From the always informative Futurepundit, good news on the environment.  Plastic, it turns out, can be made from sugarcane.  This could be more useful and more enviro-friendly than ethanol.Too early to know how practical it is, but ideas like this will do more for the earth than all the climate treaties yet proposed.

Lots of rotten news coming from South Africa these days.  Allegations of corruption swirl around President Zuma’s entourage.  The union federation demands an investigation of the leader of the ANC youth wing.  Judges are issuing writs and newspapers are writing scare headlines.The news is worrying bad — the corruption seems to be real and if […]

“Just talking is progress in India, Pakistan ties,” chirps Reuters merrily this morning.No, it isn’t.India and Pakistan have been talking on and off for years.  Mostly, they’ve been talking about the same thing: Kashmir.The US in particular is happy when they talk; a solution for Kashmir and a rapprochement between two principal heirs of the […]

The ghastly, shocking news from Norway has stunned the whole world.  Empathy for the young victims and their families, horror at the cold blooded and deliberate evil behind this act, and fearful wonder at the depths of madness it reveals are all joined together.  We Godbotherers will be bothering God about this, asking for his […]

Long after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia remains a land where grand plans are often announced but the follow up is lacking.When Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently announced a goal of reducing the number of smokers in the Russian Federation by 10 to 15 percent before 2050, he chose a target the Russians […]

Junk securities were bad enough; Goldman Sachs also favored the world with junk concepts during the last ten years.  The idea of BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as emerging economic giants soon to dominate the world launched a thousand columns and 36 million Google hits the last time I checked.The Mead take: Russia isn’t […]

The rebel advance stalls in the mountains. The Great Loon can now stay in Libya, according to a rebel commander and the French government. NATO strikes a few  targets. Ramadan approaches.The joys of bush league Wilsonian war in the age of hope and change.A whole lot of nothing, says David Rieff in The New Republic. […]

The Independent reports that only 5,940 students have opted to take what the Brits call a “gap year” before entering college, as opposed to the 15,701 students who deferred for the 2010-2011 school year. Why the change?  The government plans to hike UK tuition from £3,000 to £9,000 per year in 2012 and students want […]

Newsweek and the Daily Beast released a poll of Egyptian voters today. A quick look reveals a few noteworthy findings:– 70 percent of  responders want to amend or cancel the Camp David accords with Israel.– Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets significantly higher approval than Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah.– Only 35% of those polled think a Muslim Brotherhood […]

For those keeping score, a pattern is beginning to emerge in the cultural tastes of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Mr. Wen has recently revealed an affinity for both Adam Smith and Shakespeare.To some degree, the Chinese leader is no doubt trying to make a political point — he is careful to contrast his interest in Western […]