The Double Life of an Infamous Serbian Fugitive - NYTimes.com. from genocide to an alternative medicine santa claus. crazy.

Excerpt: Zakaria’s ‘The Post-American World’. didn’t even know he had a new book out. that’s a definite next-day 1-click on amazon.

100,000 could be dead in Burma, diplomat says | guardian.co.uk. dear lord.

Global Housing Bust. so when’s the other shoe gonna drop in canada?

IMF says US crisis is ‘largest financial shock since Great Depression’ | guardian.co.uk. some serious doom and gloom.

Colbert: First Vid of Dean Kamen’s Miracle Water Distiller. for real? via josh.

Earth Hour crashes to Earth | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog “But here’s the awareness it should raise: how difficult it is to get even a tiny cut in just electricity use for one lousy hour, in a country responsible for just 1.5 per cent of the world’s emissions.”

$1 now equals 25,000,000 Zimbabwe dollars - CNN.com. $100USD equals 40 pounds of zimbabwe dollars. and since this article is a month old, it’s probably worse since inflation is currently 165,000%

TheStar.com | Antarctic ice shelf collapses “A chunk of Antarctic ice about the size of Manhattan suddenly collapsed”. yikes. via kyle.

How one clumsy ship cut off the web for 75 million people | The Guardian. nice infographic of the underwater pipes. via boris.

My first Kiva loan is paid back! « Specs & Spectacle. i should start using kiva.

Afghan journalism student given death sentence - CBC News. for discussing something that “violated the tenets of islam”. and it was done by a secret court. i’m so glad Canada is fighting for “freedom” over there.

Citigroup Posts $9.8 Billion Loss; Will Cut 4000 Jobs - New York Times. and “cutting its dividend by 41 percent and obtaining a $12.5 billion cash infusion” from investors like the Singapore government.

Can There Be Too Many Tourists? In Tuscany, Maybe - New York Times. the town of Sienna is fighting an airport expansion. “We don’t object to growth, but our main intent is to remain human.”

The Informed Reader - Making the Case for Immigration. summary of articles from the economist on immigration.

Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world - Fortune “His family’s holdings represent more than 5% of Mexico’s 2006 gross domestic product, and Slim-controlled companies make up one-third of the $422 billion Mexican Bolsa, or stock exchange.” holy shit.

The Informed Reader - WSJ.com. I just started reading this blog and all the posts are really quite interesting. mix of world politics, business, culture, etc.

Foreign Policy: The Top 10 Stories You Missed in 2007. 70,000 Cubans on rafts in under 2 years. that’s nuts.

putin, person of the year

Russian President Vladimir Putin was named Time’s Person of the Year. Time also points out that Person of the Year doesn’t mean the best person of the year but frankly the opposite in the case of Mr. Putin. As I was heading home last night from work with Anton, there was a piece on NPR’s Marketplace about Putin’s power (and money) grab. Here’s the part I liked…

Things have a way of working out like this for Vladimir Putin. Consider the maneuvers that brought him to power in the first place. In 1998, Putin was named to head the Russian security police, the successors to the KGB. Soon, a series of humiliating or scandalous leaks disgraced leading Russian politicians, from President Yeltsin down. Then, in August 1999, Putin rose from control of the secret police to control of the whole Russian state.

One morning, President Yeltsin named Putin as one of three deputy prime ministers. The government of the moment that same day abruptly resigned, leaving Putin as sole acting prime minister. Later on that same day, Yeltsin declared that he wished to see Putin succeed him. Before nightfall, Putin unveiled his own presidential campaign.

Six months later, Putin became acting president. Putin granted Yeltsin and his family immunity from prosecution.

Food prices | Cheap no more | Economist.com. somehow it all comes back to corn subsidies and the demand for oil.