It's absolutely vox populi for the digital age. Sign a digital petition along with 1 million other Brits! Here's the link to the official webpage. As for whether Blair or anybody else in Government will actually care/do anything

I don't know whether I should feel sorry for this Chinese university student or just think the entire situation really funny.Poor guy.  *giggle* 

Dolci in Deutschland and candy in Cologne... How sweet it is! It's time for the International Sweets and Biscuits Fair in Cologne, Germany!Deutsche Welle TV has a nice little video clip.Business never looked so delicious. You know, on

At a recent debate among experts on North Korea, the Japanese delegation lost its patience with the carrot-and-stick approach since lately the approach is all carrot and no stick.Check this out:Yuriko Koike, a special adviser to Japanese Prime Minist

I'm having a very very busy day, but these two news pieces are very much worth reading in conjunction:Story the first Story the second You will notice almost immediately (I hope) the appearance of some of the people involved in the critique. 

Just go here now and read it all.FABULOUS!   Of course it would be.  It's done by the usually-hilarious satirists at "The Onion." 

Ave atque vale, Yang Chuan-kwang.The silver medalist in the decathlon at the 1960 Summer Games in Rome, he was the first Taiwanese athlete to win an Olympic medal.  He has died of a stroke at age 74.  There's a bit more here. Requiesc

Take a look at this piquant editorial from the Sunday Times. It has such little quotables as this:Those [students] who are eager to stick it through [university] are wondering if they are getting their money’s worth. When Bristol University cu

It's terrible: "An admissions department e-mail sent from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill congratulated 2,700 prospective freshmen this week on their acceptance to the school. The problem is that none of the applicants have b

Ouch. "Here's the smell of blood still.  All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.  Oh!  Oh!  Oh!" (V.i.50-51). I suddenly feel the urge to re-read Macbeth over the weekend.  What a great p

G'day, mate! It is January 26 today, so it is Australia Day!It's time to celebrate everything that's great and good about the Land Down Under.Also, here's what Aussie PM John Howard (one of my favorite world leaders, actually) h

The short version, for those of you in a hurry: Read this. Then remember this from 2005. The slightly longer version: take a look at this confession straight from the horse's mouth--from the UN itself:ROME--Food aid often does

(This post is especially for my friends Il Barista and La Parisienne, who know all too much about the vast entity we jokingly call "Satan Coffee" -- but which we sometimes patronize anyway!)From blog friend Pursuit of Serenity comes this

You must be joking! Then again, gentle reader Buzzurro and I had called this one 2 weeks ago when we were talking about pork-flavored New Year's stamps in China. I guess the stamps will now be quietly scrapped by Beijing? I not

Nobody can turn a phrase like the Brits! I can only look on in wonder.And this Paul Dacre fellow seems quite a wordsmith. I myself rather like his term "subsidariat," which he defines as "the parts of the media which could

Read this.Are there no more people in that party who believe in robust national security?  Oh, Joe.  Yours is a lonely and Cassandra-like voice inthe wilderness these days. As for me, I find it all depressing.  And in the end?  An

EVERYBODY PANIC! (No, wait! Come back! I was only kidding!)*SIGH.*Everybody, take a deep breath, please. Sheesh. Every day there is some new twist on breathless, shrill-shrieking enviro-fearmongering about a Greenie apocalypse.

The perfect book for the literary geek! Sounds like fun.  The "epistolary novel" will never be the same again.

Speaking as someone who will always refuse to pay ridiculous amounts of money for imported French mineral water (no hoity-toity Evian for me, thanks), I must confess . . .I find this French slapfest over water really kind of funny!Eau, my! &nb

I had no idea.How interesting!

Apparently this video clip has been running around the Internet for a few months already, but I guess "better late than never." It really is quite amusing and amazing!And to think--all this time, I'd been using treadmills for bor

Here is an interesting little piece about the state of the Irish economy.Even more interesting? Take a look at this quote in which I've highlighted a bit for you: "The EU has contributed nothing to the areas where Ireland has grown mos

I don't know about you, but to me the wording of this headline seems a little . . . infelicitous."Jordan Seeks Nuclear Peace for Mideast." "Nuclear peace"? What do you think of the term? Is that some kind of

One Hand Clapping has a nice post that says a few things that I wish I'd said!And hey! This is a moment when two of my interests actually coincide. Bonus points to those who can correctly identify the following quotes:"The only

Hmmmmmmmm . . .The very last paragraph is worth a look! Via the lovely Ninme.