Featured

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Alexander Titov at Queen’s University, Belfast, has argued that the commonly met with meme that Vladimir Putin has gone off his rocker is incorrect. Titov locates Putin’s grand strategy in the tradition of great power politics. I agree that it doesn’t add anything significant to our analysis to resort to […]

Featured

Happiness Apartheid: UN Ranks Israel 9th for Happiness, Occupied Palestinian Territories 122nd

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The UN World Happiness Report for 2021 ranks Israel as the 9th happiest country in the world, but lists the Palestinian territories as the 122nd. Yet, both societies are ruled by the same government, the government of Israel. The annual report is brought out by the United Nations Sustainable Development […]

Climate Crisis

Arctic hits 50° F above normal, as Scientists predict it will soon have more Rain than Snow

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – While it made headlines because it is freakish, that parts of Antarctica are 70 degrees F. warmer than usual may just be a fluke. Climate is a trend line you can see over 50 years of changes. Weather is what happens for a day or a week. The more alarming […]

Climate Crisis

Will Europe Rush even faster to Electric Vehicles to escape dependence on Putin’s Oil?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sean Goulding Carroll at Euractiv.com asks if Europe can defund the Russian war machine by turning to electric vehicles. It should be noted that in part because of the EU carbon tax, already 29% of new car purchases in Europe last December were EVs or plug-in hybrids, so consumers are […]

Displaced and Refugees

US would be on firmer Ground declaring Putin a War Criminal if George W. Bush had been Tried

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – NPR reports that on Wednesday, President Biden called Russian dictator Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” for the first time. The report notes that this outburst is unusual for Biden, who prizes personal diplomacy and must know that such a charge would make it more difficult to negotiate with Putin down […]

Banking

Top 7 Ways Iran evaded US Sanctions that Putin could Follow

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The sorts of sanctions and boycotts the United States and its allies are placing on Russia resemble those applied by Washington to Iran off and on in the past decade, though so far the measures in place against Tehran are still far more severe than what has been done to […]

Climate Crisis

Russia-driven Energy Crisis leads Wind Superpower Scotland to Floor the Accelerator on Renewables

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Scotland actually has a “Net Zero and Energy Minister,” Michael Matheson. Jane McLeod at the National writes that Matheson sees the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a wake-up call for Scotland to hit the accelerator regarding its green energy plans. Scotland already gets nearly 100% of […]

Donald Trump

Comrades in Crazy: Top 4 Putin Trolls in the Republican Party, starting with Tucker Carlson

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Vladimir Putin is admired on the American Right as no foreign leader has been since Adolf Hitler. Today’s counterparts of Charles Lindbergh and Father Coughlin are arguably more organized, and they have the advantage of prominent perches in both old and new media. 1. Tucker Carlson likes Putin in a […]

Bernie Sanders

Democrats in Congress Want Windfall Tax on Big Oil, Consumer Rebates, and cheap Green Energy

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) has introduced, and several other congressional Democrats have co-sponsored, a bill to curb big petroleum companies engaged in profiteering. Whitehouse said at his site, “We’ve seen this script before, and we cannot allow the fossil fuel industry to once again collect a massive windfall by taking […]