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Archives for April 2013

Environment
Small Government: Texas Fertilizer Plant that blew up not inspected for years

Small Government: Texas Fertilizer Plant that blew up not inspected for years

Juan Cole

The Texas fertilizer plant that suffered a massive explosion had not been subject to an OSHA inspection for many years. The current American obsession with deregulation and ending inspections has claimed yet more victims, as The Nation shows. And Texas has also cut funding for first responders like firemen. Democracy Now! reports :

Islamophobia
CNN Fail:  Imaginary “Dark Males,” “Accents,” and “Arrests” Haunt Reporters

CNN Fail: Imaginary “Dark Males,” “Accents,” and “Arrests” Haunt Reporters

Juan Cole

Between about 1:00 pm and 2:40 pm ET on Wednesday, April 17, the CNN news team was at the worst I’ve ever seen them. The afternoon began well, with the exciting revelation that the FBI now had recovered video of a suspect from a security camera at Lord & Taylor Department Store. But things went […]

Islam
Top Ten Ways Islamic Law forbids Terrorism

Top Ten Ways Islamic Law forbids Terrorism

Juan Cole

Erik Rush and others who hastened to scapegoat Muslims for the Boston Marathon bombing are ignorant of the religion. I can’t understand why people who have never so much as read a book about a subject appoint themselves experts on it. (Try this book, e.g.). We don’t yet know who carried out the attack, but […]

Iraq
Can the Boston Bombings increase our Sympathy for Iraq and Syria, for all such Victims?

Can the Boston Bombings increase our Sympathy for Iraq and Syria, for all such Victims?

Juan Cole

The horrific bombings of the Boston Marathon produced inspiring images of a spirited, brave Boston refusing to be cowed. Some spectators surged forward toward the danger to apply tourniquets, offer first aid, share blankets, and later to give blood, for the victims. President Obama followed the crisis from its first moments and came out promptly […]

Iran
How Washington Dropped the Ball on N Korean Nukes while Obsessing about Iran (McShane)

How Washington Dropped the Ball on N Korean Nukes while Obsessing about Iran (McShane)

Juan Cole

Michael McShane writes in a guest column for Informed Comment In a recent article published in the Wall Street Journal, Jay Solomon highlighted the disproportionate attention President Obama has paid to Iran’s nuclear program since coming to office compared to the diplomatic engagement the United States has pursued vis-à-vis North Korea’s own steadily growing nuclear […]

Israel
Israel at 65: Welcome to the Neighborhood (Map)

Israel at 65: Welcome to the Neighborhood (Map)

Juan Cole

Satire Israel (in red) is welcomed into the Muslim Middle East in 2013 Zionism: The theory that because murderous Nazis hated Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, all Jews should now crowd into a narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean and 400 million angry Muslims.

Uncategorized
Gun “Control” “Legislation,” Parodied by Saturday Night Live

Gun “Control” “Legislation,” Parodied by Saturday Night Live

Juan Cole

Saturday Night Live satirizes the minimalism of the gun registration bill proposed by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)

Uncategorized
Class Hatred and Bad Memories of Thatcher

Class Hatred and Bad Memories of Thatcher

Juan Cole

The hatred for the late Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, among a broad segment of the British public has manifested itself in visible and undeniable ways in the week after her death, but these are not highlighted on American television. The status quo corporate media are afraid of admitting that policy-makers who favor the […]

Israel/ Palestine
Palestine PM Fayyad Resigns, a Victim of Israeli and US funding cut-off and backlash against Austerity

Palestine PM Fayyad Resigns, a Victim of Israeli and US funding cut-off and backlash against Austerity

Juan Cole

The man recognized by the Palestine government based in Ramallah as prime minister, Salam Fayyad, has tendered his resignation to President Mahmoud Abbas. The most immediate cause of the dispute between the two was that, under pressure from crowds and from the Fateh party, the minister of finance, Nabil Qassis, tendered his resignation. Fayyad rejected […]

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