Amusing post by Ed Felten at Freedom to Tinker. Apparently, some Princeton kids got in trouble, and were displeased.

The controversy started with a story in the Daily Princetonian revealing that Public Safety had used Facebook in two investigations. In one case, a student’s friend posted a photo of the student that was taken during a party in the student’s room. The photo reportedly showed the student hosting a dorm-room party where alcohol was served, which is a violation of campus rules. In another case, there was a group of students who liked to climb up the sides of buildings on campus. They had set up a building-climbers’ group on Facebook, and Public Safety reportedly used the group to identify the group’s members, so as to have Serious Discussions with them.

Some students reacted with outrage, seeing this as an invasion of privacy and an unfair tactic by Public Safety.

Honestly, who are these kids? An unfair tactic? That completely blows my mind.

I never thought I'd see the day, but something has replaced "QED, bitches" as my favorite way to end any argument, ever:

I am a naturally blond man, and I have very large sex organs. I can’t help but think that the rest of you are overthinking this question.

"Todd, we can't decide whether to use a hashing function, or just to do a linear search each time we need access something. The data set is right on the line. See, this one website says --"

"Hold it right there. I am a naturally blond man, and ...."

Philosopher of Law Ronald Dworkin has a very nice short piece in the NYRB about the Danish cartoon debacle, The Right to Ridicule. It basically recaps about all the things smart people have said about this episode, but in a concise manner. For example, he leads off by noting that "Reprinting would very likely have meant—and could still mean—more people killed and more property destroyed." But he goes on to consider the risk that this "will be wrongly taken as an endorsement of the widely held opinion that freedom of speech has limits, that it must be balanced against the virtues of 'multiculturalism,'" and hails free speech as necessary for a democracy. If (like me) you were dismayed by this whole affair but remained unclear on what to think about it, Dworkin offers clear and forceful arguments for distinguishing why the international printing of the cartoons in solidarity was ridiculous, from why their printing should be defended in principle.

No, not the ones Todd posted about below, but an even more startling assault. Courtesy of Lindsay Beyerstein, I'm now informed that it's National Caffeine Awareness Month. But more importantly, she points to an article describing the Caffeine Awareness Alliance and their War on Coffee:

"Most caffeine addicts have no idea that they are addicts. But, with as little as 200 mg of caffeine, you can experience typical addictive symptoms such as irritability, restlessness, tension, insomnia, excitement, and gastrointestinal disturbance," says [CAA founder Marina] Kushner.

I don't know what she's talking about. I'm aware of everything she mentioned, and I'm not convinced in the least. Wait, what does that mean again?

Seriously, though, I'm all for awareness, especially of how much people consume. For example, a little research turned up a piece about a Universty of Florida coffee study on the caffeine content of commercial coffees. The upshot is just that it changest between weak and strong coffee (duh). So if you're trying to be conscious of your intake, you should be wary, watch out, and if you sell coffee, try to let people know how strong you make it. But the highlight of the piece is probably the opinion of Mark Gold, an addiction researcher:

“Caffeine dependence is a non-issue for me because people won’t leave their home for it, won’t mortgage their house for it, won’t choose caffeine over their wife,” said Gold, who recently co-authored a study on coffee’s caffeine content.

Anyway, all this is just bringing home to me the fact that I've been depriving myself of coffee for over a week because of the pathogen which I'm only now saying goodbye to. But my reunion is going to be sweet. Coffee, where have you been all my life?

Cross-posted at my recently revived weblog.

I have nothing useful to say. Fortunately, there are smarter people than me on the internets.

• News video in which we find out that, previous to this law, there has been only one place to get an abortion in SD, and the only doctor who performs the procedure flies in once a week from Minnesota. Also, legislators say reprehensible things.


• Bitch PhD post where that came from.


• Digby engages with an anti-choice blogger. Old arguments, but well stated.


• Amanda at Pandagon picks up where Digby leaves off, and says smart things.