links for 2009-06-28

"Dissenters in Iran and China persist despite repression that is enabled in part by equipment from U.S. and European companies. In the U.S., the Obama administration is following a dangerous path with Bush-era spy programs that should be suspended and prosecuted, not extended and defended." What's the difference between China and Iran spying on their citizens and the US spying on us?

"TOTAL MADE THIS MONTH USING TWITTER = $19,000
TOTAL MADE FROM 30,000 RECORD SALES = ABSOLUTELY NOTHING." The power of twitter people.

"MooTools 1.2.3 was released on June 19, 2009. With this release, MooTools implemented Dollar Safe Mode. Essentially, MooTools no longer requires the $ function for its own purposes."

"Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman has named Saad Hariri as the country's new prime minister, following parliamentary election earlier this month."

"As part of the baby-free program, girls attend weekly meetings where they learn about abstinence and contraceptives. At the end of each week, $7 is put into a fund that's off-limits until they go to college. To participate, girls must have never been pregnant, currently attend school, have a desire to go to college, and have a sister that gave birth before age 18. The program is currently at its max capacity of 24 girls." Um ok?

"Did any of you ever consider a problem like this in any physics class you took? If not, why not? I spent about half a day answering questions about this situation from the media, from random people who emailed with follow up querstions. It's clearly something people are interested in. I mentioned this to one of my less free-thinking colleagues and was told that a problem like this is "simply too hard for beginning physics students". Balderdash. Doing calculations without friction when you like in a world where you can't escape friction is hard because nothing you calculate has any connection to real life. Figuring out whether a drink can go through a windshield and kill someone is complicated, but I didn't use anything you don't learn in first semester high school physics." Cool story about physics questions from reporters and how they challenge conventional physicists.

"General Motors and the Obama administration have reached a deal for the carmaker to assume responsibility for product liability claims filed after it emerges from bankruptcy as a new company, even those claims involving vehicles made by the old company, according to documents filed in bankruptcy court late Friday."

George Carlin on religion and bullshit.

"About 70 Argentine army officers can be charged with torture of their own soldiers during the 1982 Falklands War, a federal appeals court has ruled. Veterans who brought the legal action – all conscripted into service – also say four soldiers starved to death, while several others were staked to the ground as punishment."

"Pontcysyllte aqueduct was added to the list of World Heritage Sites by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco). The structure, built by Thomas Telford and William Jessop, is the longest and highest aqueduct in Britain."

What do you auto tune.

"A Mozilla spokesperson confirmed to Betanews early this evening that, if all pans out as planned, the organization will officially release the Firefox 3.5 Web browser to the general public as soon as Tuesday, June 30. No longer a beta, users will get the first opportunity to see a completely stable version of Firefox's new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, whose latest new features were demonstrated to us today by two of its engineers." Awesome.