Is New York City cruising for a bruising? Greg David of Crain’s New York Business reports that NYC’s debt has doubled during Michael Bloomberg’s decade-long tenure as Mayor. Recession-based spending increases did play a major role, but they cannot bear all the blame: reckless spending by the city government exacerbated the problem, and things are expected to get even […]

The French initially said it would only take weeks to eliminate the jihadist threat in North Africa; British Prime Minister David Cameron said this weekend that the West faces a “large and existential threat” from jihadis that could last a lot longer: “This is a global threat and it will require a global response. . . […]

The fiscal cliff bill didn’t just raise taxes; it showered half a billion dollars on a canny Big Pharma company that knows its way around Capitol Hill. A provision in the newly-passed fiscal cliff bill allows pharmaceutical giant Amgen to sell one of its pills (Sensipar) for two more years without having to negotiate a fair […]

The Economist has embraced the Via Meadia perspective on the futility of a global climate treaty. Once a believer in the global approach, it appears to have given up: Each round of intergovernmental talks on cutting emissions and compensating victims seems to achieve less than the one before. [ . . . ][A new] study reveals […]

“A decade of war is now ending,” President Obama proclaimed today in his second inaugural address. Meanwhile in North Africa, a U.S.-assisted French surge in Mali continued into its second week. It’s not unusual for the President to be tight-lipped on the wars the U.S. is fighting, but as he moves into his second term […]

A remarkable photo taken just before dawn in Tehran on Sunday is making its way around the web. In it, a 23-year old man sentenced to death for armed robbery lays his head on the shoulder of his executioner; the hangman, masked and covered in black, embraces the condemned with his arm. The stirring scene comes […]

Florida’s Supreme Court just dealt a major blow to public sector unions, upholding a law requiring public employees to pay three percent of their salaries toward their pensions. The law, an effort by Governor Rick Scott to get the state’s pension costs in line, has wended its way through the state’s court system, being struck […]

France is angry that Uncle Sugar won’t pick up the Mali bill. After decades of defense cuts and penny pinching, the French cannot support their North Africa ambitions without a lot of help from the US. But the US isn’t willing to sign on automatically to fund whatever campaign France has in mind. The WSJ: […]

Boris Johnson, the often-controversial mayor of London, muses in the Telegraph about the unusually heavy snow swirling down on London these days, and whether the weather means the sun is cooling and an ice age is coming: I remember snow that used to come and settle for just long enough for a single decent snowball fight […]

David Sanger of the New York Times has written a thoughtful analysis of what the Obama administration has and has not accomplished in its first term, and what it plans to accomplish in the second in U.S. foreign policy. Short description of accomplishments in the first term: not much. Short description of hopes and plans […]