Economy

(By Juan Cole) Most death sentences are handed out for killing white people, even though African-Americans make up 50% of murder victims (they are only 12% of the population). So if an African-American male had fired ten shots into the SUV of some white suburban kids playing their music too loud, killing one of them, […]

Climate Change

More Solar Workers in US than Coal Miners, and Solar doesn’t Poison Drinking Water

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) By the end of 2013, the number of workers in the solar energy industry in the US had grown to 143,000. About a third of them are in California, followed by Arizona, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. the wind power industry employed another 80,000 or so workers directly, and many more in transportation […]

censorship

Sen. Al Franken: Comcast-NBC / Time Warner Merger Concentrates Media, Hurts Consumers

Juan Cole

CNN: “Sen. Franken: We need more cable competition” Karl Bode writes in a similar vein at TechDirt: Comcast: Allowing Us To Get Immensely, Inconceivably, Ridiculously Massive Is ‘Pro Consumer’ (via Techdirt) Comcast has confirmed reports that the company will be acquiring Time Warner Cable in a deal estimated to be worth around $45 billion. With […]

Climate Change

Game Over for Earth: Big Carbon’s Fatal, Scorching Triumph over Greens

contributors

(By Michael T. Klare) Listening to President Obama’s State of the Union address, it would have been easy to conclude that we were slowly but surely gaining in the war on climate change. “Our energy policy is creating jobs and leading to a cleaner, safer planet,” the president said. “Over the past eight years, the […]

Climate Change

Planet, Oceans Burning Up: There is no “Pause” in Global Warming

contributors

(By Jon Queally) Climate change has not hit a "speed bump." The planet's temperature is not remaining steady and it certainly isn't cooling. Earth, especially its ocean, are heating up… and rapidly. Those are the findings and the consensus of the global scientific community. And a new study shows that the detectable slowdown of global […]

Economy

8 Unsustainable Delusions of the American Way of Life

contributors

(By Tom Giesen) The ideal of the American way of life as formulated in the twentieth century has collapsed early in the new Millennium without most Americans even realizing it. Its basic tenets are either by now just false, or are unsustainable, so that we’re in a barrel and about to go off the edge […]

Economy

Brokers of Deceit: Massive US Aid to Israel has Enabled a Colonial Project

contributors

(By Chase Madar via Tomdispatch) We Americans have funny notions about foreign aid. Recent polls show that, on average, we believe 28% of the federal budget is eaten up by it, and that, in a time of austerity, this gigantic bite of the budget should be cut back to 10%. In actual fact, barely 1% […]

Climate Change

Iceland: Major Green Energy Breakthrough using Magma for Geothermal

Juan Cole

(Via CleanTechnica) First Magma-Enhanced Geothermal System In The World Developed In Iceland (via Clean Technica) The first “magma-enhanced” geothermal system in the world — the IDDP-1 well at Krafla — has proven to be a great success, based on the first scientific reports on the project, which are now starting to be released. The well, […]

Economy

Billionaire Victimology is the Worst

contributors

(By Robert Freeman) Protesters calling for higher wages for fast-food workers stand outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Oakland, California December 5, 2013 (Photo: Reuters)The Tom Perkins “billionaires-as-victims” charade couldn’t be more surreal. It goes without saying that his comparing the 1% to victims of Hitler’s genocide is tasteless. That it is oblivious is obvious. And […]