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This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to the mainland Chinese after 155 years of colonial British rule. Memories of the day are still online, showing the fear that the promised "One Country, Two Systems" policy was a trojan horse. Ten years later, the promise seems intact. Though universal suffrage seems a distant dream, religious and political freedoms are almost on par with Western standards and the economy has survived shipping its industry north. People are marking the day in different ways, while some just want to offer advice.
posted on Jun-29-07 at 11:56 AM

Mass Grave Ghosts [NY Times BugMeNot]
posted on May-20-07 at 10:44 AM

The Illustrated Guide to GOP Scandals
posted on May-14-07 at 4:16 AM

Live, From Outer Space: rural fires [1, 2], The Haze in China [1 ,2, 3] and its movement, aerosols, and the brothers carbon monoxide [a photochemical smog agent] and carbon dioxide.
posted on Apr-14-07 at 2:59 AM

Tube Wars: A new front opens as the IFPI [think global RIAA] threatens imminent legal war with ISP's.
posted on Jan-17-07 at 1:07 PM

Future Phone: Call a number in Iowa, give them the international number you want to call, talk for free - well, at American long-distance rates anyway. No headphones required.
posted on Oct-20-06 at 12:02 AM

Steven Foster is the perfect bartender. He wants to share his ontology, his reflections on what it means to be happy, bird aquariums, how to make margarita mix from scratch, solutions to the world's five most pressing problems [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or just read the summary on every page towards the bottom], and more drink recipes than you can shake a stick at. This man delivers.
posted on Oct-12-06 at 3:50 AM

American Coup D'Etat. Will the most powerful and well-funded institution on the planet remain under civilian command indefinitely? As the domestic spying saga unfolds and militarism rises, Harper's brought four experts - both academics and brass - to discuss the possibilities.

"To subdue America entirely, the only route remaining would be to seize the machinery of state itself, to steer it toward malign ends—to carry out, that is, a coup d'état."

(See also The Origins of the Military Coup of 2012 [previous])
posted on Aug-26-06 at 7:37 PM

Reflections on Psychoanalysis: 150 Years.
posted on May-8-06 at 11:51 AM

All those in favor of a mandatory web labeling law, say "ay!"
posted on Apr-22-06 at 11:23 AM

Debris. The terminus of ballistic arches. A photo-essay by Jonas Bendiksen of a different kind of space junk: Proton rocket stages peppering the Khazak countryside discarded from Baikonur Cosmodrome launches.
posted on Apr-12-06 at 1:08 PM

Bush authorized Plame leak? According to Libby, "Libby, testified in 2003 that he provided reporter Judith Miller with information from a classified National Intelligence Estimate after being told by Cheney that Bush 'specifically had authorized' him to 'disclose certain information in the NIE.'" [via Drudge]
posted on Apr-6-06 at 9:18 AM

Spam Stock Tracker Haven't you ever been just a little curious if you could "D0UB1E Y0UR |M|0|N|E|Y| EVERY WEEK!!!" like the the email said? [via NPR's Marketplace]
posted on Oct-16-05 at 11:19 AM

Sheehan arrested for... protesting. Will the ACLU please, PLEASE take this case up to the highest courts in the land. Enough with the police intimidation and ritual abuse of power.
posted on Sep-26-05 at 11:15 AM

Zoomable satellite shot of New Orleans taken Wednesday morning [via Drudge]
posted on Sep-2-05 at 2:34 PM

Evil Empire Buys Benign Annoyance Rupert Murdoch's Intermix Media is buying MySpace for half a billion dollars. I can barely conceal my excitement. Did I tell you Eliot Spitzer has already fined them for secretly installing spyware? Thanks, Tom.
posted on Jul-18-05 at 2:37 PM

RoveFilter (via Drudge): Where does it go now? The AP is now saying Bob Novak told Karl Rove about Valerie Plame, who then passed it on to other journalists. So who told Novak? Pass the popcorn, this could get interesting.
posted on Jul-14-05 at 10:29 PM

Are you a Neo-Conservative? Another well designed and researched quiz that gives results you might not expect. Even at only ten questions, it's surprisingly accurate because the density of possible responses serve to counter transparency. Consider taking some other less silly online quizzes when you're done. Try staples like the Myers-Briggs and World's Smallest Political Quiz or some Blue flashbacks like the BBC's Sex ID, Belief-O-Matic, or the Europa Dart game.
posted on Apr-20-05 at 1:17 AM

Handshakes are an important: They've signaled new eras in international relations, but this week they reaffirmed the sad realities of our time.
posted on Apr-9-05 at 9:41 PM

[TheFaceBook]: It comes in the genre of LiveJournal, MySpace, and Friendster - except with a focus on digitally connecting pre-existing friendships on college campuses rather than finding new friends worldwide. Subsequently, it has thus far avoided the stigmas I’ve seen attached to its predecessors by non-users. Its use has skyrocketed: about 15% of my campus has signed up since this past winter. All of it through word-of-mouth. One of the neat tricks it does is show a visualization of your friends on the network in a spider webbed vectored graphic connecting them based on their mutual friendships. It’s also proven very useful in tracking down those “where do I know him/her?” names through a prominently displayed list showing up to two-degrees of separation to the mystery person. Oh, and you can send text messages to cell phones through it. Did I mention it also reminds you of birthdays?
posted on Mar-19-05 at 3:54 AM

The Incentives for Silence: [login or Google required] An Army intelligence sergeant was ordered to a psychologist for voicing concerns about the safety of Iraqi prisoners. After finding nothing wrong with him, his commanding officer told the psychologist that, “I don't care what you saw or heard, he is imbalanced, and I want him out of here.”

“The next day... the soldier was evacuated from Iraq in restraints on a stretcher to a military hospital in Germany, despite having been given no official diagnosis”
[via Drudge]
posted on Mar-6-05 at 2:20 AM

Is a political solution on the horizon in Iraq? Time Magazine reports that US military commanders are negotiating with Sunni nationalist insurgents or the first time.

"There are some hints of compromise: insurgent negotiators have told their U.S. counterparts they would accept a U.N. peacekeeping force as the U.S. troop presence recedes. Insurgent representative Abu Mohammed says the nationalists would even tolerate U.S. bases on Iraqi soil. 'We don't mind if the invader becomes a guest,' he says, suggesting a situation akin to the U.S. military presence in Germany and Japan."
posted on Feb-22-05 at 1:12 PM

I knew it would be proven one day...
posted on Jan-24-05 at 10:54 PM

Music for the Kind : A half-completed tentative lineup for the fourth annual Bonnaroo Music Festival has been announced. With no advertising budget, the festival draws 90,000 fans to the pastures of Manchester, Tennessee for some of the best that live music has to offer. Smaller local festivals, like Langerado and Wanee Festival in Florida, have popped up featuring many of the same artists. Phish may be phried, but the music jams on and there could be a brighter future for selling music than more MTV.
posted on Jan-22-05 at 3:16 AM