Tiananmen: Twenty Years Later

Twenty years ago tanks rolled into Beijing's Tiananmen Square to crush the biggest pro-democracy movement in history. Hundreds were killed, thousands jailed and many fled to escape persecution. Here exiled leaders of the student revolution tell their remarkable stories and reveal how, after being forced to build new lives, they remain haunted by its bloody legacy.

Over seven tumultuous weeks of nationwide demonstrations and protests, beginning with the death of the sacked reformer, Hu Yaobang, on 15 April 1989 and ending with the movement's violent suppression on 4 June, an estimated 100 million people across China demonstrated in support of political reform. The movement was inchoate, contradictory and politically confused but it remains the biggest peaceful pro-democracy movement in human history. For the millions who took part, life would never be the same again.

Some are still in prison. Others, in mourning, are still harassed. A few campaign openly for a reversal of the Communist Party's verdict that the movement was the work of "a small clique of counter-revolutionaries" who wanted to overthrow the party and the socialist system. Behind the few high-profile campaigners and dissidents is the much larger throng of those who still nurse memories too painful to discuss.

It's been two decades since that lone protester defied a column of tanks on Beijing's Avenue of Eternal Peace, before vanishing, never to be identified. Since that time, China has prospered economically. The party has embraced the market and traded the socialist system it claimed to defend for the pleasures of getting rich. Younger generations are vague about a movement that still cannot be publicly discussed or documented. But the suppression at Tiananmen continues to exact a high price: the constant falsification of history, a political system frozen by the fear of the people's judgment, and a leadership that sees the ghosts of Tiananmen wherever voices call for political reform.

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The Hunt For Gollum (Lord of the Rings Fan Film)

The Hunt For Gollum is an unofficial not for profit short film by a group of enthusiast filmmakers. Made by indie director Chris Bouchard, and he has recruited an immensely talented group of effects wizards, sculptors and artists (trailers can be deceiving, as e all know but if they are any indication, it looks good!). The independant movie is being produced for £3000 -- but it looks professional.
The script is adapted from elements of the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. The story follows the Heir of Isildur; the "greatest huntsman and traveller in Middle Earth" as he sets out to find the creature Gollum. The creature must be found to discover the truth about the Ring, and to protect the future Ringbearer.

The movie will be released FOR FREE on May 3, 2009 as a download at http://www.hunt4gollum.com

In the meantime, enjoy the trailer below, visit the official website, where you can view behind-the-scenes material, more trailer, stills, soundtrack, wallpapers, posters, banners, and lots more goodies!

Trailer 2 - The Hunt For Gollum at SCI-FI-LONDON
Uploaded by HuntForGollum

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When Bad Advice Is the Best Advice

By PETER A. UBEL, M.D

Eighteen years out of training, and I still find myself struggling to understand the moral imperatives of medical practice.

Not long ago, as part of my hospital duties, I cared for a man who could no longer swallow. This dysphagia was his only medical complaint, one that had sneaked up on him over the course of a month. He simply couldn’t find the muscular strength to propel food and liquid down to his stomach.

After some investigation, the medical team discovered he had metastatic lung cancer. That explained the dysphagia: cancer had stimulated his immune system to attack his swallowing muscles.

While the cancer was incurable, we hoped we could slow its progression and give him a few extra months of life — small solace for a man in his mid-50s with a loving wife and several children ready to start new families, but the best we could offer.

On rounds the morning after he received a feeding tube, I stopped by to see how he was doing — checking his abdomen for signs of infection and, more important, assessing his fragile mood. I tried to keep things upbeat, making small talk while examining his belly. But something about his response, and the look he gave his wife, was troubling.

I looked up and asked him how he was feeling, keeping purposely vague about whether I was posing a medical or a social question. It was his wife who replied — angrily. She lashed out at her husband for having sneaked off that morning for a cigarette. He glared back and told her to mind her own business.

She looked toward me for support — I was the physician, after all — and I found myself in a common medical quandary.

Was it my duty to tell this patient what to do or, instead, to give him the medical information he needed to make up his mind?

Medical decisions these days are increasingly recognized as being more than simply medical, with the right choice depending in part on the patient’s preferences.

Should a middle-age woman with mildly elevated cholesterol take a statin, for example? That depends on whether she thinks the pill’s benefits outweigh its burdens, burdens that only she can judge: costs, possible side effects and the inconvenience of taking medications.

Should an elderly man have knee-replacement surgery? That depends on how much he is suffering, how much he cares about the risk of surgical complications and how willing he is to undergo lengthy and painful rehabilitation.

According to this new paradigm of preference-sensitive decision-making, doctors like me shouldn’t tell patients what to do (Take your pills! Stop smoking!), but rather should educate our patients about the risks and benefits of their options.

So going by the book, I should have informed my patient about the pros and cons of tobacco. But I couldn’t stand by, in the role of a dispassionate educator, and let this man hurt himself. Instead, I felt compelled to give him advice that would promote his best interests.

I advised him to smoke.

“You two obviously love each other very much,” I said. Then I turned to his wife.

“I know that you are trying to keep your husband from smoking because you love him and don’t want him to get sicker,” I continued, as I recall. “But those cigarettes aren’t going to hurt him now. If anything, they’ll help him relax. What matters is that you two stick together, because these next few months are going to be really difficult.”

I reminded them that the cancer wasn’t curable, that we were hoping to improve his quality of life, and that the best way to do that was to spend quality time with the people he loved.

Every situation is different, of course. But my duty as a physician is to improve my patients’ lives. And if I can do that by sharing my perspective with them, however strange or uncomfortable it may sound, then that is what I must do.

Even if it means encouraging them to smoke.

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How to make a baby (worksafe!)

What If Marijuana Were Legal? Possible Outcomes

The scenario: Marijuana has been legal for two years throughout the U.S. It is treated, in the eyes of the law, similar to alcohol. It is taxed and regulated, and users must be 21 or older. Pot smokers can buy it by the gram at licensed dispensaries. Predictably, the law change would make some people very happy — and others deeply concerned.

Imagine if you turned on the radio and heard this: "From NPR News in Washington, I'm Carl Kasell. After 70 years of prohibition, marijuana becomes legal today for personal consumption throughout the United States for persons 21 and older …"

How would the world change if cannabis finally came out of the closet, if it were fully legal to possess, sell and cultivate?

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Frozen moment in time

Fast Food Reality

Have you ever seen a McDonald’s or Wendy’s advertisement and really appreciated how delicious a sandwich or burger looked. You were so impressed that you went to said fast food restaurant and ordered yourself one.

You fork over your hard earned white collar cash expecting to receive the same beautiful masterpiece shown in the ads just to be let down by a sloppy disgusting looking sandwich that was probably made by an ex inmate.

Sure, you can’t expect that much for a burger that is delivered in less than three minutes but give me a break people, false advertisement is false advertisement. If you are going to advertise sexy full figured burgers don’t give me a squashed beef patty with some sort of material that is supposed to pass as cheese.

Think I’m just trash talking fast food restaurants? Naaa, I can appreciate a two cheeseburger meal from McDonald’s when nursing a hangover as much as the next guy, but seriously, quit advertising your food as designer foods and start advertising it like it is. Cheap, fast and greasy.

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Macgyver meets Star Wars Mashup!

Eyeball spy turns the tables on Big Brother

"You couldn't make this up: Cameras are being turned on the people paid to watch CCTV streams, to note which bits of surveillance footage they didn't see. The system developed in Turkey uses webcams to track a person's eye movements and can then produce an edited reel of footage that they didn't see at the end of their shift."

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"So the question is finally answered : "Who watches the watchmen?" "

Coyote finally catches Roadrunner!

Trent Reznor Urges Musicians To Ditch Labels

Rocker TRENT REZNOR is urging all musicians to follow in his footsteps and ditch their record labels.

Reznor's band Nine Inch Nails broke away from their deal with Universal in 2007, after a tempestuous relationship with the music giant.

The singer describes the experience as "liberating" - insisting big labels make too much money from musicians and are completely out of touch with the industry.
Reznor says, "Anyone who's an executive at a record label does not understand what the internet is, how it works, how people use it, how fans and consumers interact - no idea. I'm surprised they know how to use email. They have built a business around selling plastic discs, and nobody wants plastic discs any more. They're in such a state of denial it's impossible for them to understand what's happening.

"One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it? Who the f**k made that rule? Oh! The record labels made it because artists are dumb and they'll sign anything' - like I did. When we found out we'd been released (from their recording contract) it was like, 'Thank God!'. But 20 minutes later it was, 'Uh-oh, now what are we going to do?' It was incredibly liberating, and it was terrifying."

And Reznor adds that musicians should be exploring other ways to sell their own music, rather than relying on labels: "As an artist, you are now the marketer."

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The dark side of Dubai

Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging.

The wide, smiling face of Sheikh Mohammed – the absolute ruler of Dubai – beams down on his creation. His image is displayed on every other building, sandwiched between the more familiar corporate rictuses of Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders. This man has sold Dubai to the world as the city of One Thousand and One Arabian Lights, a Shangri-La in the Middle East insulated from the dust-storms blasting across the region. He dominates the Manhattan-manqué skyline, beaming out from row after row of glass pyramids and hotels smelted into the shape of piles of golden coins. And there he stands on the tallest building in the world – a skinny spike, jabbing farther into the sky than any other human construction in history.

But something has flickered in Sheikh Mohammed's smile. The ubiquitous cranes have paused on the skyline, as if stuck in time. There are countless buildings half-finished, seemingly abandoned. In the swankiest new constructions – like the vast Atlantis hotel, a giant pink castle built in 1,000 days for $1.5bn on its own artificial island – where rainwater is leaking from the ceilings and the tiles are falling off the roof. This Neverland was built on the Never-Never – and now the cracks are beginning to show. Suddenly it looks less like Manhattan in the sun than Iceland in the desert.

Once the manic burst of building has stopped and the whirlwind has slowed, the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing – at last – into history.

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Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre

In 1991, Klaus Teuber was well on his way to becoming one of the planet's hottest board game designers. Teuber (pronounced "TOY-burr"), a dental technician living with his wife and three kids in a white row house in Rossdorf, Germany, had created a game a few years earlier called Barbarossa and the Riddlemaster, a sort of ur-Cranium in which players mold figures out of modeling clay while their opponents try to guess what the sculptures represent. The game was a hit, and in 1988 it won the Spiel des Jahres prize—German board gaming's highest honor.

Winning some obscure German award may not sound impressive, but in the board game world the Spiel des Jahres is, in fact, a very, very big deal. Germans, it turns out, are absolutely nuts about board games. More are sold per capita in Germany than anywhere else on earth. The country's mainstream newspapers review board games alongside movies and books, and the annual Spiel board game convention in Essen draws more than 150,000 fans from all walks of life.

Because of this enthusiasm, board game design has become high art—and big business—in Germany. Any game aficionado will tell you that the best-designed titles in the world come from this country. In fact, the phrase German-style game is now shorthand for a breed of tight, well-designed games that resemble Monopoly the way a Porsche 911 resembles a Chevy Cobalt.

Eventually, Teuber whittled his invention down to a standard pair of dice, a handful of colored wooden houses that represented settlements and cities, stacks of cards that stood for resources (brick, wool, wheat, and others), and 19 hexagonal cardboard tiles that were arranged on a table to form the island. He had hit on something with this combination—the enthusiasm on family game night was palpable. During nearly every session, he, his wife, and their children would find themselves in heated competition. The game was done, Teuber decided. He called it...

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The hunt for the last Nazis

The US has deported to Austria a former Nazi death camp guard, Josias Kumpf. The move sheds light on the continuing search - in some countries, at least - for World War II war criminals. Mario Cacciottolo examines a hunt now entering its final phase.

"Looking for Nazi war criminals is the ultimate law enforcement race against the clock."

Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) in the United States, has a list of thousands of suspects.

But working out whether any of them are alive and in the US is a laborious job.

A full check could take 100 years at current rates, he says - but in 10 years "the World War II biological clock will come to an end".

Contrary to popular belief, most former Nazis did not go into hiding after the war. Most did not even change their name.

There were some - such as Adolf Eichmann, who planned the transport of Jews to death camps, and Dr Joseph Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death" - who slipped away amid the post-war chaos and assumed false identities.

But the majority simply took off their uniforms, went home, and got a job.

And for a crucial period in the 1950s, little was done to track them down, experts say.

Justice 'not done'

"More could have been done, but there was a lack of political will. Not from 1945 to 1948, but after that," says Jean-Marc Dreyfus, lecturer in Holocaust studies at the University of Manchester.

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Replica Monty Python hand grenade causes bomb scare in London

Water company engineers spotted the object when they lifted up a fire hydrant cover during work on a street in Shoreditch, east London.

The road was cordoned off and a nearby pub was evacuated amid fears that the "grenade" could explode.

But after nearly an hour of analysis bomb experts realised that the cause of the scare was in fact a copy of the "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch" used by Eric Idle to slaughter a killer rabbit in the 1975 film Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

The fictional weapon looks more like a golden ornament than a hand grenade; it was based on the Sovereign's Orb used at royal coronations.

The prop has become a popular in-joke among Python fans and replicas can be bought on eBay for as little as £14.

An spokeswoman for Islington police confirmed that the device was a toy and that had been no danger to the public

Local businesses criticised the police for taking so long to realise there was no threat.

Alberto Romanelli, owner of the Windmill put that was evacuated, said: "I lost a good hour's worth of business."


"And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it."

A Quiet Revolution Grows in the Muslim World

Three decades after Iran's upheaval established Islamic clerical rule for the first time in 14 centuries, a quieter and more profound revolution is transforming the Muslim world. Dalia Ziada is a part of it.

When Ziada was 8, her mother told her to don a white party dress for a surprise celebration. It turned out to be a painful circumcision. But Ziada decided to fight back. The young Egyptian spent years arguing with her father and uncles against the genital mutilation of her sister and cousins, a campaign she eventually developed into a wider movement. She now champions everything from freedom of speech to women's rights and political prisoners. To promote civil disobedience, Ziada last year translated into Arabic a comic-book history about Martin Luther King Jr. and distributed 2,000 copies from Morocco to Yemen.

Now 26, Ziada organized Cairo's first human-rights film festival in November. The censorship board did not approve the films, so Ziada doorstopped its chairman at the elevator and rode up with him to plead her case. When the theater was suspiciously closed at the last minute, she rented a tourist boat on the Nile for opening night--waiting until it was offshore and beyond the arm of the law to start the movie.

Ziada shies away from little, including the grisly intimate details of her life. But she also wears a veil, a sign that her religious faith remains undimmed. "My ultimate interest," she wrote in her first blog entry, "is to please Allah with all I am doing in my own life."

That sentiment is echoed around the Muslim world. In many of the scores of countries that are predominantly Muslim, the latest generation of activists is redefining society in novel ways. This new soft revolution is distinct from three earlier waves of change--the Islamic revival of the 1970s, the rise of extremism in the 1980s and the growth of Muslim political parties in the 1990s.

Today's revolution is more vibrantly Islamic than ever.

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Kill Bill Parts 1 & 2, in One Minute, in One Take

Batman Icon's Mutation 2.0

"Cool, I never really paid attention to the different logos over the past 30 years. "

Jon Stewart to Dick Cheney: Drink a cup of 'Shut the f**k up'

Still overcome with incredulity over former Vice President Dick Cheney’s interview on Sunday with CNN, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart couldn’t resist Tuesday night taking a couple of shots at some of the eye-brow raising statements made.

In his interview with CNN’s John King, Cheney said of President Obama’s national security policies, “He’s making some choices that in my mind, will in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack.”

Noting that Cheney no longer can truly know what he is talking about as he no longer receives daily intelligence briefings, Stewart indignantly said, “Maybe I could interest you in a hot cup of shut the f**k up.”

“The guy’s vice president for eight years, you barely see a whiff of him. He lives in some subterranean lair, literally has his house removed from Google Earth,” Stewart said. “Then when he’s no longer accountable to the American people he’s popping up everywhere. I can’t get him off my TV. He’s like the Mario Lopez of doom now.”

(With Video Goodness!!)
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"How do I make a segue from cold blooded reptilian killers? With us this morning, Former Vice President Dick Cheney..."

Awesomeness.

'MacGyver' getting revived as feature film

New Line is using twine, bubble gum and a pencil to throw "MacGyver" into development as a feature film.

Raffaella De Laurentiis, daughter of Dino De Laurentiis, is producing through her Raffaella Prods. along with Martha De Laurentiis and series creator Lee Zlotoff.

Dino De Laurentiis is exec producing.

"MacGyver" was a science-oriented adventure series that ran from 1985-92 on ABC. Richard Dean Anderson, later of "Stargate: Atlantis" and "SG-1" fame, starred as an incredibly resourceful secret agent for the Phoenix Foundation who frequently would escape from dangerous situations with ingenious and lightning-quick engineering trickery.

Two telefilms starring Anderson aired in the years after the show's cancellation. The character eventually achieved enough cultural penetration to become a reference for anyone attempting to jury-rig a solution out of household items. "Saturday Night Live" took the concept to the next level with its spoofs "MacGruber," starring Will Forte.

No writer is attached, but the studio hopes to find a script that can acknowledge how the concept has staked a place into pop culture yet still makes for a serious and fun adventure movie.

"We think we're a stick of chewing gum, a paper clip and an A-list writer away from a global franchise," said New Line's Richard Brener, who will oversee with Sam Brown and Walter Hamada.

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