Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The deadly effects of ideological extremism in the Middle East for the past few decades have caused governments and journalists to focus on it. The Arabic word is al-taṭarruf. I was interested, however, to see the word put to a different purpose in a Sky News Arabia article , where […]
Trump’s Indictment for Jan. 6: Revisiting “Psychopathocracy”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A Grand Jury empaneled by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith has issued an indictment (full text here) against Donald John Trump on four counts, Smith delivered a statement, saying, “Today, an indictment was unsealed charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring […]
In 2024, China will hit Peak Gasoline, with its Demand on a Downward Spiral ever After
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Yale Environment 360 points to recent energy reports as suggesting that China will hit peak gasoline next year. That is, after 2024 the country’s demand for gasoline to fuel automobiles will fall every year. China was one of the last advanced economies to lift COVID-19 restrictions, as President Xi Jinping […]
Could Solar Panel Arrays in Earth Orbit provide all the Clean Electricity We’d Ever Need?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The European Space Agency isn’t as well known in the U.S. as NASA or even Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. The $7 bn.-a-year agency funded by 22 European states, however, has what could turn out to be a game-changing idea for solar power. ESA is contemplating installing a solar panel […]
WMO: July to be Hottest month on Record, as World enters era of Global Boiling, Global Burning
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The World Meteorological Association said this weekend as July comes to a close that it will have been the hottest month in recorded history. Its first three weeks were certainly the hottest on record. It likely will have been the hottest month in 120,000 years. Modern homo sapiens as a […]
Renewable Energy poised to overtake Coal, Providing 1/3 of Global Electricity: IEA
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The International Energy Agency’s report on electricity markets is out and it has some good news. Depending on how cold the winters are, the IEA expects renewable sources of energy to outstrip coal in 2024, and forever thereafter. It calls this change “structural.” That is, it isn’t a blip or […]
The Other Sinead O’Connor, Pro-Palestinian Critic of Violent Israeli Extremist Ben-Gvir, and Muslim Convert
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tragically, Sinead O’Connor is dead at 56. Many of the obituaries of Irish protest singer have been oddly thin, and have ignored key moments in her life. One was her contretemps with Israeli extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, now the country’s Minister of National Security. She later became fiercely critical of the […]
Chaos as Israel departs the Ranks of Democracies, Adopting the Hungarian Model of Elective Dictatorship
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that on Monday, the Israeli parliament or Knesset passed the article removing the power of administrative review from Israeli courts on grounds of “reasonability.” The measure passed 64-0 in the 120-seat body, with the far right wing coalition of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unanimously […]
Dear Ron DeSantis: Consider all the Valuable Skills the Enslaved Taught Cracker Slave-Holders (For Which they were never Paid)
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The new Florida history curriculum on slavery says that some enslaved persons learned skills while enslaved that later benefited them, provoking shock and outrage across the nation. One of the things that is wrong with this way of looking at the issue is the white nationalist assumption that white slavers […]
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