Greens are often and even usually wrong about some important policy issues but they are right about one big thing: we’ve got only one planet to live on and we ought to cherish and conserve it.  As a reminder of the fragile and precious creation that shelters and nurtures us, this 1-minute NASA time-lapse video […]

A full eleven days after Andrew Sullivan warned readers again about the “Christianist” menace, the unstoppable Christian hordes seem to have, well, stopped.The latest evidence that the teeming throngs of zealous Puritans aren’t going to establish a Cromwellian commonwealth that crushes freedom and empowers dour church elders to monitor the private lives of Americans comes […]

American public education has hit a new low: concerned parents are being arrested for stealing free public education through zoning fraud. From the WSJ: In the last year, parents in Connecticut, Kentucky and Missouri have all been arrested—and await sentencing—for enrolling their children in better public schools outside of their districts. These arrests represent two […]

Via Meadia blog-sibling Religion and Other Curiosities by Peter Berger (one of the world’s greatest living sociologists) has a terrific post on German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’ recently discovered respect for Judeo-Christian religion.  The intellectual leader of the modern European center-left has come to acknowledge late in his life that Biblical, Judeo-Christian religion is a vital […]

Petitioning officials is an ancient Chinese right, now being updated for a brave new world. Officials in China’s Guangdong province are making complaining as easy as one click away. According to the FT, citizens of four cities can now lodge complaints online to virtual officials (as opposed to sending a letter of last resort to […]

Those of you who have always wanted a top grade Venetian palazzo on a main canal need to act fast; the Palazzo Molin on the Guidecca canal is on the auction block. For $15 to $20 million, this 16th century palazzo (the marble facade, alas, dates only from the 18th) could be yours. (H/t: FT)Italy’s […]

[Tommy Meyerson is one of the capable interns who keeps the traffic moving on Via Meadia.  As one of WRM’s students at Yale he found the transition to working on the blog easy; we are losing him this month to the USMC.  Their gain, our loss.  From time to time interns and other Team Mead […]

As the Energy Department hustled to get another $4.7 billion in loan guarantees for green tech companies out the door before time ran out and the program ended last week, yet another solar panel manufacturer was wilting in the sun, and the green jobs scam was looking more threadbare than ever. Says the WSJ: Solar-power […]

Recent demonstrations around the globe are taking aim at a new target: democracy. From Israel to India to Spain to Wall Street, protests rooted in economic issues carry underlying anti-democratic elements as well. From the New York Times: Their complaints range from corruption to lack of affordable housing and joblessness, common grievances the world over. […]

The Financial Times today appears extremely concerned today about the state of the Chinese housing market, running two stories with sobering news about the industry’s prospects. Many are beginning to see warning signs that a crash in China’s “housing bubble” may be imminent — housing prices now appear to be falling after years of dramatic […]