Over recent months I’ve become increasingly interested in the stark and fairly recent, even sudden, changes in the global energy economy. We’re all seeing lower gas prices, which affects all of us as consumers – either directly or indirectly. These sustained low oil prices, though, may well bankrupt a series of countries around the world which cannot survive with oil stuck around 50 dollars a barrel – something that may persist for two or three years. The growing role of the US as an energy producer is also driving changes in global currency flows in ways that deepen global US financial dominance. Meanwhile the role of oil is declining in the global energy economy with rising use of gas (not so bad) and coal (really, really bad). But happening amidst all of this over the last couple years is a surprising (at least to me) run-up in the use of wind and solar power. We’ve commissioned a five part series of Prime longform pieces (sub req), looking at all these changes with a particular focus on growth in the wind and solar space. We’ll be running this series over the course of the spring.
Convict D’Souza on Obama: “You can take the boy out of the ghetto …”
A group of young Muslims has volunteered to protect a synagogue in Oslo, Norway.
Dylan Scott explains how a corrupt Supreme Court could use that upcoming case to gut Obamacare even worse than you think.
As you can see I’ve been writing quite a bit of late about the intertwined matters of the Israeli election, the Netanyahu-Boehner speech to Congress and related matters. After some early signs that Prime Minister Netanyahu might finally meet his political undoing, it now looks considerably more likely that we will see a fourth Netanyahu government after the March elections, albeit likely with a narrower and more right-leaning coalition. Still, the story is not yet fully told.
There’s another thread to the politics of moral histrionism, which I mentioned in my earlier post, which I want to take up. I read the Israeli press as closely as I can. And yesterday morning I was browsing the Times of Israel, an English language site, and found this article by Jeffrey Herf, a historian at the University of Maryland. (They have what I think is basically an open blogging forum, where individuals are selected to be able post but after that post at will without editorial vetting. They got in trouble when a contributor posted a column titled “When Genocide is Permissible” (removed after the fact) during the Gaza War. In any case, this is not meant as a criticism of the publication. We once had a similar set up.) The somewhat grand title of Herf’s article is “Menendez and the Demise of Liberalism.” And it caught my eye both because of the title and because it spurred a comic echo of memories from more than a decade ago.
Well, we have the numbers. And Americans overwhelmingly oppose the Netanyahu speech stunt – 63% to 36%. More notably Democrats and to a lesser extent Independents oppose it by huge margins. Only Republicans supporting it by the narrowest of margins (52% to 45%) even makes it that close. Clearly this is a great moment for bipartisan support for the US-Israel alliance.
Ben Carson: Obama may be “guilty of treason” if the Department of Homeland Security gets shut down.
Good run-down on what’s up with this right-wing ringer judge down in Texas who just put a stay on Obama’s immigration executions actions.
Because I believe so strongly about it I want to reupp this piece I wrote yesterday about Netanyahu, the Bibi Cult and the transnational histrionic aggression id.