The Center of the World may be the first mainstream movie to seize the essence of geek life in the 21st century -- without collapsing into caricature.

Filmed using a digital camera, and featuring a lonely programmer entrepreneur as a protagonist, "Center of the World" serves as a neat little study of the ascendant species of geek.

This doesn't mean that techies come off looking rosy, though: "The Center of the World" is ultimately a warning about the isolation of life behind the monitor, casting a concerned eye at the troublesome sex lives of geeks.

Richard may believe that "the thing about computers is that you're kind of connected to everybody and everything, it's like you're at the center of the world"; but in Wang's film, the final message is that geeks are connecting to nothing at all.   more »

They wanted them poor niggers out of there and they ain’t had no intention to allow it to be reopened to no poor niggers, you know? And that’s just the bottom line. I can hear them now: "Get those fucking niggers outta sight."

It wasn’t a pretty statement. But I wasn’t looking for pretty. I’d taken my investigative team to New Orleans to meet with Malik Rahim. Pretty isn’t Malik’s concern.

We needed an answer to a weird, puzzling and horrific discovery. Among the miles and miles of devastated houses, rubble still there today in New Orleans, we found dry, beautiful homes.

But their residents were told by guys dressed like Ninjas wearing “Blackwater” badges: “Try to go into your home and we’ll arrest you.”   more »

The outraged politician was speaking

during the debate on a Government bill

to outlaw "upskirting" after a recent spate

of incidents where police arrested men

caught filming up the skirts of women

on public transport and at public events

   more »

Keywords: upskirting, pussycat, dolls, voyeurism, sex, pop

Freeter is a Japanese expression for 20 and 30-something year olds who lack full-time employment(temporary or contract work) or are unemployed.

What makes the "freeter" phenomemon unique in Japan is that the Japanese culture has traditionally been built upon long term, stable employment with life long, employee loyalty.

Thus freeters, and the freeter lifestyle, is a true counter culture movement within Japanese society. The question remains whether the freeter lifestyle is by choice or forced by a society not used to change.

Sociologists in Japan have determined that the early 1990's recession was the cause of the freeter trend.   more »

How do I dislike President George Bush? Let me count the ways.

Most of them have to do with his contented assumption that "faith" is, in and of itself, a virtue.

This self-satisfied mentality helps explain almost everything, from the smug expression on his face to the way in which, as governor of Texas, he signed all those death warrants without losing a second's composure.

At the root of Bush’s process is an unwillingness and seeming inability to experience his own sense of sin, guilt and shame, as if he is afraid of being exposed, of being found out.

He’s clearly unable to feel any remorse and experience his own weakness and vulnerability, his own sense of failure.   more »