Google Caves to China
Google is forsaking its commitment to openness in pursuit of the yen. For the past three months, Google has been automatically re-directing Chinese Internet users to a non-censored version of the search site based in Hong Kong. But now that the company is seeking to renew its license with the mainland, it is directing to the Chinese site (google.cn), which will include a link for users to navigate their way to the Hong Kong version (google.com.hk). Some don't think this capitulation will appease Chinese authorities. "If the Chinese government isn't happy with them running uncensored search ...
Splatter Michael Vick With Cake, Get Shot
Thank God for the New York Post. ESPN is still playing catch-up on the shooting that occurred outside NFL quarterback and ex-dog-torturing felon Michael Vick's 30th birthday party at a Virginia Beach nightclub. ESPN reports that the victim, Quanis Phillips, was "one of the co-defendants in the dogfighting case that landed Vick in federal prison for 18 months." Phillips was discharged from the hospital Friday, the same day he checked in. But those are all the details the self-described "worldwide leader" in sports provides. So, we turn to the tabloids. According to the Post, Phillips crashed ...
Can Tom Cruise Return to Box Office Glory?
Tom Cruise's new action movie, "Knight and Day," finished a disappointing third in its weekend debut, with $20.5 million for three days (and a total of $27.7 million in its five-day run that opened Wednesday). That the Fox flick finished behind "Toy Story 3," even though that movie opened the previous weekend, was not surprising given the monster Pixar-Disney franchise. But to fall behind Adam Sandler's opening "Grown Ups," a comedy that The New York Times described as "lazy, mean-spirited, incoherent, infantile and, above all, witless," is something else. "I'm told test screenings were ...
Manuel Noriega on Trial in Paris
Manuel Noriega is a penal globe-trotter. After spending 20 years in a U.S. prison, the former Panamanian dictator begins Monday his trial in Paris on charges of laundering drug money in France. He's accused of using Colombian drug money to buy lavish properties in the French capital. In 1999, Noriega and his wife were tried and convicted in absentia by a French court, sentenced to 10 years and fined more than $10 million. (She's now living in Panama and faces no charges.) There was a time, in the 1980s, when Noriega was treated well by France. In 1987, French President François Mitterrand ...
Jennifer Capriati 'Possibly' Overdoses
The celebrity website TMZ.com is reporting that former tennis star Jennifer Capriati was treated for a "possible" overdose in a Florida hospital on Sunday. (Oh, the lawyerly wiggle room the word "possible" provides.) Capriati won three Grand Slams and an Olympic gold medal in 1992. Despite those achievements, her career didn't live up to the hype that began in her early teenage years. In 1994, she was arrested for marijuana possession. (A year or so later I smoked pot with her when Capriati came to my college to visit a tennis academy friend; she was kind, if guarded.) Drug use may have been ...
Robert Byrd: Rising Up Out of a Racist Past
Like another long-serving senator, South Carolina's Strom Thurmond, West Virginia's Robert Byrd was once an unrepentant racist. He was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and, as senator, filibustered the Civil Rights Act for 14 hours and then voted against it. In a 1945 letter, Byrd wrote of his fears that he might "see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels." In 2001, in a nationally televised interview, he used the phrase "white [n-word]." But Byrd worked hard to distance himself from his racist past, and did so (unlike Thurmond, who bolted to the GOP) within the Democrat ...
NBA Draft: Why Washington Wizards Will Still Stink
As expected, the Washington Wizards took Kentucky freshman point guard John Wall with the first pick of the NBA draft on Thursday night. They also landed another guard, Chicago's Kirk Hinrich, in a trade. That has the makings of a decent backcourt, save for the uncomfortable fact that the Wizards already have an All-Star guard, the gun-toting, gimpy Gilbert Arenas. And he's signed to a maximum contract. The Washington Post is spinning the pick as a "new era for a Wizards franchise," saying "the Wizards are quickly putting that period in the past." But the home-town paper is wearing ...
Taliban Endorses Petraeus
In the United States, many are confident that Gen. David Petraeus is the man to lead the effort in Afghanistan. After all, he was the architect of the "surge" in Iraq, which is widely considered to be successful despite continuing sectarian strife and doubts that the country could hold onto security gains without American troops. But Petraeus has another fan -- the Taliban. Petraeus "is not smarter than McChrystal," Taliban spokesman Qari Muhammad Ahmed Yusuf said Thursday. "Also, his losing consciousness last week in an investigative hearing before the members of the U.S. Congress brought ...
Help Greece's Economy: Buy an Island
With its economy in the tank, Greece is taking drastic measures to fill its coffers, including selling off some of the country's 6,000 islands (only 227 of which are populated). An "area in Mykonos, one of Greece's top tourist destinations, is one of the sites for sale," the British newspaper the Guardian reports. "The area is one-third owned by the government, which is looking for a buyer willing to inject capital and develop a luxury tourism complex, according to a source close to the negotiations." The islands for sale (or long-term lease) can be found on privateonlineislands.com (though ...
England-Germany World Cup: Just Don't Mention the War
Though there's one more day of group play -- and the Brazil-Portugal game should be a doozy -- it's not too early to look ahead to the second round of the World Cup, now that many of the matchups have been set. Of them all, none can match Sunday's England-Germany contest for outsized significance. World Cup organizers have ordered extra security for the match between the two great rivals -- not just in soccer but, for much of the 20th century, world affairs. Of course, it's been a long time since World War II ended, but that doesn't mean the memory of the bloodbath doesn't loom large for both ...
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