[In case it needs to be said: I don't agree with every word of everything I link to. --L.]
- Quran Burning: Protected Free Speech?
- [Law and Daily Life - Tanya Roth]
Although freedom of speech is one of the most cherished (and sometimes divisive) freedoms we posses, free speech is not the same as completely unfettered speech. The Supreme Court has long placed limits on hate speech, defamatory speech, threats, and obscene speech. The body of law concerning the First Amendment has taken more than a century to build and can be a life-long study.
…when speech crosses over into incitement to hate, it may be limited by law.
- Should Credit Unions Remain Tax-Exempt?
- [Nonprofit Law Prof Blog]
As reported in The Capital Times, banks are again questioning the federal and state income tax exemptions granted to credit unions. Credit unions have long enjoyed both federal and state exemption based on their status as mutual benefit organizations…
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- How Canada will become a superpower, making the Northern Rim the envy of the world
- [io9 - Alasdair Wilkins]
Although climate change could still have devastating effects for much of the world, some regions stand to benefit immensely. Canada, Scandinavia, and even Greenland could all become economic powerhouses, making "The New North" a very attractive destination.
- Brudder From Anudder Mudder
- [Cute Baby Animals]
Hey, how about a kitten on Daily Squee? A kitten… making out with a squirrel? Okay that works too!
- Tracking firefly trails in the forest
- [FlowingData - Nathan Yau]
Physicist Kristian Cvecek hangs out in the forest sometimes to take these beautiful pictures of firefly trails, using slow shutter speeds on his camera. Even better than the long exposure shot of a Roomba.
- 20 million people may have once inhabited the Amazon rainforest
- [ABlogAboutHistory.com - Sevaan Franks]
Archaeologists have found evidence that the Amazon rainforest was home to an advanced civilization with as many as 20 million individuals living amoungst the jungle.
- Changing one of nature’s constants
- [Science News]
If the study is correct, it would force physicists to reconsider many of their most cherished ideas about the universe, including the notion, touted by Einstein, that the laws of physics are the same everywhere in the cosmos.
- Light-harvesting complexes do it themselves
- [Science News]
New technique could yield self-assembling solar cells
- No "dead zone" from BP oil
- [Science News]
Deep sea mixing kept microbes from creating suffocating parcels of water in the Gulf
- What It Means: Google, Yahoo Come Together With OpenID
- [ReadWriteWeb - Mike Melanson]
Google has announced that Yahoo users will now be able to quickly and easily sign up for Google products using their Yahoo email address. The feature, according to some in the industry, will be a boon for Google and OpenID, the Internet standard behind the feature. But what benefit does this provide for Yahoo?
Will making it easier for Yahoo users to sign in to Google – a direct competitor – draw users away from the portal, search and mail provider or will it help create an overall better user experience? According to Yahoo, making a process that users were already engaged in simpler will provide a better user experience and keep users interested in one of its most solid products – Yahoo Mail.
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- Alien – Use Any Package On Any Distribution
- [Linux Journal - Michael Reed]
[This sounds like a fun way to create new computer problems. -L]
- Big Banks Don’t Learn
- [Move Your Money]
Winning the lottery may seem like a great way to make a quick buck, but a recent academic study showed that, for many people, winning the lottery has no effect on how they manage their finances, and just pushes problems further down the road. The same is true for Wall Street megabanks and the government bailout…
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- 4000 Years for Choice: A Visual History With the Power to Transform
- [RHRealityCheck.org - Heather Ault]
[This] project draws from a rich and collective history of women controlling their reproduction for thousands of years. As early as Ancient Egypt, medical tablets contained detailed instructions for abortion and contraception procedures. In every culture studied since, evidence of reproductive control practices has existed. …abortion was legal in the U.S. up until the mid-1800s…
- ACLU Responds to AZ Gov. Jan Brewer’s Ridiculous Comments on U.S. Human Rights Record
- [ACLU Blog - Suzanne Ito]
You might've heard last week that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer was shocked — just shocked! — that the State Department mentioned S.B. 1070, Arizona's new "papers please" racial profiling law, in its first-ever Universal Periodic Review report (PDF) to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Finding the mere mention of her law "downright offensive," Gov. Brewer fired off a letter (PDF) to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing her "concern and indignation" and asked Secretary Clinton to remove the mention of the law…
- Crisis Not Averted: Krugman and Wells Offer Econ 101 on the Great Recession
- [Firedoglake - David Dayen]
If you want to understand the financial crisis of 2008, this is an excellent place to start, to bookmark, to send along. Krugman and Wells list four reasons for the housing bubble – the Fed’s low interest-rate policy, the “giant pool of money” globally invested into mortgage-backed securities and the like, the exotic financial instruments like MBS which hid risk, and the failure of regulatory authority. They come to the conclusion that securitization actually has created more of a problem AFTER the crisis than before…
The Of interest (Tue, Sep 7th, 2pm) by Lee Salazar, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at leesalazar.com.