Analysts are puzzling over the results of the Italian election. We really don’t know how to interpret the results except to acknowledge that Prime Minister Mario Monti’s policies were soundly repudiated. The Brookings Institution, a generally liberal think-tank, published an interesting essay condemning the election as an act of political irresponsibility. I strongly disagree. The Italian people essentially said that they do not wish to pay the price for the irresponsibility of their government and their banks. Perhaps austerity for those who benefited tremendously from this irresponsibility would be the correct course of action.
The world is prepping for another round of negotiations between Iran and the P5 + 1 countries (the 5 Permanent members of the UN Security Council–the US, the UK, France, Russia, and China–plus Germany). David Case and Daniel Defraia have written a great essay on what the issues are right now and how they have evolved.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization has a network of 45 listening stations all over the world that are specifically designed to pick up any seismic activity that could signal a nuclear explosion. The purpose of this network is to give confidence to the world that no state could secretly test a nuclear weapon (and the evidence is fairly clear that the network would pick up any secret test). Interestingly, this network also detected the meteor that exploded over Russia last week. If you want to listen to an exploding meteor, check out this site.
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