Some items of interest:

• Boing Boing.  Corporate capture of government function.  Secret, a denial of transparency claiming (falsely) nation-security interests, copyright treaty details.  It's becoming impossible to argue that the US isn't a "Banana Republic."


• Guide to building an automated sentry gun.  Add software/intelligence to everything...


• Alex Steffen at World Changing critiques Transition Towns.  Rob Hopkins responds.   I like both men, they are exceptional thinkers.  The question they are debating is whether you believe global/national or local action ultimately prevails.   The debate might already be settled since Transition Towns presents a viable path towards to mitigating the impact of looming economic collapse and a hyper-concentration of wealth/influence (this gives it strength).  Secondly, as the copyright effort above demonstrates (yet again), global solutions are impossible since global governance is firmly in the thrall of parasitic financial interests.


• Drew Endy on biohacking -- late 2007 in a pitch to computer hackers -- on adding layers of ab