Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Arabic press is reporting violent assaults Saturday evening by Israeli police against Palestinian Christian worshipers in Jerusalem attempting to make their way to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the “Saturday of Light” commemoration. The police attacks took place at the entrance to the Church of the Holy […]
US in Eclipse: 240,000 Palestinians worship at al-Aqsa in Jerusalem as Iran, Lebanon, Show Solidarity on Jerusalem Day
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Quds (Jerusalem) Day is commemorated on the last Friday of Ramadan, and was held yesterday. “Al-Quds” is the Arabic name for Jerusalem, meaning “the Holy.” Revolutionary Iran established this custom, and some of the biggest Quds Day crowds gathered in Tehran. Demonstrations were held, however, all over the Muslim world. […]
Christian Archbishop slams Israel’s Restrictions on Worship at the ‘Festival of Lights’ as “Racist”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On the Saturday before Orthodox Easter, which falls a week later than in the Western churches, typically 10,000 worshipers gather at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, waiting for the holy fire [to phos) to emerge. It is said to derive from the tomb in which Jesus was initially buried […]
Peak Fossil Fuels? Wind, Solar advance 20% Globally, with World on Verge of CO2 Emissions Drop
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The energy analysis firm Ember reports its latest findings about global energy trends, and it is relatively optimistic. Wind and solar had provided 10% of the world’s electricity in 2021, but that went up to 12% in 2022, a 20% increase. If we look at each source in its own […]
Scotland, aiming at 40 GW of Offshore Wind, has just installed the Deepest Fixed-bottom Wind Turbine in the World
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The small country of Scotland, with a population of about 4.5 million, has forged ahead with renewable energy at a much faster pace and to greater effect than most other industrialized countries. Virtually all of its electricity consumption can now be met from wind, solar, or hydro, though because it […]
Thousands of Fascist Israeli Militiamen, led by Cabinet members, march in Palestinian West Bank for Illegal Squatter-Settlement, as 27 Palestinians are Wounded and 100 are Tear-gassed
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that on Monday about 17,000 Israeli squatters marched through the Palestinian West Bank to the shuttered illegal squatter-settlement of Evyatar on Mount Sabih near the hamlet of Beita in the vicinity of Nablus, demanding its revival. Some 27 Palestinian counter-protesters suffered injuries from rubber-tipped […]
Leaked Pentagon Report: Israeli Intel Agency Mossad Agitated against Netanyahu’s weakening of Courts
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – John Hudson and Louisa Loveluck at the Washington Post report that a leak of Pentagon documents reveals that the U.S. is intensively spying on Israel and concludes that Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, has encouraged both its own employees and the Israeli public to join protests against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s […]
The last Time there was this much CO2, there were Sabertooth Tigers, California Monsoons and an Undersea Florida
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that for the 11th consecutive year, human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases increased at the same rate as has been common for the past decade. In other words, nothing the world has so far done has caused the rate […]
World’s Most Dangerous Flashpoint: Israeli Forces Repeatedly Invade Sacred al-Aqsa Mosque, Beat, Expel Worshipers, on behalf of Jewish Extremists
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that both on Wednesday and Thursday mornings, Israeli security forces invaded the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, the third holiest shrine in the Muslim world and expelled Palestinians who had been conducting an all-night retreat (i`tikaf) there for the holy fasting month of Ramadan. Video emerged […]