From an excellent article in Vanity Fair about Somali pirates:

They called themselves the Coast Guard, and apparently did have origins as vigilante fishermen who in the early 1990s sailed out to regulate and rob foreign boats that were smuggling all manner of contraband to and from Somalia and overfishing the coastal waters. Loosely speaking, they were the same group who later, in September 2008, hijacked the Ukrainian ship Faina, loaded with weapons for southern Sudan, and who ignored the presence of American warships for more than four months, and then walked away with $3.2 million, to the embarrassment of officials worldwide. The Coast Guard is said to have 400 members—whatever membership means, and however a count could be taken. Four or five such pirate groups are believed to operate in Puntland. They are large, fluid, clan-based alliances whose contours are inherently difficult to discern, and who derive their resilience in part from the very looseness of their structures. They are genuine organizations nonetheless.

A very interesting long format story about the business side of piracy. [via Lambert]

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Links piling up, cluttering my desktop and getting in the way. They’re yours now. Unsorted because some of you inexplicably seem to prefer that.

Glenn Greenwald on a toe-sucking ouroboros of the Right’s own making

Howie the Whore called out by Zack Roth

Juan Cole on the flaunting of ignorance
 (more important, pirates are mentioned)

The Coming Siege of Austerity (I’ve mastered dental floss recycling but am still working out the bugs on my waste water-to-potable distillation set up)

Taxation with overrepresentation (aka Teabagging in Nebraska)

Correcting the record on Pakistan

Flip ends up in DC

Kos on the crazy Beck fans video

Why not?

Did a Texas cop plant DNA to cover up his own crime?

I’m in favor of playing, but only if you’re willing to pay for what you break

T-Bag never read Norman Vincent Peale

Pierce-Butler’s expanding in classic American fashion: at the expense of immigrant land owners [item buried deep in link so here's the meat: "A planned two-mile extension of Pierce Butler Road to connect to I-35E... is very bad news for two business owners: Daisy Haung and Gennadiy Yermolenko. Haung has invested almost $3 million in a Frogtown grocery and bazaar. Yermolenko has spent $1.5 million to redevelop a salvage yard."]

Justice PubichaironaCokecan is making waves

Classy exit from an otherwise undistinguished bum

Agriprocessors HR Director sentenced [some background]

Iowa GOoPers start their panders

income inequality to be addressed by Congress?

on fixing inequality

TBogg on TBagging (I already feel bad about writing that but someone had to)

he said/she said’ism spotting

Magenta colored limes

Color me smug

TIME MAGAZINE HUMILIATED BY POLL HACKERS
(very kewl + PZ props)