Hey y'all... so I'm gonna be on the west coast this weekend visiting family. Happy Thanksgiving! =)

 
Shades of COINTELPRO? The FBI fesses up to surveillance of anti-war activists who were out in force over the last year.

 
The first Thanksgiving was in New England, but not in Plymouth colony. And though Squanto was nearby, he wasn't there.

Even war criminals need good legal representation. That's why Ramsey Clark ends up defending them in The Hague.

Trojan man: the world's oldest condoms, uncovered in the UK, are going to an exhibition in the Netherlands.

If you're the CEO of a multinational corporation, where would you invest? Brand X country?

"Is that a chopstick in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" More on UC Davis professor Darrell Hamamoto and his quest to create Asian pride porn. Greg Pak's satire may be inspiration. =)

From China, with love: a Chinese man will probably set the record for writing a 300,000 word love letter to his Russian girlfriend.

This month's Chinese-Indian joint naval exercises aren't so much a Beijing/New Delhi love in as a "show you mine if you show me yours".

Equal justice under law in Iraq is something as hard to come by under the US-led Coalition as it was under Saddam.

Will China's Yunnan Province, on the border with Myanmar, be the flashpoint for the next Asian land war? Remember: "Never get involved in a land war in Asia"!

"I live here too!" Mike Bloomberg vows to force candidates for federal office to give more back to NYC if they expect NYC to cough up donations to them. It could get Bloomy re-elected and it could embarass Tom DeLay. I'll live with the former if we get the latter.

With the unveiling of the 8 design finalists for the WTC memorial, the monument-building business seems to be more active than ever. But remembering death too soon after it happens deprives us of serious time to reflect.

How many Asian-American primetime characters can you fit on the cover of TV Guide? Not many, as the latest media report cards show.

 
What's so special about America's "special relationship" with the UK?

Tom DeLay is at it again. This time, he wants to put up GOP conventioneers aboard a chartered party boat rather than having them stay in NYC hotels. Jerk.

Speaking of cruise ships, here's a heartening thought as I head for the midnight buffet: eating at night does not by itself contribute to weight gain.

In the wake of several articles on the use of private military companies - let's just call them mercenaries - in Iraq and elsewhere, the UK Foreign Office has issued a green paper on the pros and cons of hiring them.

Shocker: Pentagon war hawk Richard Perle sez the invasion of Iraq was illegal.

Congress manages to halt new rules governing federal Pell grants that would have left many students without aid. But only for a year while the proposed changes are being studied.

 
A butler with over 50 years experience serving the blue-bloods of Britain has written a book about minding your manners.

"Where are the dead Canadians?" Minnesota's governor calls drug companies' claim that cheaper imported drugs are unsafe a total crock. Plus, 35 members of Congress have resigned from AARP over the group's support of a flawed Medicare bill.

Liberals can win the gay marriage debate with (don't laugh) a family values argument.

It's still the economy, stupid. National jobless rates have gone marginally down, but black unemployment is in double-digits.

You'd think that someone as hawkish as Dubya would put more money into soldiers' and veterans' benefits. But benefits for all soldiers are being cut.

 
SCARY!!!

 
The US general in charge of Mosul proves that yes, America can win Iraqi hearts and minds.

Whodathunkit that Jared the Subway guy would still be pitching sandwiches 4 years after his first commercial?

East meets west: more than a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a photographer juxtaposes pictures from each side.

Hmm... Yesterday was World Toilet Day. If only they get rid of squatter toilets. Ugh.

Italy is howlin' mad about a cover-up by the US Navy after the submarine USS Hartford ran aground off Sardinia.

Scholars are rediscovering the fucked up mind of Jean-Paul Sartre.

Howard Dean has a plan to send every kid in the country to college.

Archaeologists booze up in Egypt after uncovering details about the first vineyards.

It's not Imperial Airways or Pan Am, but seaplanes for the Hamptons-bound can be hired for $375 one way, departing from Manhattan.

 
An artist in Berkeley, CA is collecting Chinese take-out menus from all over the country as part of a project on the impact of "Chinese" cuisine in America.

"Apocalypse Now" it ain't: for the first time in 30 years, a US Navy ship drops anchor in Vietnam.

Recently released Gitmo detainees tell all to the BBC. Some want monetary compensation from the US.

We've got "historically black colleges", tribal colleges, and the like. Why not a federal designation for Asian-American serving institution? It's about time Asian-American studies were put on par with bigger departments like African-American and Latino studies.

 
On Sunday I blogged a story about a Chinese men's suit maker that wanted to use Bill Clinton as a model. Well, he's gonna do it!

I need to keep this handy since I blog so much from work: Blogger's "How Not to Get Fired" blog help page.

 
This is funny... I should've blogged this last night. Bush chickens out of an address to the UK Parliament, fearing Labour backbenchers. See, this is why Tony Blair, despite all the "Bush's poodle" talk, has basketball-sized cojones to Bush's acorn-sized ones. Tony's gotta go in there every week.

 
Clearly Canadian: Lloyd Axworthy urges Canada's incoming PM Paul Martin to keep it real and not sellout to Dubya.

 
Tom DeLay is an asshole. But if you've got half a brain, you already know that. Today's amNewYork also reports (sorry, no website available) that at the same time as he's accepting a Zionist award in NYC, DeLay's diverting federal transportation funds from New York back to Texas. Oink oink?

 
This is rush hour in Beijing:

New Chinese passenger vehicle fuel economy standards will be tougher than US standards.

 
The Snows of Kilimanjaro? What snows?

Forget CBS' "The Reagans". HBO's screen adaptation of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America" may be an even more scathing indictment of Reagan's AIDS policy.

Who's gonna go after big corporate lawbreakers? The feds? Riiight. New York's A-G Eliot Spitzer, working for you.

 
Now I don't know whether to be scared, angry, or just plain annoyed. The latest crap from those in support of George W. "the Edumacation President" Bush involves defunding college international/area studies programs if they're deemed too leftist. At least the Yalies are doing something about it. Vijay Prashad puts things in perspective.

 
It's no secret that college tuition is way too high and getting higher. Here's what some in Congress want to do about it.

 
World Bank to activists: we feel your pain. The international devleopment financing body will add human rights standards as a consideration for future development loans.

Bubba chic: a Chinese haberdasher wants Bill Clinton to model the company's suits.

 
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is a quintessential political play. If Aaron Sorkin was gonna produce it, the show would probably look something like this.

High Times magazine gets a makeover from its new editor, the son of Norman Mailer.

 
From the latest issue of the Economist:

-Remember that lame schoolyard joke about the Polish submarine with the screen door? Kazakhstan, of all places, wants a navy.

-Everything has changed, nothing has changed. Don't expect any really significant reform to come out of China's recent hints at democracy.

-Leave 2 rival factions in a closed, finite space and eventually they'll kill each other off. That's what's happening between Israel and Palestine.

-The humble New Jersey diner has just been lifted to new heights of culinary legitimacy by an article in the Economist.

 
Take a global gastronomic tour without leaving Manhattan. Take a stroll down Bedford Street.

Are the "influential" bloggers out there getting too self-congratulatory with each other? (see also: the blogosphere's most popular list)

Four ex-heads of Israel's Shin Bet security agency bitch-slap Sharon's anti-terror policy. These guys know what they're talking about.

The World Trade Center was so expansive that it had its own ZIP code. What to do with 10048?

Whodathunkit? Afghanistan is the locus of the new tech boom thanks to the UNDP. Um... Silicon Kush?

Henry Higgins asked "why can't the English learn to speak?" Ophelia Benson asks "why can't the Americans learn to write?"

Iraq's Ministry of Information isn't dead after all, it's just now run by the Americans.

Call Molly Ivins a Bush-hater. No really, go ahead.

Jimmy Carter (and friends) have come up with the Atlanta Declaration, a new blueprint on reconciling human rights with anti-terror efforts.

 
The people at Blogger have an answer for the question what if my mom finds out I blog???, raised by a recent issue of the Onion.

Why does the media keep pandering to peoples' love of lists? Here are the 10 biggest science hoaxes of all time, though curiously the Sokal hoax didn't make the list. (More on Sokal).

 
Canada's continuing search for a non-American identity focuses on its literature.

George Soros to George W. Bush: drop dead.

Scary: if the Supreme Court upholds a Nevada decision, the police will soon be able to arrest you for not carrying any ID.

Have the Simpsons jumped the shark, and now jumped back?

Public colleges, and the low-income students they serve, continue to get the raw deal from the feds.

 
I wonder if Playboy will offer "The Women of Wal-Mart" at an everyday low price. =)

Men on Film: Tara Ariano asks, why is there a shortage of American manly men in movies?

Jim Walsh weighs the pros and cons of the prevalence of article sub-headlines.

 
She works hard for the money: Donna Summer has a new book and a new album out.

Brooklyn politics are notoriously riddled with cronyism, and the Kings County courts are no different. A view from the inside.

The Murder Burger: 1/2 lb. beef, bread crumbs, Worcestershire sauce, adobo spice mix, milk, eggs, and Accent seasoning on a kaiser roll with onions, relish and secret sauce. It'll kill your hunger good.

To live and love in Tehran: in a land of limited romantic opportunities, a cleric plays matchmaker.

 
Forget "Asian fusion" cuisine. The Asia Times takes a look at what you could be eating at restaurants throughout Asia in 2005.

First the US wanted a council, now it wants a new council for Iraq. Will George Bush ever make up his mind?

Who wants to be First Lady of the United States? We know reality-show antics have taken over politics (example: Schwarzenegger), but I think celebrity matchmaking and politics is a new combination.

Yet more evidence of the Bush administration's total junking of human rights: sending terror suspects off to foreign countries so they can be tortured.

 
Here's the latest in the "vast right-wing conspiracy" to make Ronald Reagan some kind of living god.

Globalization at work: the gray-market economy of illegal workers in the US channeling money back to their home countries is an overlooked factor in how some of these developing countries stay afloat.

Forget the NY Times versus the NY Post. A new newspaper war is brewing among the ethnic Chinese-American press.

Now, even some Greens are seeing the light (and the foolishness) in another Ralph Nader run in 2004.

 
A New York Times report charges that elite colleges get the lion's share of federal education aid money, and it's not necessarily going to needy students.

Plus, some context in the debate on tuition price-caps.

 
A new biography of Chiang Kai-Shek reveals that the Generalissimo's life continues to be inextricably tied to his rival Mao.

What blogs do bloggers find worth blogging? The influence of influential bloggers, with diagram! And speaking of politically influential blogs, does politics need a new axis beyond liberal/conservative?

Plus, more on the cyber-wasteland of dead blogs left unattended sometimes for years.

In a blow to the DC Statehood folks, 5 Democratic presidential candidates have withdrawn from DC's non-binding primary.

They needed a survey for this? The Times Square BID sent out a survey which found that, yes, Times Square is too damn touristy.

Ah the House of Windsor - the original "Osbournes" of British family dysfunctions.

Does Saudi Arabia really need more democracy? A contrarian view says democracy is not enough.

Most reasonable people remember the late Yitzhak Rabin as a pragmatic man of peace. Most reasonable people are also not Israeli conservatives bent on tarnishing Rabin's name.

 
Eritrea, not Zimbabwe, has the highest number of imprisoned journalists in Africa.

Can Michael Howard reinvigorate Britain's Tories?

What can the mating habits of chickens tell us about the war between the sexes?

National sovereignty isn't completely dead in the EU when it comes to swallowing bitter fiscal policy remedies.

 
Kenyans, not surprisingly, won both the men's and women's first prizes at last weekend's NYC Marathon. But why are Kenyans so swift-footed?

The Economist this week has a special Survey on America.

It's now scientifically proven that men drool when they see a pretty girl.

The Bush administration seems to be in a new hurry to fill up draft board vacancies. Can you say "Vietnam"?

What's up with the Republicans' obsession with the sanctification of Ronald Reagan? Tim Noah explains.

Robert Fulford writes in praise of the Indian call-center phenomenon.

Obsolete websites don't die, they just fade away. Or get deleted when the hosting plan runs out...

Why does Russia's economy suck? And why does it seem so damn cold over there? In a true market economy, Siberia would be emptier than it already is.

 
A collection of articles I read this morning but didn't have time to blog until now:

-China may have a nascent commercial press, but that's still no guarantee against state censorship and indefinite detention of outspoken writers.

-Did Saddam try to cut an 11th hour deal with the US to stave off an invasion?

-Speaking of Iraq, international NGOs continue to complain about the lack of transparency with which the Coalition is doling out aid money.

-Beirut's Daily Star concedes that, despite all its faults, Israel "at its worst is more democratic than any Arab regime at its best".

-Speaking of Israel, the Geneva Accord is a good indication that grassroots activism by moderate Arabs and Israelis may lead to peace. If only Sharon listens.

-The Supreme Court is looking into a case that may have ramifications over the power of federal courts to allow discovery by foreign courts.

 
It's 5:45, and I'm counting down the minutes before I leave work.

As I gear up for another "long, hard slog" on the NJ Transit, I draw your attention to these articles on the mysteries of the middle seat. It should be obvious to daily commuters why the middle seat is the last seat taken on every train.

NJT sucks. Well, maybe "sucks" is too strong. But everyday annoyances like trains that stop short so the last door doesn't reach the platform (or doesn't open) at Edison, trains that are delayed without explanation, power outages, derailments, tresspassers on the tracks, and other hassles add up when one takes the train twice a day, five days a week. Oh yeah and don't get me started on the lack of parking at Edison Station. Erg.

On a side note, NJT has an official photographer.

 
Hmm... I was going over results from municipal elections in NJ and found this. The ward movement in my old town has been around for a couple years. I remember Mayor Spadoro speaking at my high school once and mentioning wards. That was at least 5 years ago. The pro-ward camp lost by 30 votes but they may narrow the margin in a recount. Does shifting to a ward system signal that Edison has become more of a city rather than a town? I see the ward issue coming back within 5 years. I think eventually Edison will have to switch to wards as the population keeps growing. Even today there are distinct neighborhoods with their own local concerns, even if the concept of "neighborhood" doesn't really factor into daily life as much as in, say, NYC.

 
Today is the premiere of the last installment in the Matrix trilogy. George Bush is already there.

Not everything is squeaky-clean at Wal-Mart in the wake of the mass arrests of illegal immigrants last month.

A Georgetown Law student has developed a way to how Supreme Court justices will vote based on the kinds of questions they ask. And, more on the Supreme Court's use of international and foreign law.

 
What mandate? As voters go to the polls today for various state and municipal elections, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll shows most Americans oppose Bush's Iraq policy. This backs up results from an earlier Gallup poll. Looks like Bush's "mandate" from the 2002 elections was as short-lived as Jay Garner's tenure in Baghdad.

 
Lebanon's Daily Star has a reasonably moderate commentary on Israel's rising poverty rate.

And, Jordan's Princess Basma writes on religion for peace.

 
This is a topic that I've been following on and off since my first days of college. I remember at Columbia, there were maybe 2-3 student suicides every year (and add to that 1-2 murders, but that's another subject). I don't know the statistics for Hunter, but I'm sure the phenomenon isn't unknown here either.

 
Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor recently spoke on the need for American judges to pay more attention to international and foreign law.

And, along the same vein, American citizens too should worry about the government's treatment of alien detainees. First they came for the illegals, then they came for the Arabs, then...

More on the growing pile of junked cell phones adding toxicity to our landfills.