What do Nazis, CIA, President Eisenhower, and the Muslim Brotherhood all have in common?

The answer:  A Mosque in Munich.

 Really great new book(and a good title to boot) which has all the great makings of a spy novel: Nazis, CIA,
secret missions, President Eisenhower, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

 If you dont have time to check it spend half an hour on the New America Foundation's presentation of the book. Apparently Sayeed Ramadan the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood met with President Eisenhower! Great stuff in this book.

http://www.newamerica.net/events/2010/a_mosque_in_munich

(Full disclosure I'm going to start working at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty later this summer)

Bolivia's Evo Morales eating Chicken in the West makes you gay

This one though was too good to pass up:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/apr/22/chicken-causes-homosexuality-evo-morales

Evo Morales, the socialist president of Bolivia claims that eating chickens in the West makes you gay and bald.
Not sure in what order.

Junichiro Koizumi and the Ugliest shirt in the world

Former Japanes Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, I miss you,

You did the whole rockstar-politican thing better 

than even  Kofi Anan or Bono.

I miss your  cool blog which covered everything from 

 classical Finnish composers, to mushrooms to

the slowest horse in the history of Japanese horse racing.

I also amire your politics too. The postal savings system had to go.

Kudos. 

That curly hair of yours represented an era. It spiced up those G-8 type summits

contrasting starkly with balding politicians like Putin, Chirac, and Bersco...

Unfortunately despite leading your country longer than any other LDP leader since the 1970s, the party didn't fair so well after you went into retirement. 

Which has given Japan the rule of  Hatoyama's government which is now struggling and is in desperate need of the swagger your brought to the position.

and some serious fashion assistance as well :

I hope the proceeds from this purchase went to earthquake relief in Haiti or Chile because this shirt is a disaster. Easily the ugliest shirt I have ever seen let alone worn by a Prime Minister of any country.

Hatoyama, your wife claims to have been abducted by aliens and but maybe all they really took was your fashion sense? 

A interesting article on people with special needs in Qatar

A story on a subject that gets little attention in the Middle East, let alone elsewhere.  In Qatar due to inbreeding this is an important issue in society.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/world/middleeast/01blind.html

Iran messing with the Dollar in America's backyard?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aG07q_JnRmmY

U.S officials flying to Ecuador to talk in person about....Iran? Interesting story for several reasons. First, Ecuador uses the dollar and is currently lead by a socialist leaning, American trained President Correa. President Correa who studied economics in the U.S. and Belgium has had trouble keeping his country from avoiding the type of meltdown happening nearby in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela which is why 40 million cash deposit from Iran is so interesting. That and the fact Iran has also been increasing its presence through out the region and that Iran is one of the primary manufacturers of high-quality counterfeit U.S dollars.

Syria no longer on State Department Travel warning list

Check for yourself it fits into the framework of the broader Obama lead  rapprochement with Syria.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html

The Revolution will be televised: A textbook coup in Bishkek

Flag of Bishkek

Chaos and violence erupted in Bishkek today as it appears that a coup is underway. While most details are still sketchy including the location of the Kyrgyz President.  Given that the word Kyrgyz comes from the Turkic word for "Forty" (an allusion to the founding tribes of the region) claims by the Health Ministry that 40 have been killed and 400 wounded seems ironic or perhaps dubious.

At this point the only comment worth making is that the coup appears to be almost textbook in nature. The Kyrgyz opposition filliped the security services to their side and seized the central TV broadcasting station first. This is the standard operating procedure for coup-makers the globe over for the past half century in everywhere from Africa to Asia. Seize the TV station and broadcast your version of the truth. This has certainly been the pattern in the Post-Soviet world as well.

 In Estonia during the "Singing Revolution" against Soviet rule the Soviets ordered Soviet Airforce General and future Chechen President Dzhokhar Dudayev to seize the Estonian television station. Instead he merely deployed a Soviet kitchen unit.

In 1991, the coup against Gorbachev the leaders of the coup d'état used the Soviet television services to broadcast their declarations and to give legitimacy to their movement.

So right now be assured that the opposition leaders are tripping over-themselves to ensure that they can televise as much of the revolution as possible.

In the long-term though this model is dated. It is easy to imagine a world in the near future where by the explosion of the internet and other communication technologies will make it harder for would be authoritarians to seize power and legitimize themselves with a few crude TV broadcasts.