Syria is looking uglier every day. Assad can’t crush the protesters, and the protesters can’t overthrow the government: a stalemate could be emerging. As the FT reports, the rebels are hunting for weapons and are getting increasingly organized. They are enjoying the growing backing from one of the oddest coalitions in years: American and West […]

Anne-Marie Slaughter, formerly the director of policy planning at the State Department, argued forcefully for international forces to intervene in Libya. Now she is suggestion a coalition be formed to bring peace to Syria. In an article titled “How to Halt the Butchery in Syria,” Slaughter has a few suggestions: The Friends of Syria, some […]

Shortly after our writing about Frank Fukuyama’s drone, President Obama signed a bill into law which will have broad-ranging consequences for the development of the domestic drone business. The New York Times summarizes the bill: Under the new law, within 90 days, the F.A.A. must allow police and first responders to fly drones under 4.4 pounds, as […]

I’m heading back to the UK tonight for some meetings and a conference.  I should be back on Sunday March 4. The Bard students are enjoying a week away from class, tempered only by the thought of the makeup classes that lie ahead. The staff at Via Meadia is working with me to make sure […]

The Postal Service death spiral continues. Delivery time is slowing, service is worsening, and postal rates keep going up. The WSJ reports that the USPS is planning cuts to more than 260 mail processing centers nationwide, which will eventually result in the loss of roughly 35,000 jobs. Oh, and it will need to charge five cents […]

A 25 foot crack recently appeared in the pavement beside what will be, when completed, the tallest building in China.  The culprit? Shanghai is gradually sinking as groundwater under the city is pumped out at an unsustainable pace and the weight of the 128 story structure, more than 2,000 feet high, seems to be stressing […]

Butcher Assad might be demonized by the UN and the West, but he still has friends like Hugo Chavez. A Venezuelan oil tanker made its second trip to the Syrian port of Baniyas since December, carrying fuel to help Assad stay in power.These are the noble ideals of Bolivarian socialism in action.  As the Great […]

Evangelical religious leaders, including Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, are pushing for “humane” immigration reform. Moved both by their reading of Biblical morality and by the presence of immigrants among their congregations (Land estimates that there are half a million Southern Baptists of Latino heritage, most of them from Mexico, and 40 percent […]

Despite staggeringly low interest rates and multiple rounds of quantitative easing, inflation so far has not put in an appearance. A new report in the Wall Street Journal suggests that this may be beginning to change. A survey of local businesses conducted by the Federal Reserve of Atlanta reveals that while most believe that short-term […]

Iran is holding a parliamentary election on March 2. The two coalitions leading in the polls, the United Front and the Stability Front, are both conservative. The Stability Front,  steadily gaining ground over the more moderate United Front in opinion polls since November, is said to be at “the extreme end of the fundamentalist camp.” Reformers […]