Links: Massive Edition

Just because I haven't been writing in a while doesn't mean I haven't been reading. This entry is coming at you from AirTran flight 155, seat 17C. I'm going to write about all the most interesting stories I've seen over the past week and a half, but first I'll start off with the seven blunders of the world, according to Mahatma Gandhi:

-Wealth without work
-Pleasure without conscience
-Knowledge without character
-Commerce without morality
-Science without humanity
-Worship without sacrifice
-Politics without principle

Keeping those in mind, think of the ethics of our current government. This soul-crushing moment of the day brought to you by Halliburton. I guess all we can do is live our life according to the principles that, if universal, would make the world a better place.

So we're losing the war on terror, are we? Wait... there haven't been any attacks on US soil in almost six years, and anyone with half a brain (half the country?) know that it isn't because “we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here.” So why are we losing? Reason tells us: it's because of crap like this. I would say that we should try Michael Chertoff for treason, but we can't even get our shit together to impeach someone, so I guess the chance of any repercussions for Chertoff is nil.

Speaking of terror... want to take a bomb onto an airplane? You probably won't have a problem (as I write this at 30,000 feet). The Albany Times-Union explains how the TSA only will detect one about 29% of the time. Good thing they catch dangerous, dangerous bottled watter 100% of the time, though. If we're hydrated, the terrorists win.

Mmm... more airport security.

Since we're already talking about the war we're waging on a tactic, there's nothing like profiting from the misery of others to make you feel like a good person. Just ask Holland's own Erik Prince, owner of Blackwater. Maybe he's just a symptom of a wider problem, but this News-Observer article paints a pretty despicable picture.

More news from our favorite overseas clusterfuck: the Miami Herald shows us what happens when nobody that's not either insane or desperate signs up for the army: we just keep abusing the suckers we've already found. Just because you're in grad school and you've already been on four tours of duty doesn't mean you don't want to go back, does it?

If anybody doubts that our health care system is broken, take a look at this San Francisco Chronicle article. I guess it's a logical result of allowing the people in charge of our health to put profit-making as their one and only priority.

And we thought Regent University Law school (of which Monica Goodling is a graduate) was a joke: Reason tells the story of how “Dr.” Laura Callahan, former CIO for the Labor Department, received her PhD and two masters degrees from Hamilton University, a diploma mill in Wyoming run out of an old Motel 6 which attempts to be mistaken for Hamilton College, a top liberal-arts school in New York. Hamilton U is run by the Faith in the Order of Nature Fellowship Church, but it's accredited – by a fake accrediting agency also set up by the church. Although, you can get a PhD in five hours...

An apt cartoon by Ed Krebs, even if it's seven years late.

All right, now on to the stuff that's less depressingly world-shaking: this is an interesting list of the 10 most bizarre disasters in history. Sad, very sad, but also pretty interesting. I don't know why, but I love stuff like this. The Tunguska event is something I had previously read about, and an incredibly fascinating occurrence in its own right. Trivia: how is the Tunguska event similar to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871?

If you're not having much sex, you should step it up a little. That's according to this article in the New York Times, which is an excerpt from a book that I first heard about a while ago, if “sexual conservatives” would start snogging a little more (and thereby decreasing the impact of reckless, promiscuous individuals), happiness would go up and STDs would decrease. (Is there any wonder the Religious Right hates the Times? If you can't think for yourself, this article could be dangerous.)

Think Starbucks is snooty and expensive? If you ask, they'll make you a better coffee for less money, according to Slate. It's due to price discrimination, one of the most elusive but potentially profitable economic ideals – the same thing that makes airline prices highly variable and seemingly random, and also the reason why hardcover books cost so much more than softcover.

All right, let's take a radical idea – say you're buying a CD. When you plunk down your card, are you thinking about the quality of the hunk of plastic you're buying, or are you thinking about the rockin' tunes that are burned onto it? In a great article, Wired tells how Prince gave the obvious answer to that question, which actually required defying most of the established music industry, by giving away his CD to every subscriber of the British Mail on Sunday newspaper, a move that has sparked sellouts of his concerts across England despite his relative stagnance on the pop culture scene. The rationale used by corporate media that consumers should pay for the physical copy rather than the property within is one of the reasons why instead of profiting from the cheap, easy distribution methods made possible by today's technology, they feel threatened by it. Let's see – if you can cut costs and reach more of your target audience, with less effort, that's going to put you out of business?

Thanks for sticking with me through the long post... on to the Chicago-Mac!