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Google now has the megacity of Tokyo photographed at the street level. Coverage is reasonably impressive, from the end of the road a couple of hours out of Musashi Itsukaichi, itself a couple of hours from Tokyo by train, to Narita Airport, down to Enoshima, and many, many, many, many, many points in between. . .
comment posted at 10:56 PM on Aug-9-08

A chinese man killed Todd Bachman in Beijing today before jumping to his death from an ancient tower. Todd Bachman was the father-in-law of Olympic Men's Indoor Volleyball Head Coach Hugh McCutcheon, his wife is still in hospital for her injuries. Not part of the curse of the fuwas.
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Opening the Olympic Ceremony with a bow to ancient Chinese tradition, 2,008 Drummers on the traditional Fou drums.
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Scotty is spinning in his gr- the stratosphere: "Every Federation starship has a chief engineer, right? And the chief engineer's job is to keep everything running and solve problems, right? Right, but unfortunately, that's about the only thing they get right." An essay on how "Star Trek" ignored fundamental principles of engineering.
comment posted at 5:19 PM on Aug-8-08

John Edwards admits affair with campaign staffer. John Edwards did not father a love-child by Rielle Hunter, a 42 year-old campaign videographer. That was Andrew Young, a married Edwards campaign staffer. Edwards has not taken a paternity test, but he says that the timing of his own affair with Ms. Hunter rules out the possibility that he is the father.
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Reports are coming in of up to 150 armoured vehicles entering South Ossetia.
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comment posted at 7:32 PM on Aug-17-08

Misc-Olympics-Filter. Google's 2008 Olympics page (gadget can be added to your Google homepage). Former Sudanese refugee chosen as US flag bearer for opening ceremonies. And a scandal after BeijingTickets.com (now shut-down) fails to deliver tickets that they sold: BeijingTicketScam.com
comment posted at 6:28 PM on Aug-8-08

08-08-08 is not only the start of the Olympic games in China. It's also an extremely lucky date, given that the number 8 is considered fortuitous in Chinese culture, being associated with wealth and prosperity. Due to this unlikely (but very lucky) confluence of events, upwards of 9,000 Chinese couples will be getting hitched on 08-08-08. Note that not everybody agrees with the astrological implications of this particular date, but that just sounds like mumbo-jumbo to me.
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Jerry Clower (Wikipedia article) started telling his funny stories to boost sales when he was a seed and fertilizer salesman. He went on to become a successful comedian and Grand Ole Opry star.
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The music of the People's Temple. Five years before Jim Jones coerced 900 of his church members to commit suicide in Guyana, the People's Temple cut an album.
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Will Lee was born on this date in 1908, and died December 7, 1982. Nearly a year later, Big Bird was informed of his death.
comment posted at 7:50 PM on Aug-6-08

He wrote the childrens book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a travel guide called Thrilling Cities, a study of Diamond Smugglers... and created James Bond. Ian Fleming, who died of a heart attack at 56, was born a century ago this past May. He led a fascinating life. Born the son of an MP, educated at Eton and Sandhurst, he served in the Black Watch, and then in Naval Intelligence. His time in naval intelligence led to his most famous creation, and the writing of Casino Royale. An immediate best seller in the US when President Kennedy listed 1957's From Russia With Love as one of his favorite books, Fleming eventually wrote twelve novels and nine short stories featuring 007, leading to one of the most successful movies empires of all time. Fleming returned the favor, suggesting to Kennedy over a dinner ways in which the CIA could work to discredit Fidel Castro. Not only a prolific writer, Fleming was also a talented bibliophile and collector, amassing a collection of books now held by the Lilly Library at Indiana University, Bloomington.
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"I've recently been reading the whole run of I've recently been reading the whole run of Superman comics from the relaunch in 1987 through the end of 1999... There's some very wonderful stuff in there amidst a lot of frustrating and very often muddled and boring storytelling, but I will say that THIS find in particular was just stunning; Artist/writer Stuart Immonen - who is great - composed the lead story for a 1998 "Secret Files" comic - which are usually quite boring - focusing on the origin stories of Superman's 90's-era Rogues Gallery. -- What makes it more than just a flashback or recap is that Immonen told them by way of Lex Luthor telling fairy tales to his infant daughter Lena, and illustrated the origins in one- or two-page comics fashioned after Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland." ~v
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