Most everyone, no doubt, has read stories about Chinese authorities intimidating journalists, restricting Internet access at Olympic media centers, and other various reports of violations of Beijing’s supposed promise to allow freedom for the international press during the Games. You’ve…

Most of the 1 billion people who watched the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing — 15 percent of the world’s population — were awed by the grandeur of what was described by the NBC announcers as the most spectacular opening ceremony…

Let the games begin. The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat. The paralysis of smog. The terror of the secret police. The anxiety of a closed society pretending be open.

Welcome to the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, which begin…

With the start of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games only 9 days away, I’ve compiled a roundup of stories that give some indication of what to watch for as the games begin:

Air pollution: This is undoubtedly the biggest concern…

A story in the New York Times today details a case where government prosecutors in New York attempted to determine the identities of anonymous posters on a political blog:

A grand jury subpoena sent by prosecutors in the Bronx earlier this…

If only oil worked like potatoes.

If the world became gluttonous for potatoes, and farmers couldn’t produce enough, the price of potatoes would rise. If the price rose too fast, we’d soon lose our appetite for spuds. Cooks would substitute…

USA Today reports that a Philadelphia man was arrested and charged with several crimes, including “making terroristic threats” and “corrupting the morals of a minor” after he appeared in a YouTube video encouraging viewers to kill cops.

The Daily News says members of…

Back before things got so polarized, it was said that American politics stops at the border. Democrats and Republicans might squabble at home, but they’d present a united front abroad.
Every now and then, there are signs that the good…

The very first Olympic torch relay was conceived by Carl Diem, the organizer of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and staged by Joseph Goebbels, head of the Nazi propaganda machine for Adolf Hitler. Sadly, it went off without a hitch.

The…