A set of photos taken during the recent earthquake in Sichuan province, China, by a wedding photographer who'd just begun taking photos of the bride and groom when the earthquake struck.

Two strike me in particular - one of masonry falling off a church, the other of the bride, resplendent in dress, veil, and dusty debris looking out over the rubble as her new husband is climbing to his feet.

It seems their photos were being taken on some steps outside the church, within which many of their guests remained. You can only imagine the shock - they've just experienced an intensely joyful experience, then, having only recently left the church to have photos taken, they experience horror, as the building, filled with friends and family, collapses behind them. 33 are reported missing or dead.

Photos like this, untouched by professional media, give, for me, a much more intense window into events - it was easy to see imagery of rescue workers and devastation on the news and think of it as a distant tragedy, a statistic - this brings it all into so much more focus.

In the post mentioned above, Jamais says 'With every snapshot, every recording, every blog entry, we're documenting our world.' - that's important - it emphasizes the breadth of documentary that crowd journalism can give - if everyone has a camera and a voice, so much more is captured, and so many more perspectives are presented. That said, I think crowd journalism is similarly important for the personal, immediate nature of it - there's an increase in perceived honesty and emotional intensity that you get when you're seeing footage and accounts by people who were actually there, experiencing the event. To some extent, I think this is what makes embedded journalism during wartime so interesting, too..

On Saturday, I was ranting a little about the little publicized conflict brewing between Georgia and Russia (through Abkhazian separatist proxies). I also mentioned that there was footage available of a Russian Mig29 shooting down a Georgian recon UAV. There are further Abkhazi claims concerning the downing of six other UAVs, but these are denied by the Georgian government.

The video below includes this footage, as well as discussion and a presentation of the evidence of Russian involvement by a Georgian officer.

I think this conflict will prove quite interesting - it's the first time I can recall in a while that a major power other than the US has bullied another sovereign nation in such an obvious way. It seems that Georgia is actively seeking international attention for this conflict, presumably because they can't hope to win militarily against Russia, and therefore are hoping for a diplomatic victory. By testing the willingness of the UN, US and EU to confront Russia over this, this conflict has the potential to shed light on the current balance of international power.

I'm getting my news on this conflict through the trawlings of Chirol at Coming Anarchy. Has anyone seen much other news of this? A quick review of Google News reveals little..

via Coming Anarchy

Lynchings in Congo as penis theft panic hits capital

The headline says it all, really..

Afuganisu-tan - a short history of Afghanistan, told by the power of manga! Surprisingly informative if you're not already an expert.

vector: Exploring the Heart of Asia - a very new blog discussing Central Asian politics, culture and society, with a focus on Afghanistan.

• UN Population Prospects - demographic database provided by the UN. Searchable and quite interesting to have a poke around.
• Battlespace - an exhibition of disturbing photos from Afghanistan and Iraq - you need to look at these. Follow the link, and click on 'Enter Exhibition'. This is not for the faint of heart, though.</a>

American politics are in some ways very similar to American sports - there's commentators galore, piles of statistics, and, most importantly, far too much money.

OK, so I don't give two hoots about sport in general, let alone American sports, but I think there's something in this - certainly, these factors make American politics a hell of a lot more interesting to watch, particularly because the rules are far more complex than any sport, the stakes are so much higher, and political commentary is a lot more meaningful than sports commentary, at least to me.

Anyway, with the primaries heating up, this promises to be an exciting political season - there's no nominated successor for the incumbent, the Republicans, having lost the House and Senate last time are champing at the bit to get it back, and almost all of the candidates are at least pretending to be interested in new ways of engaging with the electorate via the internet. The issues are hot, there's two, maybe three wars at stake, not to mention crazy mad oil prices, growing indicators of climate change and a weak US economy. Not to mention the ongoing spectre of electronic voting machines and other possible reasons for allegations of electoral fraud..

Mark my words - this should be an exciting match.

For those who aren't sick of the sports analogy, yet, I have one question - why don't the parties have cheerleaders? I'm sure that would increase voter turnout some..

Seriously though, US politics, by virtue of their global impact, convolution, and generally comic nature, are always fun to read about. Furthermore, since I'm hoping to be studying in the US as of later this year, I have a vested interest in how this turns out.

For the last three political cycles, I've relied heavily on the awesome interactive tools and political commentary provided by the New York Times. Even if I didn't care about politics, the way they use visualizations to present descriptive statistical data on this scale would be to keep me going back.