I’m Jewish. You don’t hear me blog about this much for a variety of reasons, one of the major ones being that you are then inevitably asked to take a stand on Israel–as if such a thing even needed to be discussed, like Marx’s odious asking of “The Jewish Question.”

My faith influences my thinking in a lot of ways, but it is not the sole arbiter of my thinking, and I don’t feel that I have to travel in lockstep with what any other Jew thinks–certainly not about Israel, which has every right to exist as a sovereign state, yet commits indefensible acts against peoples it (rightly or wrongly) perceives as implacable foes. As such, people like myself stay out of the debate, allowing it to be usurped and dominated by a cabal of crazy ultrahawkish right-wing Zionists who claim that anything short of total annihilation of Palestine will end with, as my father says, “the Jews being driven into the sea.”

Thankfully, there’s an alternative coming around, and it is called J Street. Full Story »

Yesterday, the Supreme Court threw our entire diplomatic corps, the State Department, and possibly every treaty the U.S. has ever signed that is still in force, into complete disarray. And in the process, the Court may have inflicted more harm to our national authority and international standing than anything President Bush II has done to date, including invading Iraq. And that harm may turn out to have fantastic reach and duration if Congress and the President don’t immediately step in to rectify the Court’s gross error.

The Supreme Court essentially invalidated an international treaty by blocking federal enforcement of the treaty’s obligations. Full Story »

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, believes that a Yahoo / Microsoft tie-up would be awful for the Internet. Schmidt issued the vague sequitur that we should all beware of, “the things that it has done that have been so difficult for everyone.” Of course, everyone knows that Microsoft is the Great Satan, so it stands to reason that anything they do should be regarded as automatically the equivalent of making baby stew.

Here, though, it is Google - owner of 62.9% of all Internet searches ($16.4 bn in ad revenue) - which dwarfs any tie up (Yahoo-Microsoft have a combined search share of 15.7% and $ 9.8 bn in ad revenue). Could it be that Google is trying to pull a Microsoft and protect its home-turf advantage from a healthy rival? Full Story »

Awhile back I was introduced to the concept of the “five supernatural perceptions” or “superknowledges,” achieved by bodhisattvas as a pinnacle of achievement in meditation and understanding in Buddhism. I had cause to reflect on this recently while reading George Soros’ 2006 book, “The Age of Fallibility.” If it seems odd to connect a famous financier and philanthropist with mystical powers gained through enlightenment and transcendence, don’t worry–it is odd. But there’s a common key that I found, and that is the key of flexibility in philosophy. Full Story »

According to an article in New Scientist, scientists from the University of Colorado - Boulder have calculated that a) there isn’t much volcanic dust in the Earth’s atmosphere and b) that may be contributing to global heating.

Generally speaking, volcanoes emit lots of stuff, including carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and lots and lots of ash. However, it’s been shown scientifically that the dominant climate factor in nearly all volcanic eruptions is the sulfur dioxide, a gas that combined with water vapor in the atmosphere to create sulfuric acid droplets. Those droplets are very reflective, and when combined with high-altitude ash and dust, they create very white clouds that cool the Earth down far more than any carbon dioxide emissions would heat it up. Full Story »

After the sad event that was John Edwards ending his run for president, I wondered what he would do with himself next. While Clinton and Obama furiously courted him for a blessing, he and his wife, Elizabeth, have largely remained quiet and kept their own counsel. Until now.

Yesterday both John and Elizabeth committed their still-formidable political muscle behind a different campaign–joining the effort to withdraw from Iraq by tying it to our looming recession.

Full Story »

The World Future Energy Summit is taking place this week in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Conference topics include solar and wind power, clean transportation, carbon, waste-to-fuel conversion, biofuels, geothermal and other energy sources. There’s also an exhibition where 214 corporations, NGOs, media groups, financial institutions, and government organizations are showing off their latest “future energy” options. Included are five national pavilions where national governments are hosting even more of their local companies, and exhibitions range from new energy generation techniques to energy efficiency technologies to carbon offsets (the conference itself is being billed as carbon neutral, via the CarbonNeutral Company). This conference and exhibition is being paid for and hosted by Abu Dhabi, an emirate that is wealthy precisely because of the vast reserves of carbon - in the form of oil - beneath its desert and coast. Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan announced that his government would offer a $2.2 million prize “to three individuals or organizations that have made significant contributions in the global response to the future of energy”, to be judged by an international panel of environmental and energy experts. Other information to come out of the conference already include and agreement between Iceland and Djibouti to supply Djibouti with geothermal energy and subsequently displace of the diesel generators that currently power most of the small nation’s electricity. Full Story »

Welcome back to day 2 of the S&R Year in Review. Today we tackle some of 2007’s big moments in news and current events.

The Invasion and Occupation of Iraq Surpasses the American Civil War in Duration: The United States’ involvement in World War I lasted only 19 months and World War II lasted 44 months for the United States, even though the war itself was nearly six years long. The occupation of Iraq (aka the Iraq War) outlasted World War II in November of 2006, making the duration of U.S. involvement in Iraq the third longest foreign occupation in U.S. history. The American Civil War lasted 48 months, and the Iraq occupation surpassed that duration on March 20, 2007. This makes the Iraq occupation the third longest running period of continuous conflict in U.S. history, behind only the Vietnam War and its sister conflict in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Full Story »

Over the course of the last two weeks, nothing has happened at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia. Negotiations haven’t occurred. There have been no heated policy debates. 10,000 delagates from 190 countries did show up, but they’ve just been sitting around, twiddling their thumbs. The press conferences held by UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer have all been boring, uninformative things. All in all, no real news has come out of Bali over the last two weeks.

After all, it’s hardly news to hear that the governments of the United States and China are doing everything they can to eviscerate meaningful international action on global heating. Full Story »

As noted yesterday, a new national intelligence report has caught the Bush White House in yet another round of warmongering lies. No real surprise there. The revelation elicited a range of replies from a variety of predictably interested parties.

John Edwards opted for flat honesty:

The new National Intelligence Estimate shows that George Bush and Dick Cheney’s rush to war with Iran is, in fact, a rush to war. Full Story »

Now that the U.S. can declare an agency of a foreign government a terrorist organization; now that deposing a political leader for crimes against humanity is an accepted reason for war; now that fundamentalist religious governance is recognized as a threat to world order, the Bush administration can step up and take a hard line on this:

Saudi: Why we punished rape victim

I’ll be waiting right here.

In defense of the indefensible.

If you go through life without making any enemies you’re doing something wrong. If you go through life making a lot of enemies you’re doing something worse.

For a long time, the US contented itself with one enemy, the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the CIA conducted covert operations such as rigging elections for dictators and assassinating their opponents. But those thus tyrannized had neither the inclination nor the resources to retaliate against the US.

Then, operating under the illusion that the mujahideen in Afghanistan were “freedom fighters,” as Ronald Reagan called them, we armed and supported them to the tune of billions of dollars. After driving the Soviets out, though, they were feeling their oats and looked around for a new target. Full Story »

Life as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate — especially if you’re not resting on your laurels — is not as awash in dignity and respect as you might think. Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (1991) has spent 10 of the last 17 years under house arrest. Jimmy Carter’s (2002) name has been dragged through the mud for expressing sympathy for the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Mohamed ElBaradei (2005), the International Atomic Energy Agency chief, has been the object of an ongoing campaign by the administration to strip him of his credibility. Every chance it gets, it brushes aside the passing grades the IAEA has given Iran’s nuclear program and portrays ElBaradei as not only too lenient, but a loose cannon. Full Story »

Even though Mohamed ElBaradei is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, he’s not resting on his laurels. Continuing in his role as the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, he handed in his report on Iran’s nuclear program to the IAEA’s Board of Governors yesterday.

Reuters got a hold of a copy and summed it up: “Iran’s uranium enrichment program is operating well below capacity and is far from producing nuclear fuel in significant amounts.” A passing grade, in other words. Full Story »

In a recent article in The Washington Post, Robin Wright quoted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calling Iran the state that presents “the single most important. . . strategic challenge to the United States.” Wright concluded: “After three decades of festering tensions the United States and Iran are now facing off in a full-fledged cold war.” [Emphasis added]

What an honor! One of the United States’s premier newspapers has elevated Iran to the position vacated by fallen superpower Russia. Oh well, we all know how much nature abhors a vacuum. China had its chance, but it has failed to act with sufficient belligerence to claim the prize.

Though Iran lacks China’s, or even Russia’s, economy, it’s leapfrogged ahead of them, if Ms. Wright’s assessment is correct, to attain most feared nation status in the eyes of the US. How does this work to the administration’s benefit? Full Story »

Controversy continues to emerge about the United States’ intent to develop a proposed $20 billion, 10-year arms sales package for Saudi Arabia.

Brighter minds than this one can dissect Israel’s concern about point-point, laser-guided weapons parked next door, whether the driving idea behind the proposal is meant “to act as a bulwark against Iran’s growing influence in the Middle East,” and whether the sale is the Bush administration’s way to make nice-nice with Arab nations as the United States plans to sell $30 billion in arms to Israel.

The more mundane issue explored here is cui bono financially? Given the few details reported so far about what weapons systems the Saudis might get, Raytheon, Boeing, Textron and Lockheed Martin may be salivating. Then again, they paid plenty for the privilege.
Full Story »

Over the course of the last several years, we have experienced the results of failed Republican policies. The subjugation of all other foreign policy objectives to national defense has created a situation where we are literally less safe for having our soldiers fighting abroad¹. Lower taxes are bankrupting the government, leading to a wholesale crumbling of our roads and public buildings, public education, public health and safety, and even our national security² due to lack of maintenance. Smaller government, originally intended to improve efficiencies by moving supposedly bloated government programs to private industry, has created a government that is unable to perform its most basic duties, such as protecting its citizens and enforcing its laws. Freeing markets from strict federal regulation has resulted in the corruption of Enron and Adelphia Communications³ as well as a massive increase in real poverty. And the focus on family values has produced a cultural environment that is singularly unfriendly to non-traditional families, scientific and medical research, and even immigration.

There are many, many reasons that the Republican agenda has failed. Full Story »

Shortly after 470 BCE, following years of triumph as the leader of wartime Athens, Themistocles was accused of treachery against the city. He escaped the death sentence and traveled to Persia to visit his erstwhile enemy, King Xerxes, but they did not speak a common language. So their conversation was translated, often clumsily, from Greek to Persian and Persian to Greek. Plutarch describes what happened next:

[Xerxes] gave Themistocles leave to speak his mind freely on Greek affairs. Themistocles replied that the speech of man was like rich carpets, the patterns of which can only be shown by spreading them out; when the carpets are folded up, the patterns are obscured and lost; and therefore he asked for time. The king was pleased with the simile, and told him to take his time; and so he asked for a year. Then, having learned the Persian language sufficiently, he spoke with the king on his own.

Full Story »