Adumbration

The situation of US-Iran foreign relations has fallen from the top levels of the daily news, so maybe there is opportunity to shed a little light of historical perspective on the subject. ... it is ironic, tragic, and an unfortunately familiar story of the backfiring of US Middle East policy - fomenting and initiating conflict that (surprise!) leads to more conflict. more »

I'm willing to give it 60 years before once more going to war in the Middle East. more »

twenty five years of bailouts can't be wrong.    oh, wait, maybe the can be after all. more »

The prospects of space travel include the chance of going out in a blaze of exploding rocket fuel - a scenario in the news recently with the loss of three more GLONASS satellites that were sitting atop a Proton rocket at Baikonur Cosmodrome more »

The crew at Planet Money can get so close sometimes, I feel like I could just tap them into a broader assessment of some of the issues raised by their stories, and a greater appreciation for the laissez faire perspective of classical liberalism. more »

It is striking how such hubris grows in the politically powerful, imagining that they can spend a few hours in a region that has suffered from conflict for decades, and come out with a clear notion on how and where and who to support in the civil conflict in Syria. more »

... we live in a historically unique period of peaceability. It is not the first time I've been exposed to this sort of analysis ... more »

Roosevelt's Secret War, The Tycoons, Shattered Sword more »

There are other factors affecting the economy surrounding health care, but the main thing is the same as in every other part of the economy - people make their economic decisions on the basis of cost and benefit, and obscuring the cost side of that balance distorts the result. more »

... in the fervor surrounding the French revolution they introduced such changes [to clocks] at the same time as arriving at the length for the original meter and mass of the original gram, and the grad measure of angles more »