A new spate of cyber-attacks have been rocking Iran this month. As with most things cyberwar-related, it’s difficult to know exactly what’s going on. AllThingsD has a pretty good rundown of what is clear so far: The ongoing cyber war in Iran appears to have taken another turn in recent days as the state media […]

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party was catapulted by large poll margins into a majority coalition government earlier this month, and parliament elected Shinzo Abe, the LDP’s leader, as Prime Minister. Mr. Abe has now appointed his new cabinet, and he has ambitious hopes for his government: Mr Abe, who was also PM in 2006-07, chose another former premier, […]

When it rans, it pours. According to the Wall Street Journal, Hurricane Sandy had lingering effects on Christmas shopping this season: The annual holiday shop-a-thon drew to a muted close for many retailers, according to preliminary data, reflecting what some experts said was the slowest growth in spending since the 2008 recession. […]This year, “it’s […]

It is not quite the most controversial verse in the Bible, but Luke 1:35 comes close. Mary has just replied to the angel Gabriel’s statement that she will be the mother of the Messiah with a question of her own: “How shall this be,” she says in the words of the King James Version, “seeing […]

In a letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson once made a distinction between “natural aristocracy,” people who, by “virtue and talents” make good leaders, and the “artificial aristocracy,” “founded on wealth and birth” which is a “mischievous ingredient in government.” The Founding Father would undoubtedly share Via Meadia’s happiness over the recent announcement that Ted Kennedy, […]

California is again doing what it does best: proposing 20th-century, blue model solutions to 21st-century problems. Starting January 1, companies across the state will be forced to pay for their carbon emissions through a “groundbreaking” cap and trade market: The rules are relatively simple for producers like Morning Star. At the end of 2014, they must present […]

Cold weather in the past few days has sadly gone from severe to deadly. While unusually high snowfall has disrupted the travel plans of millions of Americans, freezing temperatures have taken the lives of hundreds of people from Central Europe to South Asia. The BBC reports that in Poland, 49 people have died; in Ukraine, […]

Paul Krugman says in this Guardian piece that he “grew up wanting to be Hari Seldon, using my understanding of the mathematics of human behaviour to save civilisation.” For those of you who have read one or more of the books in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, this makes a lot of sense. For those who […]

Still needed on Libya: A comprehensive congressional policy review. The Benghazi attack didn’t just represent some operational security problems, as the latest statements from the State Department would have you believe. The NYT reports: “We have to do better,” said Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns. [ . . . ]State Department officials promised […]

As NASA explores the Martian landscape with robots and plans a second series of picnics on the Moon, a handful of companies are working toward the goal of turning a profit by mining the asteroids. The idea is of course as old as science fiction, but this NY Times piece on Planetary Resources shows us […]