This week’s big story was at the Vatican. Our take on the Conclave’s canny choice: It appears that, among other qualities, he is a compromise between those still nostalgic for the long Italian stranglehold on the papacy (Pope John Paul II was the first non-Italian Bishop of Rome since 1523) and those who want a […]

Negotiations begin tomorrow for a UN treaty that would track global arms sales and shipments aimed at stopping the flow of weapons into conflict zones. The NRA’s lobbyists have been working overtime recently to oppose domestic gun control legislation, but they are preparing to open up an international front to oppose this treaty. Though the […]

The NYT ran a curious little eulogy for the ethanol industry in yesterday’s paper. Last year’s persistent drought and an overall decline in gas consumption have forced nearly ten percent of the nation’s ethanol plants to close. Here’s the gist of their story: Backed by government subsidies and mandates, hundreds of ethanol plants rose among […]

Thomas Friedman’s column this weekend, on his frustration with the political system for keeping carbon taxes off the table, ends with a nice mention of AI editor Adam Garfinkle’s latest ebook, Broken: American Political Dysfunction And What To Do About It. Why is any kind of meaningful reform difficult, asks Friedman? First, because our democracy today […]

Despite all the big talk in the Kremlin about revived Russian demographics, the reality seems clear: Russia’s Slavic, Orthodox population is shrinking, and its Muslim populations are growing rapidly. This demographic change is unsettling everywhere, nowhere perhaps more so than in and around the Caucasus where historically Islamic ethnic groups from the mountains are gradually […]

Bank runs in Europe? The EU made them a little bit more likely this weekend, and as Cypriots stampede for the shrinking number of ATMs still handing out cash on the island, Italians, Greeks and Spaniards are also beginning to wonder if, with interest rates effectively at zero and confused politicians running Europe’s bank systems, […]

This spring, if everything goes according to plan, Pakistan’s government will reach a remarkable milestone. Led by the Pakistan People’s Party, which is horribly corrupt and deeply unpopular, the government will become the first civilian administration to pass the reins of government to another civilian administration in Pakistan’s history.That is, if the army can be kept in […]

Greens need to put away their counterproductive symbolic politics, and focus instead on developing realistic alternatives to fossil fuel. So argues Bjørn Lomborg in a recent piece on Project Syndicate. Lomborg is a Danish academic and renegade environmentalist who has been a thorn in the side of the green movement for a long time. His book The Skeptical Environmentalist raised the […]

Cheap, clean water may soon be available for the whole planet. According to Reuters, defense contractor Lockheed Martin has developed a filter that will hugely reduce the amount of energy necessary to turn sea water into fresh water. The filter, which is five hundred times thinner then others currently available, lets water pass through but blocks all […]

A national implosion is coming, one which will take down the American public school system in its current form. So argues Glenn Reynolds, a well known law professor and the creator of the blog Instapundit, in his new book The K-12 Implosion. That the lower education system has problems is no secret, but for those who […]