The battle lines are drawn in Nigeria: the government’s security services just executed “dozens” of youths in a northern town known as Boko Haram’s stronghold. The BBC reports: Dozens of young men have been shot dead in Nigeria by the military in Maiduguri, residents in the north-eastern city have told the BBC. . .Malam Aji […]

For years, one of the main conceits of the American left has been that that it is a stalwart defender of tolerance against a bigoted and intolerant right wing. But the constant attacks on Mormonism in liberal papers, to name only one such prejudice, have made it abundantly clear that left-wing bigotry and intolerance are far more […]

New York has rarely needed strong leadership more than it does now; unfortunately, our Mayor keeps shrinking.What would the world have thought of Mayor Nagin if he’d diverted resources from Katrina relief efforts to holding a Mardi Gras parade? Mayor Bloomberg may be about to find out. As the NYT reports, the Mayor has vowed to go […]

The jobs report is out; 171,000 jobs were created in October and the unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent, and the last two job totals were revised upward. The two political camps will do what they do best and spin like a windmill; if we could hook campaign surrogates to generators we’d have alternative energy […]

Earlier this week Secretary Clinton announced that the United States will continue its efforts to help Syrian opposition forces to form a unified leadership.Clinton withdrew U.S. support for the beleaguered Syrian National Council, the opposition group often criticized for having weak links to the groups fighting inside Syria. The NYT has the story: “We’ve made it […]

Don’t anybody tell Tom Friedman, but educated Chinese are leaving the Middle Kingdom in droves. As the New York Times reports, 508,000 people left China for the 34 countries in the OECD in 2010 (the last year with complete data): Individual countries report the trend continuing. In 2011, the United States received 87,000 permanent residents from China, […]

The health care of the future is coming faster than you think. Plans to use implanted microchips to monitor medical information have shown promise, as have experiments using 3-D printers to quickly and cheaply manufacture drugs from the home.And new advances are happening all the time. The Wall Street Journal reports that scientists at the Genomes […]

The New York Times reports that eight of the eleven governorships up for grabs this year are currently held by Democrats, leaving Republicans with an opportunity to improve on their 29–20 advantage. Republicans are leading in five of these races, with toss-ups in Washington and New Hampshire. If Republicans win these contests, the GOP would hold […]

WSJ: Opium cultivation in Southeast Asia’s main poppy-growing countries has more than doubled over the past six years driven largely by rising heroin demand in China and despite recent efforts by regional governments to eradicate the crop, the United Nations’ narcotics office said in a report released Wednesday. . . .The number of opiate users […]

First, one of Argentina’s navy training ships was seized in Africa after the Argentinian government refused to pay an investor in full. Then, last week, a U.S. federal court ruled that Argentina couldn’t continue stiffing bondholders. Now, Argentina’s sovereign credit rating is plummeting deep into junk territory. The WSJ reports: Mr. [Hernan] Lorenzino [Argentina’s Economy Minister] said […]