Senior government officials including President Obama have already become infected with this euphoria, as have top Wall Street investors - which means it will have a powerful and longlasting, though largely pernicious effect on US energy policy, industrial development, and foreign relations.
Who engineered the Congressional shutdown that imperilled the world economy? Meredith Tax looks at an alliance of three groups: big oilmen, Southern oligarchs, and Christian fundamentalists.
What is going on in the United States? Why the first government shutdown in nearly two decades? Kay Dilday sits down with Colin Greer to trace the origins of the current crisis.
Mexico officially recognises 68 native languages, although some of these are spoken by fewer than 100 people and seem destined to disappear along with the culture and customs to which they gave expression. From openDemocracy.
Those who would help from the outside must rely on dialogue, contact and diplomacy, which means Russia, Iran and Assad himself all being involved, like it or not.
New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina provides one of the most disturbing portraits and dystopian preludes of what the militarisation of climate change looks like. There is a hidden story here.
A US-Iranian rapprochement over Iran's nuclear programme could improve general US-Iranian relations, leading to the lifting of Iran's painful sanctions. Could this in turn encourage improved relations between the countries of the GCC and Iran?
