Preposterous though it may seem to an unacclimatized Western observer, it appears that Japanese officials have been deliberately understating the nation's growth.

The Myth of Japan's 'Lost Decades' - James Fallows - International - The Atlantic

The included county by county map of leisure time inactivity is priceless.

Southerners least likely to exercise, study finds. So what's the excuse? Humidity? - latimes.com

Some hyperbolic adjectives removed, but the core point made here is serious.

After Anonymous imposed... cyber disruptions on Paypal, Master Card and Amazon, the DOJ... vowed to arrest the culprits, and several individuals were just arrested as part of those attacks.  But weeks earlier, a... cyber-attack was launched at WikiLeaks, knocking them offline.  Those attacks were sophisticated and dangerous.... Yet the DOJ has never announced any investigation into those attacks or vowed to apprehend the culprits, and it's impossible to imagine that ever happening.

Why?  Because crimes carried out that serve the Government's agenda and target its opponents are permitted and even encouraged; cyber-attacks are "crimes" only when undertaken by those whom the Government dislikes, but are perfectly permissible when the Government itself or those with a sympathetic agenda unleash them. Whoever launched those cyber attacks at WikiLeaks (whether government or private actors) had no more legal right to do so than Anonymous, but only the latter will be prosecuted.

The leaked campaign to attack WikiLeaks and its supporters - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

As much as this is creepy and reflects badly on the prospective perps, it also shows how a climate of economic insecurity and class stratification has lowered the bar for effective coercion. HG Bary [SIC] wouldn’t default to these sort of strategies if they weren’t normally effective. But something is seriously amiss in the body politic if people who are merely on the anti corporate side of the debate can expect to be subjected to surveillance, character/professional reputation assassination, and perhaps even threats to their safety.

Chamber of Commerce Law Firm Studied Disinformation, Smear and Coercion Campaign Against Opponents « naked capitalism

ThinkProgress has learned that a law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the big business trade association representing ExxonMobil, AIG, and other major international corporations, is working with set of “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress, with a surreptitious sabotage campaign.

According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Hunton And Williams’ attorney Richard Wyatt, who once represented Food Lion in its infamous lawsuit against ABC News, was hired by the Chamber in October of last year. To assist the Chamber, Wyatt and his associates, John Woods and Bob Quackenboss, solicited a set of private security firms — HB Gary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team Themis) — to develop tactics for damaging progressive groups and labor unions, in particular ThinkProgress, the labor coalition called Change to Win, the SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com.

Some of the HB Gary email revelations represent evidence of deeply fucked up political conspiracies.

US Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To Sabotage Unions, Smear Chamber’s Political Opponents

After two and half weeks of protests, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigned the presidency he'd held since 1981. According to a brief announcement from Vice President Omar Suleiman, the high council of Egypt's powerful military will take over the leadership of the country. Though the military issued a statement pledging Constitutional reforms, an end to the decades-long state of emergency, and a transfer to a free democracy, it's not clear how that will happen or when.

After Mubarak, Egypt's Revolution Is Far From Over - Max Fisher - International - The Atlantic

More than 54 percent of single-family homes in Atlanta are worth less than their owners owe on them.

WABE: Atlanta Homes Values Fall Back to 1990s Level (2011-02-10)

It is “offensive,” blogged Tim Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston. “Many people on the Kellogg panel thought the ad was in poor taste,” he said, referring to a student group that assessed the Super Bowl ads Sunday.

I knew this ad was going to get a negative reaction.

Groupon fumbles with its Tibet Super Bowl commercial

When it was announced that the Nexus S would have a built-in NFC radio, I immediately started thinking about the potential of using cell phones with RFID public transit fare systems. The day the Gingerbread source code was released, I picked up a Nexus S and began working on a proof-of-concept application that can read data from transit cards. Though a vacation got in the way, today I’m happy to announce FareBot!

Neat! Man I wish I new about that RFID reader before I bought my new phone last month!

FareBot: Read data from public transit cards with your NFC-equipped Android phone - codebutler

Remember how Egyptian Muslims served has human shields for Egyptian Christians during this year's Coptic Christmas Mass? Here's a photo of Egyptian Christians returning the favor, protecting praying Muslims during a protest this week.

How to: Counteract religious strife - Boing Boing