Featured

Climate Crisis and the Age of the Super-Typhoon: Storms batter, flood Puerto Rico, Pakistan, Japan and Shanghai

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A mere category 1 hurricane dumped so much water on Puerto Rico so quickly that one of its rivers has swollen to 25 feet above normal, even more than it rose during Hurricane Maria in 2017, which was a Category 5 hurricane. The island is beset by flash floods, and […]

Featured

Iran Security Fires on Crowd Protesting Death in Custody of Kurdish Woman for “Bad Veiling”, Wounds 13

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Saturday, 13 protesters were wounded when security forces opened fire on them outside the house of the governor in Saghez, Iranian Kurdistan. This, according to the Hengaw human rights organization. The demonstrators were expressing their fury over the death in police custody of Mahsa “Zhina” Amini, 22, a Kurdish […]

Featured

Top 6 things wrong with DeSantis’s Stunt of Flying Asylum-Seekers to Martha’s Vineyard

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Stunts like Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’s program of rounding up and flying to Martha’s Vineyard Venezuelan and Colombian asylum-seekers, who are in the country legally awaiting the adjudication of their asylum status, have definite downsides. DeSantis helped run an explicitly racist Facebook page before he was governor of Florida, and […]

Featured

Iran, seeking Counter to US Sanctions, is Joining Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Warming up to Russia

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iran’s foreign minister, attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) conference in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, has signed key membership papers to formalize its entry into the Eurasian security body led by China and Russia. Although Iran is now considered by the US State Department to be in what it calls the “Middle […]

Batteries

How 3 Gigawatts of Battery Power Plus Solar Saved California from Electricity Blackouts during the Heat Dome this Month

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In August 2020, California consumers suffered through a severe heat wave, responding by blasting their air conditioners. California had put in so much solar that by then that 34% of the state’s power came from wind and solar, and another 13.9% came from hydro. Nuclear still provided around 10% of […]

Donald Trump

House Oversight Committee wants to Know why Saudis gave Jared Kushner $2 billion

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The House Committee on Oversight and Reform, chaired by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), sent a sharp letter to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner last June, wanting to know whether he illicitly profited from his government service as Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East to receive $2 billion from the […]

Featured

World’s largest Offshore Wind Farm Operational in UK, offering Lower Energy Prices, as Tories Scoff

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Danish wind energy company Orsted reported recently that its massive 1.3 gigawatt offshore wind farm, Hornsea 2, off the Yorkshire coast, has gone fully operational. It joins its sister project, Hornsea 1, which generates 1.2 gigawatts. A further, even bigger such facility, Hornsea 3, will have a nameplate capacity […]

Featured

Muslim Americans are Young, Patriotic and Bullish on this Country, and are not to Blame for 9/11

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Yesterday, America observed a commemoration of 21 years since the September 11, 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda on key US targets. In the past two decades, many persons in the U.S. were confused between far-right Muslim extremism of the al-Qaeda sort and everyday ordinary Muslims. As a result, the some 3.85 […]

Climate Crisis

Solar Power in US to grow by Factor of 3 by 2027 after IRA, Saving us from Climate Disasters and Lung Cancer (yes)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Because of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), energy analysis firm Wood MacKenzie has increased its estimation of how much solar power the US is likely to install in the next five years by nearly 50%. Because of supply chain problems with solar panels, the firm does not expect the […]