For decades, Detroit has been the poster child for urban decline in America. Now things have reached an even newer low: The city is projected to run out of money by next month and seems to have no credible plans to make up this shortfall.Interestingly, despite statements by Michigan Governor Rick Snyder that the state […]

At Via Meadia, we have been reporting for some time on what we have call “the War on the Young.” The Blue Social Model that my generation expanded without thinking about that tiny little detail of how we were going to pay for it all has placed local and state governments in the position of […]

I have no idea if this is any good (though @41jellis tweeted it, and his recommendations usually work) but here is the kind of thinking that is making the jobs of the future. Grandmother Mead might not approve of all of the language, but she had a soft spot for bargains.

Mention 2014 and Afghanistan, and most people’s attention jumps to the pullout of NATO troops. But in a recent lecture attended by Via Meadia staffers, Thomas Barfield, one of the United States’ leading experts on Afghanistan, noted that 2014 is also the year of presidential elections in Afghanistan – a potentially explosive event given that current president Hamid Karzai is […]

Fans of government health care keep telling us that government can do the job, and they point to countries like the UK as examples where single payer, government run health care systems deliver high quality, compassionate care.They are either grossly ignorant or they are lying through their teeth.A recent study by a British healthcare regulator […]

Ayatollah Khamenei, master of the mullahs, Supreme Leader and Guide of a revolution that has wrecked Iran’s economy, lost its position of leadership in the Middle East and trapped the country in increasingly hostile international isolation, likes what he hears from President Obama, reports the Washington Post: In a rare positive remark about the United […]

The EU’s carbon agenda has launched a trade war that has China blocking purchases of Airbus’s troubled new jumbo jets; now word comes that the EU climate agenda is beginning to fall apart at home.The European Union’s ambitious low carbon plan collapsed yesterday when Poland vetoed plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically after 2020. […]

What is happening in Syria is terrible, and Butcher Assad needs to go, but that is all the more reason why the press needs to cover this story with care.On Friday, the NYT ran a long, detailed weeper about the plight of Kurdish refugees fleeing Syria into Iraq.But somehow the picture doesn’t live up to […]

The controversial Keystone XL pipeline was struck down for the second time this year, and once again President Obama’s fingerprints are all over it. In January, the Obama Administration made waves by vetoing the construction of the pipeline before the February 21st deadline, but on Thursday the president went further, personally calling a number of […]

Good times continue to roll in Iran, according to the Wall Street Journal: Iran has dramatically increased executions over the past decade and abused the rights of students, women, journalists and religious minorities, according to a new United Nations report. . . .It cites an “alarming increase” in executions, from fewer than 100 people in […]