At Via Meadia we’ve been saying for some time that the world underestimates the chances that the Obama administration will go to war with Iran over its nuclear program.After Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s interview with CBS, it’s time for the world to reassess.  The administration, Secretary Panetta makes clear will not allow Iran to get […]

Amid the scramble in newsrooms and government offices around the world that followed Kim Jong-Il’s death, one important piece of news from Asia missed all the headlines.The real news in Asian politics yesterday, the kind of thing that will likely show up in the history books, was a quiet meeting announced by the State Department. […]

It turns out there is a scientific explanation for one of the great mysteries that perplex Americans everywhere: how the French can eat all that great food without getting fat.The answer, we learn from the NYT, isn’t the Mediterranean diet, the miraculous qualities of red wine or the healing effects of goose fat.  It’s drugs, […]

Life is getting unpleasant in the Kremlin these days.  Moscow is jittery over the national protests against the corruption and social failures of Putinocracy, and the fear that a new wave of democracy agitation (obviously manufactured in the State Department by the archfiend Hillary Clinton) could further inflame the Russian situation has the ex-KBG hacks […]

Ancient Mediterranean religions seem to have taught that the job of the king was to please the gods, with the divine favor assuring good crops and plenty of food.  If the crops were bad, the solution was obvious: kill the king, sprinkle his blood on the fields, pick a new and more righteous ruler, and […]

Jesus shall reign where e’er the sun Doth his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more. That’s how an old missionary hymn begins, and it turns out the missionaries were right.  In the last 100 years Christianity became the most diverse and global religion […]

Here at Via Meadia we have long argued that the internet and other new technologies offer opportunities to make education both cheaper and more rewarding for students. A recent article in the New York Times highlighted new advancements in online textbooks, noting that because the book was designed for the digital market, Students will pay […]

Europe and China have this much in common: the bad economic news just keeps getting worse.  The latest headaches for Beijing: Growing numbers of analysts fear that a combination of slumping exports and overexposed loans could spell real trouble for the increasingly vulnerable Chinese economy. First, the export problem. As Reuters reports: The first quarter […]

One thing citizens of the Democratic Republic of Korea learn to do is to follow orders and fake emotions on command.  A lifetime of staged shows, forced confessions, and ritual expressions of patriotism and undying loyalty to the Kim dynasty have prepared them for the required displays when a leader, Great or Dear, passes away.  […]

Interventions in the western hemisphere typically involve US Marines in Latin American countries, but this month has seen a different kind of intervention: Latin Americans telling Uncle Sam that he’s got to do something about his drug habit.  The Washington Post reports: Alongside official declarations, Latin American governments have expressed growing disgust for U.S. drug […]