Yo ho ho ho time in Somalia! What’s the bestest present kids dream of in faraway Puntland, where piracy is more than a Disney marketing gimmick? A supertanker, that’s what. A Saudi supertanker is the ultimate in stuffed stockings: 100…
November 18th, 2008 | Comments (44)
Daniel Craig working on his stance. The ultimate proof that movies these days are rotten: Quantum of Solace is breaking records at the box office. It’s not the public’s fault; people want to see something move onscreen and they’ll take…
November 17th, 2008 | Comments (7)
Today I’ll finally keep my promise and tell you about my favorite book on the Horn of Africa. Remember a couple columns back, I promised to tell you about a great book on the Ethiopian/Somali wars? Of course I promised…
November 17th, 2008 | Comments (15)
The Accused: Raymond “Chuck” Foster, Imperial Wizard of the KKK Statement of the Grand Inquisitor: Normally a sad nitwit like Raymond “Chuck” Foster wouldn’t even be worthy of the attention of the eXiled Inquisition Team, but now that he’s managed…
November 14th, 2008 | Comments (1)
What George W. Bush loved best about his job was being a war president. Playing war, that is, as opposed to making war like a grown-up. Remember him strutting onto that carrier in his little flight jacket? You never saw…
November 13th, 2008 | Comments (21)
Mormon Baptismal Font: plenty of room for everybody. Statement of the Grand Inquisitor: We have to admire the sheer chutzpah of the Mormons. Whereas we struggle with faulty humankind, inquisiting people, torturing them, trying to shove them toward the true…
November 12th, 2008 | Comments (5)
Listen to the Radio War Nerd podcast [subscribe here] with guest Gunnar Hrafn Jonsson of Iceland Public Radio on the massacre in Orlando and how online Islamic State jihadis are dealing with battlefield defeats and the shrinking caliphate. Subscribe to Radio War Nerd through the show’s Patreon page.
The political establishment’s racist, authoritarian reaction to the 1992 LA riots—blaming broken black families, massing cops and troops, and Ron Paul’s advice to his family on how to kill black “animals” and get away with it…
Which’ud Ya Rather Have, A BMW… A couple of the comments on yesterday’s blog were about comparing the RPG-7 and the M2 Carl Gustav Recoilless Rifle. It’s the kind of question I used to love when I talked hardware, but…
Ouattara: Whattarya, A Muslim Militant… Things are popping on the comment front.
Strange doings in Ivory Coast. Well, no, actually; what’s going on in Ivory Coast is perfectly standard West African procedure. The strange goings-on are in the way the UN has been handling things and the press has been reporting them.
One of the more interesting questions out of Libya is the tangled problem of who’s who, and who’s on who’s side. I’m starting to get some idea of who’s against Qaddafi—basically the young men, the East, and the tribes loyal to the king he booted out to take power.
Thaddeus Stevens: Weird-looking, huh? That’s because he was a real American. Extinct now. Looks like they’re starting to find the mass graves in Ivory Coast right on schedule, but I’m going to leave the hard war news for the five…
Grant: Never Got Over Junior High Friday nights I read Civil War books. I noticed a European said in the comments last week how sick he is of the US Civil War. Well, my hemispherically-challenged bud, you’re not going…
Today the action moves south, off the Libyan beaches and into the rain forest of the Ivory Coast, where rebel forces have just taken the big city, Abidjan.
