Hugo Chávez has been granted the power to rule by decree by the Venezuelan National assembly, which means he’s now legally able to create new laws unchallenged. What does that mean?
Rule by decree is a style of governance allowing quick, unchallenged creation of law by a single person or group, and is used primarily […]
The index of economic freedom has been released, and Hong Kong is at the top.
The rankings employed criteria such as business freedom, tax rates, inflation, property rights and freedom from corruption.
The United States comes in fourth, after Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia. Looking at the economic freedom map it seems that El Salvador is […]
In May 2006 I spent some time in the northern areas of Romania, as well as Istanbul. I’m absolutely in love with the city, and would move there if money wasn’t an issue. The history, the food, the people, the architecture, the way the city vibrates with life… You can see […]
A company has developed a way to invisibly print RFID on skin, so now can all be invisibly tagged and wirelessly tracked.
Co-founder Mark Pydynowski said during an interview Wednesday that the ink doesn’t contain any metals and can be either invisible or colored. He declined to say what is in the ink, but said […]
It’s always funny to read books on current events a few years after they were published and try to find those cases where they were flat out wrong, or even encounter some very funny coincidences. In this book the first moment came when Friedman is arguing against Samuel P. Huntington’s assertion on The Clash […]
From the BBC:
UK scientists have developed genetically modified chickens capable of laying eggs containing proteins needed to make cancer-fighting drugs.
The breakthrough has been announced by the same research centre that created the cloned sheep, Dolly.
The Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, says it has produced five generations of birds that can produce useful levels of life-saving proteins […]
I bought the 2000 paperback edition of Thomas L. Friedman’s book on globalization The Lexus and the Olive Tree on an acquaintance’s garage sale, as she was getting ready to head back to the United States and wanted to sell a bunch of books she felt would be too expensive to carry back.
The book consists […]
I had forgotten how badly Saturday Night Live had gone down the toilet. Thanks Cthulhu for YouTube, where we can watch the 20-minutes-a-year of the show that are actually decent.
Scottish comedian Billy Connolly on a routine explaining why we can’t understand god.
Cuban dissident Miguel Valdes has died of a heart attack. He was jailed in 2003 for opposing Fidel Castro and, while he was released on health grounds, he was refused the option to seek treatment abroad.
Passports have become a way for your own country to keep you prisoner and, in this case, effectively sentencing […]