Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Wednesday, pop culture icon William Shatner, Star Trek‘s Captain James Tiberius Kirk, explained the enormity of seeing the earth from a suborbital flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepherd space craft. Part of what he said when he returned from 66 miles up got lost in all of the news […]
Progressives in Congress: Biden must do More to End Saudi War on Yemen, as Starvation Stalks its Children
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Biden says he wants to end the Yemen war, but eight months in, he has not made a dent in it. The Saudi-led war on Yemen has involved the dropping thousands of pounds of bombs on that country, with up to a third of the buildings hit having been […]
Epitaph for a Failed US Occupation: The Late Gen. Odierno’s Arch-Nemesis Muqtada al-Sadr wins Iraq
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The elections in Iraq have brought it briefly back into U.S. headlines, though it is a long time since Americans have given the mess they made there any thought. The late Gen. Ray Odierno, the former head of the 8.5-year-long occupation of Iraq who died on Saturday, once fingered a […]
No, Renewables didn’t cause the Global Energy Crisis; Strangling Iranian Gas and failing to put in Enough Wind and Solar Did
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As the world starts back up after the pandemic, the price of energy is spiking, as Pippa Stevens at CNBC explains. The flacks for dirty energy are trying to blame renewables for the jump in energy costs this fall in Europe and China, but frankly that is ridiculous. Demand for […]
Wahhabi Saudi Arabia has a More Rational Vaccine Mandate than the US Republican Party
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Republicans, among all Americans, are the most Islamophobic or Muslim-hating, with 72% holding that Muslims are more likely than members of other religions to encourage violence by their community. Republican TV idol Tucker Carlson called Iraqis “monkeys” and “illiterate” and maintains that “white men” invented civilization. That is, Muslims in […]
Iraq is seeking 10 Gigawatts of Solar Power; if World had gone Green in ’80s, Would the US have ever invaded Iraq?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a historic irony, Iraq is turning to solar energy, according to Dania Saadi at SPGlobal. Ali Jawad at the Anadolu Agency reports that the Baghdad government is seeking to generate 10 gigawatts of solar power for electricity by 2030, though it already has several projects in train that will […]
UN Turns back on War Crimes in Saudi-Led War on Yemen, as 16 million March toward Starvation
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al Jazeera reports that on Thursday the UN Human Rights Council voted 21 to 18 with 7 abstentions against a resolution urging the renewal of the mandate of of the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen (GEE). The group of experts had found in 2018 that parties […]
Iran’s Hard Line gov’t Ebullient about higher Oil Prices, as China Defies US Sanctions on Tehran
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iran is a big beneficiary of the run-up in oil prices, with Brent crude hitting a multi-year high of $83 a barrel on Wednesday and the West Texas Intermediate price hitting about $79 a barrel. Analysts expect prices to remain high as we move into winter, when there is extra […]
Coral reefs are dying as climate change decimates ocean ecosystems vital to fish and humans
By Sam Purkis | – The Chagos Archipelago is one of the most remote, seemingly idyllic places on Earth. Coconut-covered sandy beaches with incredible bird life rim tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles from any continent. Just below the waves, coral reefs stretch for miles along an underwater mountain chain. It’s a […]