Although we partiers may have good color and smell pleasant, with cheeks like rubies; and though we’re tall as a cypress– it’s just not clear, in this earthly cabaret, why I was prettied up. trans. Juan Cole from Whinfield 12
Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, In Washington, Fear the Silence, Not the Noise
The Obama administration has already charged more people — six — under the Espionage Act for alleged mishandling of classified information than all past presidencies combined. (Prior to Obama, there were only three such cases in American history.)
…
World’s 1.6 Billion Poor Going Green
Renewable energy is often thought of as an initiative of advanced, sane countries such as Portugal and Germany. But there is another arena where green energy is making an impact– on the lives of the world’s poorest populations, in the global South. For them, it is not a luxury or prudent planning for the future […]
Omar Khayyam (8)
A lover all his life is frantic and intoxicated– crazy, distracted and disgraced. When we’re sober, everything annoys us; but when we’re drunk, whatever will be, will be trans. Juan Cole from Whinfield 8
Syria: Crimes Against Humanity in Homs
The Telegraph (UK) has put the word “genocide” in its headline as a description of what has been going on in Syria. On Wednesday morning, more persons were killed in Homs, as the Syrian military invaded strongly Sunni neighborhoods and drove toward the city center. Tanks and artillery barrages have been used against civilian crowds. […]
Chinese Envoy: Veto aimed at Protecting Syria from Civil War
The USG Open Source Center translates from the Chinese an article that includes an explanation of China’s veto of a new UN Security Council resolution on Syria. Special envoy on Middle Eastern affairs Wu Sike explains that China feared the resolution would push Syria into a full-fledged civil war. He said he also wanted to […]
Tomgram: Bill McKibben, Why the Energy-Industrial Elite Has It In for the Planet
If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark. As yet –…
Omar Khayyam 16
Before time ever was, You fashioned the divine handiwork of heaven and hell– out of compassion and rage. Your banquet is in heaven, and I am empty-handed, since I have no path to paradise. trans. Juan Cole From Whinfield 16.
Hoekstra Blames Everyone but Himself for the Deficits He Voted for
It is hard to decide what is the most despicable thing about senatorial Republican hopeful Pete Hoekstra’s Superbowl ad attacking rival Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. The ad has a Chinese young woman speaking broken English and gloating about the indebtedness of the US to China and the export of US jobs to China. Given the […]
© 2025 All Rights Reserved