Some people need to get a life.

The strange cross-country ride of Howard Wooldridge, a founding member of LEAP.

"Ignored by most media, an array of prominent federal judges, government officials, and other members of the legal establishment has joined in a historic rebellion against George W. Bush's unprecedented and unconstitutional arrogance of power that threatens the fundamental right of American citizens to have access to their lawyers before disappearing indefinitely into military custody without charges, without seeing an attorney or anyone except their guards."

Weird pro-sex, err, pro-family messages are coming from conservative politicians in England. An even weirder quip from the American past in this BBC article - 'In a 1951 letter only now made public, Ronald Reagan revealed his angst about sex. "Even in marriage I had a little guilty feeling about sex, as if the whole thing was tinged with evil," the man who would be US president wrote to a friend. '

The largest arctic ice shelf has ruptured, but don't worry, it's not due to global warming. Don't worry, we don't need to do anything differently. (M)

Statistic of note: There are approximately two million people in jail in America today, 2,166,260 at last count: more than four times as many people as thirty years ago. David Garland's The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society - reviewed.

If ye ignorant wenches and stupid salty dogs don't celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day (today, Sept. 19th!), I'll make ya walk the plank!

"What ideas and worldviews motivated the push to overreach and try to dominate the globe, with Iraq as step number one? What secrets, maneuvers behind the scenes policy power struggles after the attacks of 9/11, led the U.S. to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11?" The U.S. Plan for Global Domination. (M)

The Science Behind Prohibition - A scientific study (widely quoted in support of the oppressive RAVE ACT passed earlier this year) that claimed to prove the negative health effects of Ecstasy use has been retracted because the authors were using the wrong drug on the monkeys.

"Within six months of passing the Patriot Act, the Justice Department was conducting seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping provisions to extend them beyond terror cases," said Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. "They say they want the Patriot Act to fight terrorism, then, within six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary citizens." (via reason.com)

An interview with the voice of reason at the NYTimes, Paul Krugman.

Johnny Cash died today. I'll miss him.

The RIAA is fighting the inevitable.

We have posted new work from artist Mirjana Ugrinov.

When do we resist convienence? (Especially) In questions of technology, does it seem sometimes as if there is an ineveitable wave of increased use that swamps and erodes one's choice to opt in or out? I am thinking about cell phones (previously blogged article), which I most likely will obtain one of in the near future, but also things like the rise of friendster, E-Z toll passes and related intelligent transportation systems, the internet in general, automobiles and many other things that change our identity and perhaps nibble at our privacy. Will I be able to buy a car in 5 years that doesn't have a GPS enhanced tracking, err, navigation system? By law, all your cell phones have GPS these days. Sometimes the choice is taken from us.

Related posts - Commercial tracking, Technoculture, Taste...

Be careful, because in Ashcroft's America, you can be jailed for what you - whoops, check that - for what other people write.

In Search of the Buy Button - What makes some products irresistible? Neuroscientists are racing to find the answer to that question--and to pass it along to consumer marketers. (via the ccle)

"There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade." Listen to the story on Talk of the Nation, and examine the U.S. Department of State's 2003 Trafficking in Persons Report.