Category: Islamic State/ISIS

The Bookworm Beat 2-4-15 — The “Obama’s not sad” edition and Open Thread

It’s been pouring paying clients lately, which is a good thing but, as always, it cuts into my blogging time.  I’ll skip the preliminaries and throw myself in the round-up. It’s a bad thing when our president is happy My Mom, in commenting on the state of the world today,

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The Bookworm Beat 12/24/14 — A few quick links for Christmas Eve

These links aren’t related to Christmas Eve. They are simply interesting things that came my way today, as I was getting my family ready for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. (To those new to the blog, although I’m Jewish, I was raised celebrating both Christmas and Hanukkah in entirely secular ways.

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The Bookworm Beat 12/6/14 — Saturday sweep-up edition, and Open Thread

A cold has been making the rounds in my neighborhood and it finally caught up with me. I don’t feel particularly ill, but I feel congested and quite desperately sleepy. I had a great deal to do today, and mostly managed to re-read Agatha Christie’s Mrs. McGinty’s Dead, which wasn’t

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Swedish Muslims increasingly radicalized — despite Sweden’s pandering

Despite’s the Swedish government’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state (“We Swedes love Islam!”), not to mention Sweden’s amazingly generous welfare benefits, Sweden’s Muslims are checking out of the country. That’s the good news. The bad news? They’re heading to Syria and Iraq to fight on behalf of the most

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The Bookworm Beat (10/21/14) — Still catching up with email edition, and Open Thread

It’s always the same: Over the weekend, because of family demands, I get almost no time at my computer, and my email starts to back up. By Tuesday, between my two email accounts, I have several hundred unread emails. I then do the logical thing: I cravenly avoid my computer.

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Is it time to dig out the bullets packed in pig grease? (And let’s identify the real Islamophobes.) *UPDATED*

Practically from the moment after September 11, 2001, people started saying that the most effective way to fight Muslims was to lace American ammunition with pork.  Finally, in 2013, an Idaho company came up with pork-laced ammunition for non-military customers: Jihawg Ammo today announced release of the industry’s first truly defensive

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The Bookworm Beat (9/18/14) — The Non-Islamic Edition (and Open Thread)

Yet another day where I start with an apology for not writing more or writing sooner. I had what I think is a fairly severe arthritis flair-up, loaded myself up with anti-inflammatory meds, and took a long nap. Thankfully, I’m feeling better and moving easier, so it’s time to write!

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A few comments about the President’s speech regarding the Islamic State

Before I even get to Obama’s speech, a word about nomenclature. Most Americans refer to an organization called “ISIS” (“Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”). Obama refers to an organization called “ISIL” (“Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”). The latter encompasses more territory, so Obama is actually being more

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Col. West, you’re correct that, rather than wallowing in 9/11 memories, we must fight radical Islam — but how should we do it? *UPDATED*

As in past years, people who were older than about ten on September 11, 2001, have honored its anniversary.  These social media acknowledgements of that fateful day tend to take two forms:  (1) the “where were you then” form, as exemplified by George Takei, or as I think of it

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The Bookworm Beat — 9/11/14’s “ISIS and other stuff” edition (and Open Thread)

Let the information download begin: Alleged New York Times Baghdad Bureau Chief lambastes Obama administration If a Reddit user really is Tim Arango, Baghdad Bureau Chief for The New York Times, it’s very impressive to read his scathing indictment of the administration’s Iraq policy and conduct: it’s not my job to

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Obama: Probing questions and likely answers about the Islamic State

Blackfive has a few questions he’d like to put to President Obama tonight when the latter makes his long awaited Islamic State pronouncement, no doubt to explain his hitherto missing “strategy”: A. Will you continue to cut the military even as operations and optempo increase substantially? Will you increase funding

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