of links and reflections.


?First thoughts on the fall of Qadhafi by Kal
This rings a bell. I may already have posted this link but no matter. It's still good and worth revisiting. People in their twenties are not usually this smart and nuanced in their thinking.



Building a new political order based on reconciliation will be a struggle; and satisfying regional and tribal demands on energy, justice and revenge, local government and the broad distribution of power may expose the transitional government to the possibility of dangerous infighting and conflict. The TNC includes many of the old regime�s elite and a variety of factions some of whom have reconciled their objectives and values with one another and some of whom have not. How will the various tribal and ideological (to include the religious) composition of the rebel alliance reconcile themselves and political order generally a way that includes the defeated have a satisfactory stake? How and will scores be settled between among the former rebels and defectors (to say nothing of those who held on with the Qadhafis till the end)? The TNC�s current head, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, has said he is willing to stand trial for the four years he spent as justice minister under Qadhafi. If, as he claims, former officials (many of whom are now leaders or members of the TNC and the resistance) are to be held to account, how sincerely are these proceedings to be carried out and how credible will they be?



?Will Hezbollah desert Assad before the end?
This is one of Kal's most recent link references.
Timely and insightful.


?An anecdote about Khamis Qadhafi
If the reader has not seen this yet, take a moment to do so now. Short and easy to remember, this glimpse at one of Qadaffi's offspring speaks volumes about the toxic effects of power. A movie has been released about one of Saddam Hussein's sons. Who knows? This little piece of shit may become a sequel.


 


?Blake Hounshell tweeted this query a little while ago, getting a fascinating spray of replies.
As I scan the results and recall my time in the US Army years ago I renew my streadfast opposition to military conflict.
When everyday communication is as complicated as this, how does anyone imagine that military conflict does anything other than annihilate an opponent?
This is a journalist trying to figure out whart a bunch of Arabs mean when talking among themselves.


Blake Hounshell Can someone explain this #Tal3mrak hashtag to me?


@assafsalem: it means your highness may god give you long life, used when asking for favours. necessity to feed the egos of people


@Ugaritian: "Tal Omrak" means may you have a long life. Usually used when addressing the Saudi King. Now used to make fun of him.


@DINAAMINGAD: making fun of saudi's king and his family, a start of a new revolution we hope


@alihashem_AJA: so on twitter they r using it sarcastically to say what they can't say in the streets


@halibrahim #Tal3mrak some use it as a sign of respect when they talk to the elderly too. I use it with my father for example


@LibyaLiberty: it's specifically un-Islamic,as one's lifespan's understood 2B pre-ordained,& no asking for an extension will work.


@LibyaLiberty that's one interpretation. Another is that Allah grants longer life as Allah wills, based on deeds


Aziz Poonawalla @blakehounshell beware of any claim that something in wide use is "unIslamic". Especially on Twitter :)


Then I remember this Twitter link from Andy Carvin and realize that sometimes evil is too deeply rooted to be converted and it must be eliminated, like a gangrenous limb beyond saving


?Leadbelly - Goodnight Irene (1932)
One of many links to a Leadbelly classic in the spotlight again thanks to an accident of names from the Hurricane naming list.
(Anyone reading this list in order is surely now ready for a break,)


?How will the Brotherhood�s Egypt Look Like � The Worst Case Scenario by Big Pharoah
This is a short piece from one of Egypt's most durable and intelligent bloggers. It's almost two weeks old and I'm still thinking about what he said regarding the Muslim Brotherhood.
I'm certain that as the weeks and months wear on the American Right will be using the term "Muslim Brotherhood" synonymously with Islamic extremism. At the same time many will be arguing the merits of calling the US a "Christian" country. This tidal wave of ignorance will remain long after Irene's flooding and storm damage have been cleaned up and repaired. It's a shame that political stupidity is not as easily overcome.



  • Bye bye Mama Suzanne family laws 

  • No booze for Egyptians

  • Embrace your head covered TV anchor and flight attendant

  • Normal banking remains,

  • The Christians: I believe the situation of Christians will remain unchanged at least for the coming 5 years even under an MB government. ...The position of the MB as a movement remains to be against the appointment of a woman or a Christian for that office. The MB have asked the church to invite them to Easter mass, the church declined the invitation....who knows, may be in their attempt to appear moderate, the MB will do things that would be beneficial for the Christian community.

  •  Head cover will NOT be forced, period:

  • Religious Police?

    A government with a strong MB presence can be tolerable and intolerable. Depends on where you draw the line. And depends on how long you can wait till an alternative emerges and till Egyptians, like their Iranian counterparts, discover that those who manipulate them using religion are not worthy of their votes.


Hello, Americans....!!!
Anybody paying attention???
The US seems to be sinking into a quagmire of religious extremism every bit as toxic as the one described in Egypt.


?Mad Scientist of the Month: Who�s Afraid of Taylor Wilson?
With a hat tip to 3Quarks Daily, I'm ending this morning's list with a fun read to lighten the mood and brighten the day.


6a00d8341c562c53ef015434dfb6fa970c-800wi[1] Taylor Wilson makes people nervous. While his beanpole frame and Justin Bieber�esque haircut suggest he�s just a harmless kid, his after-school activities paint a far more ominous picture. At age 10, he built his first bomb out of a pill bottle and household chemicals. At 11, he started mining for uranium and buying vials of plutonium on the Internet. At 14, he became the youngest person in the world to build a nuclear fusion reactor.


(As I've been putting together this post the news is coming in that Hurricane Irene is piddling out and New York seems to have dodged the bullet  Now the Sunday talking heads will be forced to repackage their various spins to drive home whatever points they were gonna make anyway. Supporters of the president will be ticking off all the good stuff he would have done, and critics will figure out how best to make him look bad anyway... and both side will ignore the bleeding fact that hurricanes and the weather are neither caused nor ovefrcome by politics.)


In May 2010, Wilson entered his nuclear fusion reactor in a series of science fairs that won him a trip to Switzerland to tour the Large Hadron Collider, the world�s largest particle accelerator, where many of the most cutting-edge nuclear experiments on the planet take place. Within the collider�s labyrinthine corridors, located 300 feet below ground, Wilson gawked at swimming pool�sized Cherenkov detectors, which identify radiation by measuring the light that is emitted when these subatomic particles move through water. That got Wilson thinking: Water is plentiful. Maybe he could build a liquid-based radiation detector that would work on a smaller scale.


Mf_1005_cover2[1] Wilson returned home, went to the hardware store, bought a five-gallon drum, and filled it with water. He mixed in gadolinium, a chemical element that emits light when hit with radioactive particles. Because those flashes would be too weak to be seen with the naked eye, Wilson bored a hole into the drum and inserted a highly sensitive light detector, which he hooked up to his computer. He then placed the drum next to his nuclear reactor, behind the lead wall, and flipped the reactor�s switch to produce a silent explosion of radiation. Checking his computer, Wilson was delighted to see that his detector had picked up brief emissions of light. The detector worked�and unlike helium-3 testers, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Wilson�s cost a few hundred bucks.


He filed for a patent. In May 2011, Wilson entered his radiation detector in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair against 1,500 competitors and won the $50,000 Intel Foundation Young Scientist Award. In September, once school begins, he plans to do full-scale testing of his invention by hauling a 30-foot cargo container into the Nevada desert. If all goes well there, he will start road-testing his detector at ports. �I want to get this stuff deployed�the sooner the better,� Wilson says. �Radioactive materials could be coming through ports as we speak.�



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