Free Republic

TOKYO -- As news of the military coup in Myanmar reached the halls of the Bank of Japan, staff raced to gather information about the ongoing developments. "They have apparently kicked out the central bank governor as well." The shocking news was passed up the command chain at the head office in Tokyo's Nihonbashi district. On Feb.1, Myanmar's military took control of the country's administrative, legislative and judicial branches, detaining de facto leader State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi and several other democratically elected officials. It is unclear what happened to former central bank chief Kyaw Kyaw Maung, but deputy...

The Conservatives won an impressive come from behind victory last night. I thought it would be interesting to compare the actual outcome, to the outcome that would have occurred with a German-style proportional representation system. In that system, seats are assigned in proportion to vote share, but only to parties getting at least 5% of the vote. I’ll show the number of seats under the German regime, with the actual number won in parentheses. The difference is stunning: Conservative 273 (330) Labour 226 (232) UKIP 93 (1) Liberal Dems 58 (8) SNP 0 (56) Others 0 (23) I suppose the...

On September 12, 2009 sea ice extent dropped to 5.10 million square kilometers (1.97 million square miles). This appears to have been the lowest point of the year, as sea ice has now begun its annual cycle of growth in response to autumn cooling. The 2009 minimum is the third-lowest recorded since 1979, 580,000 square kilometers (220,000 square miles) above 2008 and 970,000 square kilometers (370,000 square miles) above the record low in 2007.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is objecting “in the strongest terms” to an Associated Press decision to transmit a photograph showing a mortally wounded 21-year-old Marine in his final moments of life, calling the decision “appalling” and a breach of “common decency.” The AP reported that the Marine’s father had asked – in an interview and in a follow-up phone call — that the image, taken by an embedded photographer, not be published. The AP reported in a story that it decided to make the image public anyway, because it “conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men...