The French Ministry of Culture has released a letter co-signed by 14 European culture ministers stating that television and audiovisual production must be excluded from any EU-US free trade talks. Here’s an excerpt from French cultural minister Aurélie Filippetti’s passionate cri de coeur on behalf of European culture: While the [European] union and its member states have […]

The story of the amateur-seeming American spy caught by Russian agents in Moscow continues to bewilder the media today. Why, for example, was the American “spy,” identified as Ryan C. Fogle, outfitted with a map, compass, two ill-fitting wigs, dark sunglasses, and an old-model Nokia phone? These are decidedly un-21st-century spy tools.Nevertheless the incident, for all […]

The media have been full these days with news about the seemingly inexorable victories (at least in America and Europe) of the sexual liberation movements that began over fifty years ago. Same-sex marriage is being legislated in a lengthening list of American states and European nations. The ruling coalition in Germany is threatened with dissolution […]

The good news is that the Congressional Budget Office is forecasting that deficits will shrink drastically next year and continue to do so for the two years following. The government will add $642 billion to the debt in 2013, $560 billion in 2014, and $378 in 2015. The bad news is that they also see […]

After a full and fair trial, abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell was convicted this week on three counts of first-degree murder in the killing of three babies whose necks he “snipped,” as well as involuntary manslaughter in the death of patient Karnamaya Mongar. Gosnell, who performed hundreds of gruesome and macabre abortions out of his Women’s […]

Following its ballyhooed success as host of the 2010 International Conference on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been selected to chair this month’s UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament. The 65-member forum, previously chaired by such arms control leaders as North Korea, “is charged with negotiating international regulations for biological and chemical weapons, […]

Yes, you’re reading that graph right. Texas—oil hungry, SUV-driving, fracking-friendly Texas—reduced its carbon emissions more than the usual green suspects of California, Germany, and Europe. The Energy Information Administration released a report yesterday full of emissions data for the fifty states over the first decade of this century. The state with the biggest absolute emissions […]

There are a lot of people in the Obama administration right now who think that T.S. Eliot got it wrong in “The Waste Land.” May, not April, is the cruelest month for an increasingly embattled White House.The trouble began late last week when reports began to surface that a rogue Internal Revenue Service office in Cincinnati targeted […]

The Burma-China pipeline project has hit a snag just a few months before completion, Burmese officials report. Because the pipeline crosses territory where the state is battling armed independence armies, the pipeline won’t become operational for some time.The delay highlights the importance of the Strait of Malacca for energy-hungry Asian countries. The sheer amount of oil that […]

Young men will be the biggest losers in the transition to Obamacare, according to a new report by the actuarial and consulting firm Milliman. The report estimates that males as a whole will see an 11 percent increase in insurance premiums, while females as a whole will see a nine percent decrease. Men under 40 will face insurance hikes […]