Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. – John Adams
As promised last week, here’s a big collection of links derived from various sources this week. The first few are all examples of our burgeoning police state, courtesy of Radley Balko; in fact, every link down to the chimpanzee video came to me via his Twitter feed.
- You’re 8 times more likely to be killed by a cop than by a terrorist.
- Florida cops strip-search woman on the side of the road in front of her two kids because of a “rolling stop”. And by “strip”, I mean completely.
- While we’re on the subject of Florida: when calculating weight of drugs for possession charges, they include the weight of the container.
- Man arrested and interrogated for not smiling at the Olympics.
- A particularly horrible isolated incident.
- Government doing what it does best.
- No need to buy a gun; the government will protect you by ordering your rapist to stay away, and providing your address so he knows where to stay away from.
- Welcome to our world, “pink slime” edition.
- Gazillions.
- The US federal government adds a new rule – each with the force of law – every 1 hour and 53 minutes (24 hours a day, 7 days a week).
- It’s good to see mainstream writers saying this at last: The U.S. federal government cannot be reformed. It must be catastrophically remade.
- This week’s edition of “Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever”. If that’s not enough, here’s another one.
- NYPD shocked to discover women don’t like being forcibly groped by cops. Especially not when the excuse is a search for a (male) rapist.
- Gibson Guitars finally decided to pay the federal extortion demand.
- The world’s first website is still up and running.
- 9th Circuit Court of appeals rules that the government can spy on whoever it wants, whenever it wants, without even bothering to get a warrant.
- Major human trafficking ring exposed: 37% of poor children in one California county are literally abducted from their homes, enabling traffickers to make up to $8000 apiece.
- Mike Siegel explains that though global warming is real, the way to solve it is NOT thorough huge government wealth redistribution schemes.
3-D map of the universe (each blob of light is a galaxy): 
- NYPD takes action against the dangerous threat of free vibrators. (Via Amy Alkon)
- The Concupiscence of Hierarchy. (Via Jesse Walker)
- Serial rapist of sex workers arrested in California. (Via JessicaLand)