Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences presents findings that shocked the authors themselves. If the world (by which I mean you and me, dear reader) does not swing into prompt action to deal with the climate emergency, some 3.5 billion people are going to […]
Americans are Dying to Die: Guard shot for asking Customers to wear Mask as Trump’s CDC predicts 3k death / day by June
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Security guard Calvin Munerlyn, father of six with three step-children, was shot to death Monday in an altercation over Munerlyn’s demand that a 20-year-old woman wear a mask to shop in a Dollar Store in Flint, Michigan. She was there with her mother, who was masked, and with two men. […]
Neo-Nazi “Reopeners” would Kill nearly as many Americans as died in All US Wars
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Roughly 1,264,000 US soldiers have died in all the wars this country has ever fought. A new simulation by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School predicts that if all the states completely reopened today and all Americans ceased all social distancing measures, a million people would die in this country […]
Israel Teeters on Brink, as Protests erupt against Indicted Netanyahu forming Gov’t, and Supreme Court prepares to Rule on his Eligibility
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Thousands of Israelis gathered again at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to protest the formation of a new national unity government by indicted prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his rival, Benny Gantz. The disciplined protesters maintained social distance from one another to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Smaller […]
Like Twenty-One 9/11s: Our 2020 Pandemic is “The Trump Virus”, just as 1918’s was “Spanish Flu”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The “Spanish Flu” did not originate in Spain, but Spain had been neutral in WW I and so the Spanish press was uncensored, since the government was not worried about public morale during hostilities. The most lurid accounts of the disease, which was unusually lethal and went on to kill […]
Trump threatened to pull US Security Umbrella from Saudi if it didn’t raise Oil Prices to Help US Frackers
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On April 2, the Republican Party more or less joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting States Plus (OPEC+). That is the upshot of reporting by Timothy Gardner, Steve Holland, Dmitry Zhdannikov, and Rania El Gamal for Reuters that Trump threatened de facto Saudi ruler crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman with […]
Poetry of Uplift for our Plague Year: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Juan Cole’s New Translation)
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Today my new translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is out from I.B. Tauris/ Bloomsbury. I hope you all enjoy it! I make an argument in the historical epilogue to my translation that this volume is an anthology by many poets and that a custom had grown up of […]
Stop Saying more have died from Coronavirus than in Vietnam: US War Killed a Million There
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The rash of headlines blaring that the coronavirus has now killed more than died in the Vietnam War betrays an incredible amnesia and national tunnel vision that takes the breath away. Implicitly, these comparisons are with the 58,220 US military personnel who died fighting in Vietnam. But somehow the over […]
Lowest Solar bid in World History for new Abu Dhabi Facility, as expensive Coal, backed by Trump, declines further
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Abu Dhabi has accepted a historically low bid of 1.35 cents a kilowatt hour for a new giant 1.5 gigawatt solar farm, to be built at al-Dhafra by the largely government-owned French consortium Électricité de France (EDF) and China’s Jinko. The price is 44% less than was paid for the […]
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