Dear Royal Baby: You had an ancestor named King George III that we Americans said a lot of nasty things about, and we’d like to apologize to you, since you seem like a nice baby and anyway, we’ve gotten over our dissatisfaction with your Highness’s family. We wonder if you’d like to take back over […]
Can Christianity Survive in the New Iraq? (Teule)
Larry McGill writes at ISLAMiCommentary Herman Teule There are sizeable Christian minorities in several Middle Eastern countries with Muslim majorities, but the numbers of Christians may be diminishing. This Spring, Duke’s Department of Religion in conjunction with the Duke Islamic Studies Center invited Herman Teule, Professor of Eastern Christianity at Radboud University in the Netherlands, […]
Chris Hedges: “We have shifted, I think, from a democratic state to… corporate totalitarianism.”
Chris Hedges interviewed on The Real News : Excerpt of the transcript: “JAY: But, see, that’s what I’m concerned about as a citizen, I mean, whatever the journalist hat is supposed to be here, which is–. I was at dinner the other night with some people having somewhat similar conversation, why isn’t there a mass […]
Bye, Bye Florida: Scientists find the last time it was this hot, Seas rose 65 feet
A study published in Nature Geoscience by researchers, from Imperial College London and their academic partners shows that 5-3 million years ago in the Pliocene, the last time it was as hot as it is going to be in this century, antarctic ice shelf melting caused a sea level rise of as much as 20 […]
Indiana: “How do we get rid of” Zinn’s ‘A People’s History of the United States?’
In a disturbing development, the Associated Press has revealed emails in which former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels advocated banning the use of Howard Zinn’s text, “A People’s History of the United States” in the state’s educational systems. What’s troublesome is not dislike of a book but that Daniels seems to have been willing to misuse […]
Syria: Attack on Sayyida Zainab Provokes Sunni-Shiite Tensions in Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan
The rocket attack on the Shrine of Sayyida Zaynab in the suburbs of Damascus on Friday has intensified the sectarian overtones of the Syrian civil war and exacerbated Sunni-Shiite tension in Iraq and elsewhere. Shrapnel killed the venerated caretaker of the shrine. ( Sayyida Zaynab [d. 682 AD] was the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad). […]
First, Close all the Coal Plants: MIT Study Shows they Shorten Lives
“Data from China show that large amounts of coal emissions shorten lives”: The MIT Energy Intiative reports: ” A high level of air pollution, in the form of particulates produced by burning coal, significantly shortens the lives of people exposed to it, according to a unique new study of China co-authored by an MIT economist. […]
Annals of White Terrorism: Police Arrest Suspect in bombing of Mosque, Murder of Muslim
A British-Ukrainian suspect is being looked at for both the murder of an elderly Muslim man and several bombings outside mosques in London. Terrorism against Muslims by people of European Christian heritage is almost never called ‘terrorism’ in the press, but this case clearly fits any reasonable definition of the phenomenon. Likewise there is never […]
“Whoever Speaks of 1967 borders speaks of Auschwitz”: Israel Cabinet not Serious about talks on a Palestinian State
US Secretary of State John Kerry very tentatively announced Friday that he has hopes that Israeli and Palestinian negotiations will start back up with a visit of both sides to Washington in the coming week. Oddly, he made the announcement alone, not flanked by either Palestinians or Israelis, prompting questions of whether he really had […]