As Hurricane Irene barrels up the coast and the weather service warns about hurricane conditions in New York, at Via Meadia this morning we are more concerned with short term weather forecasts than with medium term economic predictions. Nevertheless I see from the Twitter feed that Nouriel Rubini (@Nouriel) is predicting a double dip recession […]

Analysis of the captured files from Osama bin Laden’s compound reveals an Al-Qaeda struggling with less to do, more to fear and feeling the bite of defeat. This isn’t the right occasion to unfurl George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” banner, but perhaps a national tweet along the lines of “Keep it up guys, we got em’ […]

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will carry oil from tar sands in Canada across the entire midwestern United States to Port Arthur, Texas. It could eventually transport 900,000 barrels of oil a day and without government funding of any kind has the potential to create 20,000 jobs starting early in 2012. The greens want President […]

Abdel Ali Basset Megrahi should be having a bad few days — and this is only the start.  Megrahi is the man the Scottish government released on commercial, excuse me, compassionate grounds after serving 8 years of a 27 year sentence for his involvement in the Lockerbie bombing.Even someone like this deserves the protection of […]

I recently warned readers that giant, poison mohawk-sporting rats from Africa could be joining the throngs of New York rats happily frisking in Manhattan’s hip Tompkins Square Park.It turns out that reality has outrun speculation.  Three foot long Gambian pouched rats have already established themselves in Brooklyn where residents of a city housing project say […]

Two recent pieces in the Washington Post provide a startling look into the decrepit state of one of the grandest of the blue model dinosaurs still walking the earth – the Postal Service. The first explains the USPS’ best plan to cut its costs by $1.5 billion a year: laming the snail — slowing down […]

In perhaps the least exciting news story of the day, Kim Jong-il travels to Russia to meet President Medvedev, shakes hands, says hello, and otherwise gets little done. As the FT reports: [North Korea] want[s] to show they have countries to talk to and that they are realistic…Russia announced it would work with Pyongyang on […]

What do you call three bishops appointed to their posts by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association? Excommunicated – that’s the Vatican’s answer to Beijing’s appointment of three bishops this year. China’s latest response is a crackdown on Chinese Catholics. Associated Press reports: A number of priests and laymen in China’s underground Catholic church have been […]

In a review of Ellis Cose’s The End of Anger: A New Generation’s Take on Race and Rage, The New Republic’s John McWhorter discusses an interesting (though not entirely surprising) finding: young, affluent and well educated Blacks in particular are now much less likely to see pervasive racism as an inhibiting factor to their success: […]

Former senior director for the Middle East at the U.S. National Security Council Michael Doran, writing at Foreign Policy, offers a clear-headed recommendation to the White House on Middle East policy: block out the noise and focus on grand strategy. Today, naturally, the urgent questions U.S. senior leaders are asking include: How can the United […]