Total number of comments: 1542 (since 2013-04-13 18:28:29)
Juan Cole
is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page
Website: http://juancole.com
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Immediate political developments probably don't matter much. The world has 8 years to make big changes, and its elites have chosen not to, and there's no mass movement to force it on them. We're screwed. Large land mammals have a high extinction rate.
The US government has no position on metaphysics. The Vatican is recognized as a mini-state, not the Vicar of Christ
Lord Curzon and others involved in the League of Nations negotiations on the Palestine Mandate repeatedly say in their letters that they understand that a "Jewish National Home" did not imply a Jewish state nor did it imply that the rights of the indigenous Palestinians would be injured. The French and the Italians were extremely uncomfortable with the British position. To cite the British imperial mandate in favor of Mr. Netanyahu's current push is to do violence to history.
The Arab League offered to recognize Israel within 1967 borders in 2002 and has since renewed the offer.
"Juan" has lots of problems with them. In fact "Juan" lobbied Egypt after the revolution to separate religion and state. But anyway the question is whether the US State Department and the Foreign Ministry of Palestine are obligated to recognize such religious republics as such, and to make a normative statement that they should be Jewish or Islamic Republics. Not only do they not, but the secular principles of both forbid them to.
Moreover, since the Netanyahu government is anti-Orthodox, it is a little unlikely that he is asking for recognition of Israel as a Judaic State, i.e. a religious one analogous to Iran. If what he is asking is for a recognition of an ethnic state, that is racist and abhorrent.
Obama is the first president to use that diction. But, that's their name as per their constitution. If the Knesset changes the name to "The Jewish Republic of Israel," we'll refer to them that way. But calling them that and formally recognizing that they are a religious Republic in the sense of saying that is a good thing and it *should* be so are two different things. The latter would be prohibited by the first amendment of the constitution. Netanyahu isn't asking for a statement of fact but a normative commitment. We can't even be sure Israel will always have a Jewish majority, and even a non-Jewish plurality would rather tell against the language he wants.
The State Department doesn't issue a certificate of approval for those situations, which is what Netanyahu is demanding for his own Talibanism.
Nope. Netanyahu's government includes the anti-religious Yisrael Beitenu and by allying with Lapid he was able to exclude the Orthodox parties from power. It is the most secular Israeli government for a long time. Netanyahu is very unlikely to be demanding recognition of a theocracy. But then it means it is racial for him.
I think the first amendment of our constitution would forestall any such formal recognition. We don't approve of the establishment of religions.
We Americans don't approve of states calling themselves "Islamic," either and if they came to us and said "you must recognize that we are an Islamic state," our constitution would forestall it.
Nor is it clear that Netanyahu's demand is framed with regard to religion.
The difference is in the tax rates on unearned income, which are very low, and which are typically lacking in the portfolios of the bottom quintiles.
As for doing better, the top 1% took home 10% of the national income in 1970, and it is 20% now, so they are clearly doing twice as well whereas the average wage of the average worker has been flat in real terms since 1970.
Solar works just fine in Ann Arbor, though obviously better in the non-deep winter. Strasburg should have loads of wind and if it does not, nearby Switzerland does. It is a matter of laying wires, as Portugal and Germany showed.
Nuclear plants generate tons of toxic waste that cannot be disposed of safely.
you're leaving out the massive increase of offshore wind. fossils are going down, dude
Nope, it is pretty much the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria that has taken over Fallujah. Other Sunnis are dismayed.
We would have to disregard international law and the Russian and Chinese veto at the UN to deploy force. NATO & even the British parliament is also against it.
Bringing up the Nazis is usually bad form because they are brought in as an irrelevant or extreme case, but when discussing the utility of war in the past 100 years one can hardly omit them.
Well it did answer Nazism.
http://www.amazon.com/Poems-Al-Mutanabb%25ee-A-J-Arberry/dp/0521108489/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1388888994&sr=8-2&keywords=al-mutanabbi
There is a whole pantheon of similar quality. Poetically, Hafez perhaps the giant among them all.
the US never wanted al-Maliki, he came to power with a Shiite coalition backed by Iran. He represents the 60% Shiite majority of the country and was more acceptable to the 20% that is Kurdish than the other candidates in 2010. The US likely is hoping that Ayad Allawi will come to power, who is anti-Iran, and who, although he is from a Shiite family, heads the largely Sunni al-Iraqiya Party.
al-Maliki was elected through popular sovereignty
thanks for the Informed Comment. Would love to visit Perth sometime.
thanks!
I think the Christian population of South Korea is exaggerated. A majority of South Koreans does not belong to an organized religious community. About a fifth are Buddhists and another fifth or so are Christians. http://www.sacred-destinations.com/south-korea/south-korea-religion. Not all of the Christians are fundamentalists or would necessarily reject evolution.
excellent points!
If you've ever seen Lucy's skeleton, you know human beings have rather changed since they arose (we are not talking about homo sapiens sapiens here, which may only be 130,000 years old).
Music to any author's ears! Let me know.
cheers Juan
Send me an 800 word essay by email
would you like to do this as a guest op-ed, Michael?
Current photovoltaic cells use rare earth metals. However, the likelihood is that new and simpler technologies will soon be implemented. The speed of research and development in this field is mind-boggling.
Oh, don't troll my site with bs like that. There were massive crackdowns by Kamalists as with after the 1980 coup. The whole left was destroyed including most effective labor unions. Leaving us with effete bourgeois apologists for an intolerant militant secularism.
A whole book of Khayyam's Rubaiyat is in preparation.
Search "Obama and Afghanistan" or "Petraeus and Afghanistan" in the blog search window.
I lived in Pakistan in the 1980s. Everyone, including US consular officials, knew it was building a nuclear weapon. Reagan asked them not to assemble it.
Sect is an English equivalent of "firqah." Calling them al-firqah al-`Alawiyyah would be common in Arabic. There is even a hadith that the Muslim community will become 72 sects.
What word would you use?
Obama admin has admitted providing covert aid to rebels
Liberals = Elbaradei, Amr Moussa, Wafd
Yeah, I don't think the amounts of money being spent are the scandal. The scandal is that rich people are anonymously spreading their money around to mislead people on a global emergency that will kill millions. The rich people deploying dark money to disseminate lies are doing so to protect their hydrocarbon assets. It is genocidally evil.
Thanks for posting this informed comment!
Rearrangements of national borders have been rare in modern history. Where they have occurred, as with South Sudan, they haven't necessarily led to peace. There is no economic base for the three states you suggest, and except for the Kurdish regions, populations are spread around. Likely it stays together, as Algeria did.
Yeah, and those sidewalk cafes off Istiklal where people drink beer sitting outside can't serve it. It is only inside.
RT is uneven, which means some of its reports are solid and some aren't. I embed the ones I think are solid. If you like the blog you have to trust my judgment.
The NYT sold us aluminum tubes and Iraq nuclear centrifuges, helping get us into the Iraq War on false pretenses, but we still cite it.
The North Sea oil is not that important to Scotland. And once they go green and get EVs it will be worthless to them. Read up on it.
Because ignorant and venal people dominate their state legislature.
You are so wrong, Julian. First of all, Scotland has the hydro and nuclear for baseload power. And often the winds are stronger at night so solar and wind can switch off. And there is the promise of wave energy as well. Since Scotland has gone from 23% renewables to 40 percent in only 3 years, the feasibility is not in doubt. Read up on the subject before you weigh in.
An al-Qaeda affiliate shot up the Indian parliament in 2002. The police are capable enough, but you never really are prepared for an operation like that. Blast walls highly desirable.
It isn't the fault of the police. They have to follow standard procedure for everyone because NYC mandates that. It is the fault of the mayor who has everyone strip searched who is arrested.
Move into the city, use public transport to get to work, sell your car.
Posted for Tom Giesen:
Hi
I read Jamail's article last evening and welcomed a look at the dark side of warming.
However, I became somewhat of a skeptic overnight and looked into his information this morning. I selected 4 items and found all four to be inaccurate or inappropriate.
I thought you might be interested in my findings below.
Tom
Item 1
“3.5 degrees C by 2035” – that is an erroneous reading of the material by IEA in the 2013 IEA World Energy Outlook
Here is the IEA language":
“In our central scenario, taking into account the impact of measures already announced by governments to improve energy efficiency, support renewables, reduce fossil-fuel subsidies and, in some cases, to put a price on carbon, energy-related CO2 emissions still rise by 20% to 2035. This leaves the world on a trajectory consistent with a long-term average temperature increase of 3.6 °C, far above the internationally agreed 2 °C target.”
The rise is not by 2035 but instead is a “…long term average temperature increase”
Item 2:
“Causing five million deaths a year” Based on 100,000,000 possible deaths by 2030. Probable over time does not justify “causing” in present tense. Not a study – just a website speculation.
Item 3:
“Fifty-five million years ago, a five degree Celsius rise in average global temperatures seems to have occurred in just 13 years, according to a study published in the October 2013 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”
This is a gross, inaccurate simplification of Wright and Schaller’s very complex research reported in 2013 PNAS. They reported a near instantaneous emission of 3,000 gigatons of carbon (GtC). That is not an analogue to today. The reference to the study is to a news article, not Wright and Schaller’s paper.
Item 4:
“A study published in the prestigious journal Nature this July suggested that a 50-gigaton “burp” of methane from thawing Arctic permafrost beneath the East Siberian sea is “highly possible at anytime.””
The study in question has been criticized as inappropriate for a number of reasons, not least of which is that a “50 gigaton 'burp'” has no precedent in that setting. See Nisbet et al. 2013. Nature 499 401-3.
This critique is not a reflection on your work, on which I rely.
Tom
I'd say picketing and trying to close down all the coal plants would be a good first step.
Western Europe was cooler than the global average in November
1911?
Sykes-Picot was not known to the Arabs until Lenin revealed it after the October 1917 revolution. Even the the British denied it to them.
Germans have short elections and restrictions on advertising and campaign finance, so their politicians haven't been bought out by the rich and ordered to radically change the tax structure. In other words, the US is just far more corrupt.
You are delusional. Upward mobility is now greater in Europe than in the United States and reduced tax rates on the rich are producing a wealthy aristocracy that goes easily across generations. Your points were more true in the 1950s. Even then, minorities were largely exempted from those processes.
the Reddit community is awesome!
Uh, the energy comes from the sun. Duh.
that's not fair!
EP Thompson says there is a difference between being a worker and having a working class consciousness.
Oh don't be silly. I was talking about US government policy and said so.
As for supporters of Mandela in the general population, I suspect they were a small minority then.
Which article(s)?
cheers Juan
Also, the Ottomans failed to industrialize, whereas the Americans allowed politicians and corporations to ship their industries abroad.
Thanks, Mark. But professional historians don't hang so much on the riots.
So far, at least, I am not aware of donors being able to influence directly the hiring of professors to positions they endow. Obviously, you don't want to anger them and so there may be self-censorship. But most universities try to get the money in the bank before hiring so as to preserve integrity.
On the other hand, in a general way donors can threaten to give no more if so-and-so is hired, and so could influence the higher administration. You don't want to give outsiders a veto over academic appointments just because they were good at making money.
it was a temporary blip
And if you were dealing with Wall Street in summer of 2007, you'd be very, very likely to be ripped off.
temporary glitch
thanks so much, Philip!
Many thanks for the warm sentiments, David!
Many thanks for the kind words, Gary! It is great to hear from you.
Many many thanks!
Can't thank you enough, AJ! Excelsior!
many thanks!
thanks so much, Rob. Best wishes for the New Year!
thanks a million, Andrew!
Many many thanks, Bob!
thanks a million!
Many thanks!
Much appreciated, Pam!
thanks a million, Timothy!
Much appreciated, Charles!
Jim, nothing keeps me going like kind words from esteemed colleagues! thanks! & Happy New Year
Hi, Trevor; thanks so much!
try now. tech team inadvertently triggered that while improving the site.
Hi, Bill. You can see the weblog format at juancole.com/weblog
thanks Ron! Will let tech team know
The factor of 5 was mentioned somewhere in an article I used for my research but pertained to a particular area. I'll try to look it back up. The oil and gas producing areas generally were up by a factor of 2.7. The 1.7 is a nationwide estimate including areas that don't produce methane.
There's an unsubscribe link at the bottom of the newsletter.
If you subscribed through Feedburner you'd have to take care of it there.
cheers Juan
The Brotherhood killed plenty of protesters, including Jika and several by goons last December 6
Alaa and Ahmad never supported the coup, though they did ask for a recall election
I was talking about US law. We can argue about whether the US government has an obligation to uphold constitutional ideals in dealings with non-citizens (I think it does). But that US citizens enjoy those rights is not controversial in US courts.
Generally we American citizens like our government to be bound by our American Constitution. This is warrantless and intrusive surveillance of and dirty tricks on people who haven't been charged with a crime much less convicted of one.
Brazil and Argentina also mothballed nuclear programs.
Substantial elements of the Iranian elite are very embarrassed by the actions of the Baath Party, including using military weapons on peaceful protesters and deploying chemical weapons (from which Iran suffered mightily in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s). Iran would like to be popular in places like Jordan and Egypt the way it was in 2006, which al-Assad is making impossible. I suspect Iranian relations with contemporary Syria are fraught and complex.
Israeli Neoliberalism is hurting workers and young people, and there are real estate and finance bubbles. The edifice of the Right could come down any time.
President Rouhani seems to have been affected by the unrest in 2009 and is aware that Iran needs healing, including a more inclusive government. He seems to want to amnesty the Green Movement and at least slightly to expand individual rights. Rouhani will be in a better position to accomplish these things if he has a foreign policy success to trumpet, insulating him from the hard liners. So, at the margins at least, yes, I expect the agreement to have downstream positive effects domestically.
Actually Simon, the question is why when it comes to Israel people have an immediate derangement syndrome that prevents them from reading. I'm not sure my post attributed anything at all to "Israel" as agent. It was about the US Neoconservatives and about the leader of the Likud Party. As for the current far right wing Israeli government not wanting to see Iran's nuclear facilities bombed, surely you jest.
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2013/11/21/2978811/bennett-israel-attack-iran-bad-deal/
Al Gore did support Darpanet, which led to it, Bill. You're usually more savvy than to fall for that kind of sarcasm meme.
Very happy to have your reaction, Sherifa! Now that's an informed comment.
They were mixed Sunni & Shiite, traumatized, and not a factor. Many have been forced back to Iraq. Numbers were exaggerated - at height 600,000