Month

Archives: January 2013

Why the Senate should Confirm Chuck Hagel as SecDef

Reprint edn.: this appeared earlier, but is a propos of today's Senate confirmation hearings. A future column will treat that process: I doubt Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska, and…

Russia slams Israeli bombing of Syria as Violation of UN Charter

The USG Open Source Center translates the statement at the website of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs sharply condemning Israel: Text of "Russian Foreign Ministry statement in connection to reports about…

Is Egypt on the Verge of Civil War? Morsi backs off Emergency Decree

Minister of Defense Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned Tuesday that if the country's turmoil continued, Egypt faced the possibility of a collapse of the state. The intrepid Ben Wedeman of CNN reports…

Syrian Horror Show, as Obama, Kuwait Pledge Refugee Aid (+ Cole Interview)

The UN donors' conference in Kuwait made some progress on Wednesday morning toward its goal of $1 billion in aid to the some 700,000 Syrian refugees, many of whom are shivering in…

Egypt: Canal Provinces Defy Morsi, Weakening his Authority

The canal cities of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez rejected the imposition of a curfew and of emergency laws on them Monday night. In the meantime, the major opposition parties declined President…

Immigration and the Future of America (Chart)

Immigration to the US is if anything accelerating. The 1924-1965 immigration law had been racist and set strict quotas for everyone but northern Europeans. Since 1965, up to 25,000 immigrants can come…

Egypt: Morsi invokes Emergency Law in 3 Cities, is Slammed by Opposition

Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi on Sunday put three Suez Canal cities under emergency law on Sunday for a month. Port Said, Suez, and Ismailiya had seen violence by angry crowds against government…

How Pundits got the Israeli Elections Wrong & Ignored the Influence of Women (Goldman)

Shalom Goldman writes at IslamiCommentary: Before the January 22 Israeli elections media pundits in the US and Israel were predicting a sharp rightward shift by the Israeli electorate. According to these analyses…

Afghanistan 2014: How the US will Lose Yet another fruitless War (Jones)

Ann Jones writes at Tomdispatch.com: Kabul, Afghanistan -- Compromise, conflict, or collapse: ask an Afghan what to expect in 2014 and you’re likely to get a scenario that falls under one of…

Egypt: 31 Dead in Port Said Riots over Soccer/ Football Verdict

An Egyptian court ruled against the fans of the Port Said al-Masri soccer/ football team, sentencing 21 of them to death for their role in provoking a stampede on the field last…

Dead Children and Arrested Babies: Palestinian Life under Israeli Colonialism

The Palestinian West Bank has been illegally de facto annexed by Israel. This territory was not awarded to Israel even in the UN General Assembly partition plan of 1947, and indeed Israel's…

Egypt: The People Still want the Fall of the Regime

On the two-year anniversary of the demonstration that kicked off the Egyptian Revolution and the Second Republic, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians came out to demonstrate. They were not so much commemorating…

Iraq in Crisis as Troops Shoot Down unarmed 6 Sunni Protesters

Sunni Arab tribes in Falluja (presumably branches of Dulaim) on Saturday demanded that the government turn over to them within 7 days the troops who fired on protesters on the outskirts of…

Jon Stewart on the Israeli Elections: 50% of Israel is “anti-Semitic” since they rebuked Netanyahu

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show comments on this week's Israel election. The takeaway? If being critical of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is "anti-Semitic," then half of Israel turns out to be…

UN to look into US Drone Program, but the Biggest Victim is Democracy

The US use of armed drones in northern Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen is now being investigated by the United Nations as a human rights abuse or even a war crime. If drones…

Top Ten Republican Myths on Benghazi that Justify Hillary Clinton’s Anger

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton let Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) have it in her testimony about Benghazi on Wednesday:

Global Warming is a Domestic Crisis (Cole at Truthdig)

My column is out at Truthdig entitled "Global Warming is a Domestic Crisis" Excerpt: "At a time of continued unemployment and Republican assaults on workers’ rights, the climate crisis may not seem…

Netanyahu Emerges Weakened, But Most under Israeli Apartheid were Disenfranchised

Early returns for the Israeli elections suggest that turnout was high in secular areas like Tel Aviv and in some Palestinian-Israeli districts, whereas it was low in conservative strongholds. As a result…

Obama’s Inaugural and the Danger of an Iran War

President Obama addressed the big issues of war and peace in his inaugural address, and despite the vagueness of some of his pronouncements, they contain strong clues to his foreign policy agenda…

Top Ten Ways President Obama has Expanded our Rights, in Rev. King’s Footsteps

In holding his inaugural on Martin Luther King Day, President Obama is underlining his achievement as the first African-American president and the first and only to win two terms. But he is…

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Last Speech Pleading to Preserve our First Amendment Rights

In his last speech before being assassinated, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. complained about unjustified curbs on freedom of speech and freedom of assembly: It has only gotten worse.

Obama Sworn in for Second Term Sunday (Mitch McConnell Photograph)

Obama Sworn in to Second Term: "Our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny Barack Obama a second term." - Mitch McConnell

Anti-Mercury UN Minimata Convention Approved in Geneva: Impact on Coal?

140 nations meeting in Geneva have concluded an accord to limit mercury emissions, which must now be ratified by individual nations. It has implications for coal-fired power plants, among the most serious…

Algerian Military Retakes Gas Plant: 16 Hostages, 32 terrorists Dead

The Algerian military took back the Ayn Imnas gas plant on Saturday, invading it and killing 32 radical fundamentalists, including their leader, Abdul Rahmani al-Nijeri, from Niger. Some of the 16 Western…

13 gigawatts of New Wind power in US in 2012, Renewables Half of all New Energy

The US put in 13 gigawatts of new wind energy capacity in 2012, 5 of it in December alone, according to a Bloomberg study. The Office of Energy Projects report was a…

Syrian Kurds Battle Extremist Fundamentalists

In a potentially very bad sign for the Syrian Revolution, Agence France Presse Arabic reports that in the town of Ra's al-Ain in the province of Hasaka on the border with Turkey,…

Was Aaron Swartz a Cyber-Criminal or a Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Internet? (Thompson)

Christie Thompson writes at ProPublica: When Reddit co-founder and internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide last Friday, he was facing up to 13 felony counts, 50 years in prison, and millions of dollars…

Omar Khayyam (162) “Be happy, since once you’re upset it goes on forever”

Be happy, since once you're upset it goes on forever-- as stars move into conjunction in the sky, it will go on. The brick they will one day mold from your clay will…

How Lance Armstrong’s Lies & Doping are Just like Climate Change Denial & CO2

Understanding how performance-enhancing drugs raise the odds of success in sports helps us understand how dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere raises the chances of heat waves: It is the same form…

Algeria’s Botched Rescue Leaves Dozens of Hostages Dead, Angers West

Reuters reports that the Algerian government's intervention against the hostage crisis at a BP natural gas plant in southern Algeria has left 30 of the hostages dead. British Prime Minister David Cameron…

Ansar Dine and How Climate Change Contributed to the Algeria-Mali Crisis

The destabilization of Mali and southern Algeria is a complex political and social process that does not have only one cause. But a changing ecology forced by climate change is a major…

Congress: The Broken Engine of our Stalled Economy (Jamiol cartoon)

By Paul Jamiol, courtesy Jamiol's World.

Gun Murders vs. Terrorism by the Numbers

Number of Americans killed in domestic terrorist attacks, 2002-2011: 30 Number of Americans murdered by firearms, 2000-2011: 115,997 Cost of the War on Terror since 9/11: $5 trillion Cost of the Bureau…

Omar Khayyam (259) “Have some wine, since no one is given a long life”

The revolving sky, which has never revealed any mysteries, has brutally crushed a thousand innocents. Have some wine, since no one is given a long life and once people have left this…

237 Dead in Syria day of Horrors, 87 killed at Aleppo U

An enormous explosion hit Aleppo University on Tuesday, killing some 87 students and wounding over 150. The motive for the bombing is obscure. The regime holds the university and the area around…

Administration Seems Confused On Afghan ‘End Game’ – AP (…. in 1988! – Screenshot)

Bahrain’s Bloody Crackdown no Bar to Big US Weapons Sales (Elliott)

Justin Elliott writes at ProPublica: Despite Bahrain's bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the U.S. has continued to provide weapons and maintenance to the small Mideast nation.Defense Department documents released to ProPublica give…

“Investigative Journalism is Completely [Screwed]” (Daily Show’s John Oliver)

John Oliver of Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" explains that CNN eliminated its entire investigative documentary unit and that the only place investigative reporters any longer have a job is as consultants for…

Omar Khayyam (458) “Be happy in this fleeting moment”

Since you can't comprehend the mysteries, why wallow uselessly in grief? Since you 're not going to get your way, be happy in this fleeting moment for which you exist. Translated by Juan…

How Torture Misled the US into an Illegal War: What Zero Dark Thirty Really Leaves Out

An important problem with the narrative line of "Zero Dark Thirty," Kathryn Bigelow's film about the Central Intelligence Agency's quest for Usama Bin Laden, is not just that it comes across as…

Syrian Regime Bombards Damascus Suburb, Kills 36, as Rebels close on Air Base

The Baath regime of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad showed its increasing desperation on Sunday when it had fighter jets bombard the eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus, killing some 36 people (some of…

Mercury from Coal Plants, Goldmining, a Global Health Crisis: UN Environmental Program

A new study has found that 84% of all fish have unhealthy levels of mercury! Richard Gelfond, CEO of IMAX, the film company, has had his health permanently damaged simply from eating…

America’s Guns, at Home and Abroad (Engelhardt)

Tom Engelhardt writes at Tomdispatch.com Given these last weeks, who doesn’t know what an AR-15 is? Who hasn’t seen the mind-boggling stats on the way assault rifles have flooded this country, or tabulations of…

How Long will We let Coal Plants Mercury-Poison Us?

Mercury is a nerve poison, steady exposure to which causes all kinds of neurological and mental problems, as well as heart problems. I keep hearing public service announcements that you should not…

France, ECOWAS intervene in Mali to Halt Advance of Radical Fundamentalists

The Socialist government of France's Francois Hollande intervened in Mali on Friday and Saturday to stop the advance of Muslim fundamentalists toward the capital, with operations continuing today (Sunday). The radicals had…

Since 1979, Firearms have Killed 120,000 US Children, Many more than Troops in Vietnam or Iraq & Afghanistan Wars (Graph)

h/t [-pdf] children's Defense Fund Children's and teen deaths are 1979-2010; I updated number of troops killed in Iraq & Afghanistan Wars to end of 2012