The case against NGO workers in Egypt brought to light some deep anti-American sentiment in the Egyptian government and public, but it also sheds light on a gray area of U.S. foreign policy. “Quangos”, as the Brits call them—quasi non-governmental organizations—operate partly as non-affiliated promoters of democracy and freedom abroad. But they receive U.S. government […]

It is the best of times and the worst of times for Russia’s once and future President Vladimir Putin. Victory in this week’s Presidential election is almost certain, but the Prime Minister is no longer the absolute master of Russian politics. Not only does he face a protest movement that includes some of the most […]

There isn’t much to say beyond the obvious about Arthur Jones, the Holocaust-denying former member of the Nationalist Socialist Party who is now a candidate for the Republican nomination to the U.S. House of Representatives in Illinois’ third Congressional district. Suffice it to say, Via Meadia hopes to be spared the sight of Mr. Jones […]

Last weekend, a cold snap spread across Germany as hundreds of thousands found their heating shut off due to an inability to pay staggeringly high (and rising) energy bills. Gas prices have risen 15 percent in the past two years, and are poised to rise even higher, leaving a large number of Germans in the […]

The sky-high costs of higher education look all the more scandalous when you consider that few graduates are better prepared for the workforce than they were when they first enrolled in school. Some colleges, at least, are belatedly taking steps to change this. The New York Times describes how some have begun to tailor their continuing-education […]

The foundering U.S. Postal Service has taken modest steps toward stability, mostly by closing offices and cutting back on services. Yet the institution is running into a new set of obstacles—uncooperative lawmakers. Despite a general consensus that the Postal Service needs to cut costs, a number of lawmakers are doing everything in their power to […]

Some 20,000 protestors crammed into Taksim Square, the center of modern Istanbul, last Sunday to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the attack by Armenian troops on ethnic Azeris in the town of Khojaly in Azerbaijan during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Baku calls the incursion a genocide. Several protestors referenced the recent Armenian Genocide bill in France as […]

A flurry of economic data has buoyed financial markets of late. One important piece of news was the announcement of another 530 billion euros in cheap funding being released by the European Central Bank to the eurozone’s battered banking system. But as a story in today’s FT notes, this recent move isn’t as encouraging as […]

It turns out that computer-assisted review isn’t the only way new technologies are upending the legal profession. A recent article in Slate discusses how for the past few years a small organization has achieved success at fighting “patent trolls” by crowd-sourcing research to entrepreneurial amateurs with the lure of cash rewards.Patent trolls, organizations that hoard large numbers […]

While the Oxford ethicists who justified infanticide have made the most shocking news Via Meadia has seen in quite a while, it’s not for lack of competition. In another shocking story from Dallas, it appears that a local doctor has been perpetrating the largest case of Medicare fraud by a single doctor in the long […]