Lightning Times

Morning Report: 2013-01-02

France: Charlie Hebdo publishes Mohammed comic. The French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo published on Wednesday a comic book biography of Islam's founder entitled "The Life of Mohammad," based on writings by a Franco-Tunisian sociologist.

Turkey: Erdogan talks to Kurds. Walter Russell Mead: 'It’s all very messy and complicated, but a settlement with the PKK would bring big advantages to Turkey—not least an end to the guerrilla war in the southeast, which has drained a lot of blood and treasure and hampers Turkey’s efforts to exert influence in the region.'

Space: Giant leaps for private space travel. Space.com: 'Of the many spacecraft being developed only one has already flown in space, the Dragon capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in Hawthorne, Calif.The unmanned cargo ship has flown in space three times so far, and carried supplies to the International Space Station twice in 2012 — first in May during a test and then again October. ...' But there's lots more in the works. Full article at the link.

Commentary: Scary times - VDH.

There is no historical appreciation among the new progressive technocracy that central state planning, whether the toxic communist brand or supposedly benevolent socialism, has only left millions of corpses in its wake, or abject poverty and misery. Add up the Soviet Union and Mao’s China and the sum is 80 million murdered or starved to death. Add up North Korea, Cuba, and the former Eastern Europe, and the tally is egalitarian poverty and hopelessness. The EU sacrificed democratic institutions for coerced utopianism and still failed, leaving its Mediterranean shore bankrupt and despondent.

Nor is there much philosophical worry that giving people massive subsidies destroys individualism, the work ethic, and the personal sense of accomplishment. There is rarely worry expressed that a profligate nation that borrows from others abroad and those not born has no moral compass. ...

Morning Report: 2012-08-21

Ethiopia: PM Meles dies. 'Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has died, Ethiopian state television said on Tuesday. Meles had not been seen in several weeks. The government said in July that he was taking a break to recover from an unspecified condition. State television said Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn will be acting prime minister. ...'

Syria: FSA bans torture, prisoner killings. 'The Free Syrian Army issued new orders Aug. 20 forbidding the torture and killing of prisoners following criticism by U.N. investigators, Reuters reported. ...'

Russia / Israel: Gazprom eyes Leviathan. 'Russian state-owned energy company Gazprom is studying opportunities to participate in the development of Israel's Leviathan offshore natural gas field, Bloomberg reported Aug. 20 ...'

Turkey: Gaziantep bombing kills 8. CNN: 'Eight people were killed in a bombing in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, an official in the Interior Ministry said Monday. A spokesman for the Gaziantep governorship said 66 people were wounded in the blast. ...' Bianet - English: 'An explosion that took place near the Karşıyaka Police Station in the southeastern province of Gaziantep killed eight people and injured 61 at around 20:00 on Monday. The blast occured after someone detonated the explosives loaded inside a vehicle, Gaziantep Governor Erdal Ata told the broadcasting station NTV. The victims of the blast were passengers inside a nearby automobile and a minibus, according to reports. Two buses also caught fire in consequence of the explosion ...'

Gaziantep, previously and still informally called Antep; ʻayn tāb [ʕajn tæːb] is a city in southeast Turkey and amongst the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. The city is located 185 kilometres (115 miles) northeast of Adana and 127 kilometres by road north of Aleppo, Syria. The city has two urban districts under its administration, Şahinbey and Şehitkamil. It is the sixth most populous city in Turkey.

USA / terrorism: Hezbollah funds seized. BBC: 'The US authorities say they have seized $150m (£95m) from a bank allegedly linked to a money-laundering scheme of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Last year, US officials accused the Lebanese Canadian Bank (LCB) of helping the group launder profits from drug trafficking and other crimes. The funds were allegedly used to ship cars from the US to West Africa, with the proceeds smuggled back to Lebanon. ...'

Analysis: Benjamin Kerstein on Chomsky, NPR. Michael Totten interviews Benjamin Kerstein on Noam Chomsky:

Benjamin Kerstein: There are a couple of main points that should be made. First, Chomsky is an absolutely shameless liar. A master of the argument in bad faith. He will say anything in order to get people to believe him. Even worse, he will say anything in order to shut people up who disagree with him. And I’m not necessarily talking about his public critics. If you've ever seen how he acts with ordinary students who question what he says, it's quite horrifying. He simply abuses them in a manner I can only describe as sadistic. That is, he clearly enjoys doing it. I don't think anyone ought to be allowed to get away with that kind of behavior.

Second, Chomsky is immensely important to the radical left. When it comes to American foreign policy he isn't just influential, he's basically all they have. Almost any argument made about foreign affairs by the radical left can be traced back to him. That wasn't the case when he started out back in the late '60s, but it is now.

Third, he is essentially the last totalitarian. ...

Go read the rest. Now via a Facebook friend here's Kerstein in 2010 on NPR:

Put simply, NPR is for coastal liberals what Rush Limbaugh is for heartland conservatives: a means of relating to the world from within the confines of a specific subculture. The difference, of course, is that Limbaugh’s admirers do not force others to pay for it.

Nor, I imagine, are Limbaugh’s listeners laboring under the same illusion as NPR’s. Most of them probably understand that Limbaugh is giving opinions based on his political point of view, which is, to say the least, well known to his listeners. NPR’s listeners, on the other hand, are quite convinced that they are receiving nothing less than the pure, unvarnished, objective truth from the network. They believe themselves to be smart and informed, and thus the network they love must also be, perhaps by definition, smart and informative. ...

Son of Former Syrian Defense Minister Defects to Turkey

'Syrian Brigadier General Manaf Talas, the son of former defense minister Mustapha Talas, has defected to Turkey ...'

Morning Report: 2012-06-25

Morsi declared winner in Egypt elections. Fox: 'Egypt's new president-elect, Islamist Mohammed Morsi, moved into the office once occupied by ousted leader Hosni Mubarak and started consultations Monday on forming his team and a new government, an aide said. Morsi was declared on Sunday the winner of Egypt's first free presidential election in its modern history, following a tight race with Mubarak's last Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq. ...' Ryan Munro:

The results of Egypt’s presidential election have been officially announced and the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian wing, Hamas, are in a state of jubilation. Mohammed Morsi won with 51.7% of the vote, while the secularist former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq came in a close second with 48.2%. The Islamists shouldn’t get too excited. The fact remains that the Supreme Armed Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) remains in control of the country.

Protests in Egypt swelled as it was reported that Shafiq was going to be declared the winner. By all accounts, it was a close election but the preliminary tally showed Morsi ahead. If Shafiq became president, the population would have understandably seen it as a decision of SCAF and not the voters. By permitting a legitimate election, SCAF has avoided a confrontation with the Egyptian population while maintaining its hold on power. ...

The Glazov Gang hosts video discussion at FrontPage.

Syrian official: Turkish plane violated airspace. 'Syrian air defenses had to react immediately to a Turkish jet flying at 100 meters altitude inside Syrian airspace in what was "a clear breach of Syrian sovereignty", Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said on Monday. ...'

Berlinski on Turkey

A fed-up Claire Berlinski is tired of playing Cassandra for free.

Hey, what you're reading in the American news about this region, as far as I can see, is hogwash. And I don't know what the Israelis are thinking; they seem to be working themselves into a lather because Erdogan delivered some tub-thumping speech in Cairo (toward which the Muslim Brotherhood was distinctly cool: Welcome to the real world, Tayyip. Didn't do much good for Obama, either, and remember how I warned you: Turks aren't Arabs?) And Israelis, chill! That's just Tayyip. He flies in, makes a lot of noise, the ladies faint; he flies out, nothing changes. I promise. Just ask the Somalians. Or the Syrians. Or the Turks, for that matter.

The most astonishing thing of all is that everyone in the West--and Israel!--suddenly seems happy to accept two incompatible propositions simultaneously: 1) Erdogan defanged the military and 2) Turkey is a threat to Israel. No recognition that to the extent the former is true, the latter must be less true, so maybe it would be worth asking--which, exactly, is more true? ...

Go read the rest.