Nice though the iPad may be, I can’t help but think how many novels I could buy for $499.

The Millions converses with an online book thief:

I do not pretend that uploading or downloading unpurchased electronic books is morally correct, but I do think it is more of a grey area than some of your readers may. . . .

I think that regular people will never feel very guilty “stealing” from a faceless corporation, or to a lesser extent, a multi-millionaire like [Stephen] King. . . .

One thing that will definitely not change anyone’s mind or inspire them to stop are polemics from people like Mark Helprin and Harlan Ellison—attitudes like that ensure that all of their works are available online all of the time.

No matter how many excuses this thief offers, he has none for stealing. This thief’s attitude simply validates my belief that humans are fundamentally evil.

I also find it particularly wretched that this thief considers himself the final arbiter of how much money Stephen King should make from writing. What unbelievable arrogance. I can only hope this thief gets caught.

Over the years I’ve grown to share very little common ground with Salon’s Glenn Greenwald, so I was pleasantly surprised and pleased to read his views regarding the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday declaring “unconstitutional (on First Amendment grounds) campaign finance regulations which restrict the ability of corporations and unions to use funds from their general treasury for ‘electioneering’ purposes.”

Take it away, Glenn:

The First Amendment is not and never has been outcome-dependent; the Government is barred from restricting speech—especially political speech—no matter the good results that would result from the restrictions. That’s the price we pay for having the liberty of free speech. . . .

I’m also quite skeptical of the apocalyptic claims about how this decision will radically transform and subvert our democracy by empowering corporate control over the political process. . . . The reality is that our political institutions are already completely beholden to and controlled by large corporate interests. . . . All of the hand-wringing sounds to me like someone expressing serious worry that a new law in North Korea will make the country more tyrannical. There’s not much room for our corporatist political system to get more corporatist. Does anyone believe that the ability of corporations to influence our political process was meaningfully limited before yesterday’s issuance of this ruling?

Indeed, the gnashing of teeth over the coming corpocalypse (corporatacalypse???) seemed a little naïve. My yanqui friends, the USA’s always been a corporatocracy.

When it comes to the First Amendment, however, I don’t think there can be any wiggle room.

Free speech can survive without democracy; democracy cannot survive without free speech.

It appears reports of a Himalayan meltdown have been greatly exaggerated (which shouldn’t really come as a surprise):

A warning that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world’s glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035.

In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC’s 2007 report.

It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi.

Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was “speculation” and was not supported by any formal research.

It’s funny how those who proclaim AGW the loudest tend to be the same souls who ridicule as hysterical anyone who’s alarmed by Islamic terrorism.

How about we cut out all hysteria? After all, hysteria is simply a political tool used in ideological warfare.

I’d like to hear about just one case of an errant salumi decimating a herd of livestock:

Sausages and hams “are much more dangerous than people think,” says Janice Mosher, an official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which seizes about 4,000 pounds of prohibited meat, plant and animal products a day. “Those items truly have the ability to spread disease.” The government is concerned that bacteria from a smuggled piece of meat will spread through the ecosystem, infecting livestock and hurting agricultural production, Ms. Mosher says.

Nothing spreads disease faster than the great tide of unwashed humanity who populate airports. So what’s next? Forced scrubdowns at customs? Soldiers patrolling bathrooms to make sure hands are washed? Scanners for fecal matter?

What the food nazis in customs and the FDA fail to realise is that epicureans are smuggling meaty cured delicacies which have been made in the same time-honoured tradition for centuries and have killed no one except through excessive consumption.

The “meat” in these nazis’ fast-food burgers—which they cram down their gullets while writing up more and more ridiculous rules and regulations—is far more dangerous and deadly.

The Bible makes it abundantly clear that God is in absolute control of all things, and that includes natural disasters. If God had wanted, He could have prevented the earthquake in Haiti.

No man, however, has the right to claim natural disasters are acts of judgement.

As God said to Job:

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

Haitians need compassion, Mr Robertson, not the questionable judgement of a televangelist.

If you want to shock, Mr Robertson, why not preach biblical truth? For instance, why not preach that the biblical tithe should not be the means by which Christian religious organizations obtain their funds to function; that the tithing laws of the Bible are no more valid for Christians today than offering animal sacrifices? Or are some biblical truths unpalatable?

Three paragraphs into Caitlin Flanagan’s Atlantic article, “Cultivating Failure,” and I read this:

[Alice] Waters . . . is, of course, the founder of Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, an eatery where the right-on, “yes we can,” ACORN-loving, public-option-supporting man or woman of the people can tuck into a nice table d’hôte menu of scallops, guinea hen, and tarte tatin for a modest 95 clams—wine, tax, and oppressively sanctimonious and relentlessly conversation-busting service not included.

Let me set the record straight, Caitlin.

Chez Panisse is one of my favourite restaurants in the U.S. and I am as far removed from the “right-on, ‘yes we can,’ ACORN-loving, public-option-supporting man” as has ever walked the earth. And the chances of me ever becoming a goodist are as slim as me finishing your article. Nice job.

I like good food, not goodist food. I want what I eat to have been raised properly. The words “humane” and “ethical” never cross my lips when discussing how animals should be raised, but I do demand that my beef and lamb are grass-fed and –finished and treated with no antibiotics, animal by-products, or growth promotants, and that my pork is from a heritage breed, raised naturally, and also treated with no antibiotics, animal by-products, or growth promotants. The poultry I eat must never be fed antibiotics—and preferably be wild. My fish must be wild, never farm-raised. I also want my produce to be organic and seasonal (and if it can be grown locally, great, if not, ship it and the greenies can suck on the CO₂).

With regards to the “oppressively sanctimonious and relentlessly conversation-busting service”? I’ve never witnessed it. Maybe our waiter realised I was an unapologetic conservative who sees in Berkeley everything wrong with the goodist agenda and thought it best to leave me to my delicious meal.

And get your facts right: Chez Panisse only charges “a modest 95 clams” on Friday and Saturday nights. On Monday nights, a delightful three-course meal can be had for an even more modest 60 clams (and only 75 clams Tuesday – Thursday nights).