The endlessly hyped Iowa caucus process has finally drawn to an inconclusive close. Here’s what acres of media coverage extending over months and months and months of stultifying boredom and pointlessness have told us: Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Herman Cain and Rick Perry aren’t going to be president of the United […]

As the Christmas season draws to a close and the return of regular blogging looms, I’m looking back over my short life as a writer on religious matters and thinking about how writing on religion is and is not like writing on other controversial topics. There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s important to […]

Anxious economists and investors have fresh cause for concern as Turkey’s economy falters, stumbling from a peak of 9 percent GDP growth in 2010. The FT’s beyondbrics blog has the story: In what Benoit Anne of SocGen described as “the first bloodbath of the New Year”, rates on Turkish one-year currency swaps surged by more than […]

Next time you want to stop a bloodbath, don’t send a war criminal to report on human rights abuses. In a bizarre turn of events, the head of the Sudanese military intelligence has been tasked with ending the crackdown on protesters in Syria as the leader of Arab League observers.Perhaps it doesn’t matter; the Arab League […]

Via Meadia has covered the high speed rail fail in China; now this ‘technology of the future’ seems to be suffering a meltdown here in the US.Since the Obama presidency began, various proposals for high-speed rail have been popping up across the country—Florida, Wisconsin, and California have each considered plans to build the “transportation of […]

FT reports more bad news in a dismal season for Hungary: Hungary cancelled a bond swap auction on Wednesday as the forint hit a record new low against the euro and fears grew about the country’s planned bid for International Monetary Fund/ European Union financial aid. […] As Benoit Anne of Société Générale wrote in […]

The financial crisis, working its way westward across Asia, reached India this week. India’s leaders are worried, really worried. In fact, they’re so worried by the dismal performance of their stock index last year that they have made it easier for foreign investors to invest directly in Indian firms. (FT subscription required) From as far […]

Via Meadia has already reported that Hamas may soon be in the market for a new patron to replace Syria (more background here). It’s no surprise that other regional powers, especially Turkey and Iran, are gearing up for a bidding war, as one can easily see by reading between the lines of this NYT story on the […]

There are few current questions about international developments as important as the ones concerning the future of what, rather optimistically, has been called the Arab Spring. Will this series of popular uprisings indeed lead to a new era of democracy and progress in the Middle East? Or will it rather lead to an era of […]

Connections between the adult Jesus and the baby in the manger aren’t easy to make. At first glance, the gospels don’t help much; whatever the gospel writers had in mind, producing complete biographies of Jesus wasn’t it. Mark omits Christmas altogether, and starts with Jesus getting baptized and launching his career. John has a short […]