Iraq
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Critical List: Eating organic makes people judgey; U.S. selling drones to Iraq to protect oil
Eating organic food makes people more judgmental about others’ actions and less altruistic, according to a totally bogus study. The U.S. is selling drones to Iraq to protect oil exports. White-tailed deer are eating so many leaves, they’re keeping migratory birds from being able to build their nests.
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Critical List: The Navy and USDA invest in biofuels; Norway's big oil find
The Navy, USDA, and Energy Department are investing in biofuels that come from plants we don't eat.
As Shell fought an oil leak in the North Sea, Norway's biggest oil company announced it had found a huge oil field there. Oh awesome, nothing can go wrong with this!
Shell's also helping Iraq to double its capacity to produce natural gas.
U.S. solar manufacturers say it's hard to compete against China's low-priced workers. -
What we could have bought with the $4 trillion we spent on Iraq and Afghanistan
Americans like us some war, but to the tune of $4 trillion? In adjusted dollars, that's just short of what it cost us to whup the Nazis.
Here's a look at what we could have done with that money, had we spent it on something besides stoking Americans' confusion over whether or not the world's 1.5 billion 'Muslims' are in fact a monolithic group whose every member is a terrorist.
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Make cities, not war
Mayors from around the country are wondering why we're building bridges in Kandahar when bridges at home are falling to pieces.
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Military spends more to air condition tents than NASA's entire budget
Steve Anderson, a retired brigadier general who was Petraeus' chief logistician in Iraq, says that the Pentagon spends $20 billion a year just to air condition tents and temporary buildings in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's more than NASA's entire annual budget. There's an easy fix, says Anderson: Spray tents with polyurethane foam. An existing $95 […]
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New green zone spreads in Iraq
A new green zone is sprouting in Iraq, but it’s not the kind you think. It’s a grassroots one pushed by a new culture of conservationists whose currency is reeds. The recent environmental history of Iraq is a tale of two men. Saddam Hussein had a horrific impact on the ecology of the country, principally […]
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The collapse of the old oil order
No matter what comes of the protests in Iran, it’s unlikely that the country’s oil output will rise significantly.Photo: Hamed SaberThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. Whatever the outcome of the protests, uprisings, and rebellions now sweeping the Middle East, one thing is guaranteed: The world […]
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Oregon to help Iraqi universities build green engineering programs
The forms of 21st-century living pioneered here aren't just about fixing the U.S., they're about providing models that other countries can emulate.
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China antes up, bets, and bluffs in the new world oil game
Future historians may well agree that the 21st century Silk Road first opened for business on Dec. 14, 2009. That was the day a crucial stretch of pipeline officially went into operation linking the fabulously energy-rich state of Turkmenistan to Xinjiang Province in China's far west.