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Monday, June 08, 2009

Monday night.

* This American Life has another of their must-listen episodes this week on the decades of governmental and private-sector regulatory corruption that made last year's financial collapse possible.

* Infrastructurist debunks the story I linked earlier claiming that trains can be less green than planes when the entire production process is taken into account.

After all, in the realm of pure possibilities, of course planes can be greener than trains. So can an SUV with 7 passengers. The real question is not about exceptional cases, but about averages.

...

What the headline writers did was cherry pick the trains with the highest calculated c02 emissions–the Green Line in Boston–were a bit higher than the emissions for some aircraft. And therefore planes can be greener.
* Swedish Pirate Party enters European Parliament.
The party advocates shortening the duration of copyright protection and allowing noncommercial file-sharing.

Engstrom said the court verdict in April against four men behind the popular Pirate Bay file-sharing site had boosted the party's support.

"Our membership tripled within a week of the Pirate Bay verdict," added Engstrom, "I think it just made people think that it had gone too far both in Sweden and the rest of Europe."
* Yikes. An Israeli couple are preparing to divorce after the man summoned a prostitute to his hotel room only to discover she was his daughter. In his email, Neil calls this "bad luck." I'd say that's putting it mildly.