Something quite bizarre happened last night: the main event at UFC 143 consisted of Nick Diaz stalking Carlos Condit while the latter spent the entire fight either backtracking or literally running away. One can sum up the bout by saying that Nick Diaz came to fight, and Carlos Condit didn't....

When people say factually inaccurate things, you can often tell whether they're deliberately mischaracterizing the truth or whether they just don't know what they're talking about. With Michele Bachmann, I really can't quite tell.

A couple of months ago, CNN's Anderson Cooper put together an

It had been a while since Herman Cain first caught my eye when he said he wouldn't appoint Muslims to his cabinet. Since then, his bigotry had been eclipsed by his stupidity and ignorance (to say nothing of his alleged sexual harassment), from repeatedly contradicting himself...

I've written a more elaborate piece on the problem with Bill Maher's conception of the Arab and Muslim worlds before, but his latest comments on the video of Gaddafi's violent capture merit another reaction. Commenting specifically on the video of rebels sodomizing Gaddafi with an object before he...

Imposing 21st century standards on social evolution from thousands of years ago, many secularist atheists and agnostics tend to regard religion with contempt, seeing it as a major source of divisiveness, superstition, and violence. But just as one would adjust for inflation when comparing the cost of certain commodities over...

Many Republicans have been wasting no time in trying to capitalize on the contrived dispute that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu picked with President Obama over the uncontroversial statement that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be based on the 1967 lines. The statement is uncontroversial because it...

(Update below) The Mideast-focused blogosphere erupted over the weekend after Justice Richard Goldstone wrote a piece in the Washington Post about "Reconsidering the Goldstone Report" in which he stated, "If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different...

The past few weeks have been incredibly moving and emotional for me, watching millions of Egyptians take to the streets with fierce determination to bring fundamental change to Egypt. For those of us who grew up in the Middle East in the 1980s and 1990s, certain political figures and realities...

It will be a few days before anyone can offer a thorough reaction or analysis of the over 1,600 confidential documents, known as the Palestine Papers, leaked to Al Jazeera about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations spanning a decade. But an initial reaction is warranted to the central revelation made in...

She opens her eyes, not quite sure where she is, shocked to find herself at a strange party full of strange people. She's overwhelmed by the confusion and chokes up, with a conspicuous look of concern on her face. People whom she feels instinctively comfortable with approach her and assure...

Media Matters Action Network highlighted a very interesting C-SPAN video of Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) complaining about illegal Palestinian settlement expansion on Israeli lands. Yes, you read that correctly, and it can only be described as the most perfect inversion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Congressman Gohmert, who gained...

Enticed by a permissive political environment, Juan Williams reached the perfectly reasonable conclusion two days ago that there would be no negative consequences for candidly admitting on national television that he was an Islamophobe. How could there be any when such a tepid admission of mere anxiety at...

The situation on the Israel-Lebanon border has entered a dangerous phase which requires immediate US and international attention to diffuse tensions and restrain the prospects for escalation. Last month, Daniel Kurtzer of the Council on Foreign Relations warned of the possibility of another major war between Israel and Lebanon. One...

One of the funniest movies I've seen in recent years, starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, is Wedding Crashers. As the title alludes, the movie is about a couple of bachelors who crash weddings by pretending to be people they're actually not in order to charm their way...

Dealing, as a species, with our environmental challenges is no easy task, especially with our economy dominated by powerful industries that put their profits ahead of our health and safety. To make matters worse, one of the two major political parties in this country seems committed to the zealous denial...

I woke up this morning in Amman, Jordan, to the alarming news that things had turned bloody in the Mediterranean. The latest reports are indicating that Israeli forces have killed some 16 humanitarian activists and injured many dozens more on board of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, a humanitarian...

A couple of days ago, Ali Abunimah, a prominent Palestine solidarity activist and co-founder of the Electronic Intifada, said he was "baffled by Noam Chomsky's contradictions on Palestine." A few months ago, Chomsky had harshly criticized "collaborationist" Fatah Security Forces for doing the Israeli occupation's dirty...

HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher is one of my favorite TV programs. Besides being a funny comedian and a witty news commentator, Bill Maher is also a sharp political critic and an iconoclast whose devastating critiques, particularly of the religious right, are truly remarkable.

To his credit, Maher tries...

A couple of days ago, I was intrigued by a preview I saw for "Sleepless in Gaza and Jerusalem," a reality show about life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. To show the reality of life under occupation, the film crew follows several young Palestinian women throughout the occupied...

The list of UN resolutions, legal bodies, mainstream human rights organizations, and prominent human rights advocates who have recently condemned, with overwhelming evidence, Israel's atrocities against Palestinians has become too large to ignore. Indeed, it is so extensive that one can no longer defend Israel's human rights record without having...