Another day, another California city drowning in pension debt. This time, the city is Desert Hot Springs, a small community just outside the Los Angeles area, which is now sitting on the edge of bankruptcy due to a history of unrealistic revenue estimates and generous pension promises to public workers.

From the time of General Nasser, the Egyptian military’s core competence has been crushing the Muslim Brotherhood — for 60 years its most powerful rival. Killing some leaders, imprisoning others, keeping still others on a very short leash as the representatives of a quasi-legal political movement: this is what the Egyptian army and its police allies in the interior ministry know how to do, and since Mohamed Morsi’s downfall they appear to be doing it very effectively once again.

At the same time it was reforming its pension plans for teachers, Puerto Rico was also borrowing money from its own public employee retirement funds to plug a hole in its budget. Is Puerto Rico going the way of Argentina?

The American Interest is operating on a skeleton crew this late December week as we all spend time with our families all across the country and around the world. Here’s what you might’ve missed this week if you too were spending less time online.

Wether you’re looking at figures for murder or GDP growth, if they come from the Argentinian government they’re probably false. Buenos Aires has a tradition of inflating statistics. This wouldn’t matter too much if the statistics in question weren’t so badly disguised, so habitually, by the government, or if those statistics didn’t have knock-on effects for Argentinian citizens.

Here’s another indication that law schools are in deep trouble: Law libraries are going the way of the dodo. A working paper by law professor James G. Miles claims that as law schools shrink, revenue-losing departments such as legal libraries are likely to be among the first things to go. Although he notes that the importance these libraries has long been boosted by some odd incentives in the US News and World Report rankings, the cutbacks are reaching a point where retaining them will no longer be justifiable.

France and Saudi Arabia have common interests in Lebanon and Syria, and France sees the rift between the US and its traditional Arab ally as a heaven-sent opportunity to muscle in on the lucrative arms trade and other big ticket exports to the oil rich Gulf.

California’s ‘comeback’ is still looking like so much lipstick on a pig: while the coast enjoys job growth and rising home prices and Sacramento totes billions in surplus cash, the inland districts are bearing the brunt of the costs and sinking deeper into decay.

“Anything can happen,” Thailand’s powerful army chief said demurely at a news conference in Bangkok when reporters asked him if a coup was possible. He went on to say that “we are trying to do the right thing, in a peaceful way,” but that “the door was neither open nor closed.”

It’s been an up-and-down week for public pensions. In San Jose, a judge struck down a significant piece of the city’s pension reform plan, setting the stage for a big ballot fight next year. In Puerto Rico, on the other hand, the Senate finally passed a measure to put the Teachers Pesion Fund on solid footing.