The two essays for this week centered on the Middle East. The first pondered what the geopolitical realities might be if Israel’s promise as a significant energy exporter panned out. In a nutshell, it might mean more deference from other important powers (see: the recent visit to Israel by Vladimir Putin), less of an international […]

Anyone trying to figure out where Islam will go theologically in the next few decades needs to read Peter Berger’s recent post on historical scholarship and the Koran. The same kind of scholarly studies that forced many Christians and Jews to re-evaluate their understandings of the historical origins of their sacred texts are now moving, […]

The NY Times ran a story this week on a new trend in the way companies communicate with their customers over the phone: they don’t. Or at least a lot of tech companies don’t. That trend is fine by me; I’d much rather deal with a company on a website than be routed through endless […]

In steps that point to Saudi Arabia’s concerns about Pakistan’s unsustainable national course, its fears of Iran and its renewed interest in its security relationship with the United States, the Washington Post reports that Saudi Arabia is stepping up its cooperation with Indian authorities on the sensitive question of Pakistani or Indian nationals suspected of […]

A must read piece by the renowned Indian analyst Sumit Ganguly in Foreign Policy takes on, point by point, the conventional wisdom on India and subjects it to scrutiny. The article raises exactly the kinds of questions that Americans and Indians need to be thinking through, from whether India’s stellar growth is a fait accompli, […]

Can some of the world’s most prominent people, entrusted with great decisions of state and supported by teams of well educated professional aides be bamboozled for years by an eccentric poseur?Believe it: Felix Krull takes Washington by storm, befriends elites, and poses as a key figure in Iraqi-American diplomacy. Then he murders his wife and […]

For years, American greens have looked with envy at the situation across the pond. If only we were nice and green like Europe! If only we had higher energy taxes and a cap and trade law!But Europe’s green policies, though expensive, have a way of coming up short in the results department. More evidence appeared […]

Tiny drones are going to invade your privacy and rock your world a lot sooner than you think. Watch this Lockheed Martin video for an early look at the new age of drones.Once you get over the sheer inventiveness of the people behind these things—from the engineering which brilliantly mimics nature’s best designs, to the […]

Though countries like Greece and Spain dominate coverage of the euro mess, Europe’s real crisis is much wore widespread and the effects are much more worrying than the headlines might lead you to think.A lot of the damage is happening in countries that aren’t in the euro, but whose economic and political journeys toward democratic […]

A wonderful appreciation of the British orator, parliamentarian and essayist Edmund Burke appears in The American Scholar this summer, written by Brian Doyle. Read the whole thing is our advice. One (of many) highlights in the essay: Doyle tells us what Burke read.It’s a paragraph any aspiring writer, reader and orator should study: read like […]