In one of the most memorable stories from the Book of Genesis, Pharaoh had a dream in which seven fat cows were swallowed by seven lean ones. Pharaoh and his men were puzzled until Joseph offered his interpretation: The fat cows represented seven years of prosperity, which would then be swallowed by seven lean years […]

With the general election heating up, Obama is on the campaign trail this week. Perhaps he heard the news that his popularity is dwindling among the young, as his tour is making stops at large colleges in swing states. And on this college tour, the president delivered a message calculated to resonate with young voters: […]

Total student loan debt in America recently exceeded $1 trillion and is now higher than credit card debt. It’s a mind-boggling figure, and one which has led some economists and commentators to claim it’s simply the latest financial bubble waiting to burst. Others editorialize about what all that debt says about the state of higher […]

[Via Meadia‘s man in Istanbul provides the blog with updates from Turkish and regional newspapers. Notably, this week saw Turkish officials grow closer to the Iraqi Kurdish government, causing Baghdad displeasure.]The Turkish press gave roundly positive coverage to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his recent comments that “developments in Iraq are not a good […]

Renowned climate change proponent, environmental “guru” and prominent leader of the green movement James Lovelock “has admitted to being ‘alarmist’ about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too”, reports MSNBC.Lovelock was once on the radical fringe of climate scientists, writing dire predictions like “before this century is over billions of us will […]

Red plastic cups on college campuses may evoke images of wild frat parties. But at Virginia Tech they are being put to much better use: to help revolutionize the teaching of mathematics. Gone are professors and chalkboards. In their place is a giant computer lab—known as the Math Emporium—which is open 24 hours a day […]

On April 6, 2012, Religion News Service carried a story originally reported in the Dallas Morning News. Judge Martin Hoffman, of the Dallas district court, dismissed a lawsuit brought by Mikey Weinstein against Gordon Klingenstein. Weinstein, a former Air Force lawyer, is an avowed atheist and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which opposes […]

Over at the estimable (but paywall protected) Financial Times, the admirable Gideon Rachman has a good column on the meaning of the French election for France and for Europe. Every serious investor and every serious student of international relations should take a look, because Gideon makes a persuasive case that whoever wins the French election […]

North Korea may have humiliated itself with its last missile test, but it still leads the world in the production of over-the-top political vituperation. Analysts have been looking for Pyongyang to overcompensate for the missile flop, so a statement issued by the North Korean military lashing out at its southern neighbor does not come as […]

The close relationship between America and Israel is one of the strongest and most famous in the world. Yet, like any relationship, it is not without its sore points, of which perhaps one of the most sensitive is the case of Jonathan Pollard, an Israeli spy convicted of passing thousands of classified U.S. documents along […]