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comment posted at 11:23 PM on May-21-11

One percent of Americans now "earn" 25% of the income. Many of them have grown their wealth through criminal exploitation. Roger Ebert asks the burning question: why aren't more people outraged?
comment posted at 7:17 AM on May-10-11

Neil Gaiman: "A pencil-necked weasel who stole $45,000 from the State of Minnesota". Minnesota House majority leader Matt Dean was moved to fury at the discovery that writer, comic book celebrity and Minnesota transplant Neil Gaiman received this sum for a speaking engagement at a Stillwater, MN high school.
comment posted at 10:10 PM on May-6-11

There's something in the air this election season. For the first time in almost 40 years, almost every electoral ward in Singapore is up for grabs, as the opposition parties stage their biggest contest against the incumbent People's Action Party (PAP).
comment posted at 12:48 AM on May-6-11
comment posted at 1:02 AM on May-7-11
comment posted at 8:53 AM on May-7-11
comment posted at 7:54 PM on May-7-11

President Obama to make important announcement regarding Osama Bin Laden imminently
comment posted at 9:09 PM on May-1-11
comment posted at 9:47 PM on May-1-11
comment posted at 12:36 AM on May-4-11

A wave of powerful storm cells swept the southeastern United States this week, spawning hundreds of tornadoes that wreaked havoc from Texas to Virginia. While damage was widespread throughout the region, the most terrible toll was seen in Alabama, which has accounted for two-thirds of the more than 300 reported deaths -- the deadliest since the Great Depression -- and where many small towns were simply wiped from the map. Especially hard-hit was the university town of Tuscaloosa, the state's fifth-largest, where a monstrous F5 tornado (seen in this terrifying firsthand video) tore a vicious track through entire neighborhoods and business districts -- narrowly missing the region's primary hospital -- and continuing a path that rained debris as far as Birmingham, over sixty miles away. The disaster prompted a visit from President Obama today, who declared "I've never seen devastation like this" after surveying the area with Governor Robert Bentley, Senator Richard Shelby, and Mayor Walter Maddox. More: photos from In Focus and The Big Picture, aerial footage of the aftermath, "before and after" sliders, the path of the Tuscaloosa twister on Google Maps, People Locator, local aid information, MetaTalk check-in thread
comment posted at 8:50 AM on Apr-30-11

What’s Left of the Left - Paul Krugman's Lonely Crusade for Liberalism. After President Obama met with a group of prominent economists in December of 2010, among them Alan Blinder, the latter remarked, somewhat bleakly and apologetically: "In the United States, there is no left left". Paul Krugman is a lonely man.
comment posted at 4:49 PM on Apr-29-11

Australian comedy troupe The Chaser (best known for breaking into the APEC summit in 2007) have been banned from reporting on the Royal Wedding by the Royal Family. The Chaser respond.
comment posted at 11:55 PM on Apr-28-11

Christopher Hitchens rails against monarchy and the Royal wedding.
comment posted at 5:15 PM on Apr-19-11

1) Make fake army 2) Collect Fees 3) Profit 4) Go to Jail - Yupeng Deng created the U.S. Army/Military Special Forces Reserve Unit in Southern California for Asian immigrants. Unfortunately for all, the US Government wasn't aware of this... SGV Tribune story (pictures), NY Times story
comment posted at 8:08 AM on Apr-14-11

Yes, That Can Be My Next Tweet creates random Tweets for you based on your previous ones. MarkovFilter in 140 characters.
comment posted at 8:36 PM on Apr-12-11

Indian prison authorities in Hyderabad have opened up a call centre inside the jail with hopes of servicing customers from the UK.
comment posted at 11:26 PM on Apr-9-11

Anybody want to buy a brand newC-64? How about a VIC Pro? An Amiga 1000? Commodore USA has risen from the grave.
comment posted at 10:45 PM on Apr-8-11
comment posted at 10:59 PM on Apr-8-11

"I've never been in a stadium that feels like this one. Hindus and Muslims, Sikhs and Christians, people from different castes and classes, speakers of a dozen languages, all citizens in the Republic of Sachin. The stern cops give wide smiles and thumbs-ups. The chant goes from "Sachin! Sachin!" to "Hoo … ha … IN-DI-A!" They are interchangeable."
comment posted at 12:16 AM on Mar-31-11
comment posted at 1:33 AM on Mar-31-11
comment posted at 4:19 AM on Mar-31-11

Aluf Benn from Ha'aretz asks if the middle east is breaking apart.
comment posted at 1:55 AM on Mar-27-11

Republicans remove fiscal measures of Wisconsin's controversial budget repair bill, no longer need quorum denied to them by the 14 AWOL Senate Democrats. After seven minutes and over the objections of the Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, the bill is revised and accepted. The bill passes in the Senate 18-1. Previously. Before that Before even that.
comment posted at 7:24 PM on Mar-9-11

The Sinclair ZX81 is 30 years old today. The ZX81 was a hugely successful low-cost home computer produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured by Timex in Dundee, Scotland. The ZX81 came with 1 KB of on-board memory, for extra gaming power Sinclair produced a 16 KB add-on memory module and a thermal printer.
comment posted at 9:34 PM on Mar-5-11

Is India an oligarchy? Late last year, when India's income tax office tapped the phone of well-connected lobbyist, Niira Radia, they were looking for evidence of tax evasion and money laundering. But what they found instead was what many consider evidence of an even bigger problem: "[T]he tapes reveal that the country that prides itself on being the world's largest democracy is really ruled by a small coterie of powerful people." Some of the leaked tapes that sparked the scandal are available online, on the website of the weekly magazine that first broke the story, as well as a few transcripts.
comment posted at 7:42 AM on Mar-1-11
comment posted at 7:09 PM on Mar-1-11

Air India (in collaboration with Indian Airlines, the Indian Air Force and Aeroflot) is in the Guinness Book of World Records for their airlift in 1990 when they successfully evacuated 111,711 Indian citizens from Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan by operating 488 refugee flights over a period of 59 days. While they have never quite managed to break that record in the intervening years and subsequent strife, Air India in collaboration with any available merchant ships is at it again after Egypt to deal with the largest evacuation since then ongoing right now from Libya.
comment posted at 10:27 PM on Mar-2-11
comment posted at 7:11 AM on Mar-3-11

For me, this was a first experience of seeing India play at home, and of Sachin Tendulkar playing in front of his own people. I chose a good game with which to start. I can think of few, if any, experiences in sport to match watching Tendulkar succeed in a home game. Roger Federer may occupy a similar status of universally-acknowledged greatness within tennis, but I think it is fair to say that Switzerland is not quite as passionate about tennis as India is about cricket. If Federer were to simultaneously play tennis whilst hoarding gold and providing banking facilities for dubious dictators, perhaps the fervour of his support would match that for Sachin. But the Swiss population is unlikely ever to top the one billion mark.

Don't know a thing about cricket? Wouldn't know a wicket from a googly? Don't worry, you won't have to know a thing to enjoy Andy Zaltzman's World Cup Blog. He is traveling around Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka attending various games. Zaltzman is best known to the world for the fabulous podcast The Bugle which he does with John Oliver. Therefore it should come as no surprise that he also does a cricket podcast. And he tweets about cricket too.
comment posted at 1:15 AM on Mar-1-11

England cricketer Steven Davies has come out in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, having come out to the England squad prior to the Ashes, making him the first openly gay professional cricketer. The Guardian tries to work out what this says about cricket
comment posted at 6:56 PM on Feb-28-11
comment posted at 7:42 PM on Feb-28-11
comment posted at 7:49 AM on Mar-1-11

ISRO scientists think they have found a horizontal uncollapsed lava tube on the moon, 1.7 km long, 360 m wide, and 120 m high (roughly 1 mile x 1200 ft x 400 ft) which could be used as a lunar base by astronauts for inter-planetary missions.
comment posted at 2:28 AM on Feb-27-11
comment posted at 6:45 PM on Feb-27-11

2210 GMT: Libya's 2nd Secretary in its Embassy in China, Hussein Sadiq Al Misrati, has just quit in an on-air interview with Al Jazeera, saying he is not honored to represent a regime that kills its own people. Al Misrati asked other diplomats to follow his action and called on the army not to attack protesters. And the diplomat claimed that Muammar Qaddafi's son Saif Al Islam, who was supposed to speak on State TV tonight, will not do so --- he was shot by his brother Mutasam in a fight for control. Libya is spinning out of control and appears to be on the verge of either collapse or civil war. Here is a relatively comprehensive (but by no means exhaustive) link to the unrest of the past week. Unlike Egypt, which saw the downfall of a regime played out on television and the internet, communication in and out of Libya is extremely restrictive, making it very difficult for the media and outside observers to understand just what, exactly, is going on in the country. Hundreds of protesters have so far died (many in the second-largest city of Benghazi), and rumors abound that some in the military have decided to turn against the regime.
comment posted at 7:29 PM on Feb-21-11

"Not so long ago, the average American man in his 20s had achieved most of the milestones of adulthood: a high-school diploma, financial independence, marriage and children. Today, most men in their 20s hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. This "pre-adulthood" has much to recommend it, especially for the college-educated. But it's time to state what has become obvious to legions of frustrated young women: It doesn't bring out the best in men."
comment posted at 11:44 PM on Feb-20-11

Apple has launched App Store subscriptions for digital content, something that should please magazine publishers looking for a non-print business model. However there is a sting in the tail - publishers must go through Apple, paying the 30% "Apple tax".
comment posted at 5:00 PM on Feb-15-11

Face Research (previously) averaged faces of women from 41 countries to create the "average" face in each country.
comment posted at 12:22 AM on Feb-13-11

What the Chinese Guy Said. Jia Wei is currently doing a six-month internship at Dawn, one of Pakistan's leading English dailies. This is his blog.
comment posted at 5:52 AM on Feb-11-11

Report: Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak is to step down this evening. Vice President Omar Suleiman will take over. He's likely to address the nation tonight.
comment posted at 8:17 AM on Feb-11-11

The last Japanese man remaining in Kazakhstan: A Kafkian tale of the plight of a Japanese POW in the Soviet Union. This is the story of Tetsuro Ahiko, a Japanese national who was living on Sakhalin Island during WWII, and was sent to gulags after the war instead of being repatriated to Japan. Ahiko has turned down multiple offers to be resettled in Japan and has spent 60+ years in Kazakhstan (what was then the Soviet Union.)
comment posted at 7:56 PM on Feb-7-11

AOL has agreed to acquire the Huffington Post for $315 million. The combined entity will be known as the Huffington Post Media Group and will have Arianna Huffington as president and editor-in-chief. We recently heard from AOL when they posted a rather disappointing quarterly result for the end of 2010, and again when their latest master business plan (read: SEO, SEO, and more SEO) was leaked by Business Insider.
comment posted at 8:33 AM on Feb-7-11

FOX, Fox News, and The White House all used the ginormous television audience that comes with the Super Bowl to their advantage today when a 15 minute interview with the President by Bill O'Reilly was aired as part of the pre-game show. Full video here.
comment posted at 8:24 AM on Feb-7-11

China is planning to merge the nine cities around the Pearl River Delta, producing the worlds largest city.
comment posted at 10:33 AM on Jan-29-11

Gerry Adams, irish republican and candidate for a seat in the Dail [the Irish Parliament, usually sounds a bit like 'doyle'], is an MP in the UK Parliament at Westminster. Or is he? No - I resigned! "Oh - but you can't! You have to take a position under the Crown, say the Brits". Oh, no I don't... Till this constitutional crisis is resolved Gerry Adams, may be paid by both states as an MP...
comment posted at 2:18 AM on Jan-27-11

Recent heavy rain in Queensland has bought destructive flooding to many towns and cities. Yesterday the mountain city of Toowoomba was hit with heavy rain and experienced flash flooding. With (so far) eight confirmed dead and 70 missing, the disaster is set to worsen as more rainfall is predicted.
comment posted at 6:43 PM on Jan-10-11
comment posted at 8:01 AM on Jan-11-11

Il était une fois... les technologies du passé. (YouTube) Adorable Francophone kids will make you feel old as they try to figure out technology from the 1980s.
comment posted at 9:22 PM on Jan-7-11

If you think those 'sustainably sourced' logos all over your cod supper are too good to be true, you're probably right. (SL via the Guardian)
comment posted at 8:21 PM on Jan-7-11