Are modern-day Solons from the GOP romancing the Muslim Brotherhood? A WSJ report on a recent senatorial trip to Egypt sure makes it look that way: Mr. McCain (R., Ariz.) and his delegation of four other senators, three of them Republicans, also hinted at warming relations between conservative American lawmakers and the Muslim Brotherhood, an […]

It’s a dichotomy South Africa has lived since the end of apartheid: The proud standard-bearer for democracy’s triumph in Sub-Saharan Africa is a state beset by chronic, debilitating corruption. The New York Times reports that in a recent audit only 3 of 39 government departments were found clean of corruption. Corruption is a particularly serious problem in […]

We hope the strain of months of watching Greece dance on the edge of a financial cliff hasn’t distracted observers from the portentous developments here in Blue-town, USA.As the NYT reports, Jefferson County, Alabama, has been on the rocks since last summer, when it declared bankruptcy rather than face the $4 billion tsunami of debt […]

Renowned climate scientist Andrew Weaver of the University of Victoria in Canada and his colleague Neil Swart have published a study in Nature [subscription required] that concludes that Canada’s oil sands are not as harmful to the environment as previously imagined. The science, once again, is not settled.“Burning the proven reserve [of Alberta’s heavy bitumen] would lead to a warming […]

For a week or so in early February religion was once again at the center of media attention (this time unrelated to the lingering issue of Mitt Romney’s Mormonism). Using powers given her by the “Obamacare” legislation, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human services, issued a regulation concerning the requirement that all employer-provided health […]

Over the past week, the climate blogosphere has been in a tizzy, first over a cache of leaked documents from the climate-skeptic Heartland Institute, then over the slow realization that at least one of these documents was probably faked. These documents, which purported to show that funding for Heartland’s climate programs were largely bankrolled by […]

The Obama Administration’s energy policy is looking more convoluted by the day. On the one hand, its controversial nixing of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have carried Canadian oil south to refineries in the United States, delighted his green base. On the other, the administration has also been behind plans to expand offshore drilling […]

A few days ago, Via Meadia wrote about the disparaging anti-Semitic (and homophobic) attacks against the main opposition candidate in the upcoming Venezuelan presidential election, Henrique Capriles Radonski (who, we noted, is actually a practicing Catholic with Jewish heritage). Since our post, Matthew Fishbane, a senior editor at Tablet, has called attention to the deep roots […]

Step aside, Dan Brown. Reality is catching up with your fiction. A series of high profile leaks has trickled out of the Vatican. The revelations, reported by the Wall Street Journal, range from the newsworthy to the bizarre: In a letter dated April 4, 2011, the archbishop [Carlo Maria Viganò] lamented “evident situations of corruption: […]

Late last week, Iran dropped hints that it is ready for talks with Western powers over its nuclear program and pending sanctions. Given the mullahs’ history, many observers (Via Meadia included), have reasons to doubt their sincerity. Today’s news justifies this skepticism. This morning, Iranian deputy chief of armed forces announced that Iran would take […]