Ross Douthat has a thoughtful piece in the NY Times today on the failure — so far — of the populist wing of the Republican Party to find candidates and policies that can compete at the presidential level.  He’s certainly right that figures like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Ron Paul and Herman Cain […]

The ink is hardly dry on Germany’s assent to the last bailout package, but Greece is already signalling that more money is needed — and fast.  The new and improved deficit targets set by the IMF and the European Union won’t be met, not this year and not next.  From Reuters: (Reuters) – Greece will […]

Greens are often and even usually wrong about some important policy issues but they are right about one big thing: we’ve got only one planet to live on and we ought to cherish and conserve it.  As a reminder of the fragile and precious creation that shelters and nurtures us, this 1-minute NASA time-lapse video […]

A full eleven days after Andrew Sullivan warned readers again about the “Christianist” menace, the unstoppable Christian hordes seem to have, well, stopped.The latest evidence that the teeming throngs of zealous Puritans aren’t going to establish a Cromwellian commonwealth that crushes freedom and empowers dour church elders to monitor the private lives of Americans comes […]

American public education has hit a new low: concerned parents are being arrested for stealing free public education through zoning fraud. From the WSJ: In the last year, parents in Connecticut, Kentucky and Missouri have all been arrested—and await sentencing—for enrolling their children in better public schools outside of their districts. These arrests represent two […]

Via Meadia blog-sibling Religion and Other Curiosities by Peter Berger (one of the world’s greatest living sociologists) has a terrific post on German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’ recently discovered respect for Judeo-Christian religion.  The intellectual leader of the modern European center-left has come to acknowledge late in his life that Biblical, Judeo-Christian religion is a vital […]

The Arab Spring has reached its first autumn, and it is still not clear whether Egypt will have a revolution.  In my view, it hasn’t had one yet.  The Mubarak family attempted a revolution of its own early in the year, replacing the military-business regime that has ruled the country since the 1950s with a […]

Petitioning officials is an ancient Chinese right, now being updated for a brave new world. Officials in China’s Guangdong province are making complaining as easy as one click away. According to the FT, citizens of four cities can now lodge complaints online to virtual officials (as opposed to sending a letter of last resort to […]

Those of you who have always wanted a top grade Venetian palazzo on a main canal need to act fast; the Palazzo Molin on the Guidecca canal is on the auction block. For $15 to $20 million, this 16th century palazzo (the marble facade, alas, dates only from the 18th) could be yours. (H/t: FT)Italy’s […]

[Tommy Meyerson is one of the capable interns who keeps the traffic moving on Via Meadia.  As one of WRM’s students at Yale he found the transition to working on the blog easy; we are losing him this month to the USMC.  Their gain, our loss.  From time to time interns and other Team Mead […]