Economy

By Juan Cole The mentally imbalanced individual who hunted down UC Santa Barbara students and knifed three and shot 6 of them to death, wounding with gunfire 7 more, on Saturday, used a semi-automatic handgun. The most popular such weapon is a Glock. It is not an automatic weapon, meaning you have to squeeze the […]

Economy

The Real Veterans Scandal: 258,000 Have No Healthcare Thanks to GOP Governors

contributors

By S Lee Caudle The Real Veterans Scandal: 258,000 Have No Healthcare Thanks to GOP Governors (via Atlas Left) While the GOP/Tea Party fiddles, blaming Obama for everything that’s wrong, our Veterans are dying. This is the same Congress where the majority have never served in the military. First we send soldiers to fight our wars […]

Climate Change

Onshore Wind Power in Europe now Cheaper than Gas, Coal or Nuclear

contributors

Originally published on Renew Economy. The falling cost of renewables is not news to those who have paid attention to analysis from green-focused think tanks, or groups like Bloomberg New Energy Finance. But it is when a major European utility, with…

Apartheid

Anthony Bourdain on Palestinians: “The World has visited many terrible things on” them, robbed of their Humanity

contributors

Anthony Bourdain: it is something we do all the time: “Show regular people doing everyday things–cooking and enjoying meals… It is a measure, I guess, of how twisted and shallow our depiction of the people is that these images come as a shock to so many. The world has visited many terrible things on the […]

Censors

When the McCarthyites tried to Ban “Robin Hood” as a Communist; and the Green Feather Movement

contributors

(By Alison Kysia) On November 13, 1953, during the height of the McCarthy era, Robin Hood and his band of “merry outlaws” made headlines. Mrs. Thomas J. White of the Indiana Textbook Commission called for a ban of Robin Hood in all school books for promoting communism because he stole from the rich to give […]

Climate Change

India-Pakistan Solar Energy Race? Desert Solar Park among world’s Largest

contributors

Pakistan’s first large-scale solar power project, the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park project, was recently inaugurated by Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, representing one of the country’s first clear steps towards renewable energy. The project…

Democracy

After Occupy: Is Economic Democracy Possible?

contributors

(A conversation on economic democracy with Tom Malleson via OUP) How do we address the problem of inequality in capitalist societies? Tom Malleson, the author of After Occupy: Economic Democracy for the 21st Century, argues that by making sure that democracy exists in both our economy and in our government, we may be able to […]

Central Asia

The Eurasian Pivot: Is it China’s and Russia’s Century?

contributors

(By Pepe Escobar via Tomdispatch) HONG KONG — A specter is haunting Washington, an unnerving vision of a Sino-Russian alliance wedded to an expansive symbiosis of trade and commerce across much of the Eurasian land mass — at the expense of the United States. And no wonder Washington is anxious. That alliance is already a […]

Economy

Under World Cup Pressure, Qatar reforms Guest Worker Laws, abolishes Sponsorship System

Juan Cole

Qatar to end sponsorship system for foreign workers (via AFP) Qatar, host of the 2022 football World Cup, said Wednesday it will abolish its controversial sponsorship system for foreign workers, whose treatment in the energy-rich state has stirred mounting international criticism. FIFA chief Sepp Blatter described… ——- AFP: “Qatar to end sponsorship system for […]