Every serious study of U.S. infrastructure has reached the same conclusion: More investment is needed -- and fast. But with Sen. Jeff Bingaman's amendment to the highway reauthorization bill, the Senate effectively penalizes states for using innovative infrastructure financing.

Is India a weak link in what used to be called the global war on terror?

With hindsight, perhaps Cameron’s decision to intervene militarily in Libya to prevent a humanitarian disaster and remove Muammar Gaddafi’s regime should not have been a surprise to anyone.

The governments in Russia and China very much want to uphold the principle that every now and then the state must crush people who want freedom. That is why they worked together to veto a fairly toothless United Nations resolution condemning the regime in Syria and calling for President Bashar Assad, the lipless murderer who runs the place, to step down.

What do the endlessly repeating cycle of futile Eurozone rescue talks and the endlessly repeating cycle of futile annual UN climate summits have in common? Put more plainly, what accounts for the unreality of both efforts, such that "breakthrough" agreements are soon recognized to be ineffective, if not fraudulent?

Because of massive, sustained budget deficits by several eurozone countries, some could default on their sovereign debt obligations, or the euro itself might disintegrate, profoundly affecting the EU’s political and economic future. Very little media attention, however, is focused on a very different, but even more important, EU problem, namely its “democratic deficit.”

Exit polls from Britain's parliamentary elections indicate that there was no clear winning party, which might result in Britain having a "hung parliament" in which no party would have a majority.