Murray Monster may not be as famous as his amphibious and porcine companions, but he is a key reason why his TV show, Sesame Street, is still thriving deep into its 42nd season. Read more: Sesame Street, Jason Mraz, Caroll Spinney, The Closer, Murray Monster, Kermit the Frog, Avenue Q, Ricky Gervais, Scooter, Richard Hunt, [...]

I’ve been trying to understand the purpose of the Pentagon’s Task Force for Business and Stability Operations for about a year now. It is an intriguin… Read more: Pentagon, Iraq War, Afghanistan, Afghan War, Iraq, Pentagon Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, Tfbso, World News Iraq news Military News Military Breaking News Military Family [...]

Today, the National Veterans Wheelchair Games kicked off in Pittsburgh, PA. The Games offer 17 sports to Veterans who suffer from spinal cord injuries, amputations and neurological diseases.

BOYNUYOGUN, Turkey — Syrian tanks and the government’s most loyal troops pushed into more towns and villages Tuesday, trying to snuff out any chance that the uprising against President Bashar Assad could gain a base for a wider armed rebellion. Facing the most serious threat to his family’s 40-year ruling dynasty, Assad has abandoned most [...]

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com Objective reporting on the SEAL team that killed bin Laden was as easy to find as a Prius at a Michele Bachmann rally. The media simply couldn’t help themselves. They couldn’t stop spooning out man-sized helpings of testosterone — the SEALs’ phallic weapons, their frat-house, haze-worthy training, their romance-novel bravado, their sweaty, [...]

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com One day in October 2001, a pilot for Northwest Airlines refused to let Arshad Chowdhury, a 25-year-old American Muslim (“with a dark complexion”) who had once worked as an investment banker in the World Trade Center, board his plane at San Francisco National Airport.  According to Northwest’s gate agents, Chowdhury writes in the [...]

I’m not arguing that Shiites have a lot in common with rodents and insects. But you wouldn’t know it by watching Bahrainis and Saudis snuff them out with barely a peep from Western and majority-Sunni Arab nations, both. Shia-majority Iran, Iraq and the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah have been the most vocal in condemning the [...]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters late last week that he thinks we may turn the corner at the end of this year in Afghanistan. Again. Turning the corner, or the tide, or the momentum, or what have you, has become a semi-annual ritual in the failing U.S. war in Afghanistan. While all these turned [...]

ISLAMABAD — U.S. missiles killed 25 people in an al-Qaida and Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border on Friday, Pakistani officials said, signaling American intent to press ahead with such attacks despite renewed protests by Islamabad. In another reminder of the difficulties facing Washington, a well-known politician said he and his followers would try [...]

Paulina Hicks has always done things systematically. She went to college for civil engineering, enlisted in the military out of veritable love of her country and always kept a cinched-tight savings account. Now, as a former military officer, she can’t quite understand how her life escaped her fixed grip, forcing her to assume a new [...]