I am white. I am middle class. And I'm heroin addict. Every morning, I pour white powder into a cooker, add water, heat it, wait for bubbles, and draw it into a syringe. The secret is to alternate arms daily. If not the veins will collapse from overuse. Yesterday was right; today I'll fire into my left right below the bicep. Both arms look like dartboards.

It was the stuff of nightmares to discover how many young men are forced into prostitution by violent prison gangs. It is even more chilling to find out that the common response of prison officials to the victims' desperate pleas for protection is to tell them their only two options were to "fight or fuck."

Prepare yourself for another news day involving the fallout from the Mark Sanford saga. If we were honest with ourselves, we'd take this as another opportunity to ask ourselves, collectively, the roots from whence infidelity stems and why those in positions of power so easily and willfully violate their marriage vows. The conversation we're not having, partially because we're not comfortable with it, partially because it would reveal much about our own attitudes is why people in positions of power stray from their marriage.

Clear, the program run by Verified Identity Pass, Inc. to enable pre-screened air passengers to pass through an airport security "express lane," has announced that it has ceased operations.

China, Myannmar, Iran: surfing in these countries can be dangerous for political opponents. Psiphon software, developed by a Canadian university, can evade the censors of the Internet in non-democratic countries.

So, as all the world now knows, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has become the latest politician publicly revealed as being unable to keep it in his pants.

As President Obama has said, the budget really is something to lose sleep over. Current deficits are enormous due to the weak economy, fiscal stimulus, and the costs of fighting the financial crisis. But the long-run outlook is even scarier, with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security pushing spending up much faster than tax revenues. The result is a tsunami of debt.

Cyberprof Michael Risch has posted some interesting thoughts on the emerging complexity of Section 230. The provision pretty much immunizes web sites and other internet providers from liability for a host of legal infractions arising from user-generated content, including defamation and invasion of privacy. While some cases are pretty simple, now we are seeing more complex situations arising. Among the newest is the recent lawsuit filed by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa against Twitter.

A friend recently directed me toward the website of The Foundation for a Drug-Free World, a Los Angeles-based non-profit whose tagline is "an effective drug education and drug prevention program." I was shocked and dismayed to see the "drug facts" section (they seem to have a monopoly on "the truth" about drugs), which reads like an amateur 1950s terror campaign.

We've all heard about the Chinese "Great Firewall" and their attempts to pollute all new PCs sold in the country with special 'security' software. Well, thanks to two major Western tech companies, Iran is more competent and equally determined to ensure that their people have no networking communication with the outside world.

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