Tonight & the Linkage, Folks

• “A 63-year-old former engineer may not fit the typical image of a darkly dressed assassin with deadly weapons who can disappear in a cloud of smoke. But Jinichi Kawakami is reputedly Japan’s last ninja.”

• “A joint operation between federal and local authorities in seven states has resulted in the destruction of over 578,000 marijuana plants worth over $1 billion that had been growing on public lands, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.”

• “I grew up in an extremely liberal community where [Noam] Chomsky was very popular, and as soon as 9/11 happened I knew that all those people I used to know would go straight to him in order to find out what they should think about it, and what they would come back with would be very nasty indeed. I regret that I was proven absolutely correct in that. It was really a disgraceful display by some very disgraceful people.”

• “In a surprising turnaround, the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere in the U.S. has fallen dramatically to its lowest level in 20 years, and government officials say the biggest reason is that cheap and plentiful natural gas has led many power plant operators to switch from dirtier-burning coal.”

• “It would cost $682 million for a real-life Batman to fund his world-saving lifestyle, thanks to the price of high-tech cars, gadgets, his mansion and training.”

• Joel Gehrke: A Short, Incomplete History of Media Tying the Tea Party to Tragedies

• Matt Ridley: “The classic apocalypse has four horsemen, and our modern version follows that pattern, with the four riders being chemicals (DDT, CFCs, acid rain), diseases (bird flu, swine flu, SARS, AIDS, Ebola, mad cow disease), people (population, famine), and resources (oil, metals).”

• Mike Riggs: Why Is David Brock’s Democratic PAC Attacking Paul Ryan for Voting Against More Drug-War Funding?

• Oregon sea monsters

• “Portland Mayor Sam Adams says the city has 65 miles of unpaved roads and he’s asking for feedback from residents on how to change that.”

• Pravda not impressed with Pussy Riot: “However, the supporters of Pussy Riot pay little attention to the legal details of the case (as well as to the details of how the performance was conducted). They focus primarily on the personalities of the ‘victims,’ calling them smart, talented, beautiful, sexy and so on. They say nothing about the creative way and the legacy of the band. The legacy is just as bright and ‘heroic’ as the act at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

• “Siberian princess’s remarkably well-preserved body shows how little tattoo fashion has changed in 2,500 years.”

• “The Labor Department paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal stimulus funds to a public relations firm to run more than 100 commercials touting the Obama administration’s ‘green training’ job efforts on two MSNBC cable shows, records show. The commercials ran on MSNBC on shows hosted by Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann in 2009, but the contract didn’t report any jobs created, according to records reviewed recently by The Washington Times.”

• Utah goat man

Related articles

• Hackers Attacked Pussy Riot Court
• The miserable meowing of Pussy Riot
• Topless Protester Cuts Down Cross in Kiev
• When Putin’s Thugs Came for Me
• The PR of Pussy Riot