GoDaddy: Hooker with a Heart of Gold
March 25, 2010 1 min. read

GoDaddy, home of lousy Internet hosting and scandalous Super Bowl ads, has inexplicably been a success with their cut-rate domain registration and hosting. Meanwhile, in the Middle Kingdom the Chinese government continues grasp as many levers of control over Internet users as possible. To register your own web name in the Chinese domain name space (eg, […]

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One out of every three people
March 24, 2010 2 min. read

I personally get “number fatigue” when I look at too many large numbers–it’s a professional hazard.  But the numbers associated with Tuberculosis (TB) made me sit up in my chair.  Shocking facts: one-third of the world’s population, or 2 billion people, are infected with the bacteria that causes Tuberculosis (TB).   This translates into more than 9 […]

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How Beijing Will Deal with Hong Kong
March 24, 2010 4 min. read

At the press conference on 14 March 2010, immediately after the close of the National People’s Congress annual session (NPC, China’s legislature and highest state body), Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao discussed Hong Kong. The speech came in the wake of a stormy political debate over the slow progress towards universal suffrage that has seen clashes […]

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Roadmap to End Global Hunger
March 24, 2010 2 min. read

Should the U.S. government create a White House office for coordinating the fight against global hunger? According to William Lambers from the Blogcritic’s “Ending Global Hunger” blog, the answer is yes. Lambers recently wrote about the Roadmap to End Global Hunger, legislation which is intended to provide the U.S. government with the commitment and tools […]

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Yemen Fights to Ban Child Marriages
March 24, 2010 3 min. read

In recent years previously posts on the plight of child marriage in Yemen, including The Growing Battle of Yemen’s Child Brides and Girls In Yemen Forced to Marry Too Young, have brought the attention of the grave nature violations and abuse across the country. The situation of child brides in Yemen since both posts has […]

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U.S. Aid to Haiti Continues
March 24, 2010 2 min. read
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After noting the U.S. response to the Haiti earthquake on this blog, I thought it would be good to follow-up and note that the U.S. response is continuing, even as Haiti no longer dominates the headlines. This report in The Washington Post describes the visit to Haiti yesterday by former Presidents Clinton and Bush: Former […]

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An independent Arab film in the works
March 24, 2010 2 min. read

The following are excerpts from an article that appears on the National Public Radio Web site: “British-Egyptian actor Khalid Abdalla jokingly calls his recent films — about Sept. 11, Afghanistan and Iraq — his ‘war on terror’ trilogy. Abdalla played a hijacker in United 93, an Afghan immigrant in The Kite Runner, and now, a […]

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GailForce: The Film Green Zone and Iraqi WMDs
March 23, 2010 7 min. read

Sunday afternoon, I got a phone call from my good friend Philippe who lives in California.  “Gail just saw a great movie, Green Zone!  It’s right up your alley.  It’s about the Iraqi WMD thing.  You have to go see it.  It’s great!  It’s particularly timely since Karl Rove just came out with a book […]

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Google Search is Out of China
March 23, 2010 2 min. read

Game’s up. Google has shut down its web search on the mainland. Google blog post; NYT story. The company is attempting to route Chinese users to a simplified Chinese* Hong Kong site, where local legislation does not require them to censor their results. A clever attempt at an elegant face-saving solution, considering the fulmination about the necessity […]

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After Health Care
March 23, 2010 3 min. read

Okay, the Obama Administration is gathering up the laurel wreaths for its landmark victory on health care reform.  Nancy Pelosi, my all-time personal favorite Speaker of the House, deserves a lioness’s share of the credit as well.  Here’s a happy picture at the bill signing today.  Nancy looks pretty darn jazzed! But this blog is […]

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Big Pharma, Big discounts
March 23, 2010 2 min. read

I feel a little bad for the big pharmaceutical companies. Their big announcement today amounted to little more than a mention in the “more news” section of the NYTimes, sidelined by breathless articles about Obama signing the health reform bill. But more news is truly big news: both Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline have signed up to give […]

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Iran Cracking Down On Online Activists
March 23, 2010 2 min. read

Iran is playing for keeps on Internet censorship. More details have emerged on the activists arrested in conjunction with the hacking of US servers that took place last week. Via InsideIran: [T]he group arrested by Iranian authorities was the committee against censorship in Iran that goes by the name Iran Proxy. This group is composed […]

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