2021

Green Energy initiatives in Dem Infrastructure Bill infinitely Cheaper than a gradualist phase-out of Fossil Fuels

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The green energy proposals in the $3.5 trillion Democratic Party infrastructure bill now being heatedly debated have been attacked from the Right and even the center as “costly.” That is wrong, wrong, wrong. The faster we put in solar panels and wind turbines, the more money we will save, to […]

Democracy

How Gerrymandering Threatens Democracy

contributors

By Arnold J. Oliver | – Tiffin, Oh. (Special to Informed Comment) – Right now, Ohio, Michigan and other states are in the process of drawing new legislative boundaries, which takes place every ten years based mostly on information gained from the US census. As this process gets into gear, it appears that once again […]

Militarization

A Parable of (All-American) Violence: Accountability and the War of Terror

Tomdispatch

By Kelly Denton-Borhaug | ( Tomdispatch.com ) – As a religious studies professor, I know a parable when I see one. Consider the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the final events in this country’s war in Afghanistan as just such a parable taken directly from the history of our moment. The heart-wrenching last […]

Climate Crisis

A short History of Climate Change and Civilization that does not End Well (XKCD Webcomic)

contributors

Randall Munroe, XKCD: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. Via Randall Munroe, XKCD: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.

astronomy and outer space

Did a Cosmic Airburst inspire the Myth of Sodom and inadvertently Spark millennia of Homophobia?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a new paper in Nature archeologists Ted E. Bunch and Malcolm A. LeCompte et al. present their findings that a cosmic airburst destroyed an ancient city in 1650 BC (about 3600 years ago) at the site of today’s Tell el-Hammam in western Jordan near the mouth of the Jordan […]

Climate Crisis

U.S. Militarism’s Toxic Impact on Climate Policy

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink ) – President Biden addressed the UN General on September 21 with a warning that the climate crisis is fast approaching a “point of no return,” and a promise that the United States would rally the world to action. “We will lead not just with the example of our power but, God […]

Afghanistan

If US Followed its own Safeguards, the Taliban and IS-K wouldn’t have captured so many US Weapons

The Conversation

By Nolan Fahrenkopf | – The weapons and military equipment left behind by the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, including through the collapse of the Afghan army, are now largely in the hands of the Taliban – and likely other militant groups as well. Though many politicians’ and observers’ reactions have been sensationalized, it does highlight […]

Donald Trump

The military stood up to Donald Trump. Who will now stand up to the military?

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – When he was trying to win the Vietnam War, Richard Nixon famously told his chief of staff that he wanted Communist leaders—in the Soviet Union, in North Vietnam—to think that the U.S. president was a mad man, that he was capable of doing pretty much anything up to […]

Climate Crisis

At UN, Biden Pivots from 20-year War to Global Alliance against the Climate Emergency

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Joe Biden addressed the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, laying out his vision of the global challenges facing the United States and the world. Biden, as expected, used his speech to announce a pivot by the United States away from its 20-year “war on […]

Archives for 2021