Beijing is fantastic. You can get sweet & sour scorpions on a stick and any hour of day and night, you can get a tailor made suit overnight, and the entire city of 15 million, is palpably excited about the Olympics. Rest of the photo set on Flickr.
Credit Is a Human Right
Spent Friday afternoon hanging out with Dipal Chandra Barua, Managing Director of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. They won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for their work with micro-credit loans to the poor. Yes, the peace prize, not the economics one. The one that's been called "the highest award the Earth can give." 97% of the $7.27 billion in loans they gave out last year were to women. When they started they would give loans to Bangladeshi women to buy phones for their villages that they could use to earn money. They were called "telephone ladies." Professor Barua was proud to announce on Friday: "now our telephone ladies are internet ladies."
Stockholm by Boat
Hej Hammarby!
My New Backyard
All The Cool Kids Got Blogs
At Rock Creek Academy this morning, where all the cool kids are learning to blog. Superman, 50 Cent, and all the hot skates to bling out your hummer.
Sommer Sacks
Click to watch a movie ( ==>) of the sack hop race from the midsommer's party. Pay particular attention at time index 0:16.
1 Joke In However Many Seconds It Takes You To Read It
Once there was this elephant who decided to get a part time job at a bakery* to save up to buy a toilet. When he showed up to the interview the manager asked the elephant what qualifications he had to work a part time job. As the elephant passionately laid out his extensitve retail and patisserie experience, the manager interrupted him exclaiming, "Wait - if you buy a toilet, and flush your business - what will the poor dung beetles eat?" Just then the elephant straightened his tie and tossed this beauty of a zinger orally into the ether: "They shall eat your finest croissants," the elephant intoned, "and doubtless they shan't taste the diff."
*you should know that this particular bakery is known for the unusually poor quality of its croissants.
