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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Monday, February 1, 2010

Fighting Keyboardists Wet Pants Over Iran Announcement

By Steve Hynd


A headline and single paragraph from Iran's PressTV have rightwing bloggers reaching for their adult diapers today. The reason for the sturmn and drang?



'Iran will deliver telling blow to global powers on Feb. 11'


Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the nation will deliver a harsh blow to the "global arrogance" on this year's anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.


ZOMG!!!!11One!!! Off the wingnuts go, leaping to conclusions as self-scaringly vapid as the one their hero historian and "Islam expert" Bernard Lewis did in August 2006.


Pammy Geller:



the forces of evil gather momentum ......... the gathering storm


Hot Air:



shouldn�t this have been taken care of already? Shockingly, it looks like the all-talk-no-action approach is failing...while Iran might not make us first on their list of countries to attack (I believe that would be Israel), they will attack somewhere and people will be killed that didn�t need to die.


Stop The ACLU at least caveats it's fearmongering:



There are very few things the Iranian government can do to deliver a harsh blow, none of them good. The top five would be cutting off oil exports (which which would hurt them even worse, since they have to import quite a bit of refined oil, as their refining capabilities are low,) sending out waves of suicide bombers, launching a military strike on Israel (low probability if ground troops, as they would have to cross Iraq to do it, but, they could launch missiles,) detonating a nuclear weapon, and detonating a nuclear weapon in Israel.


Of course, there is also a good probability that all Ahmadinehad will do is deliver a speech.


And the rest do likewise, saying its possible that Iran's president is only posturing while making it obvious that Oh my gosh, Iran is going to have a nuke so we must bomb them naaaooowwww!!!!"


All got their headline from Drudge, of course, and none could be bothered researching further. So all have missed the advance preview of Ahmadinejad's announcement. It's about Iran's space program.



Iran will unveil its new space projects during a ten-day ceremony beginning Monday to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in the country. Tehran has reached self-sufficiency in launching complicated electronic, optic and communications technology, Defence Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi said at the inauguration of the 'Ten-Day Dawn'. The same trend of development is in process in more sensitive technologies, including space systems which use highly sophisticated electronic devices, he said. The Iranian government also disclosed its 36 electronic and communications projects at the beginning of the ceremony, Fars news agency reported. 'Tolou (rise) and Mesbah (Lantern) satellites as well as Simorq satellite carrier engine will be unveiled in the Ten-Day Dawn,' Vahidi had said Wednesday on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting.


I've no doubt that those rightwinger scaredy-pants who notice will then point to their caveats and proclaim that the headline which set them off was just empty posturing from Iran. Thus proving that they haven't a clue about the nationalist pride in their own technical accomplishments which is really a massive part of what motivates Iran's civil nuclear program and slow push for a virtual nuclear deterrent capability, rather than an actual bomb "in-being".



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