Here’s a neat, practical idea: Honolulu is going to draw in sea water for air conditioning. The system “will reduce Hawaii’s consumption of oil by some 178,000 barrels a year and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 84,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually.” These are small sums, but if lots of coastal cities did this all […]
Benghazi Rejects AU Plan to Leave Qaddafi in Power
Reuters reports that, as expected, the Transitional National Council in Benghazi has rejected the African Union proposal for a cease fire. Since Muammar Qaddafi’s forces are actively attacking civilian cities such as Misrata and Zintan for having dared protest his rule, using truck-mounted Grad rockets fired into civilian areas, the rebels argued, it is meaningless […]
Fukushima Core Failure a Level 7 (the Worst)
It’s official. The Fukushima nuclear core failure is now more like what happened in Chernobyl than what happened a Three Mile Island, and is being declared a Level 7 nuclear emergency– one that has wide effects on human health. I was in London during Chernobyl, and I remember them telling us that children or pregnant […]
Romney Haunted by Ghosts of Romney Past
Mitt Romney Has announced another run for the White House. Here is his 1994 debate with Senator Teddy Kennedy, in which he talked about his deeply held and obviously relatively liberal beliefs. He rejects Reagan-Bush, declines to impose a ban on abortions, etc., etc. Where is that guy? I kind of like that guy.
Wisconsin is not Broke, “Budget Crisis” a Fraud
Wisconsin was not and is not “broke.” Its pension system gets a “gold star” for soundness, and it has no enduring structural shortfall in revenues. Gov. Scott Walker gave business a $500 million tax break and caused the budget deficit thereby, and then claimed that social spending had to be slashed and public unions destroyed […]
AU proposes Ceasefire, NATO protects Misrata, Ajdabiya
NATO finally seemed to get its act together on Sunday, striking multiple Qaddafi tanks at Misrata and Ajdabiya and allowing the rebels to hang on in each place. At Twitter we read, “@feb17voices: LPC #Misrata: No casualties from intense attack by Gaddafi forces but extensive damage to steel factory area, gas storage tanks. #Libya”. I […]
Al-Sadr Threatens Mahdi Army Revival if US Troops Stay
Al-Hayat writing in Arabic reports that nationalist Shiite clergyman Muqtada al-Sadr threatened on Saturday to revive his Mahdi Army militia if US troops tried to stay in Iraq past December 31, 2011. He said his fighters would return to carrying arms. Tens of thousands of Iraqi protesters, mainly his supporters, gathered beginning early in the […]
Hundreds of Thousands of Arabs Protest their Governments
On Friday, the US Congress endeavored to decide whether American democracy has irretrievably broken down because the representatives of the Billionaires refused to compromise with the representatives of the People (“cutting spending” while “cutting taxes” means “shifting the cost of running society to the middle class from the filthy rich”). The answer was that it […]
Thomas Jefferson in Arabic
I am excited to announce that the Global Americana Institute has, in partnership with Dar al-Saqi of Beirut brought out a volume of selected writings of Thomas Jefferson in Arabic. It was elegantly translated by Professors Mounira Soliman and Walid Hamamsy of Cairo University and is entitled in Arabic the equivalent of Revolutionary Democracy: How […]
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