Fidel Castro is fading away as nature achieves what 50 years of American policy did not. The FT reports: Mr Castro of late had become a mere shadow in the background who had been neither seen nor heard from for months, leading to the latest spate of death rumours and his retort: get used to […]

Three states form the base of Democratic political power in the United States: California, New York and Illinois. All three states are locked in an accelerating economic, demographic and social decline; all three hope that they can stave off looming disaster at home by exporting the policies that have ruined them to the rest of […]

Yesterday I looked at how the third debate offers President Obama his best hope for a knockout victory in this series of one-on-one match ups that has riveted much of the country over the last few weeks. But Governor Romney also has an opportunity here too, and while foreign policy has helped the President more […]

The third debate could be The One for President Obama. A strong, confident performance could give him his most successful night since the debates began and leave him poised for a strong finish in a close race.  But it comes at a difficult time; President Obama would have had a much easier time winning a […]

In a scandal that rocked Wall Street, prominent businessman Rajat Gupta was convicted in June on charges related to insider trading. Over a period of years, Gupta leaked information to Raj Rajaratnum, who illegally used it to make investments. Before his crimes were discovered, Gupta had served as the head of McKinsey, the famous consulting […]

Some disappointed Romney partisans are angry that Hillary seems to be trying to save Obama’s bacon. That’s a simplistic misreading of a complicated story. The head of a cabinet department should take responsibility when something under their field of operations goes wrong. Remember Rumsfeld and Abu Ghraib? He didn’t give the orders, but something terrible […]

History is so long and so many events have occurred that Via Meadia rarely takes note of particular anniversaries. But October 14 is different. The Battle of Hastings was fought on this day back in 1066. King Harold of England, fresh from defeating a Viking invasion in the north, marched through the heart of England […]

Co-AI online blogger Francis Fukuyama has been hitting some out of the park lately. In a recent post he opened an important question: how do we measure bureaucratic performance?Americans love to complain about bureaucracy and rightfully so, but hating on the DMV lady isn’t the same thing as trying to figure out how government bureaucracies […]

Move over, UNICEF. Make some room, Pugwash Conference, United Nations and IPCC. American Friends Service Committee, Doctors Without Borders, and International Committee of the Red Cross, you have a new colleague. The European Union is joining the ranks of organizations awarded the world’s most sententious and self-regarding accolade, the Nobel Peace Prize.After a period in […]

Greg Scoblete at RCW takes us to task for advocating arming a faction among the Syrian militia as an advisable course of action. This is a common lament, both among pro-interventionist Western commentators and among Syrian rebel forces themselves. But how true is it? Let’s presume the U.S. arms the rebels – but only the […]