China has detained an expert on Sino-Japanese relations, Zhu Jianrong, a professor at a Japanese university near Tokyo, on what could turn out to be allegations of espionage. The move has worried expatriate academics in both China and Japan, as well as ratcheting up Sino-Japanese tensions at an already difficult time. The New York Times: The […]

Not long ago I had a conversation with the dean of a mainline Protestant divinity school. I asked him what his students are like these days. He said that there are three main groups: white women—most of them feminists and/or GLBT activists—African-Americans and Koreans, most in both groups being fundamentalists. He laughed and said that […]

Yesterday’s press carried the results of a Pew poll on “identity” issues among American Jews. The New York Times entitled its page A11 take, written by Laurie Goodstein, “Poll Shows Major Shift In Identity of U.S. Jews”—read it for yourself to get the full flavor of the story.Now, those who have made their way through […]

The people most skeptical of climate change may be doing more to avert it than the doomsayers who typically champion the issue. Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus describe this paradox of climate politics for the Breakthrough Institute: [T]he energy technologies favored by the climate-skeptical Right are doing far more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than the ones favored […]

In final speech in parliament before his term runs out, Turkish President Abdullah Gul struck a remarkably sensible and statesmanlike tone, seemingly gesturing toward a future in Turkish politics for himself. The Financial Times: In a possible reference to criticism that the prime minister has become more authoritarian and has muzzled the media, Mr Gul said: “The separation […]

The CEO of Germany’s largest utilty, E.ON, has some stark warnings for European policymakers regarding the continent’s energy policy. While American industry enjoys outrageously cheap natural gas (thank you, shale), energy prices in Europe are rising. In today’s globalized world, businesses are willing and able to pick up and move across the Atlantic to take […]

Usually when you hire an analyst to help invest your money you want to look for a sharp investor with a good record of success. Pension funds, however, don’t seem quite so discerning. A new report from NYT‘s Dealbook found that of the 94 percent of pension funds that hire outside investors to aid in making investment […]

Today is the first day of the rest of Obamacare’s life: the online marketplaces have launched nationwide, and, theoretically, the uninsured should now be able to shop for coverage. Now what?The most obvious thing to note is that though the exchanges have “launched,” many aren’t yet fully functional. We can continue to expect similar glitches, […]

America has just reached an ignominious milestone: ten percent of recent college grads with outstanding loans have defaulted on their debt—the highest figure in nearly two decades.The two-year default rate, which measures the number of defaults for students who have been in repayment for less than two years, has risen steadily throughout the recession. The Department […]

Sanity and balance are hard to come by in the Obamacare debate, but Megan McArdle has just delivered both in a recent post, “11 Pieces of Obamacare Conventional Wisdom That Shouldn’t Be So Conventional.”McArdle is no fan of Obamacare—she’s outlined some of her problems with it here, and proposed an alternative here—so many of her eleven […]