Chefs from 12 nations had been expected at a Chinese cooking competition that is to begin on Thursday in Duffy Square in Manhattan. But the Chinese-language television network, New Tang Dynasty Television, an independent network with its headquarters in New York, sponsoring the contest now says that only 11 nations will be represented — including France, Germany and Britain — because one country did not permit its chefs to leave for New York.That country was China.

Sesame Street, what are you doing?  Last week you had Katy Perry, which brought all sorts of outrage, and now you are offending those same people by calling the Scientific Method legitimate?  

AOL announced plans to buy technology blog
TechCrunch for an undisclosed amount.  AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington made the announcement onstage Tuesday at TechCrunch's Disrupt .
 Arrington and Armstrong signed the acquisition agreement in front of the audience.

It's no secret that I never intend to die and actively promote anything that will keep me alive but if I do die, and my descendants want their inheritance, they will have to descend into the family tomb where I will be waiting on a throne, sword in hand, and they can fight my Lich for it.  I'm not the only one.  Excavator Nicholas Stampolidis has found an ancient skeleton covered with 3,000 pieces of gold foil in a grave on the island of Crete.   I guess their relatives didn't have Mapquest and couldn't find it?

Men, if you didn't already hate Chris Evans for his incredible physique and spot-on performance as the Human Torch in "Fantastic Four", see how he looks in "Captain America", which requires him to be a little bigger.Well, he is bigger, but still looks limber enough to mix it up the way Captain America does.  Is it a big role?  Sure.  "Thor" can be a flop and it won't impact "The Avengers" movie, just like "Hulk", but without a good Cap, there is little chance "Avengers" can work.

Martin Robbins either has never read the Guardian's science news - or he hates his employer.    In This is a news website article about a scientific paper he itemizes the cliche structure of science journalism but, since his bio lists him as "a Berkshire-based researcher and science writer" who "edits The Lay Scientist, a community blog about science, pseudoscience and evidence-based politics"(! what the hell is that?!) he is likely not a journalist and may not know that all journalism is structured in a fairly cliche way.

You've heard that classic public relations person rationalization that all publicity is good publicity.  I don't think so.   UN peacekeepers from Denmark trading food to kids for sex didn't do wonders for the credibility of peacekeeping operations by the European military, for example, and the owner of the Segway company driving one off a cliff won't do much for lifting restrictions that keep them off of sidewalks and bike lanes.   And instead on the private estates of kooks.

Maybe I am confused, but when you have a bulletproof Congressional majority, the kind Republicans have never had, you should be able to get things done - that's what 60 Senators mean.   But they squandered it on nonsense few wanted, and that will help far less than 10 million people, and now the blame falls solely on Republicans because the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy instituted by Clinton hasn't been repealed.

You didn't know this, but Science 2.0 as originally planned was going to be three people and almost was - a programmer, a graphics person and then a business guy.     But it didn't work out that way, for reasons that may seem obvious;  namely that 90% of people claim they would have joined Google for free when it had no revenue and 30 venture capitalists told them search engines were a dead area.    Yet 98% of those people wouldn't - they think they want to work in 'start ups' but they think that means making more than they make now and having no boss.   I live in an Intel town and the list of people I have met who claim they want to work at a company or start one is long.  They're mostly lying to themselves.

Katy Perry did a duet with Sesame Street character Elmo but you won't get to see it on television.   Too much cleavage, determined the folks at Sesame Workshop.   Obviously, a company selling programming that cares about kids outside keeping them glued to television screens is refreshing and bordering on the miraculous, so kudos to them for that.