“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” – The Second Law of Clarke’s Three Laws To Arthur C. Clarke, whose words fueled my imagination growing up (especially the wanting-to-become-an-astronaut phase). May God rest your soul.

Salah Malkawi/Getty Image Mr. McCain said at a news conference in Amman that he continued to be concerned about Iranians “taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.” Asked about that statement, Mr. McCain said: “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back [...]

Number of souls that have been freed: – 82,000 and 89,000 – Iraq Body Count – 151,000 – Iraqi government & the World Health Organization (Mar.03 – Jun.06) – 654,865 – British medical journal The Lancet (March 2003 and July 2006) – 1,189,173 – Opinion Research Business (as of 2008) Take your pick. Then read [...]

Folks, I know that those of us who are still sane have been massively affected by the “Messenger of Allah Unites Us” campaign in Jordan that is boycotting Danish products. Suddenly, Lurpak, our favorite butter is no longer sold in stores, and I know, I know, we were all shocked to our core when we [...]

Author’s Note: This is, unfortunately, my 14th post on Fouad Al Farhan’s detention by Saudi authorities; 11th in the series of day-counting. So I felt it only appropriate to say a few words to mark the sad occasion. I think most of these posts pass unnoticed by most of my readers, and indeed most people [...]

Read this, and this, in addition to this if you’ve missed it. When HM King Abdullah said some time ago that “the sky is the limit” when it comes to press freedoms, I don’t think this is what he had in mind. What more can I say? Nothing.

As most people know by now, there is a massive shortage of bread in Egypt these days with reports of actual deaths as many Egyptians line up in long bread queues. Mubarak has even declared a sort of martial law on subsidized bread, by ordering the army to increase production and aid in the distribution [...]

As I now enter my fourth year of blogging I thought it would be appropriate to do a bit of spring cleaning; an evaluation with the purpose of improving both the Black Iris and my blogging capacity. While I hate surveys and trust them even less, I do appreciate honesty. So I wanted to open [...]