Can the Tamil Tigers survive with no leader?With the reported death of Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, can the organisation regroup?
May, 2009
Electric bikes are zooming
In the Netherlands today, one in ten new bicycles sold is electric.
Reviving Wired magazine
Wired’s circulation has been on a steady rise and its website snares 11 million visitors a month — but 50% of its advertising has been lost in the economic slump. What now?
Anna Wintour, inspiration for Devil Wears Prada, on Vogue
The most powerful woman in fashion chats with 60 Minutes. Peaches and cream with a touch of arsenic?
Cannes: the last refuge of interesting fashion?
The Oscars represent safe fashion. But Cannes is a trip abroad to broaden fashion horizons, writes Jessica Michault.
MPs’ rivers of exempt income
Like much of the wonderful tax-free world inhabited by MPs, their exemptions flow from statutory provisions they have voted through for themselves.
Jesse “The Body” Ventura on waterboarding
Former pro wrestler Jesse “The Body” Ventura takes <i>The View</i> host Elisabeth Hasselbeck to task over waterboarding: “You give me a waterboard, one hour, and Dick Cheney and I’ll have him confessing to the Sharon Tate murders
Great (and not-so-great) logo redesigns
Design Reviver looks at 20 of the best corporate logo redesigns… and some of the worst.
TV on the way out?
Crazy times: people are watching television shows… on the Internet! Tell us more, Washington Post!
Geffen still wants a stake in NYT
David Geffen is still keen on getting a slice of the New York Times pie.
Is Obama the new Spock (stay with us here…)
Big thinkers — from New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd to MIT media moguls — have been drawing parallels between the dependably logical half-Vulcan and another mixed-race icon…
Geithner’s loophole
Why would Obama go to such lengths to protect Timothy Geithner after revelations he avoided $35,000 in tax? Perhaps it was precisely for this ability to manoeuvre around the rules, suggests Timothy Carney.
Obama’s auto bailout: spin, lies and layoffs
An auto industry “bailout” that shutters productive factories and dealerships, and lays off tens of thousands of workers, is not change that we can believe in, says John Nichols.
Q&A with climate honcho Rajendra Pachauri
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chair and Nobel laureate Rajendra Pachauri speaks to Grist.
How Trump puts a value on his worth
Exactly how much is Donald Trump worth? In a deposition from a 2007 court case, the Donald disclosed how he calculates on his own wealth: “it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings”.
How to review books you haven’t read
Many who bought Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read took the cover’s advice and, well, didn’t read it. Suzanne Menghraj has a go at not reading his next book.
“Biblically terrible”: Honda’s new low-cost hybrid
Honda’s new low-cost hybrid, the Insight, may be environmentally friendly, but it kind of sucks — a lot, says Jeremy Clarkson.
UK MP expenses scandal: now in cartoon form
Guardian cartoonist Patrick Blower livedraws the British MP expenses controversy.
When Barack met Benjamin
Obama has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, agreeing to continue talks with Iran over their nuclear weapons program, but calling for an end to construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
graph pr0n 
Polls drift into la la land: 56-44
So much for the commentators’ predictions that Rudd’s honeymoon is over: Newspoll comes in today with a two-party preferred of 56/44 to Labor, up 1 from a fortnight ago, writes Possum.
Is there copyright in space?
Apparently all you have to do to legally download new movies — with the government’s assistance in copying, reformatting and uploading requested titles — is leave the planet, says Cinetology.
The most interesting person in American politics?
Meg Whitman is potentially a formidable Republican leader at the national level. At age 52 and a year after stepping down as CEO of eBay, she’s running for governor of California.
The gnawing pressure of traditional TV
People can now construct an entire TV schedule without ever flicking on a remote control. The trends plainly worry some in the TV business, particularly cable companies.
Star Trek reviewed by Star Wars fan
The obvious advantage possessed by the Star Trek prequel over those other ones is that the script was written by actual writers, writes Daniel Zugna.
Obama picks Ghana as first African destination
The White House passed over Kenya, where Mr Obama’s late father was from, in favour of the small nation of Ghana as the site of his first presidential visit to sub-Saharan Africa.
