Thursday, August 20, 2009

Video: Brazil crime show host 'used murder to boost ratings' - Times Online
Exactly what it sounds like.


A man's home is his constitutional castle. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine
This whole thing over Professor Gates is ridiculous.  He shouldn't be excused because of his race, he should be excused because the police had no right to be in his house or arrest him after he identified himself.  Where was probable cause?  Don't we have a Constitution?


Foreign Policy: Working in Hell for $11 a Day
Really interesting article and series of pictures about Indonesian sulpher miners.  Your job might be bad, but you don't have to walk into a volcano whose vapors melt your teeth, or lug twice your body weight in smoking hot rocks up and down a mountain for $11 a day.  But they're glad to have the work!  Really says something about Indonesia, huh?


The powerful and mysterious brain circuitry that makes us love Google, Twitter, and texting. - By Emily Yoffe - Slate Magazine
We love seeking.


The lost world: Doggerland
Not a terrible fantasy novel or alternative history thing.
Thousands of years ago, Britian was not an island, but was connected to France.  All the major rivers fed into one huge lake in the east, which got blocked by ice floes.  The water built up until it finally spilled over in the west, which is presently the English channel.  The whole lake spilled out through there and destroyed everything in its path.  People used to live there.


Yale University Press capitulates to religious extremists. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine
Remember those cartoons about Mohammad?  Yale published a book about the controversy, but took the cartoons out for fear of offending Muslims and being responsible for causing bloodshed.  The author of this article rightly points out that the Muslims themselves are responsible if they start killing people for infantile reasons. 


Cops Use Old Brink's Truck to Shame Suspects - WSJ.com
Park a giant, ugly truck packed with surveillance devices near a problem house (drug activity, gang activity, whatever).  Suspects quiet down, behave, or move out pretty quickly.  It's legal because the street is government property!  This seems like a pretty good solution, if it continues to work.


Crayfish Poaching Has Fishermen Boiling, but Thieves Are Hard to Trap - WSJ.com
I had no idea anyone even wanted to poach crawfish.  That's a shame.  I like crawfish.  Finding those critters under rocks was one of my favorite things when I was little. 



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