City of Brass

City of Brass

February 2010 Archives

using reconciliation to pass health care; Republican hypocrisy redux

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

“Budget reconciliation” is a technique that lets important bills in Congress pass the Senate with immunity from the filibuster. The bill must have direct relevance to budget issues, not policy, and the Senate Parliamentarian (not an elected official) is the [...]

plane crash in Austin

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

In Austin, a man has deliberately crashed his private plane into an office building. Thankfully, no one has yet been reported killed, though there are people injured – details are still coming in and we probably won’t know the full [...]

nuclear Iran – II

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

Daniel Larison argues that the Obama Administration is making a mistake of giving up on engagement with Iran: First, Washington believes that the “international community” objects to Iran’s nuclear program and is prepared to punish Iran for it. The truth [...]

political stimulus: Is Obama out of touch?

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

Today is the one-year anniversary of the landmark stimulus bill which most economists agree has staved off a second Great Depression. The evidence that the stimulus has worked is overwhelming – the New York Times has an in-depth article looking [...]

Previous Posts

American barbarism, civilization, and decadence (and Star Trek)
I came across a lengthy excerpt online from the book, "The Next Hundred Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century" by George Friedman and found it quite insightful. I say this as someone who probably is indeed an American barbarian by the definition of the passage; I do believe that there do exist u

posted 3:11:36pm May. 15, 2013 | read full post »

Bishnu Shrestha and the 40 thieves (and one khukuri)
This is a khukuri, a curved Nepalese-style blade issued as standard equipment to members of the Gurkha, which are famed Nepali units of the Indian Army (and the British Army of India before Independence): [caption id="attachment_1982" align="aligncenter" width="600"] khukuri knife of the Gurkha[/

posted 9:56:17am May. 08, 2013 | read full post »

Muslims in Bradford, UK rally to save synagogue
This is one of those great stories that often gets overlooked by the mainstream press and deliberately ignored by the Islamophobes: With only just over thirty members and an extravagant Grade II listed Moorish building, the tiny Jewish community of Bradford have for many years been in despair abo

posted 11:47:45am May. 04, 2013 | read full post »

Obama still wants to close Guantanamo #Gitmo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vy-fsgXR4jw From today's press conference: 8:15 AM PT: Bill Plante of CBS asks about the Guantanamo hunger strike. Obama says he still wants to close it. "It's not necessary to keep America safe. It's expensive. It's inefficient. It hu

posted 11:44:18am Apr. 30, 2013 | read full post »

open-source, lone wolf terrorism: different ideologies, shared methodologies
To summarize what is known at this time, the main suspects for the Boston marathon bombing are two brothers who immigrated from Chechnya to America years ago and have gro

posted 1:34:11pm Apr. 19, 2013 | read full post »


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