Linkee-poo was at a policy meeting, they were planning new ways of cheating

Elizabeth Bear shares some good craft notes. Write to one person (Vonnegut) and "pick what's important."

io9 rounds up the ten things we'd like to see in a new Trek TV show. Yeah, those would be nice. But don't forget the fist fights. "Picard would never hit me." "I'm not Picard." (Grokked from Tor.com)

From "the world is weirder than you think," suicide bomber termites. Although it's more like they have a binary-chemical weapon they deploy against their enemies. Still, nature keeps messing with us. (Pointed to by Dan)

"To put it bluntly, by using the Patriot Act’s official purpose of fighting with terrorism, the freedom of U.S citizens appears to be greatly impaired; by using the Big Data initiative’s offical purpose of enhancing even more the role of technology in our lives, they’re actually creating intrusive algorithms that are spying on our private lives." Gee, who could have possibly seen that happening? :: raises hand :: You may remember the day the internets went down (back in 2003, IIRC, my google-fu is failing me at the moment) because almost all traffic suddenly was being pushed through a router in Ft. Meade. Say, what is there in Ft. Meade anyway? (Grokked from Jay Lake)

A few security announcements. First, since Macs are gaining market share, we're also gaining new trojans. That smart phone in your pocket maybe dating someone else behind your back. (Pointed to by Dan)

And pretty soon, before you have a chance to use the technology, somethings will be illegal. In this case, someone used a 3d printer to produce the lower-receiver of a working firearm. And some more on the advent of 3D printing technology. (Pointed to by Dan)

How do you solve a problem like Michelle Bachmann. The calls are growing louder. That she was a semi-serious contender for the nomination to the Presidency is a shame. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

It's 2012 and most people are okay with the candidates religions. You know, Romney being a Mormon and Obama being a Muslim and all. Sigh. (Note to anybody coming in late, Obama is a Christian, has been all his life, if you want to call Obama a muslim because his Dad is, then I'm Jewish, because that's the history of my Mom's side of the family)

We can all be upset that the US Olympic Team costumes were produced in China in 2012. But in 2002, it wasn't such a problem. Including the memorabilia that Romney had made to promote and save the Salt Lake Olympics. But then Romney wasn't done with making Olympic gaffes. And what is this fascination with displaying the bust of Winston Churchill in the White House? It's like this weird fetish tied in with some secret message about something I can't quite put my finger on. And who says the British will give it back to us? (Grokked from Jay Lake)

The employees at Barclays are made to watch a film on how not to rig the LIBOR. The video is narrated by the Rich Ricci, chief of Barclays’ investment banking, "explaining that because the topic of Libor is so complex, he is going to read from a teleprompter." You know, not that the lawyers made him read something verbatim so they can fend off lawsuits. It reminds me of the time our main partner at E&Y was caught in an affair with a director that reported to him. His punishment not only included an embarrassing email telling us what most of us had already figured out, but that the rest of us had to go through the sexual harassment training, again. That's called "missing the target audience." (Grokked from Tobias Buckell)

"'Hands down, it was Republicans,' (Angelina Spencer, the executive director of the Association of Club Executives, which serves as a trade association for strip clubs, said an informal survey of convention business in New York and Denver). 'The average was $150 for Republicans and $50 for Democrats.'… Don Kleinhans, the owner of the 2001 Odyssey, said when the Promise Keepers, a male evangelical group, came to town years ago, business was rollicking… 'We had phenomenal numbers all weekend, and they walked in wearing badges and name tags and weren’t shy at all,' he said." Ah, those family values. (Grokked from Jay Lake)

Tweet of my heart: @maureenjohnson: Signs that your foreign policy trip isn't going well: the press and public openly dub you "the American Borat."

Alligator Quotient: They're all on airplanes today, so relatively quite, except for the ones left behind who are making up for their comrades absence.