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"Modernity, which centrally entails a weakening of family and clan ties, is a precondition of economic progress." Judge Richard Posner discusses economic development in poor countries.
As Texas investigates anti-trust claims made against Google, The Wall Street Journal reports on a widening trend of government hostility toward the Internet giant.
"Incarceration in America is a failure by almost any measure. But what if the prisons could be turned inside out, with convicts released into society under constant electronic surveillance?"
"America’s 'combat mission' in Iraq may be over, but the combat is not." The New Yorker on the lives, strategy and moral clarity that has been lost during the occupation of Iraq.
"It is Europe, not the United States, where the West and Islam exist in closest daily proximity." The CSM reports that skepticism of Islam may be greater in Europe than in the U.S.
"Americans have more to fear from the folly of establishments than from the paranoia such follies summon up." Ross Douthat says our over-the-top politics represent symbolic protest.
"Class struggle is an unfashionable term in modern America, but with millions jobless or impoverished, it's relevant as ever." The Guardian's Clancy Sigal on class difference in America.
"Climate change could reduce key harvests in China by a fifth if the gloomiest scenarios prove true, according to a study on Wednesday." Scientists say China is warming at a fast pace.
"France's ongoing deportation of [Romanian gypsies] has been making headlines around the globe. But Gitans—as they are known in France—have been living in the country for centuries."
The unspoken history of China: "Between 1959 and 1962, at least forty-three million Chinese died. Most died of hunger, over two million were executed or were beaten or tortured to death."
"We can’t afford to forget now that the single biggest legacy of the Iraq war at home was to codify the illusion that Americans can have it all at no cost," says Frank Rich at The New York Times.
"Those who argue we should decriminalise the trade in narcotics are blind to the catastrophic consequences," says Antonio Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
The director of the National Institute of Health is a Christian who supports accelerating embryonic stem-cell research. The New Yorker profiles the man who draws fire from all sides.
"Mexican drug lords exist to feed the U.S. drug market. And they get their guns through the U.S. weapons market." The CSM says the U.S. bears the brunt of moral responsibility.
"In recent months some rich-world economies (notably Germany’s) have basked in the sunshine even as the clouds gathered over America." Not all strong economies are equal.
"Not every great metropolis is going to make a comeback. Planners consider some radical ways to embrace decline." What will become of cities like Detroit and Cleveland?
"No matter what the critics say, oil revenue and foreign investment will guide Iraq to prosperity." Ian Bremmer on what will become of Iraq once American troops leave.
"The Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh explains in his new book how a Buddhist approach could benefit ecology." The Guardian's environmental blog explains the Buddhist's take on nature.
"There is no room in the universe of Hawking or most other scientists for the activist God of the Bible." Philosopher Julian Baggini charts the evolution of Western religion's deity.
Given a visual illusion with two interpretations, like the duck and the rabbit, our brain will switch between meanings. The phenomenon is an important evolutionary mechanism, say neurologists.