With revolutionary fever fermenting across the Arab world, other long-serving dictators are getting a bit jittery these days. The demonstration effect is a powerful phenomenon- when long-suffering citizens see people in similar situations casting off the shackles of repressive regimes, they’re inclined to as “well, why not us, too?” It isn’t a coincidence that all […]
There has been some push back coming against Congressman Peter King’s scheduled hearing on the threat of homegrown terrorism to American national security. A prime example comes from the New York Times editorial page, where Bob Herbert proclaims: Representative Peter King, a Republican from Long Island, appears to harbor a fierce unhappiness with the Muslim […]
The makers of this film have an axe to grind. That being said, they make a lot of sense. What The Panama Deception shows is how Manuel Noriega (referred to in the United States press as “Panamanian strongman”) went from ally to enemy in a few short years. Once the first Bush presidency had no […]
The debate about whether the United States should use military force in Libya (and if so in what capacity) is on. Here’s one version of the debate from the PBS Newshour. It’s between two former State Department Directors of Policy Planning: Richard Haas (who served under George W. Bush) and Ann-Marie Slaughter (who just left […]
There is a fine line between freedom of expression and obnoxious behavior; which may very well be crossed in the coming weeks in Congress.That said, as a Muslim and as an American – I support the debate. As upset as we were to witness residents of Orange County yelling obnoxious slurs at Muslims gathering for […]
Last week, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano reported what he considered a mini-advance in ongoing deliberations with the Syrian government over access to the Dair Alzour, or Al-Kibar site. In lieu of allowed access to that site, the Syrian government offered up the Homs acid purification facility. On a scale of “meh” to “wow!”, this […]
Fatih Birol, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency, and Nicholas Stern, the most distinguished economist in the world working on climate change, have an op-ed in today’s Financial Times: Urgent steps to stop the climate door closing. They say we must have a much greater emphasis on energy efficiency, a “price on carbon” […]
Recent concerns about a drought afflicting China’s wheat-growing region and the threat to the supply of wheat available to Chinese people has abated with rain and snow finally arriving in the last two weeks. The New York Times reported that after 50 days without rain in China’s northern wheat-growing region, precipitation arrived to meet budding […]
With every bit of news about instability in the Middle East, oil industry analysts get on TV and tell us that the price of oil is going to go ever higher. On one of the cable networks yesterday, I watched (with some annoyance) a discussion of gasoline hitting $5 a gallon. Over in the UK, […]
The excellent folks at Renewable Energy World have themselves awarded their “2011 Excellence in Renewable Energy Awards — Projects of the Year.” The categories were Solar, Wind, Biomass, Geothermal and Hydro. I was particularly pleased to see The Wild Center in the Adirondacks as the biomass winner. The Wild Center is the brainchild of an […]
Today, March 8th is International Women’s Day (IWD), a day that was established to commemorate the struggle women and girls across the globe have endured in order to obtain their ‘full’ human rights. The 2011 theme is; Equal access to education, training and science and technology: Pathway to decent work for women. This year is […]
Florida’s political bigshots spent part of the week-end at the country’s first hybrid solar/natural gas power plant. Florida Power and Light’s Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center has more than 190,000 mirrors that cover about 500 acres (202.34 hectares). The mirrors track the sun during the day to focus the sun’s rays onto water-filled pipes. […]
The civil war in Libya is creating a humanitarian crisis as refugees flee the area. The U.S. is joining with other countries to help refugees escape. The following video from MSNBC shows how the U.S. Air Force is coming to the aid of those trying to escape the violence: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world […]
The Rural Poverty Report 2011, which was released by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), provides a comprehensive look at rural poverty, its global consequences and the prospects for eradicating it. The report contains estimates on the numbers of rural poor people in the developing world, poverty rates in rural areas, and the percentage of poor people residing in rural areas. Since the […]
And they’re taking on the role of nuclear weapons in deterrence. In their fourth collaboration, former secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, one-time Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga) wrote in an OpEd in the Wall Street Journal today that the role of nuclear weapons in deterrence should finally, […]