The early morning news from the financial markets is even more alarming than usual.  Asian markets dove on fears of a European meltdown, the euro plunged, and European stock markets opened down as well.  US stock futures fell and the yield on ten year treasury notes was one basis point (one one hundredth of one […]

Hot religion is doing its worst in Somalia. The al Shabaab rebels – an extreme Salafi/Wahhabi sect – are doing everything they can to cripple the next generation by wrecking the schools.  Reuters reports: Somalia’s al Shabaab rebels have banned English from schools in the southern port city of Kismayu… In a statement posted on […]

A reader objected to the advice below in “Morning Thoughts“, arguing that Any advice for the average Joe? No special talent, IQ 100, makes his living with his hands and his feet. Has better qualifications than half the population of working ageHow about advice for the half who are less qualified than Joe?Those in the […]

From ABC News: Embattled Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shared a few thoughts with the world on the anniversary of 9/11: “The September 11 [attacks] were actually a planned game to provoke the human community’s sentiments and find an excuse for launching attack on Muslim regions and occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, which led to the […]

From the New York Daily News: (h/t: Instapundit) A hungry rat chomped on a straphanger’s foot as she waited for a train in a downtown subway station, transit sources said.The woman was sitting on a bench on a J train platform inside the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station about 9:30 a.m. Monday when the rodent skittered up […]

From Anderson Layman’s blog: Thoughts of particular relevance to anyone trying to master the challenges of a changing economy. “Think in terms of what knowledge you have, and constantly review what use you have made of that knowledge.  More than likely, you have talents and ideas that you have never taken advantage of.  Perhaps the […]

The attack on the Israeli embassy in Cairo yesterday was the most troubling sign yet that the Egyptian revolution could morph into something much less constructive and stable than many had hoped.The baseline analysis about the Egyptian revolution that many foreign analysts have accepted runs something like this.  The effort by President Mubarak to convert […]

Greece’s European partners demand changes that the average Greek doesn’t want to make. Greek politicians so far have tried to square the circle by making loud declarations about how determined they are — while making some changes but putting off the most painful ones.  That strategy is now running out of time; to keep the […]

The blue social model is getting too expensive and inefficient for the United States, these days. That is not true everywhere.  As the FT reports: It must be nice to be a Qatari bureaucrat. The country’s government recently gave salary and pensions raises of between 50 and 120 per cent to public sector workers – something other […]

The Palestinians are sticking to the plan, in spite of last ditch attempts by the Obama administration to stop them going for independence at the UN general assembly this month. From the Washington Post: Even if a last-minute formula for resuming peace talks were found before then, the Palestinians would go to the United Nations […]