Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new ABC News/ Ipsos poll finds that 64% of Americans are optimistic about the next twelve months. It is the first time we have felt that way about ourselves since before George W. Bush crashed the economy by deregulating everything. “Morning in America” was the slogan of the minor […]
Biden Plans for US to Jump into Electric Vehicles with Both Feet, in a Hurry
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The White House issued a fact sheet Thursday on how President Biden intends to move the US vehicle fleet to electric in short order, using money already appropriated for his jobs plan. Biden is ahead of world trends in his ambitions. The UN’s International Energy Agency predicts that the current […]
Were Humanity’s Oldest Monumental Religious Sites Erected in NW Saudi Arabia? 1,000 ‘Rectangles’ Older than Stonehenge
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Hugh Thomas and a team of Australian researchers have just published a groundbreaking article in the journal Antiquity describing their research into the mysterious “Rectangles” (mustatīl) dotting Northwest Arabia. This region lies due south of Israel-Palestine and Jordan. Rectangles. h/t ‘Antiquity.’ The Rectangles date from roughly 7,500 years before present, […]
It Can be Done: California Briefly reaches 94.5% Renewable Electricity
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sammy Roth at the LA Times/ Boiling Point Newsletter reports that California’s main power grid was powered for several hours last Saturday by 90% renewables. For just four seconds that day, the grid, which covers 4/5s of the state, reached 94.5% generation by green energy. California is the world’s fifth […]
Why Jerusalem is Sacred to Muslims, and why even the Emirates are Rebuking Israel for Persecuting Palestinians There
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan began Monday, April 12, and for the succeeding week and a half there was trouble at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate. Muslim youth were used to gathering in the square in front of the the gate, which had been built by the Ottoman Sultan Suleyman […]
Israel is an Apartheid State seeking Systemic Domination of Palestinians: Human Rights Watch
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Human Rights Watch has issued a 214-page report concluding that between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean there are 6.8 million Jews and 6.8 million Palestinians, and that the Israeli state systematically privileges the Jews, wherever they are, and disprivileges the Palestinians, on the basis of race. HRW, like other […]
No, Kerry didn’t Leak Israeli strikes to Zarif; but Trump did leak Israeli Intel to Russia
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ted Cruz and other far right demagogues have charged for over half a decade that the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was misguided because you can’t trust anything Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarid says. Now all of a sudden they are treating an offhand remark by Zarif in a leaked interview […]
Methane Menace and Global Heating: Why President Biden is wrong and Fracking must be Banned
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – When running for office, Joe Biden pledged that the federal government would not ban hydraulic fracturing or fracking. This environmentally disastrous method of extracting petroleum and natural gas from shale rock beneath the earth involves pumping water down there under enormous pressure to break up the rocks and release the […]
Israeli Police injure 12 Palestinians in Continued Iron Fist Crackdown on Jerusalem Ramadan Crowds
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment)- Arab48 reports that Israeli security forces on Saturday night attacked Palestinian worshipers at Damascus Gate in Jerusalem with batons and teargas, leaving 12 Jerusalemites wounded, according to the Palestinian Red Cross. Damascus Gate or Bab al-Amoud in Arabic is the major entrance way to the Old City of Jerusalem, which is […]