On Tuesday Via Meadia reported that the Coursera program for online education has just expanded its offerings. Along with programs like MIT’s EdX and Stanford’s Udacity, Coursera offers lectures from professors presented in video format, supplemented by online coursework and reading materials. Other institutions are looking to offer hybrid coursework, in which online classes are supplemented […]

The financial crisis and weak economy has caused many families to make choices they would never have considered a decade ago, such as renting out spare rooms in their homes. Unfortunately, as the Wall Street Journal reports, many families have attempted this only to find that it is illegal. In years past, cities and counties across the […]

Over at Wired’s Danger Room, Spencer Ackerman reports on a new State Department anti-terror initiative: In the decade since 9/11, the U.S. government has used a wide variety of tactics against terrorists. It’s invaded countries where they operated (and ones where they didn’t). It’s tried to win the backing of foreign populations in which the […]

Reason and humility prevailed today in Germany, where the country’s parliament passed a resolution in support of circumcision, in a rebuke to the regional court which ruled the ancient Jewish and Muslim religious practice an “assault.” Haaretz reports: Germany’s parliament passed a resolution Thursday endorsing the right of Muslim and Jewish parents to have sons […]

The FT reports: Prices for UN-backed carbon credits sank to a record low in morning trading on Wednesday after doubts emerged about European Commission plans to prop up the bloc’s ailing emissions trading market.Benchmark prices for certified emission reduction credits fell as much as 12.9 per cent from the previous day to a record low […]

China may get the lion’s share of attention from the American media, but the implications for U.S. policymakers stemming from the rise of India are equally profound. After years of dynamic growth the Indian economy has slowed, which has led to calls by renowned Indian analysts for the country to be more welcoming to foreign […]

As Assad creeps ever-closer to the edge, the Obama administration is making contingency plans should the Syrian regime fall. The NY Times lists some of the concerns keeping American policy makers awake at night: A huge worry, administration officials said, is that in desperation Mr. Assad would use chemical weapons to try to quell the uprising.[…]The […]

A few months ago, Via Meadia did a piece on the poor quality and low readership of the material that fills up university presses. Perhaps someone at the University of Missouri was reading this, as the New York Times reports that the university has just announced that it is closing its university press after losing […]

Get ready for an American century: that appears to be the main consequence of the energy revolution that is now causing economic and political experts to tear up their old forecasts all over the world. The new American century won’t be a repeat of the last one, but in some very important ways the world […]

The worst part about the recent shocking video from Afghanistan—of a woman brutally murdered by the Taliban for a trumped-up adultery charge—is that it depicts not only the gruesome present but also a potential future. Some argue that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014 will result in civil war, while others envision muddled yet […]