I’ve arrived in London for a week of conferences and lectures. I’ll be speaking at King’s College, London and giving other talks at Chatham House, Oxford and Cambridge. Later in the week it’s off to Belfast for another round of lectures; if any of these are available on video we’ll post links. Don’t expect live […]

Hillary Clinton jumped on the sword for the Obama administration over the Benghazi attack, but as WRM wrote in an essay, she failed to save Obama from himself: Just as George W. Bush couldn’t dodge responsibility for the decision to go to war in Iraq on the basis of nukes that never showed up, President […]

Via Meadia has been keeping a close eye on Golden Dawn, the far-right Greek political party that won its first ever seats in Parliament this year and has been growing more popular by the day. A weekend article at the Washington Post talks about why many Greeks are starting to love and rely on Golden Dawn, […]

At Via Meadia, we’re frequently writing about how the decision to invade Libya has had severe repercussions for some of its neighbors. But it’s not like Libya itself is in great shape. Armed militias still operate largely unchallenged by the weak central government, as became painfully obvious with the death of Ambassador Stevens and three […]

Since the beginning of Syria’s civil war last year, observers from around the world have been wringing their hands about the violence and loss of life in the country, where over 30,000 have already died as a result of the conflict. Now it looks like Assad may have been paying attention, as he has just […]

In an interesting experiment that’s certain to ruffle some feathers among left-leaning reformers, the ruling Conservative Party is set to announce a program of incentives to help improve the efficiency of UK’s private prisons: Owners of private prisons who fail to stop prisoners re-offending will be fined, under new plans to be announced by David […]

The third debate could be The One for President Obama. A strong, confident performance could give him his most successful night since the debates began and leave him poised for a strong finish in a close race.  But it comes at a difficult time; President Obama would have had a much easier time winning a […]

Regular Via Meadia readers are well versed in the ups and downs of the public pension crisis unfolding across the country. Having promised future retirees generous plans, state pension funds are proving to be woefully underfunded, having made overoptimistic assumptions of future growth before the financial crisis hit.Most people immediately jump to discussing what kinds of […]

On Friday, we remarked on the outrageous story that online education startup Coursera was being banned in Minnesota on the grounds that it hadn’t registered with the state government. We weren’t the only ones beating that drum. In response to the massive Internet backlash, Minnesota has clarified that the law does not apply to free online ed like […]

A set of new anti-Semitic Turkish textbooks is raising the alarm that some among the ruling Islamists are taking the country in a dangerous new direction. The Financial Times has the story: A book on Albert Einstein describes the physicist as “filthy and slovenly”. Immediately after saying that he ate soap, it adds: “The sad part […]