Can we live without Google? asks James Harkin in The Times. A reader taunts Harkin: “Can we live without GOD? YES. Can we live without GOOGLE? Silly Question. Of course, We can, if we want.” Harkins reminds us that eight out of ten people prefer Google, a search engine that is now worth roughly £100 billion. “In the space of a single decade, internet search has changed the way we look at...

Some readers emailed me asking why I haven’t posted as much over the past two weeks. Here’s part of the answer: President Barack Obama’s controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is blaming “them Jews” for keeping him from speaking to the president. Wright, the former pastor of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, said he hasn’t spoken to Obama since...

I am no fashion expert but I enjoyed reading The Times of London’s good natured taunt at the dress the First Lady of the USA chose to wear for her visit to the power centre in London — the Westminster Abbey. Writes Alice Olins: “Mrs O is a clever woman: pretending to have just thrown on any old holiday number whilst actually acknowledging pioneering catwalk ideas is no mean feat, she is probably...

Following a public/media outcry over the growing attacks on Indian students, and a personal intervention by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the Victoria state premier John Brumby announced a “high-visibility police operation”. (Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, was in a recent poll declared as the “third best liveable city in the world”. And, surely, it has a reputation to protect....

Photographs, it is said, speak more eloquently than words. The Associated Press photo of Vietnamese girl Phan Thi Kim Phúc running for life is still the lasting image of the Vietnam War. And the photo of the Unknown rebel versus the mighty Red Army is the vivid image of the Tiananmen protest of the Chinese youth (photo above). Nalaka Gunawardene, the Sri Lankan journalist, presents the dramatic moment: “This...

Despite worldwide negative publicity following increase in attacks on foreign students, Australian cities occupy five of the top 20 places in a British survey conducted to find out the “most liveable cities” among the 140 cities in the world. Melbourne (photo above), which recently catapulted into news as an “unsafe” place for Indian students, ranked third in the world, behind Vancouver...

Peter Varghese, 53, a distinguished Australian diplomat and former senior advisor to ex-Prime Minister John Howard, has been appointed Australian High Commissioner to India. He is due to take charge in August from John McCarthy, a distinguished and popular diplomat, who completes his five-year term in India. Varghese brings with him vast experience in current international developments. I strongly recommend...

On the shores of the Potomac By this river’s murky waters Policy is shaped and crafted Opposition views ignored. In the chambers of the mighty Where once issues were debated When the deficit is mentioned Legislators just look bored. Will such policies so ditzy Be allowed to last forever Will our Asian banker lenders And the markets turn blind eyes To a spending binge so flagrant Only Beltway types will marvel When...

Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the fabled Titanic that sank in 1912, died on Sunday at age 97. While her father died in the sinking of the luxury ship, Millvina, her brother and her mother survived in a lifeboat that brought them to safety. More here… Here’s BBC documentary… Dean was nine weeks old when the liner sank after hitting an iceberg in the early hours of 15 April 1912. More...

Was Shakespeare better known for his plays or his sonnets? Well we can go on arguing about that. The Independent carries a piece by Boyd Tonkin who introduces his selection of sonnets, while fans nominate their favourites to mark the 400th anniversary. “In 1609, the publisher Thomas Thorpe issued Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets in a handy quarto-sized edition, with a mysterious dedication to ‘Mr...

My headline is ripped from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show graphic. The story is here and here. Fire the guy! Statement from Louis Caldera, Director White House Military Office, on Air Force One flight over New York “Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision. While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and...

Everyone knows by now that derivatives are a major cause of the world’s present economic crisis. Some long used and very valuable derivatives known as options have always proven their worth as insurance vehicles in various markets. But a new crop of derivatives that started to appear in the 1990s, known in the trade as “exotics,” were untested, highly theoretical mathematical constructs like...

In May 2008 Nepal (world’s youngest Republic that shares its borders with India and China) abolished monarchy, and King Gyanendra was given 15 days to leave the palace. A fortnight later the ex-king and his wife left Narayanhity Palace, thus ending 240-year-long Shah dynasty. The palace is now a museum and has so far attracted over 36,000 visitors in the capital city of Kathmandu. (The former king Gyanendra’s...

The world-wide interest in Titanic tragedy (of 1912) was fueled by the 1997 film on the sinking of this Olympic-class passenger liner. Interestingly, tales relating to The Titanic keep surfacing with surprising regularity. Here is the latest one attributed to the survivor Ms Barbara West (photo left)… The latest story emerged after the death of Barbara, one of the last survivors of the disaster, in 2007,...

Every once in awhile you think that maybe, just maybe, this Congress and this President actually have some political courage. But it’s a fast dissipating illusion. Beltway courage is like bottle courage. Blows hard, talks loud and tough, then passes out before actually following up. Take this latest business with A.I.G. bonuses and fat cat Wall Street bonuses generally. They seem to embody perfectly for...

It’s hard to evaluate Treasury Secretary Geithner’s new bailout plan using traditional economic yardsticks. The government’s economic behavior in recent months has entered realms better understood by studying the works of Franz Kafka and Lewis Carroll, or the illustrations of Rube Goldberg. Here, in less literary and pictorial terms, is what Secretary Geithner hath just wrought. In an attempt...

As I’ve watched the response of Washington to the ongoing economic crisis, I’ve been reminded of that quote from Shakespeare: “Cowards die many times before their death, the valiant taste of death but once.” The newest, the latest effort to rid the economy of the toxic assets that are crippling the banking system, an effort that will be announced tomorrow, simply makes this observation...

AIG is suing the government for $306 million in tax refunds. But since the government owns 80 percent of AIG, the company is in essence suing itself. At first this struck me as being not so much a piece of financial news as a plot line for “The Twilight Zone.” But the more I thought about it, the more appealing was the idea of suing thyself… The Joys Of Suing Thyself I’m suing myself,...

In 1981 President Ronald Reagan took an enormous chance that delivered enormous benefits for his administration and its core beliefs. He broke the airline controllers’ union. Unions had been losing a lot of power and membership for years before this, but the controllers’ encounter seemed to be a unique situation. Airline controllers felt that had an unbeatable hand. Their union was small but its...

This time they’ve gone too far. This time the spoiled, overpaid, toxic finance peddling crowd with its ferocious sense of entitlement and infinite capacity to avoid taking any responsibility for the horrors they have inflicted on their fellow citizens have just plain gone over the line. The bonuses to the 400 dingbats who ruined the world’s largest insurer and stuck the U.S. taxpayer with a humongous...

A lot of people are fuming today about news that the 400 A.I.G. employees in the company’s London office—the folks who sold trillions of dollars worth of “swaps” that brought the company to ruin and could end up destroying the world economy—are in line to get $450 million in bonus payments. The legal justification for this idiocy can’t be ignored. These employees have a contractual...

Why did the stock market turn in such a strong performance this week. Why did the Dow rise about 10 percent? Why, indeed? People like to append a logical sounding reason for their behavior, especially when it involves institutions such as the stock market. We thus have heard in recent days such ‘good news’ as a major company’s bond rating that didn’t drop as much as it might have, retail...

To remain fit and fine once you are over 60 is a big challenge. An interesting book tells us that the best recipe is to continue to remain curious and communicative. Irma Kurtz, 73, once a “proper journalist” who reported from Vietnam and interviewed celebrities long before they were called that, has written a book Growing Old Disgracefully. She was born in New Jersey, grew up in New York, moved to Paris...

At the time of this writing Bernie Madoff hasn’t officially admitted anything and the crimes he is believed to have committed are still just alleged. I nonetheless have been having an active correspondence with a fair number of people about this man and his legal travails and gotten a slew of opinions that are both fascinating and scary. My correspondents generally feel, for example, that he is gaming...

Analysts and commentators are debating what to call the present state of the U.S. economy. Is is a deep recession or an early depression? I have another suggestion in this regard. Perhaps we might more accurately term it a major economic reshuffling—a dramatic reordering of national wealth. The most obvious symptom of this reshuffling, of course, is wealth diminuation. A great many people are getting much...