Good news: the federal budget deficit has entered a period of rapid decline as the economy slowly recovers, the cost of overseas wars falls, and the sequester bites. For 2013, we’re looking at a projected deficit of $759 billion, or 4.7 percent of GDP. The FT: Throughout Barack Obama’s first term in office, the recession and […]

It’s easy to get carried away by the optimistic rhetoric that has accompanied the US shale boom. The oil and gas windfall has dramatically changed the global energy landscape and significantly brightened America’s energy future, creating jobs, boosting industry, lowering US emissions, and lessening our dependence on foreign oil.But one thing it hasn’t done is […]

A couple news agencies released leaked copies today of the Abbottabad Commission Report, the Pakistani government’s investigation into the May 2 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound. The report is scathing. It slams the Pakistani government on two fronts: for allowing an international fugitive to hide, ostensibly without anyone knowing, in Pakistani territory for nine years, […]

That is the picture of a traditional college student? Most of us imagine an 18–21 year old, living on a campus far from home. But recent data compiled by the Wall Street Journal shows that that’s far from the case: First of all, more than 40% of all undergraduates in the 2011-2012 school year were […]

America’s public schools are educating students for a world that no longer exists.  A case in point is the Perkins Act, which funds vocational training in schools—a reasonable project, except that the training is far outdated. Stan Litow, a VP at IBM, writes in USNews:  [The Act funds] education programs that look a lot like what […]

The Chinese tend to be leery of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and the deputy general secretary of a provincial soybean association in China recently stoked their fears. Conflating correlation with causation, Wang Xiaoyu noted that Chinese regions with high GMO consumption also had relatively high rates of cancer, concluding that GMOs make people “more vulnerable […]

A number of law school applicants are getting offers that sound too good to be true. Growing increasingly desperate for highly qualified students, Washington University School of Law has begun offering applicants a free ride via full tuition scholarships, as long as they respond within 24 hours of receiving the offer.On the surface, this sounds like a […]

The Washington Post is following the lead of the NYT’s bleak new take on the White House’s Middle East policy. As Libya seethes, Egypt crashes, and Syria burns, fewer and fewer of the President’s erstwhile disciples in the media understand his administration’s continuing fixation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The WaPo editorial board writes: The intense focus of Secretary of […]

Tragedy struck in the idyllic town of Lac Megantic, Quebec this weekend. A 73-car oil-laden train derailed and exploded early Saturday. Five people died, and the crash site is still too hot—more than 50 hours later—to look for 40 missing people.The implications of the accident extend much further than the small border town: crashes like […]

On Saturday, Islamist militants killed at least 29 students and one teacher in a state in northeast Nigeria. The terrorists set fire to a dormitory, burning many students alive, and shot survivors who attempted to escape.Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden,” has been blamed for the horrific attack. Presumably the goal in […]