Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Saudi Arabia’s massive oil deposits and its 9.53 million barrels per day (bpd) of petroleum production make it an enormous carbon polluter and the foremost enemy of climate science and of electric vehicles. Some 38% of Saudi power plants use petroleum and 62% of electricity generation is done by domestically […]
Ancient Nomadic Scythians Found to be Ethnically Diverse
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The more genetic history that is done, the more it is clear that ancient ethnonyms, the names given supposed ethnicities, put a variety of peoples under a single rubric. I talked recently about how the Phoenicians, long thought to be what we would now call Lebanese, were actually a multi-ethnic […]
Netanyahu far outscores Putin and George W. Bush in Killing innocent Civilians, at 83% of the Dead
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Political Scientist and liberal Zionist Michael Walzer gave an interview early in the Israeli campaign against Gaza in which he said, “It’s not easy for me to say such a thing, but if there were almost 10,000 Hamas fighters among the 30,000 Palestinians killed, it’s not a bad ratio for […]
“But still the Vine her ancient Ruby Yields:” Fitzgerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:5
I continue with my proposed project of writing a commentary on the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. FitzGerald was more faithful to the unconventional poetry attributed to Omar Khayyam than is generally thought, but there were moments in his first edition where he drew on images from other […]
America may have invaded Iraq for its Oil, but Solar Power is what Iraqis now Want
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iraqi farmers, tired of high electricity bills and frequent blackouts, are turning to solar panels, according to Khalid Al-Mousuly at Reuters. Farmers need electricity to run water pumps for irrigation. It isn’t just the farmers. With nearly a gigawatt annually in solar panel imports, Iraq has emerged as the third-largest […]
Israel is Deliberately Starving Palestinians of Gaza as Part of a Genocide: Amnesty
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amnesty International concluded this week that the Israeli government is using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, and that denying food to people is part of a genocidal campaign. Like Human Rights Watch and other human rights non-govermental organizations, Amnesty International is extremely cautious and only issued the […]
Now the New Year is Reviving old Desires: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:4
The fourth quatrain in Edward FitzGerald’s 1859 first edition of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is: IV Now the New Year is reviving old Desires, The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires, Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires. اکنونکه جهانرا بخوشی دسترسیست هر زنده دلی […]
State of Climate: Earth Hottest on Record again, as CO2 still Climbs and Glaciers Wilt
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The American Meteorological Society has issued its annual climate report, this one summarizing changes in 2024 now that all the data is in. It paints an alarming picture, especially at a moment when Big Oil has taken over the US government via its Republican puppets and is spiking all our […]
Psychopathocracy 3.0
This essay was first published in January 2017. It seems even more prescient 8 and a half years later. At that time I could not have imagined that Trump would bring in psychopathic cronies like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel to destroy US AID and potentially kill 14 million people, more than died in World […]
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