Judges and jurors who must decide whether sexually explicit material is obscene are asked to use a local yardstick: does the material violate community standards?

That is often a tricky question because there is no simple, concrete way to gauge a community’s tastes and values.

The Internet may be changing that. In a novel approach, the defense in an obscenity trial in Florida plans to use publicly accessible Google search data to try to persuade jurors that their neighbors have broader interests than they might have thought.

What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer - NYTimes.com

George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.

George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

U.S. Says Exercise by Israel Seemed Directed at Iran - NYTimes.com

After a decade of shouting, “Follow the water!” in its exploration of Mars, NASA can finally say that one of its spacecraft has reached out, touched water ice and scooped it up.

White Patches Found in Mars Trench Are Ice, Scientists Say - NYTimes.com

Bear Stearns Cos. former hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin were arrested at their homes this morning over their roles in the collapse of hedge funds that ignited the subprime mortgage crisis last year.

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

California's Department of Public Health has issued cease and desist letters to 13 genetic testing startups - most notably 23andMe, which Michael tried out earlier this year. The C&D's are mandating that the labs demonstrate that they have been certified by both the state and federal government, and, perhaps more importantly, that all genetic tests were ordered by a patient's doctor, which is required by state law.

Cease And Desist: California Tries to Unravel 23andMe's Genetic Testing - washingtonpost.com

The push to find ways to build not just buildings, but communities — even small cities — with low environmental impacts is under way, although mainly outside the United States, it seems. Ever since I stumbled onto the fascinating Web site www.inhabitat.com, I’ve been assembling a list of large-scale projects designed for negligible fossil-fuel use and emissions of greenhouse gases, access to mass transit, and other environmental and social attributes.

Solar City to Rise in Persian Gulf; Why Not Arizona? - Dot Earth - Climate Change and Sustainability - New York Times Blog

A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article’s tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States do not say every day without fear of legal reprisal.

Things are different here. The magazine is on trial.

American Exception - Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech - Series - NYTimes.com

David Brooks:

The United States has been an affluent nation since its founding. But the country was, by and large, not corrupted by wealth. For centuries, it remained industrious, ambitious and frugal.

Over the past 30 years, much of that has been shredded.

The Great Seduction by Debt

In case anyone's never seen this before...

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