The Rijksmuseum is reopening in Amsterdam after a ten-year restoration. This is a must-see museum that should be on everyone’s lifetime to-do list, and it sounds as if those of us who have been there already need to go back and see what they’ve done. The Financial Times reports: What has been done with the museum is […]

Writing for the Washington Post’s Wonkblog, Brad Plumer has a nice round-up of the costs and benefits of automating cars. After going through the litany of advantages, including higher efficiencies and roads more friendly to bikers and walkers, he brings up this criticism: More and more people will drive. Think about all the people who are not allowed […]

The Great Hugo has taken on a mystical religious aura in death. His followers are claiming fantastic things, including the claim that Chavez advised Jesus Christ in heaven that it was time for a Latin American pope. Chavez’ followers are not explaining why El Commandante recommended a conservative Argentine rather than a liberation theologian for […]

Escalating anti-Muslim violence in Burma is leading to the disappearance of hundreds of people. Reuters reports: The Muslims of Sit Kwin were always a small group who numbered no more than 100 of the village’s 2,000 people. But as sectarian violence led by Buddhist mobs spreads across central Burma, they and many other Muslims are disappearing.Their […]

America’s mainline Protestant seminaries are in crisis, but so far they seem to be spending more energy dodging tough choices than preparing for the future. A recent article at Inside Higher Ed describes the enrollment collapse at Luther Seminary in St. Paul. Luther is one of the most important Lutheran seminaries in the country, but its […]

With Francois Hollande’s government languishing in the polls, former French President Nicholas Sarkozy is facing a dilemma. Should he capitalize on Hollande’s struggles and prepare for a comeback in politics, or should he go into private enterprise to make his millions? A Financial Times report suggests that Sarkozy stands to make millions by leveraging his […]

Michigan’s unions are not taking their election defeats lying down. After their state—formerly the heart of union power in America—passed a right-to-work law last year, unions have been fighting tooth and nail to stop the law from going into effect. Earlier this month, a number of public unions signed long-term contracts with their employers, locking […]

US healthcare is even more expensive than we realized, and we have the graphs to prove it. Below are just three of many graphs comparing the costs of healthcare in various countries. They come from the annual survey of the International Federation of Health Plans via Ezra Klein’s Wonkblog.One typical reaction to these graphs is to argue that we […]

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, America’s largest public  pension fund, has truly outdone itself. In a characteristically Californian combination of poor financial management and green energy failure, Calpers has lost millions in green energy investments that saw an annualized return of negative 9.7 percent, according to the Washington Free Beacon. In light of these […]

Pope Francis scandalized some traditionalists by including two women (one Muslim, one Christian) in the group of inmates whose feet he washed at a juvenile detention facility in Rome.The foot-washing ritual is one of the oldest services in Christianity. In the time of Christ, slaves were supposed to wash the feet of their masters’ guests: […]