Did you know that beer was an alcoholic substance and not a “food product”? That’s what Moscow has just declared in its latest bid to curb alcohol use in one of the planet’s tipsiest countries. The status change means that beer will no longer be allowed to be sold in street kiosks and will only […]

Despite miracle cures at the hands of everyone from Jesus to Fidel Castro’s vaunted Cuban medical complex to Afro-Caribbean priests and spiritual healers, Hugo Chavez appears to be in danger of imminent death. Nothing is certain about his condition as his health is being treated as a state secret, but more and more signs point to the probability […]

The Washington press corps has been whipping itself into a frenzy on the president’s nomination of Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense. With Hagel joining John Kerry, it’s an old white men, establishment team that President Obama is taking into his second term. But many are looking at the Hagel pick as a sign that […]

As the Yule Blogging wound down this week, our two non-Christmas essays focused on prospects for an Israeli-Palestinian peace and on the real deficit we’re facing as a nation.In the former, we argued that if Obama wanted to achieve some sort of breakthrough in the peace process, he would have to focus his energies on […]

Starting in 2008, California implemented several Medicaid cuts aimed at putting the system on a more sustainable footing. In a particularly controversial move, the state proposed to reduce Medicaid payments to doctors and other health care professionals by 10%, and the health sector has been fighting it ever since. Recently CA’s 9th circuit court of […]

By 2050, the global population is predicted to hit 9 billion people, and demand for agricultural crops is expected to double. Could catastrophe be looming as population growth finally outstrips our ability to feed all these new mouths? A study published in Nature last month is adding grist to the alarmist mill (read excerpts on […]

As 2013 gets underway, many of us are now back at work, or back to searching for work, having spent the previous week with family and friends. No doubt many around the country suffered delays, traffic, and disruptive weather along the way. Via Meadia knows that few things in life are as frustrating as delays, lines, and […]

From the FT, reporting on the consequences of the fall in the Egyptian currency: At a central Cairo produce market, vendors have increased prices for green beans by 33 per cent, tomatoes by 50 per cent and zucchini and bananas by 100 per cent. Imported coffee prices have risen more than 20 per cent. The […]

Thanks to a leak from an anonymous insider, we learned Thursday that a report commissioned by the State of New York has given fracking a clean bill of health. The insider “did not think it should be kept secret” and released the document, which is now nearly one year old, to the New York Times, […]

It’s long been conventional wisdom in the media and the chattering classes that average Americans reject realism, the approach to foreign policy that prioritizes the power games nations play to protect their interests in a world without a global government. But according to a paper by Daniel Drezner, Americans are more realist than people think: Americans […]