Our guest contributors this week were lighting up the place. Roger Berkowitz argued (somewhat contra the WRM take) that Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running-mate actually won’t make this election more consequential and ideas-based than previous ones, but will rather deepen the sharp partisan divide and heighten the cynicism plaguing our government: We have […]

Thomas Jefferson, writing about the furor over slavery that led to the Missouri Compromise, likened it to “a fire bell in the night” warning of grave trouble ahead for the Union. That is what the panic of northeastern Indians in cities like Bangalore and Chennai is for India: it reminds the country of the powder keg […]

As the Washington Post reports this morning, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the funeral for a slain Russian policeman in the southern city of Rostov on the Don. Seven people were killed and at least twelve badly injured.According to reports in Russia, the slain policeman had been killed in the troubled Russian Caucasus […]

Another straw in the wind? The Telegraph has looked at the books of RIT Capital Partners, the investment trust chaired by Lord Rothschild, and noticed that it is shorting the euro to the tune of £128 million—up sharply from its position earlier this year. Sources close to RIT suggested that the position was not a dogmatic […]

Back in April at Popular Mechanics, Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit lamented what he saw as the tendency of today’s science fiction authors to write depressing, dystopian stories instead of the grand exploration epics of old. To look at this another way, Glenn wrote, you’ll notice that many smart young people these days are putting their […]

Early yesterday morning, about 150 Japanese nationalists set sail for the disputed Senkaku island chain that has caused such friction between China and Japan over the past few days. The Straits Times: The 20 vessels left the south-western Japanese island of Ishigaki at 8.30pm (7.30pm Singapore time), an AFP journalist on board one of the […]

Something positive happened in Asia this week; China’s premier Wen Jiabao has urged North Korea to embrace “market mechanisms” and to turn to such aids as foreign investment to revitalize its catastrophic neo-Stalinist economic model. At the same time, while reiterating China’s support for its difficult neighbor and client, President Hu Jintao also met with […]

Despite repeated American claims that Hezbollah is assisting Butcher Assad in Syria and preparing attacks abroad, the EU continues its refusal to mark the Lebanese group down as a terrorist organization. To defend their position, EU officials claim that because Hezbollah’s is a political party in addition to a militant group, it should not be […]

Itamar Rabinovich, former Ambassador of Israel to the United States and member of the American Interest‘s editorial board, is incredibly knowledgable and insightful on Middle Eastern history and politics. He recently wrote an astute article on the strategically important Sinai which is well worth your time. A key passage to keep in mind as you digest […]

WRM has written the lead piece in the latest issue of The American Interest, which broadly deals with the subject of race and class in America. Drawing on themes that regular readers of Via Meadia will recognize, the essay traces the long arc race relations have traveled since the founding of the country to today—four years […]