The New York Times has a long piece on the political situation in Wisconsin this morning, and in some ways it is reasonably balanced. The reporters note, for example, that the Koch brothers own a factory in Wisconsin that is unionized and that the union and management at the factory seem to have a reasonably […]

Attacks apparently directed against Christians by radical groups claiming the mantle of Islam in Kenya and Nigeria yesterday illustrated the increasing polarization along Africa’s Christian-Muslim divide.In Nigeria, radicals attacked a university campus in Kano, a predominantly and historically Islamic city in northern Nigeria with a significant Christian minority. Approximately 15 people attending a Christian prayer […]

These are heady days in Myanmar. For decades an international pariah dependent on the largesse of China, Myanmar’s recent decision to pull away from Beijing’s embrace and begin a tentative democratization process has been lauded by the global community, both in word and in deed. The Financial Times recaps the latest developments: The UN secretary-general and […]

h/t: InstapunditA $231 million public employee pension fund has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The assets on hand cannot pay the $931 million in claims the fund faces, and the trustees plan to “restructure” their obligations under bankruptcy law. In other words, they will be cutting the benefits they pay to a level the […]

The academic publishing racket is a mess: much of what is published in it is worthless and although publishers don’t pay academics for either contributing articles or peer reviewing the work of their colleagues, publishers charge grotesque subscription fees to university libraries. They have no choice but to pay up because if university faculty can’t […]

It’s a busy day in the sprawling Mead corporate empire; I’m attending the New America Foundation board retreat for part of the day and traveling back to New York later on.  I will post as and when I can; in the meantime I hope readers will enjoy what, at least in this part of the […]

Much attention has been focused on China’s confrontational actions and attitudes in the South China Sea. Less attention is given to the internal political dynamics that shape these actions and attitudes. A report released this week by the International Crisis Group lays bare the competition between government agencies within China for influence in the South […]

The foreign minister of Spain has a metaphor to describe Europe’s situation: the Titanic. “Even the first class passengers will drown,” he says, if the ship goes down.The ship is sinking. Spain is the fourth largest economy in the eurozone, and nothing is going right for it. Bad real estate loans in a collapsing housing […]

In an interview with an AP journalist yesterday, the president of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq threatened secession—a move that could exacerbate tensions in an already fraught political scene.As Fox News reports, “What threatens the unity of Iraq is dictatorship and authoritarian rule,” Barzani said in a 45-minute interview in his sprawling office outside […]

Every year Gallup surveys Americans about their expectations for retirement. The results for 2012 are in, and they look bleak for defenders of the blue model. The expected retirement age is now 67, a considerable increase from 1996, when Americans expected to kick back and put up their feet once they hit 60. Gallup also […]