The Wailing Wall, Jerusalem, c. 1900 (From Gertrude Bell, Syria: The Desert and the Sown, 1908)
Ban Coal: Coal Industry Chemical Threatens 300,000 in West Virginia
(By Juan Cole) Some 300,000 West Virginians are at risk from their tap water after a company making MCHM spilled it into the river, turning it a little purple and making it smell like liquorice. MCHM can be fatal if imbibed, and otherwise it can make you vomit your guts out. It is used to […]
“It’s all Right to Make Fun of the Government”: Bassem Youssef (Egypt’s Jon Stewart)
Bassem Youssef: “It’s OK to make fun of ourselves” “BBC Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman talks to Bassem Youssef, also known as the “Egyptian Jon Stewart”, about making people laugh in Egypt today.”
Top 5 US Government Decisions that put Troops more at Risk than Snowden Did
(By Juan Cole) The propaganda wars in Washington continue over Edward Snowden’s revelation that the National Security Agency and other Federal government departments have in the past decade quietly abolished the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, without even telling us that is what they were doing. All Americans, once proud, free citizens of a republic […]
Gatesgate: Why Obama was right to Distrust his Generals on Afghanistan
(By Juan Cole) Among the charges in former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s memoirs against Barack Obama is that the latter did not trust his generals, did not adopt the Afghanistan War as his own, and was skeptical of the Pentagon plan for a troop escalation and a big counter-insurgency push. It is now forgotten […]
Daily Show on Global Warming Confusion (Video of the Day)
Jon Stewart of the Daily Show reviews the silly things climate change denialists are saying about the cold snap, inasmuch as they confuse weather events with long-term climate trends. For more see “Note to GOP: Yes, the Polar Vortex can be Global Warming
Tripoli Residents Protest as 80,000 Rare Books in Lebanon Torched by Salafis
(AFP) Angry Lebanese protest over attack on priest’s library (via AFP) Hundreds of Lebanese took to the streets of the northern city of Tripoli on Saturday to protest the torching of a decades-old library owned by a Greek Orthodox priest. The demonstrators held up banners that read “Tripoli, peaceful town” and “This is… —– […]
Top Ten Things Bob Gates was Wrong about, Some Criminal
(By Juan Cole) Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in his new memoir is said to have slammed Vice President Joe Biden for having been consistently “wrong” on foreign policy matters over the past four decades. Gates’s petty gossip about his former colleagues should put an end to the pusillanimous Democratic Party tradition of appointing […]
A Bridge of Boats across Frozen Tigris River, Mosul, 1903
The authors say locals in Mosul told them that the last time the river froze was 1750. That freezing became more rare after that date is significant, since 1750 marks the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and increased coal burning for energy. The period 1250-1850 or the medieval cooling period (often incorrectly called the ‘little […]
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