A Pakistani citizen can be arrested and indefinitely detained by the security services at any time. The rule of law does not seem to count. Perhaps thousands of Pakistanis have disappeared, but no one knows for sure. Where they are taken, what is being done to them, when they will be released, why they have […]

Campaign finance reform is dead.  Long live tax reform.The influence of “big money” on national politicians has long been a sticking point for liberal populists, and reforming our political system to “get money out of politics” has been a perennial liberal cause, uniting high minded good government types with union organizers (as long as it […]

The Syrian opposition is getting organized; good for them, but this is not news. The bigger story is where they are meeting: Istanbul. Turkey is continuing to move towards a Syrian policy based on regime change. From the Washington Post: Syrian dissidents meeting in Istanbul on Sunday announced the formation of a council uniting most […]

If you want a snapshot of the future of 20th century progressivism, look at the nation’s waterways. In the 19th and 20th centuries dams were a hallmark of progressive planning – using the resources and coordination of the government to build an infrastructure that would power industry, generate electricity, and create construction jobs. Now many […]

The recent “great recession” and the slow recovery that followed it have wreaked havoc on nearly all aspects of American life. Families have struggled to provide work, entire cities have witnessed the gutting of their economic life and local governments have been forced to oversee massive cutbacks in basic services.  The Economist reports on a […]

My review of That Used To Be Us, the new book by Tom Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, appears in this morning’s New York Times.  You can read it here.

For those of you who were out having a life this weekend, some highlights from Via Meadia’s weekend posts: If you have always wanted a fancy Italian Renaissance palazzo in Italy, this may be the chance you have been waiting for. The Italian government is selling historic real estate to help pay its debts. From […]

Badly needed wholesale change is coming to American medicine – Via Meadia has long predicted it – and the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein is also on the bandwagon. Between Robo-Doc prostate surgeons and ever-shrinking super computers, technology is changing how and who (or what) does medicine. Klein writes in the WaPo: … Most doctors right […]

Ross Douthat has a thoughtful piece in the NY Times today on the failure — so far — of the populist wing of the Republican Party to find candidates and policies that can compete at the presidential level.  He’s certainly right that figures like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Ron Paul and Herman Cain […]

The ink is hardly dry on Germany’s assent to the last bailout package, but Greece is already signalling that more money is needed — and fast.  The new and improved deficit targets set by the IMF and the European Union won’t be met, not this year and not next.  From Reuters: (Reuters) – Greece will […]