Popular Science Puts Entire Scanned Archive Online, Free. Wired Top Stories (2010-03-27):

Gadget nerds: Prepare to lose the rest of your day to awesomeness. PopSci, the web-wing of Popular Science magazine, has scanned its entire 137-year archive and put it online for you to read, absolutely free.

Technological civilization is awesome. (Cont'd.)

Salad vs. Big Mac. Shakesville (2010-03-27):

Via Economix; created by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.If you can't view the image, it's a graphic labeled "Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?" featuring two pyramids. The one on the left is labeled "Federal Subsidies for Food Production, 1995-2005," and it shows the breakdown...

Why does a salad cost more than a Big Mac?

Because government subsidizes some agribusiness more than others.

The market for food in a freed society would look nothing like the rigged industrial meat market that we have today.

Charges Against Pete Eyre Dismissed. the Motorhome Diaries (2010-03-26):

In the continuing Jones County saga, this past Monday the charges against me were dismissed. Yay! Much thanks goes to our very awesome and very thorough legal team. More on this from the Laurel Leader-Call. Just a reminder: it wasn’t myself, Jason or Adam who acted in the wrong on...

Congratulations to Pete. Next up: freeing Jason and Adam.

• The Breaking Windows Fallacy. Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-03-24). The only thing I'd differ from Jesse on is that I'm not actually sure that Democratic Party offices count as "private property" in the sense that individualists are out to defend it. But I am pretty sure that this is a stupid way to try and handle political controversies. And I'll second the recommendation for Gene Sharp's "198 Methods." (Linked Wednesday 2010-03-24.)
• The U.S. Patent System vs. Innovation. John Gruber, Daring Fireball (2010-03-03). Eric Von Hippel, professor of technological innovation at MIT, in an interview with The New York Times: “It’s a bad scene right now. The social value of patents was supposed to be to encourage innovation — that’s what society gets out of it. The net effect is that they decrease... (Linked Wednesday 2010-03-24.)
• ‘No Dashes or Spaces’ Hall of Shame. Daring Fireball (2010-03-24). There is no reason ever to force your user to remove spaces or dashes from a credit card number or a phone number. Not being able to s/[^0-9]+// is sheer barbarism. (Linked Wednesday 2010-03-24.)
• Darian Worden speaks about left libertarianism @ 2010/03 Alt Expo. bile, blog of bile (2010-03-22). Speaker: Darian Worden Speech: Libertarians are Left Affiliations: Alliance of the Libertarian Left, Center for a Stateless Society, Thinking Liberty Website: http://darianworden.com Event: AltExpo #5 Date: 2010/03/19 No related posts. (Linked Wednesday 2010-03-24.)
• Domestic Abuse. Daily Brickbats (2010-03-24). You got served and protected. (Cont'd.) (Linked Wednesday 2010-03-24.)
• gruber: .@ceolaf Why not movie plots too? Should Hitchcock have been awarded patent for "Innocent Protagonist Accused of Crime He Didn't Commit"? Twitter / gruber (2010-03-25). View tweets tagged "Don't Give Them Any Ideas" ... (Linked Thursday 2010-03-25.)
• shelleypowers: Happy Ada Lovelace Day to the women who kick butt in technology AND to the men who respect and appreciate us. Twitter / shelleypowers (2010-03-25). (Observed 24 March 2010.) (Linked Thursday 2010-03-25.)
• the contrast devloped by david brooks, among others, between. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2010-03-20). the contrast devloped by david brooks, among others, between communitarianism and libertarianism, is tendentious. unless you're intention is to build a community through coercion - which is indeed the secret center of communitarianism - they are perfectly compatible. and if you think you can build a community through coercion, i... (Linked Thursday 2010-03-25.)
• Google Alleges That Viacom ‘Secretly Uploaded Its Content to YouTube, Even While Publicly Complaining About Its Presence There’ Daring Fireball (2010-03-25). "For years, Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its contentto YouTube, even while publicly complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to upload its content to the site." You could read this as a story about the hypocrisy and unmitigated gall of the copyright monopolists. I prefer to read it as a story about how a flourishing countereconomy gives even the aggressive sort of ideological statists a positive incentive to work towards promoting the free world in practice. Not even a massive copyright monopolist like Viacom can afford to abstain from the anti-copyright countereconomy. Not because they agree with it politically, but for reasons of business, pure and simple. (Linked Thursday 2010-03-25.)
• ‘They’re Cops; They’re Going to Beat You’ LewRockwell.com Blog (2010-03-25). You got served and protected. (Cont'd.) Keep in mind that when a gang of blue-bangers starts beating on you in a public place in front of God and everyone, you're still better off not calling 911: if you do, they'll only send reinforcements. (Linked Thursday 2010-03-25.)
• Consistency. John Markley, The Superfluous Man (2010-03-10). One of the stories that been in the news is the DUI arrest of California State Senator Roy Ashburn, a consistent opponent of gay marriage, as he departed a gay bar with a male companion. Ashburn has subsequently acknowledged in the media that he's gay, saying that he votes as... (Linked Thursday 2010-03-25.)
• I Survived a Free Market Meal. Ryan W. McMaken, LewRockwell.com Blog (2010-03-23). There’s a Hispanic person who comes around my building during the day and sells burritos out of a cooler for $2.50. I’m pretty sure they’re made by his wife (or other relative) in his kitchen. It’s an all cash business. So, I can only guess that this food is prepared... (Linked Thursday 2010-03-25.)