"In some elections, it's not the voting that counts, it's the counting that counts." -- Anon. Unless you have spent the last week or so in a cave, or marooned on an island, you have heard of the protests and controversy surrounding the recent election in Iran. Although as a matter of policy I don't post intentionally political comments here, I was interested to see two reports from people that have tried to analyze the reported results, using purely statistical methods, to see what, if anything, can be discovered.

As an Art teacher embroiled in the worst budget crisis of my 25 year career, Charlie Crist gave a speech that was sweet music to my ears. "I urge you to pass legislation requiring school districts to spend 70 percent of their budgets in the classroom for our students and teachers, and to instill transparency by requiring school districts to provide dollar-by-dollar details online. Floridians deserve to know how their hard-earned dollars are being spent, and parents have a right to demand accountability. And I ask you to consider, as I have proposed, increasing per-student funding -- Florida's children deserve it."

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.

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