The tradition of arranged marriage is a very old system, but the pressures of modern life are forcing India’s urban elite to rely on professional marriage brokers. For the brokers, business is truly booming. The Hindustan Times reports: As family sizes shrink and divorce rates skyrocket, family members and friends are apprehensive of  making introductions […]

Vietnam and Indonesia may be the future, but China is content being the present.  At least that’s the tone of the Canton trade fair, according to the FT: The massive trade gathering—which is so large it is held twice a year in three phrases—is at the front line of leading indicators on China’s export prospects. […]

World War Two gave us Spam.  The space program gave us Tang.  Today’s Pentagon is preparing a new treat for the American palate: caffeinated meat.   According the the WaPo, caffeinated meat is the latest military technology from the lab that invented Kevlar.Napoleon said that an army travels on its belly, and supply has always been […]

The more one sees of the Republican field, the more it seems clear that President Obama’s biggest problems do not come from his domestic opponents.  The more voters, even Republican voters, learn about the candidates jostling for the party’s nod, the less they like them. The more the President’s opponents campaign, the stronger the White […]

The Greek government, staggering under what may be its terminal political crisis, stunned the country and infuriated the opposition by making sudden and sweeping changes to the military leadership.  From the Athens Times: In a surprise move, on Tuesday evening the defence minister replaced the country’s top brass. An extraordinary meeting of the Government Council […]

Via Meadia normally passes over the sports world in silence, but is making an exception for a story from Yahoo Sports.  The story relates how two teen age rowers demonstrated real sportsmanship and humanity by choosing to help two competitors whose boat capsized in 45 degree water in the Schuylkill River.  After helping their rivals […]

The number 7 billion is getting a lot of attention this year, with the world’s population estimated to hit that milestone sometime this week.  Of course, for the makers of Spam 7 billion is old news; the 7 billionth can of Spam was sold back in 2007.There is the usual hand wringing from the usual […]

On her recent trip to Pakistan, Secretary Clinton announced a change in Washington’s recent hard stance against Islamabad. She called the revamped approach “Fight, Talk, Build” and said “We want to fight, talk and build all at the same time.”It’s not clear what the strategy is here. Not long ago we were threatening Pakistan and […]

Other than that charity which divine commandment mandates that we extend to all our fellow human beings, Via Meadia has no special love for Butcher, sorry, Bashar Assad, but distaste has not blinded us to the strategic reality: the Syrian government has found a winning strategy in its fight against domestic opposition.  It has found […]

Megan McArdle has a wonderfully meaty post at the Atlantic on the complicated class and status issues that are increasingly reverberating in American politics today.  At this point, the noisiest divide isn’t between the working class and the plutocrats; it’s between the upper-upper middle class and the lower-upper middle class.  The bankers and the successful […]