Hope springs eternal among policy makers in Europe’s beleaguered periphery. At five minutes to midnight in Athens, and with a bank run having started in Madrid, these policy makers cling to the forlorn hope that somehow Germany is going to relent on its strong opposition to euro bonds.

Saturday’s NYT had a piece bylined by James Risen about the Ghosts of Iraq Haunting CIA in Tackling Iran. It’s a Captain Obvious story in conception.

The American economy is experiencing a crisis in long-term unemployment that has enormous human and economic costs.

U.S. military training missions are an economical way to promote security and good governance and to support our friends and allies and prepare them to tackle these problems on their own, as well as help other countries in the region. 

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to China this week for yearly strategic consultations, a daring bid for political asylum has highlighted the seething dissent beneath China’s surface stability.

We are not in a cold war with China. That is too simple a metaphor to describe the state of Sino-American relations.

There are new twists to in the ever-entertaining faux debate over the dangers of shale gas. The New York Times, which turned obscure Cornell University marine ecologist Robert Howarth into an anti-fracking rock star in its questionable spring series on shale gas, and got hammered for it by its own public editor—I‘ll take some of the credit—is finally getting on the science bandwagon.

The environment has long been the undisputed territory of the political left. Philosopher Roger Scruton agrees that the environment is the most urgent political problem of our age but argues in his new book "How to Think Seriously About the Planet" that conservatism is far better suited to tackle environmental problems than either liberalism or socialism.