National Review Author Says Woman’s Sufferage Bad for America | Almost hard to believe, but this is your right wing in action. Women voting is “bad for conservatism” and therefore “bad for society”.

Newspaper Redesign: The Story of a Beautiful Failure | iA was invited to submit a redesign of the Swiss paper, Tages-Anzeiger. This is a story of how they lost, and the designs they came up with. Beautiful stuff. It’s interesting to see a usability firm approach the newspaper format that has been effectively unchanged for almost a hundred years.

Overcriminalization: The Federal Gov’t Goes Too Far | a 66-year-old “diabetic with coronary complications, arthritis and Parkinsons” was targeted by the Fish & Wildlife service, his house raided by a SWAT team, and forced to serve 2 years in a Federal prison all for missing some paperwork on importing… Orchids. Your tax dollars at work.

Fossil Skeleton Predates Lucy | 1.2 million years older than Africa’s famous “Lucy” fossil, this shows that humans split off from other apes long before previously thought.

Hadron Collider Could Prove Hyperdrive | Reviving a 1924 hypothesis by a German physicist, Franklin Felber is looking to see if the concept of a hyperdrive could be proven on a near atomic level when the Hadron Collider starts back up in the near future.

NSA Eavesdropped on Americans, Journalists in Baghdad | Two whistleblowers came forward to allege that “it was common practice at the NSA facility [in the Green Zone] to not only record the phone conversations of ordinary Americans with no connection to terrorism, but to single out the exchanges that were somehow novel or salacious for sharing, ridicule, and general discussion.” Your tax dollars at work. How long until this happens domestically? My money is on that it already does happen here.

The Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition | Really, truly, one of the best new bands I’ve seen since MuteMath. From Melbourne, Australia. As Tom Bridge said in a conversation with me, “It has a great urgency to it. I MUST ROCK. IT CANNOT WAIT. ROCK!”

Honey Can Help Fight Sinusitis | Well, certain types, and it’s limited to petri dish testing. It goes to show that Mother Nature really makes the best medicine.

The Cab Ride I’ll Never Forget | Just a great feel-good story about an old lady and a cab driver. It’s the little things we do that make a difference.

Mad Men Illustrated | A great group of images of illustrated scenes from Mad Men. Well done art! (via .sara)

Consumers not waiting for Automakers to Install Plug-in on Hybrids | This shows the obstinance of Detroit on getting with the program. When people are moding hteir cars so much in order to increase mileage, it might be something to look into…

No-Tech Hacking | Security is often focused on firewalls and digital encryption and randomized passwords. This is a great look at how non-technical issues can often do you in, how situational awareness is paramount, and how you car, dress and haircut can tell someone more about you than you care to let on. (Defcon talk by Johnny Long)

Typography for Lawyers | Or other clients who just don’t seem to get it.

Grocery Items rise 10.5% from Last Year | Maybe food will be the next hot market. Of course, most of these things aren’t storeable, and these hikes all seem to be related to costs of inputs on the agricultural end as well as transportation costs.

The Palins’ un-American Activities | Since Sarah Palin is pounding so hard on Sen. Obama regarding his weak link connection to Bill Ayers, Salon’s David Talbot hits back with some great points. If you read some of the statements of the founder of the Alaska Independence Party, of which her husband was an active member for years, you’d be a bit shocked: “My government is my worst enemy. I’m going to fight them with any means at hand.” So who’s the anti-government terrorist now?

McCain Loses His Head | Conservative commentator George Will calls out and rips McCain on his recent campaign activities calling him disconnected.

Global Electoral College | The Economist combines polls taken worldwide to see who would be President if the world could vote. It’s a decidedly blue map.

Ciny McCain Says Obama Runing ‘Dirtiest Campaign’ Ever | Yeah. I’m not sure what planet the Senator’s wife is living on, but I have three words: Pot. Kettle. Black.

‘Perfect Storm’ Could Give Dems ‘Magic 60’ in Senate | I’m not sure this would be good, as I think consensus building generally makes for better long term laws. However, after the disasterous years of the Republican Control of the White House and Capitol Hill, we’ve got a lot of crap to undo.

Walking a Fine Line | McCain did come out and try to push this back on Friday, but they should never have let it get this far out of control.

So we have McCain today getting his crowd riled up asking who Barack Obama is and then apparently giving a wink and a nod when one member of the crowd screams out “terrorist.”

And later we have Sarah Palin with the same mob racket, getting members of the crowd to yell out “kill him”, though it’s not clear whether the call for murder was for Bill Ayers or Barack Obama. It didn’t seem to matter.

These are dangerous and sick people, McCain and Palin. Whatever it takes. Stop at nothing.

Garabage Pail Kid version of Sarah Palin | This is just funny. I’d actually like to see someone do all four candidates up this way.

Make Believe Maverick | A relatively biased (especially in the tone of the writer) view of McCain. Strip away the hype and take it for the facts and it’s pretty interesting in regards to the underpinnings of McCain.

Berlusconi Says Leaders May Close World’s Markets | The Italian Prime Minister would like to suspend the markets for a short time in order to “rewrite the rules of international finance.” Well, the problem I see is that you have debt. And not only people but governments living excessively outside their means. Fiat currencies not backed by gold and you basically have a bunch of paper that people say has a certain value. When that paper gets traded at 20 times its value, it’s only a matter of time until that becomes untenable. And it is going to correct. If they keep the markets from sinking further in number, they do it in actuality through inflation. Just look at Zimbabwe, Argentina, etc. to see where this could end up for us.

AIG Draws Fire for Executives’ $440,000 Post-Bailout Retreat at Posh California Resort | Shock. Amazement. Bewilderment. The government bails you out because you screwed up and what do you do? Fix it? NO. You go on a fscking resort and pay for $6 diet cokes on the company (now taxpayer) dime. These people should have their personal assets taken from them to pay back the 85 billion (or part of it) and get a pittance of a salary to fix it. Or they can just quit. Or they can go to jail. I like door number three myself. “Executive Douchebag? meet Bubba. He likes men.”

Jim Cramer: Get Out of the Market | Jim Cramer recommends that people get the heck out of the market if you plan on using that money in the next five years. We heard something similar from our USAA advisers about 6 months ago when this all started to rumble with the sub-prime debacle. But this is going mainstream. Will this affect a sell-off of large proportions?

Settlement Day Approaches For Derivatives | Derivatives are really the 800 lb. Gorilla in the corner that everyone’s been ignoring. If these things go, get ready for fun.

Is This A Replay of 1929? | No. And that’s a relief. Newsweek’s Robert J. Samuelson talks about the differences and similarities between now and the Great Depression. Also see The End of Prosperity, Time’s look at similar concerns.

Worst Case Scenario Is Approaching Rapidly | The European Union is in chaos as certain countries jump out of step to secure their own domestic banking accounts.

Ask Umbra Gets Noticed by the New York Times | My friend, Jennifer Prediger, gets props from the NY Times about her new “Ask Umbra” featurettes on the environmental site, grist.org. Yay!

Urban Vehicle Camouflage | Someone spent a lot of time to look like a generic fleet vehicle.

What Happened to Muxtape | Sad that the industry couldn’t figure out how to make this work in their favor. Seems they keep stepping on anything that would help them sell music.

Creating a Magical Rainbow Color Flame in Photoshop | Veerle comes through again with an amazing tutorial showing how to create a very nice effect in Photoshop.

And finally, a funny image from Amy Hoy:

I was working on my Friday links article and I saw that way too many of them were specific to the Bailout and all things financial, so here they are in a seperate post:

Derivatives are the Next Big Problem | $55 trillion dollars in credit swaps is where a lot of growth happened, however, it wasn’t proper growth. So now, we’re stuck with a big problem. No bailout can fix this stuff. It just has to adjust.

Bank Limits Fund Access by Colleges | Wachovia has limited about 1,000 colleges access to their $9.3 billion i assets held by the bank. When credit disappears, bad things happen.

BB&T President Tells Congress to Rethink the Plan | John Allison, President and CEO of BB&T, basically called out Congress asking why there’s a bailout for people who were simply irresponsible and reckless and calls out many of the points that are just plain dumb. Here’s the original PDF scan

Treasury Admits No Basis to $700B Figure | From the article: “It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

There is no Crisis | A commentary calling out what it sees as a blatant lie of the Bush administration to help their friends on their last days in office.

A Moral Hazard for the Housing Bailout | How do you sot out those who really got screwed versus those who wanted to play the market and got caught with their pants down (but were knowledgeable about the risk)? You cannot privatize profit and socialize debt and risk. It just doesn’t work that way. We have to let risk-taking financial institutions fail

Bailout as Nigerian Scam Email | This is quality. For those of you who have suffered the Nigerian email scams over the years, this will make you laugh (or cry… you decide).

Wonkette Canned Soup Index | Campbells Soup is the only thing to gain in a day of losses. Bring on the soup lines!

Credit Cards to Implode | UK analyst believes that “a combination of a 10-year steady drip of deteriorating personal finances and a tidal wave… brought on by the mortgage and credit crisis leads us to believe that credit cards are going to implode in the near term.” Yay.

Disclaimer: I’m a Virginia Democrat (aka, I have slight libertarian leanings). This is not meant to be fair or balanced in any way, shape, or form. Just what I’m reading and I like this week. Deal.

“Qui Tacet Consentire Videtur” – He who keeps silent is assumed to give consent. So speak up! Here we go, the political fun I’ve read this week:

The Truth About Sarah Palin | Rolling Stone delivers myth vs fact coverage. Worth the read.

Sexist Treatment of Palin Must End | Campbell Brown rips another one apart with this great op-ed. Fits in nicely with the John Stewart video below.

Let’s Play Wall Street Bailout! | A great excerpt from C-SPAN with a Congresswoman mocking the proceedings by calling it a new game to play and going through some excellent snark.

Worst Self-Inflicted Campaign Move Ever | John McCain’s “suspension” was arguably the dumbest thing anyone has ever done. It said “I can only handle one thing at a time,” and came at the time when his poll numbers were falling like meteors.

McCain’s Bizarre Earmark Obsession | Earmarks are such a tiny part of the budget, and yet McCain can’t stop talking about them. Non-issues since he has no talking points on actual issues.

Here’s a bunch of things I’ve seen this last week in regards to the elections.

Palin the Book Banner | This is really somewhat ludicrous in modern society, but fear not dear cultural conservatives! Book banning is alive and well in Palin’s Alaska:

Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor.

Fact Checking of Palin’s Speech at RNC | Suprise, it’s full of stretches and misrepresentations. But hey, that’s politics right?

Why The Media Should [or Shouldn’t] Apologize | Politico’s satirical response to the Republican machine’s comments on how the media is unfairly attacking Palin.

Daily Show Slapping the Republican Talkers around | Jon Stewart and crew do a great job showing Republican talking heads saying one thing and then completely the opposite about Gov. Palin. Jamie Lynn Spears reason for being pregnant? Her parents are “pinheads”, according to Bill O’Reilly. But not the Palins. Ah hypocrisy.

Palin Never Issues Any Orders to the Alaska Nat’l Guard | Touting her role as Governor and managing the state’s National Guard as part of her “experience” over Sen. Obama, Gov. Palin has never given a single order in her role as commander of that force. Experience indeed.

Palin’s Speech Raises $10M in 24 hours… for Obama | From the site: ”’Sarah Palin’s attacks have rallied our supporters in ways we never expected,’ says Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. ‘And we fully expect John McCain’s attacks tonight to help us make our grassroots organization even stronger.’”

McCain’s PR Chief Can’t Explain Palin’s Experience | Campbell Brown rails Tucker Bounds on Palin’s experience and gets him all flustered because he won’t answer a simple and direct question. Because he can’t.

1000 Abstract Brushes for Photoshop | These are the things I live on to do a lot of my design work. PaulW put out all these free brushes and they’re pretty cool. Enjoy!

Science vs. Religion | An xkcd style comic of science vs religion commentary.

Orphan Works: A Collosal Mess | The new orphan works proposed revision to the Copyright code is a crappy fix to a problem the copyright office brought upon itself. A nice op-ed piece by Lawrence Lessig.

As Homes Foreclus in US, Squatters Move In | Homeless are taking over empty houses owned by the banks and local authorities are having a headache getting them out and then keeping them out. And the squatters are getting smart about it too, forcing the banks into courts or offering to leave for cash.

People Moving Off Grid | In this case, off the grid means living out of their car. The city of Santa Barbara actually has set up lots where people can sleep in their cards form 7pm until 7am. How long until this starts to look like the 1930s?

$200-a-Barrel Crude Prediction | the NY Times has a article that references a Goldman Sachs analyst who believes that a super-spike could drive oil prices up to $200 a barrel.

As we’re off to play at the Bitter End in NYC tonight, I present the Friday link collection. Enjoy!

Houdini for Mac OS X | For you visual effects people, SideEffects is finally releasing a new version of Houdini for Mac that will bring it in line with the Windows and Linux versions. Just shows you how far the platform has come in the last ten years.

Foreclosure Filings Hit Record in April | Up 65% from last year, foreclosures are not only hurting families, but municipalities as well as their tax revenue plummets. Without property taxes, cities and towns will have to find new revenue streams, which means new and or different taxes.

Oregon: Our Laws Our Copyrighted And You CAn’t Publish Them | Cory Doctorow rips the state of Oregon on their recent claim that their laws are copyrighted and that they can’t be published outside of the state site. I’d be interested to see this go into court with the whole provision of critique or ridicule being considered fair-use. (via Waldo)

Farmer Outside Boston Preserving Endangered Livestock | A PhD in Pathology and fourth generation farmer, Jennifer Cermak has a small farm in Berlin, outside Boston, and helps maintain populations of endangered livestock species, many of them from the colonial era.

As Food Prices Shoot Up, So Do Backyard Gardens | I’ve got a balcony garden and it’s the same idea. The best way to eat local is to start in your own back yard. Then join a CSA locally. Then buy from local farmers markets. You’d be suprised how little you have to get from the actual grocery store.

Slow Down a Little, Save a Lot of Gas | What your parents always told you is true. You can save a lot of money, especially with gas prices going through the roof, by driving at a lower speed. The goal is to keep the RPMs of the engine as low as possible, so cruising in your highest gear at the lowest RPMs. This won’t work for those of you on the mountain, but it’s a good practice to get into anyway.

Ecobeam Systems | An interesting technology for construction that utilizes wood and steel girder-like beams to replace typical stud construction that can be curved, assembled on site, used to span larger distances, and utilize sandbags as bricks. Keeping this on the list for when I build to see how it could help in a passive solar system (thick masonry like wall = thermal stability)

Helvetica Serif | Joey the “Accordion Guy” posted the most brilliant and offensive type joke of the last year. Or call it Arial Serif. Everyone knows they’re the same thing.

Chloe the Labrador Retriever | Daily Puppy would be my downfall if my apartment building allowed for dogs. Instead, I can just say “aww so cute!” about other people’s labradors.

What WMATA Is Really Suggesting | New metro proposal for the system in 2030. I wish this existed today. It would be nice. Check out the map drawn based on the presentation by the guys at Greater Greater Washington.

California: Disappearing is $6Trillion in housing Wealth | At the rate housing prices are falling, the average homeowner will experience a loss of $85,000 in this year alone.

This past week, my business partner, Amy Hoy and her fianceé, Thomas Fuchs, created something so simple and so damn cool based on the twitter API and some great javascript. It’s called Twistori

They built it and launched it in one day and announced it solely with one post on twitter each.

Check it out. You’ll be hooked.

HCFS Not Natural says FDA | Finally, the FDA has declared high fructose corn syrup is not a natural ingredient, and therefore products containing it cannot be labeled as such. HFCS is one of the main components, in this author’s humble opinion, of our national nutrition and obesity problems..

Pizza Hut Delivery Driver Fired for Shooting Armed Robber | In more of the “don’t defend yourself!” news, Pizza Hut fired a driver because of a policy violation, even though he kept himself from being robbed. Another point of stupid corporate policies being followed to the letter because of fear of lawsuits.

BBC: Do You Need To Stock Up The Bunker? | Even the Brits are getting in on the end of the world preparations. It’s based off Barton Biggs’ book “Wealth, War and Wisdom” which talks about wealth preservation during war, specifically, World War II in Europe. Lessons are applicable to modern day life.

The Clean Energy Scam | Agricultural biofuels are not going to save the planet. In fact, they are hurting it just as much as oil through deforestation, agrochemicals, and more.

Algae: The Ultimate In Renewable Energy | Making biofuels from algae farms can produce 100,000 gallons of biofuel in an acre per year. Compare this to 30 for corn and 50 for soybeans. Bring on the pond scum!

Buffett Says Recession May Be Worse Than Feared | Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and the world’s richest man at $62B, stated that this “recession will be longer and deeper than most people think” and “think[s] consumers are feeling gas and food prices and not feeling they’ve got a lot of money for other things.”

Gardening in Suburbia: Hot New Trend | Watch out, it’s the new hot trend! Turn your lawn into a garden! This is awesome to see and fits in nicely with the article from last week’s remaindered links about the town in Hampshire doing something similar.

The End of Flight as We Know It | An op-ed from the great Bacon’s Rebellion e-magazine this week about the end of cheap air travel and looking ahead at an era when international travel at the drop of the hat will only be for those “at the top of the economic pyramid”. “There is no way to have “low cost, safe, convenient flights.” No amount of traditional subsidy or oversight can mask realty. The only way that there can be safe, on-time air travel is for every ticket to cost far more than it has in the past.” All too true.

Costco Food Rationing | In certain Costco’s they are limiting the amount of certain items that people can buy due to international shortages (or perceived shortages) in things such as rice, oil and flour. Toss this into the debunk file for “it could never happen here”. Also see Riots, Instability Spread as Food Prices Skyrocket and Time Magazine’s No Grain, Big Pain article. And finally: The Wall Street Journal Suggests Americans Stockpile Food

A Message to Pennsylvanians from Bill Clinton | Bill Clinton’s speech for John Kerry in October 2004.

Now one of Clinton’s laws of politics is this: If one candidate is trying to scare you and the other one is trying to get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope. That’s the best.

Oops. Bill, I guess Hillary didn’t hear that speech. Nor did anyone in Pennsylvania seem to remember it this past Tuesday. Pity.

Urban Planners vs. City Residents | Even the best laid plans are laid to waste by people who simply do not want to leave the place they live. Youngstown, Ohio’s city planners would love to shut down and raze vacant and run down areas, but the few remaining residents don’t agree.

Texas Oil Billionaire Bets on Wind | It’s nice to see private industry going after alternative energy. Mesa Power, owned by Texas oil man T. Boon Pickens, has put forth a plan to spend $10 Billion to build the largest wind farm on the planet. And it’s not from his “let’s save the environment” reasoning. He sees the profit in going green.

An Entire Village in UK Grows its Own Food | The village of Martin, nestled into the Hampshire countryside, is pretty nondescript. But the village has rolled back the clock and now over 2/3rds of residents participate in a program to grown their own food. The nearest supermarket is only six miles away, but most people are buying their food from the community allotment, which sells 45 different vegetables and over 100 chickens a week.

Nuclear Attack on DC: A Hypothetical Disaster | The Washington Times (which has typically been a very right-wing leaning paper) has an interesting “what-if” about a 10-kiloton detonation at street level near the White House. Some of the experts interviewed, such as Cham Dallas of the University of Georgia, claim that it’s a likely occurrence in the next 20 years. The bigger concern? The Metro area is in no way, shape, or form prepared to respond to something of this nature.

Coptic Priest Fights Fire with Fire | A Coptic (Christian) priest in Egypt has been named Islam’s Public Enemy #1 by an Arabic Newspaper. He has forged a discussion of the Koran and some of the more archaic laws present in the Hadith. He preaches in Arabic and asks deep questions and responds with a point by point argument that would win some of the toughest debates. The result? A frustrated ulema (a body of prominent Muslim theologians) and a large number of converts to Christianity.

Vitamins May Increase Mortality | Looks like highly processed vitamins aren’t that good for you after all. Michael Pollan’s points from The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food ring more and more true every day.

Nalgene to Phase Out Hard-Plastic Bottles | Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical present in certain hard-plastic Nalgene bottles, is being phased out. The chemical has been linked to neurological and behavioral problems as well as obesity, cancer and diabetes.