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In the spring of 1937, a young Scottish diplomat named Fitzroy Maclean embarked on a two year journey across the Soviet Union. It was something that no Westerner had done in more than two decades, and this was well before any modern conveniences, so Maclean had to travel by any means necessary– including
Here’s our Friday roll up of the most absurd and concerning articles we came across this week. UK bans advertisement with “harmful gender stereotypes” UK bureaucrats will now decide if ads and commercials are too offensive. New regulations ban advertisements with gender stereotypes “that are likely to cause harm, or serious or widespread
Earlier this week the United Nation’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs released its 2019 world population report… and there were a number of very interesting findings: 1) World population continues to grow slightly, but the rate of global population growth is at the lowest level since at least 1950. 2) Global population
On January 3, 2009, about six months before I launched Sovereign Man more than a decade ago, the Bitcoin blockchain came into existence. 50 bitcoins were mined by the network’s creator in that very first transaction. And within a few days, the first open-source Bitcoin software was released. Few people noticed. By October
In the year 705 AD, a Japanese entrepreneur named Fujiwara Mahito opened a small inn at the foot of the Akaishi mountains in central Honshu. At the time, few people probably thought the inn would last very long. Fujiwara didn’t know anything about being an innkeeper… he had been groomed to follow in
For this Friday’s roll-up of bizarre and disturbing stories from around the world, we found ourselves zeroing-in on some ridiculous data privacy violations. Soccer app spies on fans The Spanish soccer (sigh, OK– football) league, known by fans around the world simply as La Liga, knew that most pubs across Europe showing its
It was only a few days ago that the Japanese government’s Financial Services Agency published its oddly-titled “Annual Report on Ageing Society”. (Like everything in Japan, English translations often hilariously miss the mark…) This is a report that the Ministry of Finance puts out every year. And as the name implies, the report
Sun Tzu, the legendary Chinese general of the 6th century BC Zhou Dynasty, famously wrote in the Art of War: “When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will
It was precisely 20 seconds past 9:44am on November 14, 2017 that Japan Railways train number 5255 departed from Minami Nagareyama Station on the outskirts of Tokyo. Hardly anything seems noteworthy about a train leaving a station. It happens countless times each day all over the world. Except THIS particular train was supposed
There are truly so many things to love about Hong Kong. Most visitors would probably gush about the exotic night life or legendary cuisine (the Cantonese, they say, eat anything with four legs… except the table.) All of those things are fine and good. But at the top of my own list of
Rejoice, it’s Friday. Here is our weekly roll-up of bizarre and disturbing stories from around the world. 1. Local government seized countless children based on falsified drug test results For years, the county of Ozark, Alabama hired a private laboratory to analyze paternity and drug tests. These were pretty critical tests… because the
[Editor’s Note: Today’s note was penned by one of our international contributing editors.] Yesterday I called my bank in Denmark, Nordea, and couldn’t believe what they told me… They offered to lend me money at MINUS 0.12% for a ten-year mortgage. In other words, the bank would PAY ME to take out a
Happy Friday everyone. Here’s our weekly roll-up of some of the most bizarre (and occasionally happy) stories from around the world that we’re following: NYC schools training teachers to discriminate against white students A new mandatory, $23 million “anti-bias” program is training New York City school teachers to discriminate against white children, no
Five years ago, a company called Yo raised $1.5 million at a $10 million valuation. What did investors and end-users get for this much money? An app that allowed users to send the message “Yo,” (and NOTHING else) to their friends. It didn’t take long for the company to blow through all that
In 1956, BMW released a brand new line of roadsters, the 507. It was a slick convertible and became a hit with celebrities. In 1959, the very first Bond girl from Dr. No – Ursula Andress – took possession of this brand new BMW 507 roadster. It was re-designed 40 years later into
