Behold the two faces of Facebook: It's such a smart young company. It's such a slow learner. Both faces peeked out from the wreckage of the privacy imbroglio that wracked the social-networking site this week. Yes, it was asinine, a tempest in a teapot, but it underscored a more fundamental problem that continues to plague Facebook — the world's most popular social network is simply not learning from its mistakes. Quick recap: Earlier in the month, Facebook changed its ...

The Right screams that it's a witch-hunt, the Left complains it's a cop-out, and President Obama wishes it would just go away. But Senator Patrick Leahy isn't about to drop his proposal for a Truth Commission to investigate wrongdoing in the Bush Administration. "We would be making bad mistake, for history's purpose, if we walk away from this," the Vermont Democrat told TIME. The President has said he would look at Leahy's proposal, but that he was "more interested in ...

Slurred speech. Long pauses. Answering questions that weren't directed to him and blurting out others. For days, Japan's Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa's appearance, during which he appears to be drunk, has been painfully public on the YouTube video of a G7 press conference in Rome last week. Today, it finally cost him his job. At a press conference in Tokyo, he resigned from his cabinet post, delivering yet another blow to the administration of Prime Minister Taro Aso as he ...

North Korea has a long history of communicating with the United States through provocation and brinksmanship, and it has played to type ahead of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's four-nation trip to Asia that began Sunday. In recent weeks, Pyongyang has annulled its maritime border with South Korea, renounced the nonaggression agreement between the two countries, and moved missiles and equipment around in ways that could signal preparations for a launch, according to U.S. officials. For her part, Secretary Clinton ...

When Republican Senator Judd Gregg announced on Thursday that he no longer wished to be the Commerce Secretary nominee, he said that the decision was based in part on serious disagreements with the Obama White House over the 2010 census. That night on Fox News, Sean Hannity called Obama's plans for the census process "the biggest White House power grab ever," as his guest Karl Rove voiced agreement. The same day, House Republicans declared that the White House had "an ...

Long, long ago, in a very different economy, there were people called shopaholics. They wielded credit cards and wore shoes so ugly that they came to be considered beautiful. A few of these creatures can still be found toting small dogs in Los Angeles or being led around New York City by Tom Cruise, but their ranks are presumably diminishing at the same rate as your 401. Perhaps, then, it's a good thing they have been commemorated in Confessions ...

Moving at lightning speed and, even more unexpectedly, ahead of their President's Day deadline, House and Senate negotiators agreed on the details of a $789 billion stimulus package barely 30 hours after Senate passed their version. In the process, they handed President Barack Obama his first major legislative victory, though the deliberations that led up to its passage highlighted the enormous challenges Obama will face in more complicated endeavors like healthcare, entitlement and energy reform. The Senate Democratic leadership was ...

The word of God is on the move in London — literally. Beginning Feb. 9, three separate Christian groups will launch advertisements on more than 200 of London's buses to convince pedestrians of God's existence. "It may be unpopular and unpleasant," says David Larlham, assistant general secretary of London's Trinitarian Bible Society, a group that distributes Bibles worldwide. "But there is a whole lot of truth in the Bible that people need to get to grips with." His organization has paid $50,000 to display posters on 125 ...

The word of God is on the move in London — literally. Beginning Feb. 9, three separate Christian groups will launch advertisements on more than 200 of London's buses to convince pedestrians of God's existence. "It may be unpopular and unpleasant," says David Larlham, assistant general secretary of London's Trinitarian Bible Society, a group that distributes Bibles worldwide. "But there is a whole lot of truth in the Bible that people need to get to grips with." His organization has paid $50,000 to display posters on 125 ...