Hugo Chavez isn’t the only Venezuelan entity with health problems these days. The national economy has been struggling for some time, and things look to be getting worse. Goods shortages, high inflation, slow growth — Venezuela has it all.With a fresh round of “elections” looming on the horizon, the wannabe Grand Poohbah of the Axis of […]

Yesterday, Britain joined France in announcing that Qaddafi can stay in the country if he relinquishes power. (The rebel forces, on the other hand, rescinded that offer this morning.) It’s a wretched idea, and it casts a cruel light on the strategic miscalculations behind the Days Not Weeks War.  To persist on this road will […]

Could greens be learning some lessons from the catastrophic meltdown of the global climate agenda?  A new way — says a diverse group of scholars from Oxford, LSE, Third Way, the American Enterprise Institute, and elsewhere — aims to “accelerate energy innovation, build resilience to extreme weather, and pursue no regrets pollution reduction measures”.The Climate […]

Could that rosy fingered light on the summits of the Hindu Kush actually be dawn?Al Qaeda is dying. So say senior officials in the Obama administration, echoing new Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent declaration in Afghanistan: “We’re within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda”.Let’s hope they are right. With Osama bin Laden dead and drone strikes […]

The Blue State welfare system is cracking up, economic growth is shaky, old institutions and beliefs no longer fit reality, and professional bureaucrats and intellectuals are at a loss about what to do about it; these are important themes that we have been exploring here at Via Meadia.Robert Samuelson has a smart op-ed in the […]

It’s been a rough summer on the animal front.  A shark attack on the Outer Banks, grizzly maulings in Alaska and Yellowstone, and a series of elephant rampages in Nepal.  Closer to glamorous Queens, a mountain lion trekked from South Dakota to Greenwich, Connecticut before being struck by a car and killed on the Wilbur […]

One year after intense flooding devastated much of Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of families are still at risk of more floods, while thousands of others remain in refugee camps and river embankments remain un-repaired. Corruption, predictably, has hampered the distribution of aid destined for construction, repair and protection from further flooding. Vast areas of the fertile […]

Despite all the turbulence and chaos in the world, every now and then some signs emerge that America’s grand strategy is actually working.  In particular, what I’ve called “sticky power,” the fatal attraction the global economy exerts on rising powers that tends to lock them into long term collaboration with America’s big plans for the […]

Reading the news these days is like playing catch with an over-eager retriever.  Every morning the media drops a spit soaked tennis ball of soggy ‘news’ about the debt ceiling fight in your lap.Bad dog!  Speculation about whether Boehner or Obama will “win” the debt debate is not news!The main reason this is dragging on: […]

On July 1, 2011, thirteen US senators opposed to the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) participated in a video that is meant to encourage gays and lesbians to persevere and to be optimistic about the future. One of the thirteen, Senator Robert Wyden (Democrat from Oregon), said: “DOMA, folks, is on the wrong side of […]