Featured

Dear Chief Justice John Roberts: Your Rulings Show that you don’t Preside over a Court so much as a Partisan Tribunal

Auburn, Al. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Dear Chief Justice Roberts. Let me give you a hanky. All those nasty critics of “your” court, including those three hectoring female justices hanging off the edge of it, I’m sorry you’re so disturbed. Well, C.J. Roberts, let me help. I’ll give you a little lesson in […]

Batteries

On this 4th of July we need to Declare a War of Independence from Fossil Fuels and Climate Change

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, kicked off the Revolutionary War in earnest, which the Continental Army only finally won seven years later, in 1882. The Revolutionary War was a rare conflict for the United States, in that it was fought on our own soil, such that every […]

Batteries

Electric Car Revolution: Tesla Sales up 83% Year on Year in Q2, as BYD does even better at 98% Surge

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tesla sales surged 83% in the second quarter compared to Q2 2022, and were up 10% over the first quarter. So reports Alan Ohnsmann at Forbes. And Benziga reports that the Chinese car maker BYD out produced Tesla in the first two quarters of this year, rolling out 1,255,637 new […]

Featured

Will US-Iran talks in Oman allow the two Countries to avoid War?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Late in 2022, the Biden administration announced that it had given upon on negotiating a restoration of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA), which Donald Trump destroyed in May 2018 by ripping it up and slapping what amounts to a financial and trade […]

Featured

Muslims are understandably Protesting Qur’an Burning in Sweden, but the Qur’an itself urges them to do so Peacefully

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Swedish police permitted the burning of the Muslim scripture, the Qur’an (Koran) in front of the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm, on the grounds that previous attempts to stop such acts have been overruled by the courts on freedom of speech grounds. Hate acts targeting minorities are not actually free […]

African-Americans

SCOTUS Ruling on Race and College Admissions: We’ve already Seen this Movie in Michigan and it Doesn’t End Well

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Conservatives in the United States have a stealth function of supporting white supremacy, even if they deny it. Maybe some do not even realize that is what they are doing. People focus on process and not outcomes when thinking of fairness, but what they think of as fair processes don’t […]

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A One-State Democracy for Palestine-Israel? A Review Essay

Marc Martorell Junyent

Review of Ghada Karmi, One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel (London: Pluto Press, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – Following the inauguration of a far-right government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December 2022, the Israeli occupation machinery in Palestine has been turbocharged. In February 2023, the Israeli government approved the […]

Batteries

China adds 62 Gigawatts of Solar Capacity in Just 5 Months, Compared to 10 Gigs in the US

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Carrie Xiao at PV Tech reports that in the first five months of 2023, China has installed 62.1 gigawatts of solar capacity at a cost of $13.6 billion. Year on year, it was a 140% expansion. Just to give you an idea of the magnitude of this advance, a typical […]

Featured

Biden Administration bows to Int’l Law, Ceases funding Israeli research done on Stolen Land in Palestinian West Bank

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Biden administration has reverted to the longstanding practice of not funding Israeli institutions in the Palestinian West Bank. AFP reports that State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, “engaging in bilateral scientific and technological cooperation with Israel in geographic areas which came under the administration of Israel after 1967 and […]