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WASHINGTON -- Ten years ago, I was visiting the "old Burma" of unsmiling military rulers and cowed people when I experienced something that typified the mood of the country.I was staying at the historic Strand Hotel in Yangon (formerly Rangoon), a legacy of British colonial days, which didn't look like much from outside …

Some of the best technology writers in the world spill the beans on the most outdated gadgets they still own

As the Obama scandals surround the White House, some conservatives are suggesting that — finally — the media are "getting tough" on Obama. Don't count on it. All our modern experience suggests tough reporting on a Democratic president is more of a temporary sensation than an ongoing trend.

No doubt the degraded quality of congressional oversight astonishes Thomas Pickering, the distinguished American diplomat who oversaw the State Department's Benghazi review board — although he tries not to say so too directly. For his demanding and difficult effort — only the most recent in a long history of public service …

Georgia Tech will soon offer a Master's degree in Computer Science that you can receive online. This could be huge, Rob Walker writes.

At first I thought the IRS scandal was leaked to distract from the Benghazi scandal. But that didn't make sense because the IRS scandal is a more obvious abuse of power than the White House lying about the murder of four Americans in Libya.Before I had resolved which scandal was distracting from which, we found out the …

Apple's latest tax dodge is yet another chink in its once-shining armor, Virginia Heffernan says

Who is Judy Faulkner? Chances are, you don't know her — but her politically connected, taxpayer-subsidized electronic medical records company may very well know you. Top Obama donor and billionaire Faulkner is founder and CEO of Epic Systems, which will soon store almost half of all Americans' health information.

It is that time of year again.

When John Kennedy Jr., son of the former president, died with his wife and sister-in-law in a plane crash in 1999, I heard a well-known televangelist assured us that “this is all part of God’s plan.”

SIENA, Italy -- Here's a modest idea to break the gridlock, the stupidity, the meanness, the partisan lying and irresponsible ineffectiveness of modern Washington. We should consider returning to the Middle Ages.Siena today is a small city of about 50,000 people, not much bigger than it was at its peak in the late 13th …

No, this is not Watergate or Iran-Contra. Nor is it like the sex scandal that got Bill Clinton impeached.

Count me as irritable on the subject, but President Obama's imperious habit of suggesting that American diplomats work for him is offensive to democratic sensibilities.

WASHINGTON -- Just as the toughest young Republicans were suddenly engulfing him in criticism over everything from targeting conservative organizations on taxes to covering up the diplomatic tragedy in Benghazi, President Obama gave what must be one of the best speeches of his political life.The speech came right smack …

Biohackers are gulping down Dave Asprey's Bulletproof Coffee Breakfast. What the heck is it -- and more importantly, does it work?

Can President Barack Obama put out the brush fires that are sucking the air out of his second-term agenda? Can he stop the spread of mini-scandals that are consuming Washington?No, he cannot. The president could (unconstitutionally) shutter every Internal Revenue Service office and fire every staffer, from top-ranking executives …

You don't have to be a member of the tea party to be outraged over the Internal Revenue Service's special and unwarranted scrutiny of conservative groups. I'm not, and I am.For four decades liberals have nursed hurts over the Nixon administration's use of the IRS to intimidate if not punish its political opponents. The …

All this and more in Rob Walker's Weekend Linkdown!

"The American people are weary. They don't want boots on the ground. I don't want boots on the ground. The worst thing the United States could do right now is put boots on the ground in Syria."

Speaking at Ohio State just a few days before abuse of power and dishonesty scandals swept over his administration, President Obama sang one of his trademark odes to the benevolence of government:

My doctor and dear friend Larry calls it "an exciting gateway of genetics, for it is leading to specific therapy to specific subsets of a given disease." Some of the folks writing comments call it a conspiracy by the drug companies and the medical establishment motivated by greed.

The annual network list of canceled primetime shows cannot be pleasing to the progressives who measure shows based on their cultural and political usefulness. "TV Will Be a Lot Less Gay Next Year," the commissars complained at Slate.com. They counted 11 canceled shows that featured regular gay characters.

On Sept. 12, 2012, President Barack Obama vowed to "bring to justice" the perpetrators of the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya. On Oct. 26, 2012, Obama said his "biggest priority" was bringing the "folks" in Libya responsible for murdering four Americans to "justice." Tick, tock, tick, tock.