Dive into the archives.
- Putting together the pieces behind the Iron Curtain
A few days ago a brilliant documentary resurfaced on Digg that gives an inside look at the final years of the Soviet Union, and one of its first experiences with global capitalism and copyrights.
The BBC documentary Tetris – From Russia With Love (60 mins) covers the official history of one of the world’s most addictive [...]
- Augustus on TV
Caesar Augustus, adopted son of Julius Caeser, was effectively the first Roman Emperor. His forty-year reign ended a century of civil war, gave Rome peace and prosperity, and expanded the Imperial greatness of the city-state that lasted for centuries after his death. He is often recognized as the greatest leader of Rome, and [...]
- Preparing for a Trip: Part III
[Part I | Part II]
So far we’ve discussed organizing and packing. Let’s continue to bureaucracy, money and various other tips.
Visas
Depending on where you’re heading, there may be a lot of paperwork to fill out beforehand. Here’s where your wiki comes in handy again. Make a table with all the countries you’ll visit on the [...]
- How to make friends and influence people?
What should a free society do when an organization arises in its midst to call for the overthrowing of the government to replace it with an Islamic superstate? That is a question that Australian officials may be facing shortly:
About 500 Muslims packed a hall in the Sydney suburb of Lakemba to hear speakers of [...]
- Preparing for a Trip: Part II
So you’re going on a big trip. You’ve setup a wiki to organize your travels and research. What should you do next? Start thinking about packing. If you’re like me, you’ll want to take as little as possible. You’ll also want to travel low key and not stand out like those taking the beaten path [...]
- The (continued) boring state of Canadian politics
Unfortunately, Canada has the reputation of being a boring country. Cold, neutral and forgettable. A string of minority governments and the historic passing of power from the Liberals to the Conservatives promised to shake things up. But lo and behold, Canadian politics continues its soporific ways.
The New Democratic Party — the third-ranked left-leaning national party [...]
- Preparing for a Trip: Part I
As readers know, my big trip is barely a month away. It will be about three months and take me to a dozen countries, several breakaway regions, many conflicts and 4,000 miles overland. As you can imagine, preparing for a trip of this magnitude takes a great deal of planning. Where does one even start? [...]
- Making up for lost time?
Abe took the first steps towards the “normalization” of Japanese foreign policy last week with the introduction of his constitutional revision plan at the opening of the spring parliamentary session. Said Abe, “Now is the time for us to boldly revise this postwar regime and make a new start.” It’s about time, I say. But [...]
- Communism, Fascism, Colonialism?
I found a tidbit at This Modern World on the evils of the past few hundred years and thought I’d put it to readers:
In Europe and the U.S., we look at the past few hundred years and see two great evils: fascism and communism. But for most places on earth, there have been three great [...]
- Sausage trader caught with weapons grade uranium
That has got to be the best headline of the day, although the story is terrifying.
‘Sausage trader’ caught selling weapons grade uranium
MOSCOW - An international nuclear smuggling scandal erupted yesterday after it was revealed that a Russian man has been caught selling weapons-grade uranium on the open market that could easily be used in a [...]
