Category: Featured

With Facebook in the news again because some people were surprised to learn that the massive amounts of data the platform harvests about us might be used in ways we don’t like, I thought it was a good time to tip toe behind the curtain a bit and get a sense of the person Facebook […]

Last month, Boko Haram took 110 schoolgirls hostage in Nigeria and almost all of them have been released in Dapchi, Nigeria, the town from which they were taken. Boko Haram was seen driving truckloads of the girls back into town and letting them go. Reports of the exact numbers are still coming in and discrepancies […]

Gregory Salcido, the 49 year old California high school teacher that was recorded making a series of disparaging remarks about the United States military was terminated from his position as an educator following a unanimous vote held by the El Rancho Unified School District this week. When a student entered Salcido’s history’s class wearing a […]

“Whenever I sit down at McDonald’s, I scan for exits. I look for reflective surfaces so I can see all angles of all those who come and go. I figure out who might be the greatest threat, and I think of at least two weapons within reach that I could use to defend myself.” I’ve […]

Russian mercenaries with ChVK Vagner declared they are fighting in Syria for patriotic reasons, in a recent anonymous interview with RFE/RL news. One commander declared, “[Syrians] can’t stand Assad. Really. Only a tiny percentage of the population there supports him and the rest oppose him. Only [Russian President Vladimir] Putin supports him. Russia supports him — no […]

Although Russia’s Siberia may be best known for its harsh temperatures and snowfall, for miles around the small village of Yakutsk last Thursday, there was something a bit more interesting falling from the sky: nearly $400 million worth of gold bars, platinum, and even diamonds. According to reports in local news outlets, a Nimbus Airline […]

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) Counter Terror Group (CTG), an elite Peshmerga unit, was sent to Kirkuk via an armed convoy yesterday. CTG will be accompanying fellow Peshmerga commando units participating in the Newroz celebration being held in Kirkuk, a disputed city controlled almost entirely by Iraq and Iranian backed militias. They are scheduled […]

These days it seems like everyone is in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction. Even compared to the Karen people, who live under the oppressive thumb of the Burmese government while surviving in an unforgiving jungle, I have rarely come across people more profoundly dissatisfied with their lives as Americans.  In fact, the Karen are among […]

Many of our readers fought in this war and don’t need a rundown of events, but as the days stretch on, it draws further and further away. Many of today’s youth may be too young to remember — today’s 18-year-olds were only three years old at the beginning of the war. On March 20, 2003, […]

While the Saddam-era regime is long gone, remnants of its victims still remain. Only eight months old, a small girl by the name of Maryam lost her identity to the Halabja chemical attack on the Kurds 30 years ago. Despite her quest to learn the truth behind her identity, her name and parents still remain […]

I would like to talk about the loss of a personal hero. Unlike most of the people I find exemplary, Professor Hawking never carried a rifle or participated in any kind of action. Nonetheless, he was one of the bravest people to be written down in history. Against all odds, not only did he survive […]

The following excerpt is courtesy of Robert A. Trivino’s book A Warrior’s Path: Lessons in Leadership. Robert is a former member of the US Army’s 18th Airborne Corps, 75th Ranger Regiment, and an operational member of the Army’s elite special missions unit. The book humbly highlights Trivino’s own successes – and particularly his failures – […]