The ghastly, shocking news from Norway has stunned the whole world.  Empathy for the young victims and their families, horror at the cold blooded and deliberate evil behind this act, and fearful wonder at the depths of madness it reveals are all joined together.  We Godbotherers will be bothering God about this, asking for his […]

Long after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia remains a land where grand plans are often announced but the follow up is lacking.When Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently announced a goal of reducing the number of smokers in the Russian Federation by 10 to 15 percent before 2050, he chose a target the Russians […]

Junk securities were bad enough; Goldman Sachs also favored the world with junk concepts during the last ten years.  The idea of BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as emerging economic giants soon to dominate the world launched a thousand columns and 36 million Google hits the last time I checked.The Mead take: Russia isn’t […]

The rebel advance stalls in the mountains. The Great Loon can now stay in Libya, according to a rebel commander and the French government. NATO strikes a few  targets. Ramadan approaches.The joys of bush league Wilsonian war in the age of hope and change.A whole lot of nothing, says David Rieff in The New Republic. […]

The Independent reports that only 5,940 students have opted to take what the Brits call a “gap year” before entering college, as opposed to the 15,701 students who deferred for the 2010-2011 school year. Why the change?  The government plans to hike UK tuition from £3,000 to £9,000 per year in 2012 and students want […]

Newsweek and the Daily Beast released a poll of Egyptian voters today. A quick look reveals a few noteworthy findings:– 70 percent of  responders want to amend or cancel the Camp David accords with Israel.– Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets significantly higher approval than Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah.– Only 35% of those polled think a Muslim Brotherhood […]

For those keeping score, a pattern is beginning to emerge in the cultural tastes of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Mr. Wen has recently revealed an affinity for both Adam Smith and Shakespeare.To some degree, the Chinese leader is no doubt trying to make a political point — he is careful to contrast his interest in Western […]

A draft law being considered by the Saudi government proposes tight new restrictions and harsh penalties on civil dissent. The law is serious: a minimum of ten years in prison for criticizing the King. “Endangering…national unity”, “halting the basic law or some of its articles”, or “harming the reputation of the state or its position” become terrorist […]

Andrew Sullivan refers us to a paragraph by Pranab Bardan.  The graph gets development NGO’s right:  they don’t and can’t truly represent the poor.  The problems are huge.  NGOs are unelected, they are accountable to their funding sources (who are generally based in the advanced democracies) and as Bardan points out they lack the political […]

In case you missed it over the weekend, the latest Via Meadia essay is up. You can find it here.