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So, my friend Jamais has this idea about the participatory panopticon, in which the traditional government dream of universal surveillance as a method of control is turned over to the citizenry, in whose hands it is as much a tool for fighting oppression as it is for enabling it.

As recording devices and wireless networks and video sharing sites become pervasive, that idea is rapidly becoming reality, and unsurprisingly, lots of people in authority don’t like the way it makes them accountable, and are doing their very best to ban it.

Dumb, really.

Techdirt: Student Films Principal Fighting Another Student… School Board Bans Mobile Phones

Pony is an orangutan from a prostitute village in Borneo. We found her chained to a wall, lying on a mattress. She had been shaved all over her body. If a man walked near her, she would turn herself around, present herself, and start gyrating and going through the motions. She was being used as a sex slave. She was probably about six or seven years old when we rescued her, but she had been held captive by a madam for a long time. The madam refused to give up the animal because everyone loved Pony and she was a big part of their income.

Warren Ellis » This Happened On Your Planet

One Russian guy in Kharkov, Ukraine preferred was obsessed with some idea which he tried to express in writing on any flat surface he met. All his flat carried his scriptures, the local lobbies and walls of houses also had not stayed untouched

English Russia » An Apartment in Kharkov Style

Immigration over the past decade has been “too high” and needs to be better controlled, Conservative leader David Cameron has told the BBCs Newsnight.

Peoples concerns were “not because of different cultures” or the colour of someones skin but pressure on schools, hospitals and housing, he said.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Immigration too high - Cameron

The worlds first privately financed space station could be launched before 2010, a statement by Bigelow Aerospace suggests. The US company is accelerating its schedule to save money.

Is it just me, or does the idea of rushing ahead with an orbital habitat to do it on the cheap sound like a really terrible idea?

Commercial space station to launch before 2010 - space - 14 August 2007 - New Scientist Space

Words fail me. Just watch it.

YouTube - Cheney in 1994 on Iraq

GEOFFREY MILLER is a man with a theory that, if true, will change the way people think about themselves. His idea is that the human brain is the anthropoid equivalent of the peacocks tail. In other words, it is an organ designed to attract the opposite sex.

Evolutionary psychology | Blatant benevolence and conspicuous consumption | Economist.com

• Wall Invaders - Floral Wallpaper that you customize with bug prints using a kid’s dart gun (via Random Coolness)
• Espresso Book Machine prints free classic books on demand at the NY public library (via BoingBoing)
• Tankbooks are pocket classics in packaging designed to resemble cigarette packs
• Mask Idols in TokyoTimes, another odd Japanese costume fetish, where women wear surgical masks, eyepatches and limb casts.. for shits and giggles.