Ebola: Don’t Blame The Bats!

Something almost universally omitted from the discussion about the Ebola crisis in West Africa is the question how the outbreak started. The Establishment speculates that it started with infected bats but admit they have no evidence to support the contention [1] (somehow the bat took off on its northerly trek out of its terre natal, the Congo, skipped over the five or six countries between there and West Africa, and alighted in eastern Guinea, where it’s deadly hemorrhagic hitchhiker got off and caught another ride!).... Read article

Who’s Bombing Libya?

In the bizarro world which is the Middle East these days, nothing is more bizarre than the repeated bombing of Libya by parties unknown. There were off-and-on aerial attacks in the eastern part of the country – Benghazi, Derna, Ajdabiyah – last spring which were believed to have been carried out by one of the contending parties in the civil war raging in Libya, but lately there have been a number of attacks in the west, around Tripoli, which no one has taken the credit – or blame – for. The attacks in the east... Read article

Are We At War With Russia?

The damaging of Iran’s centrifuges through the Stuxnet virus a year or so back can only be considered an act of war (certainly the Iranians see it that way!). Is the President authorized to commit acts of war against Iran? I have yet to meet any foreign policy wonk who thinks so. The closest thing to an “authorization to use military force (AUMF)” they can come up with is Article 2 of the Constitution. All I find there is the vesting of executive power in the President and the naming him “Commander... Read article

This Coke Is Not For Drinking… Or For Sale

Here’s a way environmentalists can capitalize on Secretary of State Kerry’s characterization of climate change as the “most fearsome weapon of mass destruction”, a hyperbole he used in a speech in Indonesia last week. Despite the current surfeit of light oil resulting from the shale oil boom, the wave of the future is likely to be increasing production of heavy oil, the stuff that will flow (sluggishly) through the Keystone XL pipeline if it is ever built. That that is where the future lies is demonstrated... Read article

The Climate Change Infection

It’s all too customary for those analyzing the crises humanity faces to associate climate change, aka global warming, with whatever proximate cause they postulate for our imminent demise. John Tirman, for instance, in his book 100 Ways America Is Screwing Up the World lists as the first way “Altering the Earth’s Climate”. Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute includes Climate along with Energy and Debt as the three problem areas which threaten our future. Nafez Mossadeq Ahmed, author of A... Read article

The Mate Was A Mighty Sailin’ Man

Just sit right back And you’ll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip… (Theme song from the TV show “Gilligan’s Island”) You’re probably familiar with the “scientific” expedition from Australia which got stuck in the ice in Antarctica last Christmas Eve, but you may not be aware what a rollicking good tale it is. “You’re sure to get a smile,” as the show’s theme song promises, but I promise you more than just a chuckle. There’s a moral to the... Read article

Democracy Syrian-Style

One thing about the ongoing crisis in Syria almost never mentioned in our media – even the alternative media – is the role of the nonviolent opposition to the Baathist regime. After the uprising began in the spring of 2011, the government engaged this opposition in discussions about reform of the Syrian political system. Out of these discussions came a new constitution, approved in February 2012 by 90% of the electorate in a popular referendum with a 57% turnout rate. Prior to the new constitution, Syria was... Read article

Global Warming Denial’s Twin Brother

For a long time now holocaust revisionists, aka “deniers”, have occupied a spot in the public’s esteem somewhere below pedophiles and just above serial killers. Now, a new contender for the penultimate position in the scale of public opprobrium has emerged: global warming “deniers”. The debate-squelching term has been applied to the likes of Richard Lindtzen, professor emeritus of meteorology at MIT; Roger Pielke Sr., professor emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State; and Patrick... Read article