Los Angeles city Councilman Dennis Zine:

"We believe that the Constitution needs to be upheld [but] at the same time, we need to protect our celebrities."

Something about that quote sends a chill down my spine...

Ken Starr helping lawmakers fight paparazzi - CNN.com

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - Authorities say a four-year-old girl from Salley is recovering after she grabbed a gun out of her grandmother's purse and shot herself in the Harbison Blvd. Sam's Club Monday.

Where's video surveillance when you need it?

Imagine getting to write a lede/headline combination like that? Wow.

Grandmother from Sam's Club accidental shooting a magistrate judge

With a $500,000 donation from PayPal founder Peter Thiel, a Google engineer and a former Sun Microsystems programmer have launched The Seasteading Institute, an organization dedicated to creating experimental ocean communities "with diverse social, political, and legal systems."

"Decades from now, those looking back at the start of the century will understand that Seasteading was an obvious step towards encouraging the development of more efficient, practical public-sector models around the world," Thiel said in a statement.

But if the idea turns out to be just crazy enough that it works, Friedman, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, envisions transforming the way that government functions.

"Government is an industry with a really high barrier to entry," he said. "You basically need to win an election or a revolution to try a new one. That's a ridiculous barrier to entry. And it's got enormous customer lock-in. People complain about their cellphone plans that are like two years, but think of the effort that it takes to change your citizenship."

Peter Thiel Makes Down Payment on Libertarian Ocean Colonies

The NNDB Mapper allows you to explore NNDB visually by graphing the connections between people. Over 32,000 individuals are listed in our network.

This is a great tool for conspiracy theorists.

NNDB Mapper: Tracking the entire world

It started life as the emblem of the British anti-nuclear movement but it has become an international sign for peace, and arguably the most widely used protest symbol in the world. It has also been adapted, attacked and commercialised.

Gerald Holtom, a designer and former World War II conscientious objector from West London, persuaded DAC that their aims would have greater impact if they were conveyed in a visual image. The "Ban the Bomb" symbol was born.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | World's best-known protest symbol turns 50

It is in the hopes of keeping the attention of the public, and that of our elected officials, on this subject that the writers of this collection of essays have put pen to paper. They include a former president, the speaker of the House, two former White House chiefs of staff, current and former senators, generals, admirals, intelligence officials, interrogators, and religious leaders. Some are Republicans, others are Democrats, and still others are neither. What they all agree on, however, is this: It was a profound moral and strategic mistake for the United States to abandon long-standing policies of humane treatment of enemy captives. We should return to the rule of law and cease all forms of torture, with no exceptions for any agency. And we should expect our presidential nominees to commit to this idea.

No Torture. No Exceptions.

A pair of suicide bombers struck in the Israeli town of Dimona yesterday -- the first strike of its kind in more than a year. Once it was all over, a bomb disposal robot removed one of the attacker's jacket, to make sure there were no more explosives on him. (His bomb failed to go off, and police shot and killed him.) Then the machine rolled over him, to double-check. The likely NSFW picture is after the jump.

Picture: Israeli Robot Crushes Suicide Bomber (Updated) | Danger Room from Wired.com

Contrast this:

With this:

Authorities have fired an official in central China after city inspectors beat to death a man who filmed their confrontation with villagers, China's Xinhua news agency reports.

"Wei is the first 'citizen journalist' to die in China because of what he was trying to film," the group said in a statement.

"He was beaten to death for doing something which is becoming more and more common and which was a way to expose law-enforcement officers who keep on overstepping their limits."

China blogger beaten to death - CNN.com

Evel Knievel, the hard-living, death-defying adventurer who went from stealing motorcycles to riding them in a series of spectacular airborne stunts in the 1960s and ’70s that brought him worldwide fame as the quintessential daredevil performer, died yesterday in Clearwater, Fla. He was 69.

Mr. Knievel had been in failing health for years with diabetes and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, an incurable lung condition. In 1999, he underwent a liver transplant after nearly dying of hepatitis C, which he believed he had contracted from a blood transfusion after one of his many violent spills.

By his own account, he underwent as many as 15 major operations to relieve severe trauma and repair broken bones — skull, pelvis, ribs, collarbone, shoulders and hips. “I created the character called Evel Knievel, and he sort of got away from me,” he said.

He had a titanium hip and aluminum plates in his arms and a great many pins holding other bones and joints together. He was in so many accidents that he occasionally broke some of his metal parts, too.

His health had also been compromised by years of heavy drinking; he told reporters that at one point he was consuming a half a fifth of whiskey a day, washed down with beer chasers.

R.I.P.

Evel Knievel, 69, Daredevil on a Motorcycle, Dies - New York Times

In another blow to the Motor City's tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the nation's most dangerous city, according to a private research group's controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics.

Here we go with this again..

Ranked Most Dangerous
1. Detroit, Michigan
2. St. Louis, Missouri
3. Flint, Michigan
4. Oakland, California
5. Camden, New Jersey
6. Birmingham, Alabama
7. North Charleston, South Carolina
8. Memphis, Tennessee
9. Richmond, California
10. Cleveland, Ohio

Jersey will always have Camden. It's never going away.

I've got a peeve to bitch about here... I am completely puzzled as to why no one yammers on about Michigan being a shithole, while Jersey is widely seen as America's armpit. They have _two_ cities entrenched in serious positions on that list... Screw Michigan, seriously..

Now that I've gotten that load off my chest, I would like to point out that the truly nefarious thing going on here is the "Safest Cities" list:

Ranked Safest
1. Mission Viejo, California
2. Clarkstown, New York
3. Brick Township, New Jersey
4. Amherst, New York
5. Sugar Land, Texas
6. Colonie, New York
7. Thousand Oaks, California
8. Newton, Massachusetts
9. Toms River Township, N.J.
10. Lake Forest, California

I know both Brick Township and Toms River really well. I went to high school in Toms River and I'm in Brick all the time. These may be very safe places, as compared to somewhere like Lebanon, but all the factors that make it work out that way also contribute greatly to why they are miserable places to actually reside.

Brick Township does not "feel" safe. I can't think of another place in the US that has such a high ratio of police to people, and I work in downtown Washington, where we bathe in a sea of constant high security.. Brick is scary, because there doesn't appear to be any reason why it's necessary for it to be a police state like environment. It feels like it's unsafe as hell, because there are always cops, everywhere. There is a constant feeling that something should be going really wrong, if for no other reason than to justify why there are so many damn cops.

Next time you find yourself in the great Garden State, I suggest putting on Police and Thieves by The Clash and taking a nice drive through one of these two lovely Jersey Shore communities. You will find yourself weaving through a sea of police cars much like you would taxis in NYC, and saying things like "They must be looking for someone..."

But you will be safe... Very safe.

Experts say 'most dangerous city' rankings twist numbers - CNN.com