It looks as if the Islamic Republic has learned something from the Great Satan after all. Washed up second string politicians in America get sent to trivial foreign destinations and events. President Ahmadinejad is on the outs with the Supreme Leader and so while Iran takes big decisions at home about nuclear reactors and the […]

After some initial fallout, in an interview in the New York Times senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Essam el-Erian, states that the Brotherhood has reached a deal with the Army on the timetable for a transfer of power after elections. Noticeably absent from the interview was mention of Egypt’s liberals, whose poor election results […]

Is global warming our best friend? And could Fallen Angels, the dystopian novel about the consequences of a new Ice Age by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn be more science than fiction?That’s the inference from a study on climate variation being covered by the BBC this morning.  According to the Beeb (not normally […]

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan told a church audience today that the country’s current crisis is worse than the Biafran secession crisis that plunged Nigeria into a bitter civil war in the last century.He warned his audience that Boko Haram, the pseudo-Islamic fanatical sect that believes all modern knowledge should be banned, has sympathizers within the […]

As CNN Money reports, Blacks are not benefiting from the mild jobs recovery now underway, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employment for African American women actually declined in 2011, while overall, African Americans lost more jobs and gained fewer new ones than the general population.The reason is something Via Meadia has been writing […]

The latest news from Argentina reveals that the Yanquis are even more cunning and ruthless than Venezuela’s Grand Bolivarian Leaderissimo suspected.Readers will remember that late last year Hugo Chavez called the US out on its clever plot to decimate the Latin leftie leadership by giving cancer to Latin American leaders who stood up for their […]

A commentary by Yu Zhixiao on the state-run Xinhuanet.com gives some insight into China’s reaction to the newly assertive US posture in the Pacific.As regular readers of this blog know, last fall saw the US roll out one move after another in a grand Pacific strategy aimed at deterring China from seeking regional hegemony.  The […]

With shale gas and “fracking” shaping up to be the hot environmental issue of the year, the airwaves have been awash with a breathtaking number of scientific reports claiming either to link the practice to any number of environmental catastrophes or absolve it of responsibility for any of them. In the New York Times‘ Dot […]

To usher in the new year, Via Meadia posted ten useful tips on How to get Smart in 2012, and one more in The Most Useful Hangover Cure of All. We rounded out the week with the last five installments of the traditional Yule Blog.Middle Eastern tensions dominated the news this week, especially in Iran. […]

Via Meadia has reported extensively the past few days about the deteriorating situation in Iran. The government has been racked by economic problems, escalating sanctions and its unpopularity with its own citizens. This is bad news for Iranians, but it may be worse news for Iraq, which is still adjusting to last month’s withdrawal of […]