Lawmakers must be hoping voters are lost in a corn maze somewhere and can’t figure out what Congress is doing with their money.  That’s the only explanation for the slick double cross that a bipartisan group of integrity-challenged senators are trying to pull.  The NYT nails this disturbing story: It seems a rare act of […]

Aaron Friedberg – formerly of the Bush administration, now Asia-Pacific adviser for Romney – wants Americans to get their heads back into the Asian Great Game. From his WaPo interview: I have been concerned for over a decade that the United States government, and the country as a whole, have not been sufficiently focused on […]

According to a leaked European Commission report on the future of energy in Europe, the slow switch to greener sources of energy is going to push the cost of electricity through the roof. The FT has the story: Average electricity prices for households and businesses would rise “strongly up to 2020-2030” under all scenarios, the […]

Will Homs be the epicenter of a coming Syrian civil war? The city’s diverse communities are on different sides of the political conflict. A Syrian expat details Homs’ social and ethnic history, and what it means for the near future. Plus: The Economist notes with trepidation the signs that point to a coming Syrian civil […]

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230 years ago Lord Cornwallis’ representatives handed his sword to the French and American commanders outside the British fortifications at Yorktown, Virginia.  It would take two more years for negotiations to result in a treaty, but with the surrender of the largest British armies in the colonies, the War of American Independence was decided on […]

India and Pakistan are closing in on a historic trade deal – one that would open cross-border commerce and connectivity not seen since the end of British rule in 1947. As the FT reports: India and Pakistan have agreed to a target of raising bilateral trade to $6bn within three years…Mrs [Hina Rabbani] Khar [Pakistan’s […]

An article in the Washington Post draws a surprising lesson from the Solyndra scandal: Texas-style deregulation is what will turn this country green.  Stranger still, the wildly western Texas energy market is more… European than the markets in other states.  Writes Sunil Sharan of Sierra Consulting: Currently, only 15 states in the U.S., as well […]

Iran’s nuclear program is struggling: First it was the Stuxnet computer virus and now it’s inadequate machinery. The Washington Post has the story: Although Iran continues to stockpile enriched uranium in defiance of U.N. resolutions, two new reports portray the country’s nuclear program as riddled with problems as scientists struggle to keep older equipment working.At […]

The outlook for young lawyers keeps getting worse.  Those six-figure starting salaries for first year associates doing glorified office work could soon be a thing of the past. From the Wall Street Journal: Law firms often treat the first two years of an attorney’s career as a sort of apprenticeship, albeit a well-paid one: the […]