A Pew poll out this week shows how people in Pakistan and several Middle Eastern countries feel about democracy. In most places democracy polls pretty well — and then there is the Land of the Pure. Only 42 percent of those polled in Pakistan think democracy is a good idea, almost twenty percentage points below […]

America’s new Asia policy (pivot, rebalance, refocus, you name it) is, Via Meadia thinks, the right thing to do, but much of the country — including, alas, much of the MSM — doesn’t get how complicated and dangerous a place Asia is. For decades US press coverage and the public discourse of our national leadership […]

It turns out that Boston’s “Big Dig” construction project cost taxpayers much more than expected — and enormous bills for interest payments and mass transit are still rolling in.Hailed at its inception as an example of “smart government” and proof that “government can still get things done,” the project was originally estimated to cost $2.8 […]

California’s dysfunctional alliance between suburban greens urban machines has killed what could and should have been a boom, writes Joel Kotkin at The Daily Beast. As part of a large piece about the political danger to the Democrats that comes from fighting the transformational “brown jobs” boom, Kotkin points out that Californians are turning their […]

A Chinese naval frigate has run aground on a shoal claimed by the Philippines as the South China Sea dispute rolls along. From the Associated Press, via the Washington Post: The Philippines says a Chinese warship entered an area it claims in the South China Sea and ran aground on a shoal, as tensions continue […]

As President Obama prepares to make several campaign stops in Virginia over the weekend, the looming threat of defense budget cuts could prove to be his Achilles’ heel in this crucial swing state.Congress’ failure to reach a deficit reduction deal means that the series of automatic cuts will go into effect, despite the Obama Administration’s […]

The collapse of blue California is picking up speed. California’s largest college, which enrolls 90,000 students, faces closure within a year unless the school can essentially reinvent itself. Bad administration, wasteful personnel spending, poor organization, a lack of strategic vision and a series of budget cuts as the state of California frantically hacks at its […]

The latest in Britain’s drift away from the European Union is the UK Foreign Secretary’s announcement this week that each and every Whitehall department will be publicly “auditing” how EU regulations affect—and to some Britons, hamper—their work. The Telegraph reports: The public audit could eventually produce a “shopping list” of powers that Britain would seek […]

A UCLA study of Japan’s high-speed rail system concludes that bullet trains don’t create economic growth, undermining one of the major justifications for California’s own high-speed train system. [Jerry] Nickelsburg [the UCLA economist who led the study] examined the growth rates of cities and regions served by Japan’s system, compared to the nation’s overall rate […]

Defying the wrath of Andrew Sullivan and the might of the Foreskin Lobby, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has attacked the cockamamie Cologne court ruling that banned an essential rite of Islam and Judaism. Religious freedom and the rights of the family must be defended against the zealots of secular modernity.Merkel is of course correct. For […]