Via Meadia has studiously avoided delving into the partisan fever swamp during this election season. Instead, we’ve taken the road less traveled, focusing on real trends, ideas, and analysis rather than media-manufactured “debates” over the ethics of dog-eating or trumped-up claims of a war on women. Mona Eltahawy’s searing Foreign Policy essay on the real […]

In an important new piece at Fox News, James Pinkerton asks a provocative question: what if neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are able to build a sustainable majority? Over the past decade, power has swung wildly from the Republicans to the Democrats and back again with alarming speed. The only constant seems to be […]

If you have ever wondered how people who take money from evil dictators rationalize their behavior and deceive themselves about what they are doing, you should go read a recent Atlantic article by Jacqueline Frazier describing her experiences with one of the Great Loon’s sons, Saadi Qaddafi.Frazier helped out on one of Saadi’s projects—a free-trade […]

Over the past few weeks, a swathe of Asian countries has been test-firing new intercontinental missiles across Asia  in an attempt to gain an upper hand in the Game of Thrones, but in many ways economic growth will have a bigger impact than missile tests, or even military developments in general, on social stability across […]

North America’s shale gas boom is chipping away at the market for gas producers like Russia. What’s more, if the United States becomes a gas exporter, Russia’s customers (especially in Europe) could decide to cancel expensive contracts with Gazprom in favor of cheaper American natural gas.Here’s the story from the FT: “If the US starts […]

In one of the most memorable stories from the Book of Genesis, Pharaoh had a dream in which seven fat cows were swallowed by seven lean ones. Pharaoh and his men were puzzled until Joseph offered his interpretation: The fat cows represented seven years of prosperity, which would then be swallowed by seven lean years […]

With the general election heating up, Obama is on the campaign trail this week. Perhaps he heard the news that his popularity is dwindling among the young, as his tour is making stops at large colleges in swing states. And on this college tour, the president delivered a message calculated to resonate with young voters: […]

Total student loan debt in America recently exceeded $1 trillion and is now higher than credit card debt. It’s a mind-boggling figure, and one which has led some economists and commentators to claim it’s simply the latest financial bubble waiting to burst. Others editorialize about what all that debt says about the state of higher […]

[Via Meadia‘s man in Istanbul provides the blog with updates from Turkish and regional newspapers. Notably, this week saw Turkish officials grow closer to the Iraqi Kurdish government, causing Baghdad displeasure.]The Turkish press gave roundly positive coverage to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for his recent comments that “developments in Iraq are not a good […]

Renowned climate change proponent, environmental “guru” and prominent leader of the green movement James Lovelock “has admitted to being ‘alarmist’ about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too”, reports MSNBC.Lovelock was once on the radical fringe of climate scientists, writing dire predictions like “before this century is over billions of us will […]