Wednesday Miscellany!

[maxomai]

• While you're not looking, President Obama has quietly lifted a ban on military aid to nations with child soldiers.


• Edward Snowden, who continues to leak secrets of the NSA's domestic surveillance program, is up for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, an honor just slightly less prestigious than the Nobel Prize for Peace.


• Speaking of which, Putin has been nominated for a Nobel Prize for Peace, which, in retrospect, makes as much sense as Obama's Peace Prize. Or Henry Kissinger's.


• The anonymous drug-and-other-illicit-items website Silk Road has been shut down by US law enforcement. It's owner is under arrest, and the charges against him include facilitating transactions of more than 9.5 million bitcoin, worth US$1.2 billion. US$3.6 million worth of bitcoin was seized. IMO this also portends a crackdown on bitcoin as a currency in the United States.


• Tom Clancy is dead. Neocons are mourning according to their traditions, which include touring an old Soviet sub and going to the mountains to scream "Wolverines!"


• Why is FaceBook no longer popular with the teens? Some possible reasons why here. (By the way, I call bullshit on kids using G+.)


• The New Republic points out the obvious: American schools are failing nonconformist kids. Well, of course. The core value of the school system is not education, but conformity.


• Mars used to have just massive volcanoes.


• Bonddad and New Deal Democrat, two of the best economists of the blogosphere, have been offered a job blogging for pay on XE.com. Congrats you two! I will post links to their new XE.com blog as soon as I have them.

Comments

[arkham4269.livejournal.com]

Well if they are using kids to fight, it seems they are just the type of military which needs help! (/sarcasm)