Outside the Beltway

A new patent granted to Apple raises once again the question of how far patent protections should extend.

President Obama’s surprise announcement Friday that all U.S. forces would leave Iraq in time to be home for the holidays has been roundly condemned. While there are real concerns about what happens next, there was no better alternative.

Everyone’s talking about jobs again. And it’s not a pretty picture.

With the advantage of hindsight, it’s clear that more creative strategies were needed. But they probably couldn’t have been passed.

It’s time to start being concerned about Europe.

A major backer of Republican and Libertarian causes is under fire.

Not every 10th anniversary of a horrible surprise attack has been treated the same.

A mustachioed German has once again sent the world into panic. This time, it involves euros not tanks.

If you haven’t experienced the joys of peddling around Germany with 15 of your closest friends while enjoying several liters of Munich’s finest, you’re too late.

Madison went to Philadelphia wanting to increase the power of the central government over the states (quite a bit, in fact).

The US came a lot closer to something resembling a parliamentary system than most people think.

That a popular two-term governor of Utah is being rejected by likely Republican primary voters as insufficiently conservative shows just how extreme American politics has gotten.

After months of fits and starts, it appears anti-Gaddafi forces are on the verge of victory.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta gave the strongest signal ever that there will be some U.S. military presence in Iraq after December 31st.

Not only is the US outspending all our allies and competitors combined in real dollars on defense, we’re doing so in terms of GDP as well.

Examining the impact of current events requires stepping back from them just a little bit.

Dan Drezner believes those worrying that we’re seeing the global meltdown of 2008 repeat itself are kidding themselves.

Lost in the hubbub of S&P downgrading the US bond rating is news that the Italian government has the ratings agencies under criminal investigation.

Upon further review, S&P’s downgrade of the United States bond rating . . . still makes no sense.

Like the rest of us, financial analysts across the globe are trying to figure out what the U.S. debt downgrade means.

So, it happened………

A European anti-Muslim blogger observes, ‘It is clear that Anders Behring Breivik is one of us.'”

A legendary American soldier, General John Shalikashvili, has died.

To save the world economy and themselves Germany and China must change course.

One of the GOP’s staunchest media allies isn’t too impressed with their Balanced Budget Amendment.

For the first time since the end of World War II, the GOP is wrestling with two diametrically opposed visions of foreign affairs.

Contrary to what Senator McCain, seeking realism in military policy does not make one an isolationist.

The Netherlands is considering a new animal cruelty law that would effectively ban kosher and halal slaughter practices.

My latest piece for The Atlantic, “Is the U.S.-European Relationship Really in Decline?” is posted.

Despite what appear to be the fond hope of European central bankers that it will just all go away, something needs to be done. But what?

Business Week’s cover story examines the coming implosion of the US Postal Service as we know it.

Thousands of pedestrians are killed in America each year. Are we doing enough about it?

Business Week has a fascinating profile of Dietrich Mateschitz, whom they dub “Red Bull’s Billionaire Maniac.”

The free world rallied around the United States after the 9/11 attacks–but not all back the killing of the man who ordered it.

Yes, please secure your home networks. But also: perhaps the police need to reevaluate their tactics.

While elite schools confer many advantages on their graduates, they also wall them off from normal people and create an entitled, out-of-touch elite.