Something about hope Since coming to office in August, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has done everything to spell out the profound difference between his administration and the previous one. No, Iran is still not a liberal democracy, but what we are witnessing today is an amazing journey of a struggling country with barriers, obstacles, and […]
Can we have a Military-Green Energy Complex Instead, Please? (Kramer & Pemberton)
Mattea Kramer and Miriam Pemberton write at Tomdispatch.com A trillion dollars. It’s a lot of money. In a year it could send 127 million college students to school, provide health insurance for 206 million people, or pay the salaries of seven million schoolteachers and seven million police officers. A trillion dollars could do a lot […]
Iran’s Rouhani: Not Seeking the Bomb, Willing to show Flexibility
Ann Curry of NBC News gets a scoop, with an interview with Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, in which he restates Iran’s position that it is not seeking, and will never seek, a nuclear weapon. He said that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, had recently stressed ‘heroic flexibility.’ US economic sanctions are severely affecting the Iranian […]
Top Ten Solar Power good news Stories Today
Climate change produced by human burning of fossil fuels is a dire challenge to life as we know it on earth, and it will likely raise sea level 3-4 feet in this century, wiping out Miami and New Orleans and displacing large numbers of people in Indian Bengal, Egypt and Bangladesh. Moreover, Human beings may […]
Brazilian President Snubs Obama: How US Cyber Espionage will Destroy the Internet
The USG Open Source Center reports on Brazilian press reaction to President Dilma Roussef’s decision to cancel her state visit to Washington DC this fall, after revelations by Edward Snowden that the US National Security Agency not only intensively spied on all Brazilians online and engaged in industrial espionage but that special efforts were made […]
Solar Car of the Future: Sunswift Solar Two-Seater looks like an ordinary Coupe
Giles Parkinson writes that this year Sunswift is making a revolutionary and exciting entry in the annual University of New South Wales solar car competition: This year, they are entering a new class: a two doored vehicle dubbed eVe that looks more like a car than a spaceship, with a sleek carbon-fibre body and sleek […]
How the National Security State creates its own Whistleblowers, with a Letter to the Next One (Engelhardt)
Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com Dear Whistleblower, I don’t know who you are or what you do or how old you may be. I just know that you exist somewhere in our future as surely as does tomorrow or next year. You may be young and computer-savvy or a career federal employee well along in […]
UN Report Conclusive Sarin used on wide Scale, Points to Syrian Regime
When reports of a chemical weapons attack in Rif Dimashq near Damascus on August 21 first surfaced, some observers questioned whether these were really chemical weapons. Others questioned whether the force that deployed them, if that was what they were, was the Syrian army. T The UN-commissioned Sellstrom report on the August 21 chemical weapons […]
44 yearly Murders by Firearms in Britain [220 equiv.] vs. 8,583 in US; US Navy now Menaced
Aaron Alexis carried out the mass murder of 13 people at the Navy Yard with an AR-15 assault rifle and a shotgun. AR-15 Bushmasters are semi-automatic weapons that can fire many rounds per minute and can be bought at retail stores such as Walmart or at gun shows in southern states from private individuals without […]