After billions of dollars in investment and years of construction, the Burma-China gas pipeline is finally open. The pipeline connects Kunming in southwestern China to the Burmese port of Kyaukphyu on the Indian Ocean. It will soon be transporting 12 billion cubic meters of gas (about 6 percent of China’s consumption)—all without going anywhere near the congested […]

It’s not often we find good news about pensions or about new types of government regulation. Here’s a story that has both: New York Superintendent of Financial Services Benjamin Lawsky has taken a look at Detroit and decided New York needs rigorous oversight of its public pension funds. The WSJ reports that Lawsky’s office will […]

Bradley Manning will soon find out if he will spend the rest of his life in prison. Yesterday he was convicted of espionage, theft, and computer fraud, charges carrying a potential sentence of up to 136 years. A military judge cleared him of the most serious crime, aiding the enemy. The sentencing phase of his […]

The Daily Beast is out with its version of the best American cities list that fits the pattern we’ve seen in the past couple of years: America’s great legacy cities like New York and Los Angeles are being trounced by up-and-coming cities in the South and Midwest.Taking into account economic, demographic, and quality of life factors (employment […]

Japan’s finance minister, Taro Aso, was roundly denounced today after he said that Japan should take a cue from the Nazis in changing the country’s constitution. His aides say the remarks were taken out of context and that he didn’t mean to praise Nazi Germany but, well, see for yourself:“Germany’s Weimar Constitution was changed before anyone […]

Thirty-seven percent of Midwestern families decided to use a retail clinic for minor pediatric health issues rather than a primary care physician, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Time has the story: In a corresponding editorial, Dr. Edward Schor of the Lucille Packard Foundation for Children’s Health in Palo Alto, California wrote that such […]

The banner was huge. When it was unfurled by South Korean soccer fans at the East Asian Cup final on Sunday, it stretched nearly the width of the field. “There is no future for a race oblivious to history,” it read.The banner came out moments after Japanese fans at the other end of the stadium waved […]

For the third year in a row, incarceration rates are dropping nationwide amid an unprecedented shift in criminal justice policy. NYT: The number of inmates in state and federal prisons decreased by 1.7 percent, to an estimated 1,571,013 in 2012 from 1,598,783 in 2011, according to figures released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an […]

Anyone interested in the breakdown of the Fordist model of American productivity and the ideas jostling to replace it should read Adam Davidson’s piece in the New York Times Magazine, “What’s an Idea Worth?” It demonstrates something that we’ve long been observing here at Via Meadia: the industrial conception of how to organize and evaluate […]

All that EU spending to subsidize green energy hasn’t much moved the needle on green energy use, says Bjorn Lomborg in today’s FT.The EU’s climate policy is estimated to cost $250 billion per year. Germany alone has already spent $130 billion on solar subsidies, he writes. Spain spends almost 1% of its GDP on subsidizing green projects. […]