Early Edition

1. Occupy Wall Street Officially Jumps the Shark
Behold, the definition of irony: Occupy Wall Street has released an adult coloring book, for sale on Amazon, which features the famously anti-capitalist Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs on the cover. And someone, ostensibly from the movement, has applied to trademark the term "Occupy Wall Street." I'm starting to think this whole thing is some enormously clever joke being played on rabid leftists by subversive conservatives. Oh.... but the pervasive rape and assault kind of makes it not funny.

2. Prophet Muhammad Needs Uptight Dumbasses with Molotov Cocktails to Protect Him From Free Speech
A French newspaper that invited Muhammad to be a guest editor and critizes Sharia Law had its office firebombed and its website hacked in retaliation. Who wants to worship a creepy, humorless teetotal that forbids you from drawing him and has to rely on mooncalves with molotov cocktails to keep him safe from his one weakness: criticism.

3. More Reasons To Be Afraid of Cyberwar
Fears arising now that what was likely a US government-made cyberweapon deployed against the Iranian nuclear program could be turned back on us and used to bring down our entire infrastructure. I'm becoming more and more convinced that the next major war will start cyber, obliterate the belligerents' networks, defense and power grids, and then devolve into a somewhat more sophistocated version of early 20th century trench warfare. There is much to fear, my friends, much to fear indeed.

Late Edition

1. iSkin
The future is now. Turn your skin into a touchpad. This could revolutionize human intimacy. Wait, what? I mean ergonomics.

2. Whoops! Fundamentalism!
This is about as alarming a debut as you could imagine for the new Libyan government, short of calling for the destruction of Israel and decapitating a Western journalist on live television. Still, from what I understand this Jalil guy is at best a more secular moderate and at worst an opportunist. He's likely doing this to keep the Islamist elements of the revolution appeased until the difficult work of drawing up a constitution begins. If this Sharia thing survives a constitutional convention or Jalil and company start talking jihad, death to America, etc then I'll be really ill at ease. At least we can still withhold Ghadafi's frozen assets (I bet you thought I was going to say "corpse") if they keep talking crazy.

Late Edition

1. Christopher Columbus Caused the Little Ice Age
As if he didn't have enough to answer for.

2. Kids Don't Get Religion Without Help
Absolutely fascinating. The concept that human beings are born with an evolutionarily programmed predisposition to explain their surroundings via the supernatural is challenged by this study, in which children demonstrate that their minds don't run immediately to the supernatural. While this by no means disproves this hypothesis, it certainly raises questions about how and when we acquire this tendency. It also begs the question of what more our kids might be capable of if we don't indocrinate them into religion during their developmental years.

Early Edition

1. Clinton continues to look good in a three-piece suit while undercutting the president’s proposed tax policy.
It’s abundantly clear that Bill Clinton either doesn’t care if President Obama wins re-election or is currently engaged in a passive-aggressive strategy to aid in his defeat. What isn’t necessarily as clear is why. Is Obama too liberal for Clinton? Has Obama been too ruinous for the Democratic Party? Is it retaliation for the Obama campaign’s (temporary) fracturing of the Clinton bloc within the DNC? Or retaliation for dashing both Clintons’ hopes of a return to the White House? Perhaps least likely of all: does Clinton have a primary challenger in mind?

2. Romney’s Mormonism won’t cost him the critical evangelical vote.
Of course it won’t, because there’s a difference between Mormonism and Mormons. Mormonism is religious slapstick. Mormons are sober, socially conservative, family-focused and successful business people actively involved in their communities and politics.

3. Reports of al Qaeda’s demise may be greatly exaggerated.
Assuming the key leadership of al Qaeda™ is eventually eradicated in its entirety, there is an essential debate that needs to happen as to whether that constitutes a victory in the now rebranded War on Terror that will allow us to bring our troops home. A critical aspect of that debate will, of course, be that destroying al Qaeda’s leadership doesn’t equate to a destruction of the Fort Hood and Umar Farooq-Abdulmutallab brand of low-cost, low-tech Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. I suppose that’s another compelling reason for Congressionally-declared war against a clearly defined enemy with pre-defined victory conditions.

4. “My poverty but not my will consents.”
This is one of many examples of a clear confusion of bioethicism and social policy that has resulted from the broadening of the scope of bioethics itself. What caught my eye was the assertion by Ellison and Meliker that paying women for their eggs might induce a disproportionate number of poor women (under duress, seems to be the inaccurate and underlying presumption) to put themselves at risk of health problems. This whole notion that the impoverished may somehow be less responsible for entering into an agreement after being made fully aware of the risks to their own health, apart from being baseless, doesn’t seem to have any place in bioethics.