Voting while blind and other frustrations
My friend The Blind Owl asked me to post this on her behalf, as she  is was not yet a Kossack. (Update: Latest word from her is that she successfully registered her own dKos screen name a few hours...
View ArticleBelgium has ceased to exist - "War of the Worlds"-style TV hoax
It sounded convincing. "Flanders has unilaterally declared its independence," was Belgian TV's prime time announcement. But the special broadcast was a staged deception. However, it was so perfectly...
View ArticleUS wants data on EU air passengers' sex lives
Will EU citizens visiting the United States now be forced to accept government snooping into their sex lives as part of the bargain?According to an article that appeared yesterday Sept. 6 in the...
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Egypt Liveblog: Sub-Diary #99
You are in the the 99th Child Diary of the Liveblog of the 2011 Egyptian Uprising and other uprisings spreading throughout the Mideast. Â We stand with our Egyptian friends and their courageous struggle...
View ArticleEyes on Egypt & Region Liveblog #122 - Libya
You are in the the 122nd Child Diary of the Liveblog of the 2011 uprisings throughout North Africa and the Middle East. We stand with our international friends and their courageous struggle for...
View Article"September 11, 2001 is passé"
An op-ed by Dutch historian Geert Somsen in Trouw (a Dutch newspaper originally founded in 1943 by the Protestant resistance) observes that the chain of uprisings in the Arab world have made the...
View Article"Morocco: visions of a revolution in progress"
This a translation of a February 16 interview with four Moroccan journalist-activists, conducted in French by Hind Aissaoui Bennani for the online alternative news site Le Grand Soir.Google Translate...
View Article"Playing cat and mouse with the Libyan censor"
A summary of available modes of communication in Libya has been posted today, Friday, February 25, on the website of RNW (Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, the Netherlands' worldwide radio service).My...
View ArticleEyes on Egypt & Region Liveblog #132
You are in the the 132nd Child Diary of the Liveblog of the 2011 uprisings throughout North Africa and the Middle East. We stand with our international friends and their courageous struggle for...
View ArticleThe notion of nation: Europe 1648, Arabs today
This is an extended comment on Richard Lyon's excellent diary, Oil Economies as Rentier States I, which starts with a brief recap of how notions of state and society developed in Europe.Perhaps it's...
View Article"Cooling inoperative in six reactors"
This is an extended comment and current news item, intended to supplement the various diaries about the Fukushima atomic power plants in Japan.It's a partial translation of the front page article from...
View Article"Understanding Arabs / Arabic"
Here are two authors worth recommending for Americans who would like to deepen their understanding of the Arab world through study of the Arabic language:Available for free as a podcast (downloadable...
View ArticleBahrain after "Tien An Manama"
This is my own attempt at translation of this article about Bahrain from the German daily Die Tageszeitung.After the protests in Bahrain"I don't recognize my country anymore"Since violent suppression...
View ArticleThe situation of Shiites in Saudi Arabia
This is my attempt at a translation of this article about Saudi Arabia in the German daily Die Tageszeitung. (I have done German to English translations professionally.)Protests in Saudi Arabia[Bigoted...
View ArticleTom Tomorrow coming to Daily Kos?
For years now, I've been a regular reader of Tom Tomorrow's comic strip This Modern World, which has been featured in many urban weeklies and at the websites Salon and Credo.Today his blog (also called...
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