EJ Dionne, writing in the Washington Post, urges President Obama to set his inner Keynes free and lead the US and the world out of the dangers of another economic collapse, regardless of domestic political resistance.I’m not as confident as EJ and Paul Krugman this this would work either politically or economically.  And I’m not […]

The blue social model’s war against the young is one of the dominant — and little reported — characteristics of our time.   Those curious about the long-term effects of blue social policy would do well to look to Southern Europe, where an entire generation of young people is facing the prospect of entering mid-adulthood without […]

Felix Salmon has some very smart analysis of the real crisis underlying the near-universal chaos breaking out across this troubled world. Most fundamentally, what I’m seeing as I look around the world is a massive decrease of trust in the institutions of government. Where those institutions are oppressive and totalitarian, the ability of popular uprisings […]

Last week we noted that Hamas was betraying the Palestinian cause in a servile surrender to its Syrian and Iranian paymasters.   By remaining silent as Syria shelled a Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia and cracking down on anti-Assad demonstrators in the Gaza Strip the allegedly pro-Palestinian movement was clearly placing the interests of foreign […]

Every time anyone points out the flaws (obvious, fatal) in many green policy prescriptions, greens essentially respond that the sky is falling and that their critics hate science.  Partly a cheap rhetorical trick and partly reflecting the degree to which greens are thinking emotionally rather than politically, the habit doesn’t help the greens.Largely as a […]

With the forces of humanitarianism and international law, or at least the forces of his tribal and religious enemies, closing in on his Tripoli lair, Africa’s King of Kings and Loon of Loons is on the verge of overthrow. And in Damascus, Butcher Assad, the world’s most notorious opthamologist, watched the Great Loon’s last stand […]

Legislators in West Bengal, the formerly Marxist-ruled Indian state in northeastern India, kept foreign investment out of their state for years by the simple expedient of being communist.  Just to make sure nobody missed their message, they renamed the street where the US Consulate stands after Ho Chi Minh.Driving into the provincial capital of Kolkata […]

Good news from Pakistan is dishearteningly scarce these days, but from time to time one sees evidence that more and more of Pakistan’s opinion makers realize that the contest with India is literally tearing Pakistan to pieces and that liquidating the competition is more important than anything Pakistan can hope to gain by continuing it.One […]

The stoner lobby would like us all to believe that Legalization Day is just around the corner and the momentum for an end to the war on drugs is irresistibly rising.It ain’t, and this AP story (h/t NY Times) helps explain why.  The FDA has been slow to tighten controls over one of the most […]

Economist Michael A. Clemens states something that ought to be well known but for some reason isn’t:  that restrictions on the free movement of labor are more costly than any other existing limits on freedom.  That doesn’t mean there’s much to be done anytime soon.  You can download the whole text of the article here, […]