Links: Random and Assorted

1. Add this to the list of things not to tell your children: bunnies being shot, frozen and burnt for fuel in Sweden. (via)

2. Uganda: A ticking population timebomb.

3. An Interview with Dr. Cruelty regarding the supervillian sense of humor:

No, I'm sorry, I still don't—

They're stuck in a pit! They can try to get out but they can't! They will surely die down there, poisoned by snakes! They're trapped!

Right, I understand that but—

It's hysterical, come on! They. Can't. Get. Out.

4. File away for New Years, how to make the McNuggetini (via and recipe)

5. In case you missed them: Gapminder added FAO agricultural data to their visualizer; the FAO's Hunger Report; IFPRI's 2009 Hunger Index.

6. Steven Rattner's behind the scenes account of the auto bailout is worth a read.

7. Charlize Theron one ups Bill Easterly and makes out with the highest bidder to raise money for Africa. Now there's a slippery slope . . . .

8. Coin toss not 50/50?:

Here's what the researchers concluded: Using a high-speed camera that photographed people flipping coins, the three researchers determined that a coin is more likely to land facing the same side on which it started. If tails is facing up when the coin is perched on your thumb, it is more likely to land tails up.

How much more likely? At least 51 percent of the time, the researchers claim, and possibly as much as 55 percent to 60 percent — depending on the flipping motion of the individual.

In other words, more than random luck is at work.

Links

1.  On the Path of Walker Evans.  If you've never read or at least thumbed through Let Us Now Praise Famous Men do yourself a favor and pick a copy up some time.

2.  For all the budding hypochondriacs: 4 ways to track the swine flu.  Health Map also has a Twitter feed and there is this often updated, fairly comprehensive Google map.

3.  The cost of fast food per calorie.  Sadly, does not reflect your cost in terms of healthcare.

4.  A good post-World Malaria Day reminder from Easterly that distributing mosquito nets without adequate preparation/education is rarely enough.

5.  More rich country - poor country farming deals in the works - this time the players are Kuwait, Cambodia and small rice farmers.

6.  Andrew Bird's great album Armchair Apocrypha is a $1.99 mp3 download on Amazon today- highly recommended.

Links

1.  The US Working Group on the Food Crisis is urging ag ministers at the upcoming G8 agricultural meeting to reject "green revolution policies" as a way forward for African agriculture.

2.  Farmers in India agree as they struggle to deal with the repercussions of their own failed "green revolution:"

But now these farmers are running out of groundwater.

They have to buy three times as much fertilizer as they did 30 years ago to grow the same amount of crops. They blitz their crops with pesticides, but insects have become so resistant that they still often destroy large portions of crops.

The state's agriculture "has become unsustainable and nonprofitable.

3.  I think I may have linked to this before but in case I forgot be sure to check out Yes magazine's spring issue.  The theme is Food for Everyone: The Local Food Revolution and there is some good content there, including a sweet chart (free pdf download) showing how a community food system works, excerpted below:

4.  An increasingly relevant topic in our household: homemade baby food.

5.  I've long been fascinated by the postal system and the amazing fact that you can drop a piece of paper in a metal box and for less than two quarters have someone carry it across the country for you and deliver it to another little box that you specify.  Amazing and incredibly inefficient but what can you do - here's an in depth attempt at an answer.  (via)

6.  Some press on WFP's P4P.  U c?

7.  On the religion and development front this piece by Bryant Myers entitled, "Working with the Poor with a Bias towards Peace" is worth your time.  Myers worked with World Vision for thirty years and left to take a teaching position at Fuller Seminary a couple of years ago.  A move that, as an alum, I was particularly glad to see as it signals a recognition that good intentions are not enough, but faith-based relief and development must also be grounded in and aware of best practices (an admittedly moving target).

8.  Muji's online US store is up and running.

9.  Elizabeth Warren totally won me over on the Daily Show this week - engaging, open, honest and smart.  This four minute clip from the end was as solid an explanation of the lay of the land and a possible way forward as I've heard, but watch her whole interview if you have the time.

Links

1.  Are big farms the key to African development?  As I've said before, I think Collier is wrong on this one.  There will certainly be some large farms (there already are), some no doubt driven by development and scarcity elsewhere (i.e. China, South Korea, etc.), because a few folks will figure out how to make money off of it, but there need to be a lot more medium sized farms meeting regional farms and there need to be a lot more subsistence farms with access to appropriate technology so that farming can move from being a life line to being something akin to a legitimate credit line.

2.  Are diversified organic cropping systems as profitable as conventional mono-cropping?  A new study says yes:

"In our study we found that diversified systems were more profitable than monocropping," explains Joshua Posner, University of Wisconsin.

With feed grade premiums the organic systems were more profitable than the Midwestern standards of continuous corn, no-till corn and soybeans, and intensively managed alfalfa.

Rotational grazing of dairy heifers was as profitable as the organic systems. And to our surprise, including risk premiums into the evaluation did not change the ranking of the systems. This study indicates that governmental policy that supports mono-culture systems is outdated and support should be shifted to programs that promote crop rotations and organic farming practices.

Full paper here.

3.  Has Mugabe stolen the Ark of the Covenant?  Talismans are a powerful cultural force throughout Africa and it's no surprise that this one pops up all over the continent.

4.  Easterly on the secret to a successful aid project.

5.  Gmail finally adds the ability to insert inline images - revolutionizing family newsletters throughout the world.

6.  The Seattle Times discovers potato boxes.  One of the problems with getting people to grow their own potatoes is that they are so freakin' cheap and not enough people have had fresh ones to realize how big a difference there really is - as opposed to tomatoes which everyone knows you have to grow yourself if you want to eat a decent one.

7.  Another great Where the Wild Things Are poster.

8.  Stamp Out Hunger is coming up in less than a month so start buying an extra can or two every week and put them out for the mailman on May 9th.  Seriously, this is a no brainer.  

Links

1.  Restaurant chains taking a beating - get your Outback, Krispy Kreme, Arby's and Sbarro while you can.

2.  Stress and generational poverty in the Economist.

3.  What Would Jesus Bet?  I'd love to read this piece in the New Yorker on game theory, online poker and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson but for some reason it's gated.  I didn't even know the New Yorker required registration?

4.  Flaming Garbage Cans in Hip Hop Videos.  A blog chronicling exactly what it claims.

5.  Hunger eclipsed at G-20 Summit, not surprisingly.

Links

1.  Sign the kids up for the summer: cooking camp for teens.

2.  The White House garden story has gotten more press than it is probably worth in terms of it's potential impact on food systems (seriously, have you really been worried that el presidente wasn't eating well?) but I've been keeping an ear open for blow-back from the conventional ag camp regarding all the applause over an organic "first garden" and apparently it's out there.

3.  Colonel Sanders practices a little enlightened self-interest by filling in pot holes around Louisville, KY.

4.  Best beers in the land?

5.  With all the talk of collapsing bee colonies new emphasis has been placed on the role that wild bees play in crop pollination.  Here's a method that I had never seen for encouraging/protecting wild colonies:

Cane came up with the idea of using corrugated plastic totes—available from suppliers of mail and package handling equipment—as nesting shelters, and has tested them during spring and summer in California, Oregon, Wyoming and Utah. His experiments show that the lightweight, rectangular bins, each 23-1/2 inches long by 15-1/2 inches wide by 15-1/2 inches high, serve as a sturdy, inexpensive and reusable shelter for protecting bee nests against wind and rain.

Growers, professional and hobbyist beekeepers, and backyard gardeners who want wild bees to live near and work in their fields, orchards, vineyards or home gardens can use the totes to house nesting materials, such as five-sixteenths-inch diameter paper drinking straws enclosed in cardboard tubes and stuffed inside empty cardboard milk cartons. Wild female bees such as the blue orchard bee, Osmia lignaria, can use the straws as homes for a new generation of pollinators.

Wild bees are needed now, perhaps more than ever, to help with jobs usually handled by America's premier pollinator, the European honey bee, Apis mellifera. Many of the nation's honey bee colonies have been decimated by the puzzling colony collapse disorder or weakened by varroa and tracheal mites or the microbes that cause diseases such as chalkbrood and foulbrood.

A single corrugated plastic tote can accommodate as many as 3,000 young, enough to pollinate one-half to one-acre of orchard. And, unlike bulky or stationary shelters, the tote houses can easily be moved from one site to the next.

6.  Economy vs. Environment.  (via)

7.  Something for the kids: MS Office 2007 Ultimate for $59.99.  Ok, not just for the kids - you just need a .edu email, enrolled in a class somewhere (or be of low moral character), and use a PC.

8.  A call for NGO's to raise their game.

Links

1. "Tyler Perry is simply reflecting the thinking of a lot of uneducated, working-class African-Americans.'' Anecdotally, I know that sentence to be untrue, I work with plenty of educated African-Americans who love Perry, but ever since we moved to Atlanta, the center of his "empire," I've been fascinated by him. His show "House of Payne" comes on 2-3 times a day here on a local affiliate and it is amazingly bad. It is quite literally the TV equivalent of a train wreck and I can't look away. The man is a genius. He filmed 100 episodes of the show in a year, doing almost 3 a week so that he could get into syndication faster and make the real money. The cast was showing up to the set and seeing their dialogue for the first time on the day they were filming. And believe me, you can tell. Horrible acting, dreadful writing (not, mind you, horrible actors or writers, but people being asked to do the impossible) - you would think it was farce if it didn't take itself so seriously. The man is making money hand over fist and seems to be a gaming the system to perfection.

2. Layoff, a recession inspired video game. (via)

3. Jac Smit, often called the "father of urban agriculture, has a new website.

4. Is the Big Picture a Bummer Today? Nice single serve ribbing of one of my favorite sites.

5. The New York Times covers the annual angst-fest that is the San Diego Comic Con Hotel lottery.

6. There are some helpful things to hear in Douglas Bowman's explanation as to why he left Google - I see lots of relevance for those working in (and making decisions about) development and community building:

When I joined Google as its first visual designer, the company was already seven years old. Seven years is a long time to run a company without a classically trained designer. Google had plenty of designers on staff then, but most of them had backgrounds in CS or HCI. And none of them were in high-up, respected leadership positions. Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions. With every new design decision, critics cry foul. Without conviction, doubt creeps in. Instincts fail. “Is this the right move?” When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data. Data in your favor? Ok, launch it. Data shows negative effects? Back to the drawing board. And that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions.

Yes, it’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that. I’ve grown tired of debating such miniscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.

7. I really like the fact that the White House will have a garden again, though it remains to be seen whether or not the Obama's access to fresh, local produce will have any impact on the much more important issue of rehauling the American public's food system, and these pictures released by the White House are great but come on, somebody get that woman some Carhartts.

Links

1.  No Lunch Left Behind, Alice Waters rallying for school lunch reform ahead of the upcoming renewal of the Child Nutrition and Women Infants and Children Reauthorization Act, set to expire in September.  Nice accompanying graphic:

2.  Is food the new sex?

3.  Beer not recession proof after all, down 14% for the quarter, more here.  Previously.

4.  Another great series of photos from the Big Picture.

5.  Vermicomposting goes mainstream.

6.  The evolutionary role of cookery.

Links: Some Old, Some New

1.  Gapminder updated their handy one slide/sheet global HIV chart.

2.  Lovely, Lovely Charts.

3.  Declining nutrient content in fruit and vegetables, report here.

4.  To make.

5.  Two from the Ag Biodiversity Blog:  the back and forth (and back again) debate on whether or not small farms (or big farms) can save Africa; and poultry of the world:

6.  Amazon doing their part for, um . . . . valentines I suppose, free download of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On".

Links

1.  Zimbabwe abandons its currency, a fitful and far too late acknowledgment of reality by the government.

2.  Obama, replacing both Santa Claus and your mother.

3.  Genuine rural development.

4.  Nice little piece on Updike and religion from PBS's Religion and Ethics News Weekly.

5.  Babies know that a little dirt is good for you.

6.  TED recently put up a video of a talk by Scott McCloud on understanding comics filmed back in 2005.  Via Jesse Thorn, who recently interviewed McCloud on The Sound of Young America, a podcast favorite of mine.

7.  The Big Fix - long, but, in my very unqualified opinion, worth reading piece in the NY Times Magazine breaking down the bail out and its many ripples. 

8.  Motown #1's, 26 of them in fact, for $1.99 (for another few hours at least) from Amazon's MP3 store.  By the bye, they've got a Twitter feed announcing their daily $1.99 deal.

Links: Themes Edition

1.  Basketball:  

a.  The Audacity of Hoops - it's the only sport I follow and as someone who worked through many of the trials of early adolescence playing on a dirt court in his backyard I really enjoyed this piece. 

b.  A similarly themed anecdote from Peggy Noonan:

This week in the transition headquarters, the president-elect walked by a row of offices. Someone had given him a basketball; he dribbled it as he walked down the hall. Suddenly a young veteran of the campaign turned to another and said, "The black guy with the basketball is the next president." For them it's a rolling realization: You know it, lose it in the flow, realize it again, and suddenly it's new again. The aide says, "He's in a line with Washington and Lincoln, and luminaries like JFK and Reagan." He shakes his head wonderingly. I have seen new guys say this about new presidents most of my professional life. I never see it that I'm not moved. To this day.

c.  Ankle Insurance Co.

   

2.  Africa:

a.  Advice to Obama's Africa team from the Global Development Center: Don't Change Too Much.  

b.  Similar thoughts from US News and World Report.

c.  Flying toilets still abound.

d.  Lessons of Zimbabwe.  (via)

Links: Extended Edition

1.  Religion bits:  Father John Neuhaus passed away, Gordon Cosby and The Church of the Savior transition "out of existence" (or depending on your perspective "out into existence"), Philip Jenkins on dying Christianities, the rapture index ticks up a notch (can you guess the category?), the Church of England adds a couple of timely new prayers, "A prayer on being made redundant," and "A prayer for those remaining in the workplace," both are here. 

2.  Crayon Physics Deluxe finally available (if you have a PC, sorry Pomeroy).

3.  "Bikers wear fruit shells to avoid helmet law", or the perils of regulation in a developing context:

Police in Nigeria have arrested scores of motorcycle taxi riders with dried fruit shells, paint pots or pieces of rubber tire tied to their heads with string to avoid a new law requiring them to wear helmets.

The regulations have caused chaos around Africa's most populous nation, with motorcyclists complaining helmets are too expensive and some passengers refusing to wear them fearing they will catch skin disease or be put under a black magic spell.

The law, which came into force on January 1, pits two factions equally feared by the common motorist against one another: erratic motorcycle taxis known as "Okadas," whose owners are notorious for road-rage, and the bribe-hungry traffic police.

Some bikers have used calabashes -- dried shells of pumpkin-sized fruit usually used as a bowl -- or pots and pans tied to their heads with string to try to dodge the rules.

Construction workers have set up a lucrative trade renting out their safety helmets for around 500 naira ($3.60) a day.

"They use pots, plates, calabashes, rubber and plastic as makeshift helmets," said Yusuf Garba, commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission in the northern town of Kano.

"We will not tolerate this. We gave them enough time to purchase helmets. Six months ago the price of helmets was below 800 naira so complaints about non-availability and high prices are no excuse," he told Reuters.

Helmet prices have since risen sharply as sellers cash in on demand.

4. Little housing crisis on the prairie:

Pa and Ma signed the papers.

Laura still didn't understand. "But, Pa," she asked again, "if we never pay off any of the principal, how will we build equity in the house?"

"Don't worry, Laura," Pa reassured her. "In a year, this house will be worth twice what we paid for it. And if we need cash before then I can always hew some equity out of an oak stump with my ax. Oak is good hard wood."

Then Laura felt better. Pa could make anything with his ax.

"You see, Laura," Pa went on, "Uncle Sam has made a bet with us. We have bet that housing prices will continue to rise at historic rates for the foreseeable future. And the government has bet that if real-estate values plummet, honest citizens like us will be too stupid to do anything but continue paying out our hard-earned 5-cent pieces for property that was never worth more than a fraction of its appraised value. Either way, we are going to win that bet!"

"Charles," Ma remonstrated. She did not approve of gambling, even in metaphors.

"But what if land values do drop?" Laura wanted to know.

Pa's blue eyes twinkled. "That can never happen, Half-Pint. Why, it's just as likely that all our crops will be ruined by a blizzard, or a prairie fire, or a horde of grasshoppers!"

Laura and Mary and Ma and Pa all laughed at that idea. Jack barked and barked. Mr. Edwards ran around his mule in circles, slapping at imaginary bees.

5.  Ethan Zuckerman on cyberwarriors in Gaza.

6.  AbeBooks' most expensive book sales of 2008.

7.  Know your cuts of beef (and make Letterman proud).

8.  In a move of colossally bad timing (not to mention failure of foresight) for me, barring some intervention, many second-hand and thrift stores will be forced to stop selling children's clothes come February 10th.  WTF, mate?!  (see also, above article on Nigeria.)

9.  More on the previously mentioned bees freebasing cocaine, in the NY Times.

10.  Good long piece in the New Yorker on international aid workers in Africa, worth a read for anyone thinking in that direction (via Scarlett Lion).

Links

1.  Ranking rich countries' commitment to the developing world:

I suppose this means most countries just aren't "earning" our help.

2.  Boy Scout earns all 121 possible merit badges.  You only need 21 to make eagle scout.  Here's a list of the 121 current merit badges, here's a list of those that have been discontinued since 1911.  If nothing else it's a good record of the rise of the urban, technology dominated culture of modern America and the decline of the agrarian. 

3.  Best of 2008: Blogs.  One of my favorite newly discovered blogs this year has been Kim Wolhuter's video/photography blog, Wildcast.  Wolhuter is a wildlife filmmaker (with quite a pedigree as both his father and grandfather were the head ranger at Kruger) operating along the Zimbabwe/South Africa border and he updates his blog with amazing frequency with video and photography of incredible quality.  It's a can't miss for wildlife geeks and today's post is a good example. 

4.  When a phillips is not a phillips, an exhaustive guide.

5.  Penguin's favorite book designs of 2008 and Robot 6's 25 best comic book covers. 

Links

1.  White farmers in Zimbabwe are looking to the tribunal of African judges set up by the SADC for legal help in ongoing conflicts over land redistribution.  I've wondered if this could be an opening for the southern African nations to demonstrate their displeasure with Mugabe, but given the volatility of the issue across much of southern Africa maybe not.  Land tenure is messy, messy stuff.

2.  Paste has a piece on the newest addition to Sufjan's Asthmatic Kitty label, The Welcome Wagon.  The group is a husband wife duo from Brooklyn, he's a presbyterian pastor (Aside: I like the simple clean look of their church website).  Sufjan, who produced, arranged and contributed, sums up their record, which I like, quite well:

It’s a Presbyterian ordained minister and his wife, playing religious songs. Take it or leave it.

3.  From Salon:  In defense of pie (a defense I am in whole hearted support of, though at my wedding we opted for cheese cake which is, I suppose, a sort of pie/cake hybrid compromise). 

4.  I'm still catching up so here is the Big Pictures year in photos part two and part three. 

5.  Amazon is selling their top 50 albums of the year in mp3 format for five dollars each.  My favorite album of 2008 is there if you don't have it yet as well as a few others that would be in my top 10ish:   Gnarls Barkley, Santogold, and Girl Talk.

6.  Happy New Year.

Links Addendum

6b.

Update: Video. Good reflexes and a great line from the Pres.

8. More on the global auto industry and the southern U.S., or why you've heard so many southern law makers speaking out against the Detroit bailout.  (Previously)

Links

1.  Stories to watch:  Faith based charities, funding and Obama.  I'd be a bit surprised if anything changes here and even more so if anything changed any time soon, given the current plight of the economy.  Anecdotal:  almost 70% of the organizations in our metro area providing short and long term hunger relief are faith-based.

2.  Waxy points to this flaying of Swoopo by Jeff Atwood. (and from what I can remember after looking around the site several weeks back it's pretty accurate).

3.   My food sensibilities run moderately counter-cultural so for reasons that are becoming more relevant by the day I appreciated this account of what to do when your child wants to try Dunkin' Donuts. 

4.  Who gets U.S. foreign aid, in Parade of all places.

5.  Kanye on SNL last night (worth clicking the link for full screen).  I've heard most of the new album now and I like it a lot more than I thought I would.  No vocal (or mixing) awards are going to be handed out for this performance but the whole package is pretty mesmerizing.  No one, in any field, is taking advantage of the multiplicity of ways in which technology and popular culture are intersecting like Kanye and you get the sense that his self-perception is that of an artist who creates (thus the vanities?), not simply a performer.  (via)

Kanye West - Love Lockdown - SNL - 12/13/2008

6.  Iraqi journalist throws shoes at Bush during press conference.  I'm not a Bush apologist but I can't help feeling sorry for the guy occasionally and thinking that on some level (like Palin) he is a victim of circumstance.  

7.  List of common misconceptions:

Hair and fingernails do not continue to grow after a person dies. Rather, the skin dries and shrinks away from the bases of hairs and nails, giving the appearance of growth.

Links Addendum

8.  Forgot this one, of interest to my father if no one else:  G.M.’s Pension Fund Stays Afloat, Against the Odds (registration required at the moment, username: skcusger, password: regsucks, if you need it).

Links

1.  Ebert's top films of 2008.  Two thoughts while looking over the list:  the symbiosis of life/art seems to have held true this year as there's not a lot of cheer or humor in the mix (WALL-E may be as close as it gets and if you've seen it you know that while the ending is optimistic it's a backhanded optimism at best); you're going to have to search hard for a lot of these if you're outside a decent sized metropolitan area - a fact Ebert acknowledges with this bit at the end: 

Looking back over the list, I think most moviegoers will have heard of only about 11, because distribution has reached such a dismal state. I wrote to a reader about "Shotgun Stories," "I don't know if it will play in your town." She wrote back, "How about my state?" This is a time when home video, Netflix and the good movie channels come to the rescue. My theory that you should see a movie on a big screen is sound, but utopian.

2.  America's other auto industry here in the deep south - we'll be driving home for the holiday's in a few weeks and pass by three of these plants.

3.  Oven stoves and heat walls: long, interesting article with wonderful pictures. 

4.  SitOrSquat - use your phone's GPS to find the nearest public bathroom (also coming soon to a comedy plot line near you.) (via)

5.  Tim Harford says microcredit is working and raises some good questions.  (via)  

6.  I didn't know that Graham Linehan has a blog.  Poking around, this entry from the archives is a good discussion of the difficulty of putting together a comedy sitcom on either side of the pond and why I so vastly prefer those in the British tradition - I like my comedy with a healthy dose of the absurd.  If you haven't seen Linehan's IT Crowd do yourself a favor and hunt around for it.  Oh, and I also found this:

7.  When Pomeroy and I were kids one of our favorite pranks was to use the phone at his parent's office to dial two random numbers and conference them as they both picked up the phone.  You'd be surprised at how amusing an argument between two strangers over who had called whom could be to twelve year old boys.  However, we certainly never imagined that our calls might precipitate a nuclear war.  Suddenly this seems much more plausible.  My favorite line from the article:

"It was a little alarming, to say the least."

(via)

Links

1.  "A British doctor volunteering in DR Congo used text message instructions from a colleague to perform a life-saving amputation on a boy." Yeah, that's right, Médecins SMS Frontières my friends (too punny?).

2.  America's 200 largest charities.  The top ten:

1. United Way
2. Salvation Army
3. American Cancer Society
4. Food for the Poor
5. YMCA of the USA
6. Feed the Children
7. AmeriCares Foundation
8. Catholic Charities USA
9. Gifts in Kind International
10. World Vision

3.  Tis the season so we've been eating a lot of apples and have made two trips up the road to "apple country," so poking around for some apple info I found this interesting piece from October on the University of Minnesota's breeding of the infamous Honeycrisp and their search for the next big thing in apples now that the patent is about to expire. 

4.  My reasons are anecdotal but I hope he gets the nod.

5.  Interesting new study on how bacterial speck disease disables the tomato plant's intruder alert systems.

Links

1.  From Science Daily: "hybrid plants, like corn, grow bigger and better than their parents because many of their genes for photosynthesis and starch metabolism are more active during the day," explaining in part their hybrid vigor.

2.  Update on "the broken windows theory" from the Economist.  This was my favorite bit:

As in all of their experiments, the researchers created two conditions: one of order and the other of disorder. In the former, the walls of the alley were freshly painted; in the latter, they were tagged with graffiti (but not elaborately, to avoid the perception that it might be art).

3.  A run on the food banks. 

4.   Help real people in developing countries by sticking a fake beard on your real face.  Go ahead, just try to resist following that link.  

5.  A surprising update on the Bush pardons.

6.  Kottke has an interesting post up on beekeeping in New York City, an apparently illegal activity.  I will attest to the truth of this bit Kottke quotes from an old NYT piece: 

All right, but why beekeeping? "After you do it, everything else in life is calm," said Mr. Solomon, the investment banker. "Let me tell you, 40,000 bees will teach you the power of concentration and patience."

Though contra Kottke, I would recommend you go with these guys for your mail order bee needs.  Picking up a package of live, gently buzzing bees from the post office is a singular experience that everyone should experience at least once in their lives - if nothing else the PO staff will forever ask how your bees are doing whenever you stop by for stamps.  Here's a time lapse video a friend put together of our last honey harvest: