Christopher Chung

Felix Salmon: "The last time there was a disaster on this scale was the Asian tsunami, five years ago. And for all its best efforts, the Red Cross has still only spent 83% of its $3.21 billion tsunami budget — which means that it has over half a billion dollars left to spend. Not to put too fine a point on it, but that’s money which could be spent in Haiti, if it weren’t for the fact that it was earmarked." - Christopher Chung

"Obama has failed to fulfill his [Guantanamo] promise. Some prisoners are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006." - Christopher Chung

"Conan O'Brien may be putting on a brave face publicly, but two reports say that he teared up while sharing the news with his staff that he would not accept an offer from NBC to host the "Tonight Show" after midnight. ...[Q]uotes an insider: "When Conan read the statement to the staff, "he broke up. He began to cry," one of my insiders reveals. "Because for 17 years he was working towards The Tonight Show, and now he says he's prepared to walk away from it. That's an amazing thing. An amazing thing. But he takes very seriously the fact that The Tonight Show baton was passed to him."" " - Christopher Chung

"At first glance, high school senior Lucas Faber, 18, seems like any ordinary gay teen. He's a member of his school's swing choir, enjoys shopping at the mall, and has sex with other males his age. But lately, a growing worry has begun to plague this young gay man. A gnawing feeling that, deep down, he may be a fundamentalist, right-wing Christian." - Christopher Chung

oops - رامین

"Dried plums... How to eat: Wrapped in prosciutto and baked." - Christopher Chung

"No matter what you think of homosexuality, it is a fact that gays and lesbians are members of our families, clubs, and workplaces. They are our doctors, our teachers, our soldiers (whether we admit it or not), and our friends. They yearn for acceptance, stable relationships, and success in their lives, just like the rest of us. Conservatives and liberals alike need to come together on principles that surely unite us. Certainly, we can agree on the value of strong families, lasting domestic relationships, and communities populated by persons with recognized and sanctioned bonds to one another. Confining some of our neighbors and friends who share these same values to an outlaw or second-class status undermines their sense of belonging and weakens their ties with the rest of us and what should be our common aspirations. Even those whose religious convictions preclude endorsement of what they may perceive as an unacceptable "lifestyle" should recognize that disapproval should not warrant stigmatization and unequal treatment. ... We demean their relationships and we demean them as individuals. I cannot imagine how we benefit as a society by doing so." - Christopher Chung

"Science has taught us, even if history has not, that gays and lesbians do not choose to be homosexual any more than the rest of us choose to be heterosexual. ... And, while our Constitution guarantees the freedom to exercise our individual religious convictions, it equally prohibits us from forcing our beliefs on others. I do not believe that our society can ever live up to the promise of equality, and the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, until we stop invidious discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation." - Christopher Chung

Colbert does a phenomenal takedown of Domino's and their eagerly anticipated new recipe... hilarious - Christopher Chung

"The weakness in our value chain with the customer was really in our core product." - ROFL - Andrew C (✔)

Another installment in the NYT's long look at the ugly side of South Korea: "In a country where abortion is both widespread and, with few exceptions, against the law, Dr. Choi and Dr. Shim are hoping to force South Korea’s first serious public discussion of the ethics of the procedure. In November, they and dozens of other obstetricians held a news conference to ask “forgiveness” for having performed illegal abortions." - Christopher Chung

"President Obama said Tuesday that the United States government had sufficient information to uncover the terror plot to bring down an airplane on Christmas Day, but intelligence officials “failed to connect those dots” that would have prevented the young Nigerian man from boarding the plane in Amsterdam." - Christopher Chung

"The advantage lies with the asymmetrical, the nimble, the long tail, the lone actor. There is nothing the modern state can really do to stop this ... What we need is sobriety, stoicism, vigilance and a determined defense of our values and the rule of law. We cannot save our civilization by junking it, by pre-emptive wars and torture and near-dictatorial executive power. And we cannot save it by politicizing every attack, thereby magnifying the power of one tiny terrorist with burnt balls to create havoc and division in the free world." - Christopher Chung

Crazy. Look at the width at the base of the building! - Christopher Chung

Dan u saw these right? i find these funny. - Christopher Chung

Yeah. Thanks for thinking of me though. :) - Dan Hsiao

The humpty dumpty line is so wrong but funny. - Christopher Chung

Great pic - Christopher Chung

I sure hope air travel security is something we figure out sometime this decade... (Preferably in the first half) - Dan Hsiao

Apparently the man who made his way through security has yet to be found. Go TSA! Seriously though, things are screwy. - Christopher Chung

[ • > •] - Christopher Chung

this is a mortal sin.........and I want it - VALZONE#SCREWED

Where from? - Dan Hsiao

Catherine's Caffe, down the street from me on Dekalb! - Christopher Chung

"NYT: Were you close to George Bush? Yoo: No, I’ve never met him. I don’t know Cheney either. I have not gone hunting with him, which is probably a good thing for me." - Christopher Chung

Another interesting article on Mr. Yoo is: http://washingtonindependent.com/72455... - Tom Awtry

"The storyline of murder in New York is one that has been undergoing constant revision since the Police Department began tracking homicides in 1962. There have been rises — the homicide rate peaked in 1990 at 2,245 — and subsequent falls. But since such statistics have been compiled and examined, there has never been as few murders in New York as there have been this year. The city is on track, for the second time in three years, to have the fewest number of homicides in a 12-month period since 1962. As of Dec. 27, there were 461 murders; the current record low happened in 2007, when there were 496." - Christopher Chung

Looks like American Airlines didn't know what to do with all that great publicity from "Up In the Air"... I'm glad no one was killed. - Christopher Chung

awgh. scary. - Felicia Yue

I'm guessing the plane was stoned, forgot how long the runway was. - Andy Ackerman

someone once told me a parable about not being stoned before attempting to take public transportation to the airport... - Felicia Yue

"Take it away, Confederate Yankee: "Robert Byrd has been around a very long time, and his many decades of service have made West Virginia a wonderful state in which to manufacture methamphetamine or frame the locals for murder. But it's time for Senator to do the right thing, and expire. It isn't too much to ask for Byrd to step off for that great klavern in the sky before the Senate vote that may force this nation to accept government-rationed health care. Even a nice coma would do. Without his frail, Gollum-like body being wheeled into the Senate's chambers to cast the deciding vote, the Senate cannot curse our children and grandchildren with crushing debt and rationed, substandard healthcare." " - Christopher Chung

Terrible - Christopher Chung

This must be that vaunted comity I've been hearing so much about. - Andrew C (✔)

Another foot on its way? - Christopher Chung

Yow. - Andrew C (✔)

almost enough for one order of general's chicken - Felicia Yue

"I mentioned several days ago that, according to a recent Pew poll, 44% of the U.S. public thinks that China is the "world's leading economic power." OK, I can understand why some people might think so -- what with the trillions of dollars of U.S. debt to our Chinese overlords, the ubiquity of "Made in China" products wherever you shop, and the precision and scale of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Still, people who think this are wrong. When reading the Pew poll, I immediately thought of a scene, from Gansu province, that gives an idea of how hundreds of millions of people get by in today's "all-conquering" modern China:" - Christopher Chung

It's actually happening: "1 World Trade (formerly know as the Freedom Tower) is on the rise with construction now reaching the 4th floor." - Christopher Chung

This story is amazing, for anyone who has not seen it yet. - Christopher Chung

wow! - Rachel Lea Fox

"The dollar-DVD arms race is escalating! National chain Redbox has kiosks in nine local Walgreens (check redbox.com for locations), but Blockbuster is countering hard: 200 Express kiosks inside Duane Reades by year-end. The ATM-like machines will hold approximately 900 DVDs, each available for $1 a night and returnable to any location" - Christopher Chung

"When our ancestors looked at the Big Dipper, they sometimes used it as a vision test: Could you see make out two distinct stars at the point where the handle bends? The sharp-eyed could distinguish the “rider” from the “horse” — the small star we call Alcor sitting above the larger star we call Mizar. Now it turns out that there are actually two riders on that horse." - Christopher Chung

unlike. unlike a lot. - Felicia Yue

"A plainclothes police sergeant fatally shot a 25-year-old street peddler on Thursday morning outside the parking garage of the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square after the officer confronted the man, who he believed had been a part of a scam to use CDs to intimidate tourists, the authorities said. The slain man, who the police said opened fire first, was armed with a loaded Mac-10 automatic machine pistol, the police said. A major police response followed the shooting, which occurred around 11:15 a.m. at 46th Street and Broadway, a tourist-packed intersection, during a weekday morning when the streets were filled with shoppers." - Christopher Chung

Scary that the guy fired one of these in Times Sq: http://tacspec.org/weaponr.... From a lady in her hotel room with windows open: "“I heard it clear as day,” she said. “I’d never heard a gunshot before, but I knew it was a gunshot. Pow-pow-pow-pow — just like that. Then I heard a guy yell. Then sirens.” She added: “I froze. My hair stood on end.”" - Dan Hsiao

How do you use CDs to intimidate tourists? Were they of Phantom of the Opera? - Kevin Fox

holy crap kevin - seems all wrong that you made me lol at this post. must go hang head in shame - Felicia Yue

"A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled. Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing sight to anything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or a shock wave - although no one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet. The phenomenon began when what appeared to be a blue light seemed to soar up from behind a mountain. It stopped mid-air, then began to circulate." - Christopher Chung

Although the video looks more like a spinning rocket of some sort. Very cool. - Jesse Stay