Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced snap elections after a huge crowd of thousands gathered in downtown Beirut Saturday, confronting security forces and taking over government buildings and the Banking Association. Angry about the criminal government negligence that led to the destruction of Beirut’s port and part of the city […]
Will Trump’s Maximum Pressure on UNSC against Lifting Iran Arms Embargo Backfire Big Time?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Peter Hutchison at AFP reports that the Trump administration may be set to shoot itself in the foot at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) next week by pressing for an over-ambitious resolution against lifting the arms embargo on Iran. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed by the […]
American ISIS? Trumpies Threaten life of Scientists like Dr. Fauci, just as ISIS Killed Archeologist Dr. Al-Asaad
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump prides himself for being in office when the US military and its Muslim allies in Iraq and Syria polished off the phony “caliphate” of ISIS or ISIL. When the US military tracked down the ersatz “caliph” Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and he detonated his suicide vest, Trump crowed, “Terrorists who […]
Beirut’s Destruction was a Crime of Evil Negligence, the same Crime being Committed Against our Climate
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Some 300,000 people in Beirut have been left homeless by the enormous explosion at the city’s port on Tuesday, which left it without a means of importing by sea. Half of the city has been damaged. 80% of Lebanon’s grain is imported, and the grain silos were destroyed. Thousands of […]
Trump nearly provokes International Incident, Wrongly saying Beirut Explosion a “Bomb”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A massive ammonium nitrate explosion rocked Beirut’s port on Tuesday, sending up a mushroom cloud that reminded some of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, damaging buildings, blowing out windows, overturning cars, wounding over 3,000 people at least, and leaving dozens dead. Flying glass and debris were responsible for many of the injuries. […]
A Warning Signal for US? Corruption, Gov’t Gridlock, Pandemic, drive half a Million Lebanese Children into Hunger
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Lebanon, a small country of 4.7 million citizens and another 1.5 million Syrian refugees and 400,000 Palestinian refugees, is facing a perfect storm. Its corrupt political elite has permitted a near-collapse of a once-solid banking system. Government services are paralyzed and there are electricity outages. The country, which is a […]
Elon Musk may have been Joking, but the Flaky Theory that Aliens built the Pyramids is Faintly Racist
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Egyptian scientists and archeologists replied in a level-headed but firm way to billionaire Elon Musk’s tweet that aliens built the pyramids. It isn’t clear whether Musk was just joking around, though he sometimes talks about the possibility that advanced aliens are watching us, and thinks it statistically possible that alien […]
Iran’s Khamenei: Not going to help Trump get Reelected by Negotiating, and besides, America is Collapsing
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iran’s clerical Leader, Ali Khamenei, knows that Trump’s reelection campaign is in big trouble. And, he thinks Trump wants a dramatic foreign policy breakthrough to impress the American voter. There aren’t many foreign policy breakthroughs to be had nowadays. Iran is one of the few. A Pew Research Center poll […]
“Never Seen a Decline of this Magnitude” – ExxonMobil, Crashed by Covid, gets taste of looming Electric Vehicle Crisis
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ashton Nichols at The Dallas Morning News reports that ExxonMobil lost over $1 billion in the second quarter, up from a $600 million lost in the first. Year on year, its revenues are down 33% for the first half of this year. It has been forced to close down half […]
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