As summits go, it wasn’t too bad. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Vladivostok resulted in no agreements about maritime territorial disputes in Asia, no progress on what to do about Syria, and only a few swipes at the EU from Putin. But at least the talks didn’t make any problems worse.The Chinese president and […]

At Via Meadia, we’ve been closely following the burgeoning energy revolution in shale gas and oil. Owing to the fact of ongoing research in extraction methods finally coming to fruition, the U.S. was already headed toward full energy independence, with profound implications for both its foreign and domestic policies.It turns out that this was only […]

“The East is Red”, Mao used to say. We’re not sure this is what he had in mind. The Daily Mail has the best collection of photos on this phenomenon on the internet right now.The Mail goes on to report that it’s not the first time something like this has happened in China: Last December, the […]

Pension reform is possible, folks. Even by Democrats. Even in Rhode Island.Fred Hiatt devoted his WaPo column yesterday to a quick profile of Gina Raimondo, the Rhode Island state treasurer who is proving that even Democratic politicians—from deep-blue states no less—can touch the third rail of politics and live: How did Raimondo do it?In her […]

Germany’s obsession with austerity is endangering the euro and Europe, says George Soros. Germany must either get with the program or abandon ship: “Lead or leave: this is a legitimate decision for Germany to make,” the billionaire financier and philanthropist said in an interview with the Financial Times. “Either throw in your fate with the […]

The biggest story domestically was the Democratic National Convention. Last week we argued that conventions are increasingly irrelevant, and the falloff in viewership of this week’s spectacle suggests many Americans agree. This week we argued that closely following the horserace is a fine enough past-time, if the political junkie understands that that’s all it is: […]

The blue social model is eating its young with the active help of President Obama’s Department of Education. More specifically, two generations of student debtors are being hounded and harassed by President Obama’s hired debt collectors because a bad federal program and a dysfunctional higher ed machine (with an assist in many cases from poor […]

Last week, we closed comments on Via Meadia. However, we don’t want this to be the end of a productive back-and-forth with our readers. We encourage you to write us with comments or criticism, and we’ll run the best of them on the site.In response to our quick take on the technologies available today which […]

An update in the contentious Koran-burning saga in Pakistan: the accused Christian teenage girl, who reportedly has Downs Syndrome, has been granted bail. This follows the arrest of the Muslim cleric who tried to frame her by planting Koran-pages near some burnt paper. The New York Times has more on this story, which is indicative of the […]

The BBC reports: Iraq’s fugitive vice-president Tariq al-Hashemi has been sentenced to death in absentia after a court found him guilty of running death squads.Politically motivated or not, the case sparked an emergency in Baghdad: Hashemi was the most senior Sunni Muslim in the predominantly Shia Iraqi government until he was charged last December and […]