Links for June 2nd

Posted byWaldo Jaquith 4 Comments on Links for June 2nd
  • TPM: ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Opens Fire On Store Because It Ran Out Of Crawfish
    42-year-old Larry Wayne Kelly—yes, middle name "Wayne"— opened fire on Pensacola's L&T Seafood Market with an AK-47 after they sold out of crawfish. When police tried to arrest them, he tried to run them down with his car. But it's OK, Kelly says, because he's a "sovereign citizen"—laws don't apply to him.
  • Quora: Is the cryptocurrency Bitcoin a good idea?
    This economist makes a good argument that Bitcoin is, at best, a terrible idea and, at worst, a scam.
  • Wikipedia: List of IARC Group 2B carcinogens
    I thought it was big news that the World Health Organization had classified cell phones as a potential carcinogen, until I read more about "Group 2B," as it's been classified. Also on the list is baby powder, carpentry, coffee, and pickles. These are things that may or may not be carcinogens—nobody knows for sure. Most humans on the planet have mobiles phones, yet brain tumors are no more common now than they've ever been—that seems to settle it for me, at least given the current paucity of evidence.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

4 replies on “Links for June 2nd”

  1. I like the twitterfall on bitcoin’s website — the vast majority of it highlights the stupidity of the concept. “Hey, look at all the crappy things people are saying about this:”

    Explaining BitCoin to a friend and she thinks I’m bullshitting her. Bitcoin: it’s really that idiotic. #theyseemetrollin

    Will the Bitcoin fiasco make Libertarians realize they know diddly about economics? No, it will not.

    I’m rather curious as to why you’re so adamantly defending BitCoin. It’s all you tweet about. Got some money invested in this?

    Reading Bitcoin arguments mostly highlights that most people have no idea how currency works.

  2. re: the Crawfish article;

    I really like the arrangement of the 2 photos they used, and the accompanying caption. there’s a sort of modernist deadpan poetry to it that I really admire.

  3. So let’s say for the sake of argument that we recognize Mr. Kelly as a sovereign citizen; can the rest of us who have metaphorically signed the social contract recognize firing a weapon at someone else’s property as an act of war?

    If we suggested to him that this was the appropriate way to handle his claim, I’d imagine he’d abandon this whole “sovereign citizen” nonsense faster than you could say “Guantanamo Bay.”

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