Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trump administration is considering designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization. This is an old Joe Lieberman idea from 2007, and it is a very bad idea. It keeps being done rhetorically (2007, 2017), and then announced again out of amnesia. It is illogical, but it […]
Florida PL’s Huge Solar Battery will make as much Electricity as half a Nuclear Plant
Solar and wind power are already here. By next year, Iowa is expected to get 40 percent of its electricity from wind. Nearly 20 percent of California’s electricity is generated by solar panels. The missing ingredient is energy storage, that is, batteries. Solar panels make electricity from photons, which the sun sends down on us […]
Congress Slaps down Trump-Saudi War on Yemen
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The House of Representatives voted Thursday 247 to 175 to end the US involvement in supporting the Saudi-led war effort in Yemen. 16 Republicans voted with the Democratic majority. The Senate had already passed the act, invoking the War Powers act for the first time since it was enacted in […]
Dear Trump: Top 7 Signs Puerto Ricans might be Americans
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump caused a brouhaha by tweeting that Puerto Rican officials “only take from USA,” as thoug they weren’t part of the USA! Then his White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley called Puerto Rico “that country” during an interview on MSNBC Live with Hallie Jackson. Trump seems to me to […]
Senators Grill Rick Perry on Transfer of Nuclear Info to Saudi Arabia Despite “Troubling Actions”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Timothy Gardner at Reuters reports that senators on Tuesday sent a sharp letter to Secretary of Energy Rick Perry about the Part 810 approvals he secretly gave US businesses to provide sensitive nuclear specifications to Saudi Arabia. Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) insisted that Perry inform them […]
On how Everything Sam Harris says about Islam is Wrong: Part 2 on “Unbelievers”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – This is the second installment in a series on Sam Harris’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad book, “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Religion” (Norton, 2005). Part 1 is here. On page 31, Harris says, “It is clear, however, that Muslims hate the West in […]
Did the Same Saudi Hackers who Trapped Khashoggi Target Amazon’s Bezos for Nude Photos?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ security team has alleged in The Daily Beast that Saudi Arabian intelligence hacked his phone and passed to the National Enquirer intimate photos that the married Bezos had sent to his lover, Lauren Sanchez. Although the Enquirer’s parent company, AMI, has alleged that it received the […]
Syrian Ambassador: Trump should give Israel the Carolinas, instead of Syria’s Golan
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Syria’s envoy to the United Nations, Bashar Jaafari, lambasted the Trump administration for recognizing the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights. He said that if Trump wanted to give somebody else’s territory to Israel, it should be North and South Carolina. The United Nations Charter forbids the acquisition of territory […]
Israeli Snipers Kill 4, wound 207 as 40,000 Palestinians March Peacefully in Gaza for Right to Return
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As an unprecedented 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza marched for the right to return, marking the one-year anniversary of the beginning of weekly such marches, Israeli snipers shot into the Gaza Strip, killing 4 youth and wounding at least 207. The Israeli army uses military-grade tear gas on the crowds, and […]








