Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that, despite being indicted for corruption and press manipulation, Binyamin Netanyahu can take office as prime minister next week in a government of national unity that has him rotating the office with rival Benny Gantz of the Blue and White coalition after 18 months. […]
Trump Vetoes War Powers Restrictions on Attacking Iran as “Insulting”– as Iraq’s new PM enters Crosshairs
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – ( Nikki Carvajal at CNN reports that Trump vetoed the invocation of the War Powers Act passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives, with some bipartisan support in the wake of his assassination at Baghdad International Airport of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani on January 3. Even some […]
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, “True lovers always are out of their minds”
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain of the Day True lovers always are out of their minds. They’re crazy and distracted and disgraced. When we are sober, life annoys us; but when we’re drunk, what things will be, will be. trans. Juan Cole, (Whinfield 8) عاشق همه ساله مست و شیدا بادا دیوانه و شوریده و […]
Stop Calling them Heroes if You won’t give Essential Workers Sick Leave and Health Care like Every Other Industrialized Country
By Paul F. Clark | – The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated the degree to which we depend on the work of others. This is particularly true of essential workers like truck drivers, grocery store employees and hospital nurses who are ensuring the rest of us stay safe and are able to get the supplies, food […]
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: “Who brought you, tipsy, here to me?”
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Quatrain of the Day Tonight, who brought you, tipsy, here to me? Who brought you to my hand without a veil? –to one on fire because you had been gone– one like an arid wind; who brought you here? trans. Juan Cole, (Whinfield 2) امشب بر ما مست که آورد ترا […]
Anti-Immigrant Trump promotes Burning Fossil Fuels that will displace Millions toward US
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presents findings that shocked the authors themselves. If the world (by which I mean you and me, dear reader) does not swing into prompt action to deal with the climate emergency, some 3.5 billion people are going to […]
Americans are Dying to Die: Guard shot for asking Customers to wear Mask as Trump’s CDC predicts 3k death / day by June
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Security guard Calvin Munerlyn, father of six with three step-children, was shot to death Monday in an altercation over Munerlyn’s demand that a 20-year-old woman wear a mask to shop in a Dollar Store in Flint, Michigan. She was there with her mother, who was masked, and with two men. […]
Neo-Nazi “Reopeners” would Kill nearly as many Americans as died in All US Wars
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Roughly 1,264,000 US soldiers have died in all the wars this country has ever fought. A new simulation by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School predicts that if all the states completely reopened today and all Americans ceased all social distancing measures, a million people would die in this country […]
Israel Teeters on Brink, as Protests erupt against Indicted Netanyahu forming Gov’t, and Supreme Court prepares to Rule on his Eligibility
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Thousands of Israelis gathered again at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to protest the formation of a new national unity government by indicted prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his rival, Benny Gantz. The disciplined protesters maintained social distance from one another to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Smaller […]