Yields on Spanish and Italian bonds dropped sharply as the European Central Bank bought them heavily today.  That means we won’t get a total financial meltdown today.  This is good news for all of us, and not just for the many hedge fund managers and Swiss bankers working night and day to keep the vast […]

In case you missed it yesterday, the latest essay is up. You can find it here.

John Judis, who has one of the sharpest minds in American politics, has an important piece at The New Republic today.  It’s important not only for his analysis of the political despair and policy paralysis he sees at the heart of the Obama administration these days; it’s important because he is calling attention to the […]

With the downgrade of US debt and the spread of the European financial crisis to Italy, an important line has been crossed.  The global economic crisis began as a crisis of markets; it has now moved to a crisis of sovereigns.Two years ago we asked if individual firms like Lehman Brothers could manage their debts.  […]

The Syrian crisis is deepening but we seem no closer to the end.The momentum of Syrian street protests seems to have fallen off given the government’s willingness to use extraordinary levels of force.  While the security forces haven’t been able to stop dissidents from protesting, they appear for now to be effective at limiting the […]

For most of the twentieth century, writes urbanist Joel Kotkin, the city of Los Angeles was the bright and shining beacon of American optimism.  These days it’s a haunting harbinger of a much tougher future: more Blade Runner than Oz. [I]n the new century, Los Angeles has begun to fade, and it can’t blame its […]

From Mustafa Akyol, the Burke-loving Turkish Muslim who writes about the spiritual necessity of liberal ideals for serious Muslims. I call on my fellow Muslims to embrace three basic freedoms:First, “freedom from the state,” or the acceptance of secular (not secularist) governments. Yes, Prophet Muhammad happened to be the head of a state, but none […]

This fall you can take a course in artificial intelligence from Stanford and you won’t have to sell your kidney to pay the tuition, reports Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution. Stanford’s ‘Introduction to Artificial Intelligence’ course will be offered free to anyone online this fall. The course will be taught by SebastianThrun (Stanford) and PeterNorvig […]

Two books I’ve been reading recently that Via Meadia readers might like.  One is Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch, an extraordinary tour de force that offers a readable and fair minded story of the story of Christianity.  It is unusually perceptive about and sympathetic to Orthodox Christianity for a book from […]

Business Insider has a who’s who of the leaders behind yesterday’s Texas prayer rally.  A must read to see who the current evangelical political leaders are — and what they want.  Significant name not on list: Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback.  Rick seems to be sticking to his desire to, in his words, “not be […]