Former Prime Minister of the U.K., Margaret Thatcher, turns 84 today, and though we by no means espouse her political stances on, well, just about anything, we can’t deny that she was instrumental in establishing the terms of modern politics in Europe and around the world. Of course, now that she’s a frail old British [...]

As you presumably heard, last week the International Olympic Committee made the right decision for once, and awarded the duties of hosting the 2016 summer Olympic Games to Brazilian megapolis Rio de Janeiro–rather cities in recent host nations Spain, Japan and the U.S. This marks the Games’s first visit to South America, and since it’s [...]

As you may have heard, Polish-French director Roman Polanski was arrested over the weekend while arriving at the Zurich film festival in Switzerland in relation to a case from over 30 years ago in which he was convicted of having sex with a 13 year-old girl (who has subsequently forgiven him). We wish people would [...]

Among the many things that the United Nations Security Council worked on yesterday during their dealings in New York was the decision to move forward on measures to stem the proliferation of nuclear weapons. We applaud the move (and urge the French president to stop being a wuss and show his support), and hope that [...]

Yesterday, we read in the New York Times that China has imposed a new Visa system on Tibet that makes it impossible for foreigners to visit the occupied mountain nation. This is worrisome for many reasons, none more so than the fact that whatever political and religious oppression takes place there will now be even [...]

In addition to being Miniature Golf Day, today is the International Day of Peace – we had a hard time picking which of the two we were going to celebrate. Of course, the idea of having one day set aside for creating and celebrating international peace almost seems like an easy way to get all [...]

In case you hadn’t heard, Mary Travers – one third of the hit folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary – died yesterday at the age of 72 after complications from leukemia. Obviously, for anyone raised on that group’s songs – or who raised someone on that group’s songs – today is a very sad day, [...]

Today is September 11 – in case you’d forgotten, in which event you must not be a Patriot (today is also Patriot Day) – the 8th anniversary of a certain event that changed the course of modern history. Of course, no horrifying act of death and destruction is beyond the purview of advertisers constantly looking [...]

Maybe it’s because buildings tall and short seem to be slapped together over a few weeks or a couple months these days, or maybe people just realize that watching long construction processes reduced to a 20-second video is really cool, but we’ve become addicted to time-lapse clips of epic skyscrapers rising from their foundations [...]

As drought-prone areas experience some of the driest seasons on record ever, both the Southern and Northern hemispheres have witnessed some of the worst wildfires in years in 2009. This weekend a massive wildfire was knocking at Los Angeles’ gates, but California, the Northwest and even Alaska have been getting lit all summer, as have [...]