Syria’s military continued its brutal assault on neighborhoods of Homs, a center of civil disobedience against the regime, on Thursday, killing over 100 persons, including children. This deployment of military force against civilians who were protesting is a war crime, and part of a pattern that by now amounts to crimes against humanity. The first […]
Omar Khayyam (12)
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.)
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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.
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