Regular readers of Via Meadia may sometimes get the impression that we have something against settled science. In critiquing hysterical greens for their draconian, hear-no-dissent discourse on climate change and what to do about it, we have often pointed to the ever-changing scientific consensus on such diverse matters as video games, human reproduction, the Theory […]

When a self-proclaimed jihadist slaughters Jewish schoolchildren in France on account of events in the Middle East, the proper response is collective horror and serious societal soul-searching. Via Meadia highlighted one laudable example of this in the form of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, and there have been many more in France.  Unfortunately, there are […]

Via Meadia has been keeping a watchful eye on the violence unleashed in Nigeria by Boko Haram, the Islamist group responsible for more than 900 killings in the past two years. In its battle against the Nigerian state, Boko Haram has preyed on “police and army officers, elected officials, high-ranking civil servants, United Nations workers […]

Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson have just published Why Nations Fail, a big book on development that will attract a lot of attention. The latest fad in development studies has been to conduct controlled randomized experiments on a host of micro-questions, such as whether co-payments for mosquito bed nets improves their uptake. Whether such studies […]

Via Meadia is not and never will be a site that follows every twist and turn of a presidential race. What candidate commits a forgettable gaffe, how a candidate’s team spins a disappointing debate or primary performance, what no-hoper GOP also-ran says mean things about another bit part player: that isn’t what we want to […]

The cheating scandals in Atlanta and Long Island that rocked the educational establishment last year appear to be spreading. In the past, the tendency has been to view these scandals as isolated incidents—examples of moral failures on the part of individual teachers or school districts. A new study by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, however, refutes this […]

The Bo Xilai saga continues: The latest news concerns the mysterious death of a British businessman with close ties to Bo, the former high-ranking Communist party official from Chongqing who was purged earlier this month. The businessman, Neil Haywood, had known Bo since the early 1990s, and they were said to be close friends.According to […]

The Fed’s controversial “Quantitative Easing” policies are only the most prominent of a number of similar actions by central banks around the world. Many countries’ central banks are pursuing a policy of easy money and low interest rates in an attempt to boost moribund economies and low investment. Yet at a recent meeting of central […]

As regular readers know, we at Via Meadia like to keep tabs on trolls and their exploits across America. We last spotted an anti-colonialist brood infiltrating the Harvard curriculum. Today, during the course of some very serious research, Team Mead found them on Wikipedia — specifically, the entry on the city of Syracuse: Trolls The […]

Is China’s great deceleration beginning? American businesses think so. In a survey cited in the Wall Street Journal, a 45 percent plurality of American businesses see slowing growth in China as the greatest risk to their interests in that country in 2012. This number is considerably higher than in past years.This finding wasn’t the only bit of bad news […]