The decline of the USPS – one of America’s oldest and best-known institutions – is one of the most visible examples of the fall of the Blue Social Model. The financial collapse of the Postal Service has been one of the main stories of the past few weeks, generating a number of proposals to fix […]

Time has often seemed to stand still in the Middle East.  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict ground on at a glacial pace.  Kemalist Turkey, Mubarak’s Egypt, Assad’s Syria: little changed from year to year.This was a survival of the Cold War political system.  Since the French Revolution, world politics has been a combination of a roller coaster […]

The early morning news from the financial markets is even more alarming than usual.  Asian markets dove on fears of a European meltdown, the euro plunged, and European stock markets opened down as well.  US stock futures fell and the yield on ten year treasury notes was one basis point (one one hundredth of one […]

Hot religion is doing its worst in Somalia. The al Shabaab rebels – an extreme Salafi/Wahhabi sect – are doing everything they can to cripple the next generation by wrecking the schools.  Reuters reports: Somalia’s al Shabaab rebels have banned English from schools in the southern port city of Kismayu… In a statement posted on […]

On this tenth anniversary of 9/11, Via Meadia reflects on one the most painful unintended consequences of that day – the decimation of Iraq’s once significant minority religious groups. Before the invasion of Iraq – which, despite the changing rhetoric used to justify it, would not have happened without the 9/11 attacks – about 1.5 […]

A reader objected to the advice below in “Morning Thoughts“, arguing that Any advice for the average Joe? No special talent, IQ 100, makes his living with his hands and his feet. Has better qualifications than half the population of working ageHow about advice for the half who are less qualified than Joe?Those in the […]

From ABC News: Embattled Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shared a few thoughts with the world on the anniversary of 9/11: “The September 11 [attacks] were actually a planned game to provoke the human community’s sentiments and find an excuse for launching attack on Muslim regions and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, which led to the […]

From the New York Daily News: (h/t: Instapundit) A hungry rat chomped on a straphanger’s foot as she waited for a train in a downtown subway station, transit sources said.The woman was sitting on a bench on a J train platform inside the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station about 9:30 a.m. Monday when the rodent skittered up […]

From Anderson Layman’s blog: Thoughts of particular relevance to anyone trying to master the challenges of a changing economy. “Think in terms of what knowledge you have, and constantly review what use you have made of that knowledge.  More than likely, you have talents and ideas that you have never taken advantage of.  Perhaps the […]

The attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo yesterday was the most troubling sign yet that the Egyptian revolution could morph into something much less constructive and stable than many had hoped.The baseline analysis about the Egyptian revolution that many foreign analysts have accepted runs something like this.  The effort by President Mubarak to convert […]