With our country's Independence Day coming up, this story from the far off land of Canada -- well, the Canadian Embassy, that is -- reminds us that there are other countries out there that have trivial problems too, just like us! Up until this year, the Canadian Embassy has celebrated Canada Day with open arms and doors. Maybe not the first thing one would think of doing on a Friday night, particularly one before our own July Fourth celebrations, but an interesting one nonetheless. But this past Friday Canada festivities at the embassy were minced, having called the open house a "Canada Day networking event" and limited the guest list to approximately 100 embassy contacts and relations. more ›

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they... more ›