Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – China is openly blaming the Trump administration for the breakdown of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), according to the official Xinhua News Agency Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at a daily press briefing, “The ‘maximum pressure’ against Iran imposed by […]
Trump’s Economic War on Iran: 88% reduction in Oil Exports, 6% Shrinkage of Economy
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The United States is already at war with Iran, squeezing its economy down to nothingness. If another country tried to do this to the US just on a whim and with no UN or international-law basis, the US would certainly launch a war over it. Iran’s choices are much more […]
UK Ambassador: Trump ‘radiating insecurity,’ inventing ‘false statistics’ and Dreads Unpopularity of any War with Iran
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Isabel Oakeshott at the Mail on Sunday has gotten hold of troves of UK diplomatic cables back to Whitehall from Washington, D.C., sent by veteran diplomat Sir Kim Darroch, which are scathing on Donald Trump. What is in the cables is interesting, but it should be signalled that the Mail […]
Humans set new Record putting Heat-Trapping CO2 into Atmosphere and What that Means
By Adam Voiland | – (NASA Earth Observatory) – In May 2019, when atmospheric carbon dioxide reached its yearly peak, it set a record. The May average concentration of the greenhouse gas was 414.7 parts per million (ppm), as observed at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory in Hawaii. That was the highest seasonal peak […]
If Trump’s Steampunk History of Revolutionary War Airbases isn’t Grounds for Impeachment, What is?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Suhauna Hussain at the LA Times reviews Trump’s fragile grasp of history, from his Revolutionary War airports to his Revolutionary War bombardment of Ft.McHenry (which occurred during 1812). In the 1980s, K. W. Jeter and others, building on work of Michael Moorcock, developed a new genre of science fiction set […]
Israel Systematically Hiding Documents Proving Expulsion, Oppression of Palestinians
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Hagar Shezaf at the Israeli newspaper of record, Haaretz [“The Land”], reveals that a secretive Israeli agency has been systematically going through the country’s archives, including local repositories, and removing and classifying documents having to do with repressive and embarrassing Israeli actions toward Palestinians and Palestinian-Israelis. One such disappeared document […]
Your Fourth of July and My Fourth of July (in the Age of Trump)
Ann Arbor | (Informed Comment) | – – Revised for the the Age of Trump: Your Fourth of July is tanks in the streets. My Fourth of July is James Madison’s warning, “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.” Your Fourth of July is unbathed refugee […]
Cole in Time Magazine for the Fourth of July on Lydia Maria Child and Islam
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Time Magazine does an annual feature on unsung moments in American history for their 4th of July edition. This year they asked me to submit one of the 15 vignettes. Influenced by the work of Jeffrey Einboden on Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880), I suggested as my unsung moment the 1855 […]
June Hottest Month on Record, As Antarctica Melts: Top 3 Signs We are Cooking the Planet . . . and Ourselves
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – 1. A European Union satellite has confirmed that June, 2019, was the hottest month on earth since scientific record-keeping began around 1850. In fact, if you take the averages of 1850-1900, June was 5.4 degrees F. warmer (3 degrees C.) Some parts of Europe were actually 10 degrees C. (18 […]
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