Saturday link dump

[tangaroa]

• The U.N. International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala found that Rodrigo Rosenberg hired assassins to kill himself. Rosenberg is the lawyer who recorded a video before his death blaming President Colom for his assassination.
• National Geographic Magazine has a feature on the success of Singapore as a managed economy and a controlled society.
• The New York Times writes about Michael Hicks, a 8-year-old boy who has been on the Transportation and Security Administration's list of terrorism suspects since shortly after his birth.
• Oklahoma legislator Lewis Moore has presented a bill to recognize that the United States federal government has no legal authority to regulate firearms which are not used in interstate commerce. The argument is based on the peculiarity of the U.S. federal system in which all the powers that the federal government is allowed to have are listed in the Constitution, and everything else is supposed to be left to the states. The same argument could be made for legalizing drugs or eliminating the Food and Drug Administration and most of the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh outdo themselves with contemptible reactions to the earthquake in Haiti.
• A U.S. soldier has been charged with possessing child pornography after his mother sent him pictures of a 4-year-old family friend in a swimsuit, according to the soldier's family, which raises the question of how this compares to a Coppertone ad.
• An eleven-year-old student in California made the mistake of being smarter than usual and learning about electronics; "authorities" recommend that the student and his parents get counseling.
• Cory Doctorow notes the tenth anniversary of the Cluetrain Manifesto, which sought to change the nature of business-customer relations.

Comments

[dinnerateight]

The article about the soldier that was charged with having porn on his computer seems like is a little iffy. The source is his parents and we don't know all of the details. It all may be true but if his parents are the only source for the article I wouldn't be repeating it.