Kevin Drum at Mother Jones has a chart showing that in the last five months President Obama was hammered by the mainstream press harder than any of his GOP rivals; there was a 25 point gap between the percentage of his coverage that was positive and the negative stories.These charts and other methods to referee […]

World markets, so depressed and beaten down last week that any news not catastrophic perked them up, rallied for a few days on more European promises to come up with a grand solution to the euro-mess by the end of this month.Those promises were, of course, well meaning lies.  Germany and France are so far […]

Via Meadia staff will be posting a morning news roundup of stories we’re reading each morning while Walter is in China. We’ll stick to themes and topics usually found here on the blog, offering readers a short post of news we think is important, interesting and intelligent. Some of the stories found in the news […]

That pay raise might have to wait until 2021.  At least that is the word of economists in the latest WSJ forecasting survey: From 2000 to 2010, median income in the U.S. declined 7% after adjusting for inflation, according to Census data. That marks the worst 10-year performance in records going back to 1967. On […]

The alleged Iranian assassination plot against Saudi Arabia’s ambassador in the US (if the allegations hold up) is not news in the sense that it doesn’t tell us anything new or represent anything new about the structure of relations in the Middle East.  But it is very important news about the temperature of Saudi-Iranian relations, […]

Brace yourselves.  This week’s Economist — the only real newsweekly in the English language and must reading at the Mead manor, where we would as soon watch network news as read Time or Newsweek — has bad news and really bad news on the pension front.The bad news is that corporate and public pension plans […]

Waiting for me in my (very comfortable and well appointed) hotel room in Beijing was a friendly notice from the Public Security Bureau.  In addition to some helpful advice about what to do in case of fire or other disaster, and a warning not to bring guns or explosive chemicals into the rooms, comes the […]

A new anti-democratic plague is spreading across Eastern Europe, suggesting that the inevitable march toward democracy may be a little more complex than ideologues wish.  Last week it was Ukraine’s jailing of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko; this week it is developments farther west that are making the news.The New York Times discusses the situation in […]

As the NYT reports, Indian students are having an increasingly tough time getting into top domestic universities: This summer, Delhi University issued cutoff scores at its top colleges that reached a near-impossible 100 percent in some cases. The Indian Institutes of Technology, which are spread across the country, have an acceptance rate of less than […]

From Red Hook to Albany to Detroit to Beijing: I’ve made it to China in reasonably good shape and am ensconced for the night in the Sheraton Great Wall Hotel.  Not a bad spot, and the check in was fast and efficient.These days, it takes a while to realize you are in China.  In the […]