It’s been more than 10 months since California Governor Jerry Brown unveiled a plan to tackle the state’s growing pension crisis, but the legislature hasn’t been feeling any particular urgency. They’ve only now begun to talk with the Governor about ways to make the bill more palatable. Many expect something to be passed before the […]

Older readers will remember a 1969 song by Edwin Starr. “War,” he sings, “what is it good for?” The answer, repeated through the song, is “Absolutely nothing.” (Watch Jackie Chan sing it here.)If you asked the same thing about a modern political convention, the answer would be pretty much the same: Absolutely nothing, or close […]

As we’ve been predicting here at Via Meadia, the gimmickery and fancy accounting in Argentina are ensuring yet another round of frustration and pain for one of the most underperforming countries in the world.The bizarrely paranoid government persists in threatening anyone who publishes independent inflation estimates with criminal prosecution — a sure sign, of course, […]

With WRM on his way back from a three week trip all across India, Via Meadia’s pinch-hitters were keeping the blog going. Adam Garfinkle’s long essay analyzing the Kurdish question is very much worth spending some time with. The takeaway: In other words, KRG independence could well be just the beginning of a very messy […]

Chennai is one of those Indian cities that has confused the world by changing its name; for centuries it was known as Madras. It was the oldest center of British power in India; with a presence dating from the 1630s the British presence there was part of the same colonial expansion that settled the eastern […]

One more bloodbath, one more mass grave in Syria: it is becoming routine. The New York Times reports on the latest atrocity in a suburb of Damascus: The [local human rights] group said its activists found one mass body dump after another. They posted two videos showing what they said were different groups of victims; […]

As violent protests rolled across China earlier this week over a Japanese provocation at the disputed Senkaku islands, a casual observer might be tempted to conclude that the nationalism inside a rising China is some kind of implacable, rabid force which could tear the region apart. And while nationalism certainly exists—and shouldn’t be trifled with—a […]

Is something worse than Katrina headed toward New Orleans?A highly regarded hurricane model now projects that Isaac will make landfall on a worst-case trajectory for New Orleans as a borderline Category 3/Category 4 storm about 60 hours from now.The leading hurricane forecast models look increasingly ominous. Over the last 12 hours there has been a […]

One of the stranger experiences when you travel in another country on a speaking tour is that sometimes articles about your visit or your lectures appear in the local press. You’ll be sitting peacefully in the breakfast room of a hotel far, far away, reading incomprehensible stories about people whose names you can’t recognize, trying […]

Gallup reports that smoking is down to historic lows, down 2% from last year, and tied with 2009 at the lowest rate since 1944. The best part? The most profound change is among young people: Since the start of the 2000s, smoking has fallen nine percentage points among 18- to 29-year-olds — from 34% in […]