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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Nobody involved was on a battlefield.
thanks so much for this key comment!
thanks a million, Don!
No.
Apparently if we run through all the hydrocarbons we just have a tropical, sweltering, no-ice, high-frequency-bad hurricanes planet for 1000,000 years until the carbon sinks wash our sh*t out of the atmosphere. Not Venus.
I think Canada abstained
A very informed comment & thanks!
Iran is the only one with F-4s, so it was them.
thanks so much to you and all my other wonderful readers and supporters, Jared!
No offense, but you're not keeping up. British Airways has very serious plans for biofuel, and solar flight is already being explored. Solar powered ships are entirely practical, as are wind-powered (as we always knew). Petroleum is so 20th century.
Most Sunnis are urban and don't identify with tribes
The US is a complex economy with its own petroleum but also a lot of automobiles and trucks. High oil prices are bad for commuters and add expense to trucked goods. But they are good for the hydrocarbon industries in Texas, Louisiana, N Dakota etc.
low oil prices don't punish the US!
Bloomberg at least is reporting production way back down in November, to 500,000 bpd. and if Oct. was that high it was a fluke
http://www.voanews.com/content/libya-oil-14nov14/2520212.html
Libya used to do 1.7 mn barrels a day. They did 500,00 barrels a day in November, hence a lot was taken off the world market. US production can't account for falling prices. The point is that Saudia doesn't have to pump 9.5 mn barrels a day; it is choosing too, and that has an effect.
The Saudis don't fund ISIS/ Daesh! They have their own proxies in Syria, the Islamic Front, which they split off from the Free Syrian Army.
I don't work 9-5 so my Volt is mostly powered by my solar panels, i.e. free clean fuel.
Panels have fallen in price 60% so now is the time. Solar City will rent them to you if you don't want to pay up front
Thanks, Yasser!
the point is that since 2000 German CO2 emissions have fallen, and will plummet over the next 20 years. Keep your eye on the carbon
Just to note that Israel was never fired on from Dahiya
Yes and the Pope said God wanted Christians to invade the Middle East in the Crusades. People aren't stuck with the past unless they want to be. There is nothing in the Qur'an about executing apostates and the hadith tradition is late and weak. Of some 55 Muslim-majority countries covering a 6th of the world, almost none (mainly Saudia and Iran) actually carry out this barbaric practice.
the word in the Arabic article is mihwar, which means axis. There is nothing in principle negative about that word.
Thanks, Rune! Corrected now.
you're right. a fighter pilot set me right on this. But did admit we might be low on predators and also that it is much easier with spotters.
There are roughly 800 million Muslim women. Only the ones in Saudi Arabia, 11 mn., are forbidden to drive. No Sunni or Shiite or Ibadi country has this peculiar law, which is not based in Muslim but in tribal tradition.
How many apostates are executed in those countries?
Where is apostasy a capital crime in the Qur'an?
People tell pollsters all kinds of things.
Sorry for the typo. Apparently my fingers were used to writing "Arab" after "Sunni" and my eyes didn't see the egregious error.
But if you put in insulation as I did and then you also get solar panels, as I did, and you get an electric car, as I did, you will over time save thousands of dollars a year and also save the planet.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Just making an organization in your city and a PAC, and meeting with your congressional representative, would have an enormous impact.
The forty percent figure is incorrect. As the factories become themselves wind and solar powered, the carbon footprint from making the cars shrinks. Likewise if you run them off your own solar panels, their footprint shrinks to almost nothing. If you keep them a long time you amortize the production carbon costs. And there is no reason we can't make better batteries over time, and then recycle them for household storage of solar power. Look, there are 250 million cars on the American road and the system is set up for cars. Transitioning will require electric cars. We've only got 20 or 30 years to do this guys, and it isn't practical for all those suburbanites to bicycle. If every single new car buyer went electric it would cut our carbon production enormously.
yep
This is simply not true. They say they are Salafi Sunnis and the Wahhabi clergy reject them altogether.
thanks so much for weighing in, Yasser. As Indira Gandhi found out, controlling population is not politically easy. But anyway if you want to say there have been policy failings I'd agree. My point is that these are not moral, ethical or "civilizational" failings, and that they are common throughout the world. Public policy in the US also has produced low productivity after WW II, of only 2% average a year, when we needed 3%. Nobody says American civilization is collapsing as a result.
The increase in population growth rates happened everywhere - Egypt, Palestine, Iraq etc. starting before impact of modern medicine. Needs macro explanation.
I respectfully disagree-- this is the logic of collective guilt.
the evidence is in the Russian press.
Syria came out today and say it was fine with them if Obama bombed ISIL on Syrian soil. Even suggested an alliance.
it is analysis not advocacy
he said that
Money flows of states through banks can be interfered with more easily; private money can be laundered; even so, a lot of Iran money was laundered.
Stopping money flows among private individuals and groups is almost impossible. Money is fungible.
ISIL is not Wahhabi.
The poor will suffer most from climate change; you're not helping them by increasing CO2. The taxes on polluting vehicles will be used in part for public transport.
The factory needed to be near California but to receive tax offsets to encourage Panasonic, the investment partner. With $5 bn, water could be piped in. Without this sort of Big Green project, you won't be in a position to carp about this project or that project; there won't be anyone able to live there much less projects.
Yes, I say explicitly in my blog entry that Volts only make sense for people with homes/garages to plug them in. But that's like 60% of American households and the drawbacks you rightly point to for renters don't explain the anemic sales, since there are plenty of homeowners who would save a lot of money with a Volt.
Thanks Bob. However, this is a CleanTechnica error which you should bring up with them.
The batteries last just fine for the life of the car, and can be potentially used thereafter for home solar panel storage. And all the time you have the battery, if you charge it from your solar panels, you are paying 0 for gasoline. That is a huge savings, both on fuel costs and on home electricity costs; keep your home/panels and EV for a decade and you've saved an enormous amount of money.
You do understand that if we don't reduce carbon emissions, which the gigafactory will do on a major scale, the drought problem will get 10 times worse. Old Environmentalism that doesn't calculate CO2 as the primary issue trumping all others is so self-defeating
Sorry, but this is silly. There are far more people with garages (millions and millions) than people who have bought EVs. You can put a charging station outside on the curb. And the Volt is not expensive-- it is a very nice car and much, much cheaper than others in its class. It is a steal, both in its price and given that you don't have to pay $3.60 a gallon to fuel it. Get solar panels and you can pay $00.00
It is bizarre. I've got one and it is a dream car. The price has dropped dramatically and there is a $7500 Federal tax rebate. If you put solar panels on your house and a fast charger, you can run it virtually for free around town. It is true that it is mainly convenient for homeowners with garages, but there are plenty of those! I just don't understand the consumer resistance here.
this is such a blinkered point of view. If you think about it you will see that fossil fuel use is actually increasing. The goal is to decrease it. The gigafactory will do that. Moreover, there is no reason we have to make the batteries in the current way. There is nothing wrong with using petroleum for plastics in cars! And there is no reason steel has to be produced in high-carbon ways. EVs don't produce fewer tailpipe emissions, they produce *none* where they are charged from solar panels or wind farms. Where the cars themselves are made with green energy (as they increasingly will be), production can move to net zero carbon. This can work. Your ideas are utopian in any time scale that matters.
Land area. 20% or less of population
ISIL did not kidnap the UN peacekeepers. Jabhat al-Nusra/ al-Qaeda did.
Tartus is not very important and Russian vessels seldom call there.
Try Sunventrix in southeast Michigan - they will help out.
First time in a long time, Mike.
The University of Michigan has always treated me well, indeed, with honor and affection, across the board and unlike some private institutions is in my 30 years of experience there not corrupt or ideological with regard to academic hiring and firing. I think those who want to politicize an appointment most places in academia only get the opportunity when a tenured professor is potentially moving, i.e., when there is an outside offer. Since outside offers strongly affect careers and lifetime earnings, moreover, making it clear that taking controversial stances will interfere with this prospect is enough to silence many more ambitious figures in the academy. Creating political controversies around senior appointments is, in other words, a social control mechanism.
Ministry of Interior
thanks, Jim! The old format is still there for those who prefer it; just bookmark:
https://www.juancole.com/weblog
he received it at the Israeli embassy and returned it there
Providing it is not contemptible. Crowing about being a great humanitarian under those circumstances is.
Kissinger had them fired.
It is like an organized crime boss putting some poor guy in the hospital & then sending him flowers. The critique is not of the aid but the Washington and press discourse around the aid.
they also didn't take Mosul militarily. They helped coordinate a popular urban uprising.
Done by email!
Online circulation is huge.
The Gaza blockade isn't even legal during "armed conflict" because Gaza is an occupied territory of Israel, not a sovereign state, and the blockade is directed at Palestinian non-combatants who are Israel's legal responsibility.
the tunnels are to break out of an illegal blockade, i.e. collective punishment.
that report is incorrect. Female 'circumcision' is not typical of Asian Islam; it is a Sahel thing & Christians, Animists and Muslims in the Sahel all do it.
insurance typically will not cover acts of war
Russians go to nearby warm places when they can; they are also a third of tourists to Egypt and a lot go to Turkish beach resorts. These are cheaper than say the French Riviera, nearer, and just as much fun.
I think Mr. Blitzer's reporting is more nuanced than this description implies. He actually is among the few anchors who makes sure to interview prominent Arabs, and his long experience with the region is often an advantage. We all have our biases but just reading off people from their background is glib.
The more solar panels that are bought, the further their price falls, so you're leaving out an algorithm by doing only basic math.
Norway hydro is a huge European battery 2-3 years off
on foreign policy; but on domestic policy Rand Paul is a nightmare
they have standing to do so now
Israeli demographers admit that no very large influx of further Jewish immigrants is likely
or not being able to export
Juan didn't approve that one and doesn't approve that language.
The point is that the US isn't settler-occupying its neighbors as of 1945 borders. The reason to say this is that Likud apologists often say they're not doing anything different from current US policies. That is silly.
What a probing set of comments! Thanks so much!
yes, they apologized
thanks! problem with blogging and not looking things back up.
Now you're just being cynical. Yemen is not, e.g., just the same as ever.
I was in Egypt in March and actually a lot of Egyptians are putting effort and hopes into the parliamentary elections.
"Just dictatorship" is not accurate. Let's see if it still looks like that in a couple of years.
If we look at democratic transitions elsewhere, they often took rather longer than 3 years. Egypt still has parliamentary elections scheduled, and al-Sisi's/ the military's honeymoon period is already beginning to be over. But you are arguing only from Egypt. It was a region-wide movement and you can't just pretend that Tunisia doesn't exist.
You can sign up for email here:
https://www.juancole.com/feed/subscription
It wouldn't have been folly, it just would have taken longer to get back the money. Carbon savings are substantial & if you figure in externalities you have saved society a lot of money
now, now. Let's put solar panels on our home roofs and church roofs as a first step. I did, and am writing this message with zero net carbon photons.
yes
On the other hand no one high up in the Bush administration resigned.
Kind words much appreciated! excelsior!
As I said, there were millions.
Peshmerga would make mincemeat of ISIS
I think 80 or so sentences upheld; most likely won't be carried through
We were allied with Iraq in the 1980s but the Soviets continued to be their primary patron and source of arms. So we were allied with the Soviets against Iran. Eurasia.
http://www.cleanenergyauthority.com/solar-installers
They don't work when covered in snow, obviously. You can get a kind of broom with a long attachment if it bothers you, but they are warm and the snow usually melts fairly quickly. This last winter was snowy but in the past couple decades they typically haven't been. Anyway, you have to think about the energy and carbon savings averaged through they year and they are certainly both well worthwhile. Michigan is sunnier than most of Germany, which gets 7% of its electricity from solar.
Yaay Seattle!
The jobs were robotified out of existence starting in the 1950s. Shipping what was left to Mexico came decades later.
Sorry, bombing of USS Cole a sore point with me. 17 sailors dead, and then there is the name.