Sidney Blumenthal’s expose of the Bush White House’s successful efforts to dismantle the CIA puts a knee-jerk liberal in an awkward place. After all, the CIA is not exactly a well-respected organization in leftward circles. Even so, if Blumenthal’s insider gossip is accurate, it doesn’t take much thought to realize the transfer of covert power from a civilian agency to a military one won’t do much to further a rational humanitarian agenda.

Yet another major flaw has been found in Diebold voting machines. Why this surprises anyone, I’m not sure. Best quote in the linked article: “All of us who have heard the technical details of this are really shocked. It defies reason that anyone who works with security would tolerate this design.”

Forget air bags, your next Volvo (or more likely BMW) will change its shape when it senses a side-impact accident is irreversible.

Lester Brown has penned a summary of the practice of tax-shifting in Europe for The Globalist. Using taxes to internalize externalities is one of those ideas that just makes sense, but spinning it as a means for reducing income taxes is a really smart approach.

I was about 6 miles from the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and about 7 miles from the epicenter of the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Living as I do midway between the San Andreas and Hayward faults, I tend to cherish my ability to live in denial. I get grumpy when I hear about methods that might help predict major earthquakes, like measuring the change in electrical properties of compressed rock. If you can’t guarantee it will work, please let me live in my happy pretend world.