Army Powers Enshrined in Egypt’s New Islamist Constitution

The bad news is that Egypt’s constitutional assembly is rushing to finish a deeply flawed document. The good news is that it probably doesn’t mean much; most constitutions around the world tend to be paper documents which the powerful use when convenient and work around when they’re not. That’s long been the Egyptian tradition and […]

Yuan Yawn: Treasury Department Won’t Call China “Currency Manipulator”

On Tuesday the Treasury released its semiannual report on global exchange rates. As usual, much of the focus is on China. As usual, the renminbi (or yuan) is still undervalued. And as usual, the report makes no mention of China as a “currency manipulator,” owing to the fact that use of that label would force […]

Students Getting the Message, Dropping LSATs

“If you don’t know what to do with a man,” wrote Herman Melville, “make him a schoolmaster.” Until recently, if a young man or young woman didn’t know what to do, law school was the logical place to go while you figured it out. Enrollments soared. That seems to be changing.The NYT‘s Economix blog reports […]

Time to Ditch the Dollar Bill

The director of the nonpartistan Government Accountability Office, Lorelei St. James, has an unusual recommendation to Capitol Hill: Ditch the dollar bill.While it may be hard to imagine life without the trusty dollar, a switch from $1 bills to $1 coins would be a smart move in the long run, the WSJ reports: The GAO estimates that replacing $1 […]

Can Ambassador Rice Make Peace with Republicans?

During the brouhaha over George W. Bush’s nomination of John Bolton to serve as UN ambassador, I felt that the president ought to be represented by the person he had selected in the job. At Via Meadia we feel the same way in the debate over UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s possible promotion to be secretary […]

Breaking: Syrian Internet Down

We don’t know yet for certain whether this is the result of fighting or whether Assad has finally hit some sort of kill switch for his country, but as of today, the Syrian Internet has gone down.Are these the desperation moves of a regime at the end of its rope or a technical problem? Is […]

Another Empty Victory for the Palestinian Cause

Readers who know the songs of Tom Lehrer will understand what’s happening with the looming United Nations vote on non-member observer status for the Palestinian Authority.In his song “The Folk Song Army”, Lehrer writes about the Spanish Civil War. The lyrics go: Remember the war against Franco That’s the kind where each of us belongs; Though […]

After the Election, Obama’s Thinking on Syria “Evolves”

Obama kept us out of the Syrian war, but now that the election is over, his administration is moving toward a deeper engagement. David Sanger and Eric Schmitt’s report in the New York Times this morning makes it unmistakably clear that Washington is considering far-reaching steps that could involve the United States much more profoundly in […]

Rule, India and China! Rule the Waves

China’s Global Times, a daily newspaper run by the Communist Party, put out an interesting piece this week. India and China “can rule waves together”, the piece declares. Is this a Chinese proposal for shared hegemony of Asia’s oceans? Or is China finally getting the message that alienating its neighbors might not be the best […]

E-visits to Doctors: The Future of Health Care?

Could we be seeing the end of routine doctor visits? Scientific American reports that researchers are testing a new system for electronic doctor visits that could potentially eliminate the need for patients to see a doctor for routine illnesses. Patients would simply enter their symptoms and health record into an online system, and doctors would […]

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