Weblog

A profile of Kirkpatrick Sale (Jack Hunter, The American Conservative)
The modern heir of Ned Ludd, Pierre Proudhon, and long time anti-state activist.

Firefox 5 locks down, almost ready for release (Seth Rosenblatt, CNET)
And I was just getting comfortable with the current version too.

Chinese hackers are planting cyber bombs throughout America's power grid (Richard Clarke, Wall Street Journal)
So says former U.S. gov cyber security chief Richard Clarke.

"Treasure Hunter" Bill Warren to seek Osama bin-Laden's watery grave  (Brian Palmer, Slate.com/)
If this guy actually manages to find ObL's remains (kinda doubtful) they may not be in such good shape.
"Research on pig carcasses dropped to a depth of around 300 feet shows that marine scavengers such as lobsters, crabs, shrimp, and possibly sharks can dismember a carcass within a few days. (If the bag containing Bin Laden's body is well-sealed, it can help deter the smaller scavengers.) Once the large scavengers have started the process, a wider array of animals moves in. The pig research suggests that a dead body can be picked clean in less than a month."

Substitute meat product made from human shit (Lori Zimmer, Inhabitat.com/)
Better than Soylent Green I guess. But I'd still have to be awfully hungry to eat a shit sandwich though.

Virtual money really stolen (Keir Thomas, PC World)
"Assuming the story isn't fabricated, allinvain's story could represent the world's first heist of virtual money. It's almost certainly the biggest." Just like with government issued money you gotta secure it.

Ranking the states by how "free" they are (Mercatus Center/George Mason University)
Based on criteria like gun rights, tax rates, nanny-state interference in personal behaviors, religious and sexual liberty, drug policy, and home schooling laws just to name but a few. My own state of Michigan ranks #27.

High Gas Prices = Low Regard for Rural Culture (Edward Leap, Taki's Mag)
"For progressives to hope for higher gas prices, especially because of their orthodox belief in the highly questionable topic of climate change, is a reflection of urbanite disdain for those who actually need to drive out in remote “hick” areas where the distances are greater."

Bush Whitehouse sought dirt on University of Michigan prof and blogger Juan Cole says ex-CIA guy (James Risen, NY Times)
"Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war."

Weblog -June 10, 2011

Ypsilanti neighborhood degenerating into violence, chaos (Tom Perkins, annarbor.com/)
Sleazy liquor store surrounded by abandoned cars and houses two blocks from public housing. What could go wrong?

Flint-area Goodwill store customer finds full funeral urn for sale on their shelves (David Harris, MLive/Flint Journal)
Sad and funny at the same time, eh?

Disgraced Rep. Wiener won't resign; He needs the paycheck (Chuck Bennett, New York Post)
Likely the first honest thing Wiener has said about himself to date and esp. on this matter.

Senators target Bitcoin currency, citing drug sales (Don Reisinger, Cnet)
Senators Shumer and Manchin just can't stand people being able to spend money that the government can't trace, control or regulate. Can't have that much liberty now can we?

The HK416—The gun that (probably) killed bin-Laden (Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics)
Typical of high-end German engineering. Precise, efficient, perfectly executed and very expensive. Just like their cars.

Iceland's citizens are writing its new constitution online  (Clay Dillow, Popular Science)
It will be interesting to see how this works out. However Iceland has some distinct advantages. No racial/ethnic or religious minorities. A single homogenous group will likely work out better assuming this can be done at all. All previous attempts at constitution drafting have been done by constituent assemblies, well connected local elites or imposed by a foreign power.

Outgoing US SecDef castigates NATO countries for not pulling their weight in global security ops (Matt Welch, Reason)
Bottom line: "It might be worth beginning to consider whether intervening in far-flung civil wars really qualifies as 'defense'." Indeed.

Extra Gene Copies May Trigger Some Cases of Autism (John Timmer, Ars Technica)
"Overall, the new studies strengthen the argument that autism is primarily a genetic disorder, and help explain why it has been so hard to identify the genes: most mutations are rare or completely unique to the affected individuals."