President Obama came on Jon Stewart’s Daily show on Wednesday. This was the president’s chance to rally the youth, who typically don’t vote in midterms. Obama defended his legislative record in wonky terms. But he did not have good comebacks to Stewart’s critiques from the left. Obama’s hair should have been on fire. He should […]
Israeli extremists Provoke Clashes in Umm al-Fahm
The extremist “Our Land of Israel” group that opposes any negotiations with Arabs or relinquishing of conquered territory staged a provocative march Wednesday in Umm al-Fahm, the second largest Palestinian-Israeli city in Israel. Palestinian-Israeli young people demonstrated by throwing stones, and Israel police responded with force, deploying stun grenades and bAton charges. The ensuing clashes […]
On Beating Uppity Liberal Women: Afghanistan and Kentucky
Afghanistan style (Taliban version): American style (Tea Party version): For more on woman-stomper Tim Profitt and Rand Paul see HuffPo. The episode puts Paul’s youthful opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment for women in a whole new light. Lauren Valle of MoveOn.org suffered a concussion and a sprained arm. It is not known what injuries […]
A North-South Global Climate War?
This looks to me like a sort of north-south global war, with the North inflicting profound damage on the South: Here are carbon dioxide emissions per capita by country, calculated from data at the US Department of Energy’s Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC): and here is the new Maplecroft estimation of the countries most […]
Suzuki: Our Global Economy is not Sustainable
I had the pleasure of hearing biologist David Suzuki lecture at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday night during my recent short trip to Australia. He drew on his recent slight but meaty book, The Legacy: An Elder’s Vision for Our Sustainable Future. I downloaded it and read it on my iPhone via Kindle app […]
Karzai and the Iranian Slush Pile
The revelation that Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai receives millions in influence peddling payments from Iran is full of ironies. It demonstrates that the US and Iran are de facto allies in Afghanistan (in fact both of them are deeply opposed to the Taliban and their backers among hard line cells of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence). […]
Williams supported Imus Firing, Censoring of Rap Music
Given the protests mounted by Juan Williams over his firing from NPR because he said he gets nervous when he sees Muslims, I became interested in how he responded to the firing of shock jock Don Imus by CBS in April, 2007. Imus referred to African-American women basketball players as ‘nappy-headed ho’s.’ Interestingly,Williams did not […]
Renewed Conflict Looms as Israel-Palestine Talks still in Limbo
The Palestinian-Israeli peace talks are still in limbo, as the Israelis refuse to renew a freeze on new theft of and building on Palestinian land, while the Palestinians sensibly continue to refuse direct talks as long as the Israelis will not renew their settlement freeze. (What is the point of negotiating over territory if large […]
Could Wikileaks leave Iraq without a Government?
The wikileaks document dump from the Iraq War may well derail the formation of a government by implicating caretaker prime minister Nuri al-Maliki in running death squads. We are in our seventh month since the March 7 elections, but no new prime minister has been named because no party or coalition has the 163 seats […]
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