From the NY Times:

The award was a pointed rebuke of China’s ruling Communist Party that came as European leaders were arriving in Beijing for a weekend summit meeting. Mr. Hu, 35, was given the prize by the European Parliament despite warnings from Beijing that his selection would harm relations with the European Union.
Last year, Mr. Hu testified via video link before a hearing of the European Parliament about China’s human rights situation. Weeks later, he was jailed and later sentenced to three and a half years in prison for subversion based on his writings criticizing Communist Party rule.

Mr. Hu has been one of China’s leading figures on a range of human rights issues, while also speaking out on behalf of AIDS patients and for environmental protection. He had been considered a front-runner for the Nobel Peace Prize, but lost to the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari. “Hu Jia is one of the real defenders of human rights in the People’s Republic of China,” said the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering. “The European Parliament is sending out a signal of clear support to all those who support human rights in China.

TAGS: Current Events

COMME des GARCONS for H&M Japan Release - nitrolicious.com from nitrolicious.com on Vimeo.

The US and all other markets get their gear released on the 13th of November. I would get your deck chairs and start standing in line now. (The smart shopper might just want to pick up stuff on ebay for a couple of hundred bucks rather than sit in a queue for a couple of days.)

TAGS: Current Events

Photos by David Katz/Obama for America

Here is a great set of flickr images of Barack Obama and his family as they watch election night results (Photos by David Katz/Obama for America).

Check out the full set here.

TAGS: Current Events

President Elect Barack Hussein Obama

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled; Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It’s the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.
I just received a very gracious call from Senator McCain. He fought long and hard in this campaign, and he’s fought even longer and harder for the country he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader. I congratulate him and Governor Palin for all they have achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation’s promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

Continue reading »

TAGS: Current Events

by Antonius Wiriadjaja

Staycations are all the rage these days.  Thanks to tools like Google maps you can tour the world even during a sedentary holistay.  And what better way to extend your virtual tourist experience than to browse the internet as if you were in another country, such as the People’s Republic of China?

Well with China Channel’s Firefox extension, you can do just that from the comfort of your own uncensored home computer.

“The Firefox add-on China Channel offers internet user outside China to surf the web as if they were in China. Take an unforgetable [sic] virtual trip to China and experience the technical expertise of the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry (supported by western companies). It’s open source, free and easy.”

China’s Internet Police employs an army of 30,000 to scour the internet, arbitrarily deciding whether or not a website’s content should be blocked.  Information regarding Tibetan independence, the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, or even Playboy are deemed undesirable and made unavailable.

A google search for Falun Gong, for example, leads to a page that reads “Connection Interrupted,” and incapacitates your connection to the web for 10 - 15 minutes.

But China’s 1.3 billion inhabitants can bypass The Great Firewall of China by utilizing tools that enable them to freely surf the web.  The China Channel Firefox extension does the reverse, allowing users outside of China an authentically censored experience.

Act now! Certain internet technology companies and Human Rights initiatives are trying to persuade governments to allow all citizens free access to the internet.  Download the China Channel Firefox extension and experience the China web, in all its censored glory, today!

TAGS: Current Events

Happy Halloween everybody. If any of you are thinking of dressing as Palin tonight, here’s some additional material for you to checkout – (apparently the Palin in the video is an actor). I love Vladimir Putin’s facial reactions to Palin.

TAGS: Current Events

It might sound like a supreme waste of money, but it turns out the research done by scientists in Montpelier may help protect California olive trees from a serious pest as well as provide research into serious health issues beyond just the insect world. In a speech about John McCain’s policies on children with disabilities, Palin condemned earmarks for projects like the $211,509 for research on the olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae). “You’ve heard about some of these pet projects, they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good,” Palin said. “Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.”

California had been free of major olive pests until the olive fruit fly turned up near Los Angeles in 1998. Today, it’s a “huge economic problem” around the state, says entomologist Frank Zalom of the University of California, Davis. Most growers currently use insecticides to contain the pests. To effectively fight invasive insects, researchers say it’s critical to be able to study them over the long term in their native habitats--in the olive fruit fly’s case, the Mediterranean region and Africa. Olive growers as far as the East Coast are now reporting sightings of the pest.

Photo by USDA

Recent results from studies on other fruit fly species may help scientists understand other health issues including autism and other neurological disorders.

TAGS: Current Events

The dudes from the Anheuser Busch Wassup! campaign are back. After years of making “Wassup!” a frat-boy calling card at any social event, the boys use their status as cultural icons for a much more positive message.

Here’s the summary from the youtube page:
Its been eight long years since the boys said wassup to each other. Even with the effects of a down economy and imminent change in the White House, the boys are still able to come together and stay true to what really matters.

TAGS: Current Events

Earth 2.0?

The Journal Science today published a report citing evidence of a younger twin of our solar system that sits only 10.5 light-years away.

The Epsilon Eridani system harbors a central star that is just slightly smaller and cooler than the sun and is surrounded by an as-yet-undetermined number of planets. The system also boasts two asteroid belts that are remarkably similar to the one located between Mars and Jupiter and to the Kuiper belt that lies beyond Neptune. But the most remarkable thing about the system is its age: only about 850 million years old. In other words, Epsilon Eridani is just reaching the stage when life is thought to have emerged on Earth. And that, as astronomers report in an article appearing in the 10 January 2009 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, could present the chance to watch the process unfold anew in a neighboring solar system.

Will this lead to the discovery of the process of evolution of life? Will Epsilon Eridani’s planets mirror the evolution of ours? Does this mean WE are the new E.T. to Epsilon Eridani’s earthlings? Tune in next week!

TAGS: Current Events

Al Jazeera has a great news series on being American and muslim after 9/11. This is part 1 of 4.

In a special two-part documentary Rageh Omaar journeys across the United States exploring the story of Islam in the country. He attempts to discover if – far from being fundamentally incompatible – Islamic America holds the seeds of a lasting solution to global discord between east and west.

Also check out the rest of the series here:
Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

TAGS: Current Events