Periodic Link Dump, number 1

The list of links in my RSS feed that I keep wanting to follow-up on is getting too long. Time to dump them somewhere more permanent before they expire. Maybe someone else will find them interesting too.

Energy

• MIT scientists discover new efficient way to store solar energy. (Or is it Monash U?)
  
• From the cynical department of nothing's ever as good as it sounds: Picken's plan is actually more of a "political play where he uses the media attention that comes from an energy executive promoting a clean energy plan as cover to convince Texas and California to give him billions in government handouts. In other words, the guy's a fraud running an innovative corporate welfare scheme, but a corporate welfare scheme nevertheless." (says Ezra Klein)
• Some other liberal commentary on Pickens. He also made a presentation at the Democratic convention, but didn't take any questions.
• And ethanol isn't all it's cracked up to be either? It's so confusing!
  
• Better windmills with designs based on whale fins? I can never tell if stories on io9 are just speculative or not.
• The problem with wind energy may be getting it on the grid.
  
• On slashdot a while back: capture energy from water waves.
• This 30-year old energy policy proposal was spot on. Too bad, huh?
  
• Unfortunately, HP is sometimes notoriously bad at being wasteful.

Climate

• I keep meaning to post this: a list of 500 climate change deniers, most of whom do NOT actually deny climate change! This is the type of crap that damages the credibility of people who might have actual doubts, and deserves all the scorn people can heap on them.
• China is going to build a zero-Carbon city? (After clearing the nature reserve that's currently there...)
  

Economics

• Book Review: Love the work, Hate the job. Apparently the American worker isn't satisfied. Ungrateful serfs.
• Economy predictions, from some blogger who's common sense predictions have a pretty good record so far.
  
• The Class War is real. The rich rigged it and won everything already.
• Krugman proves it with charts here.
• I haven't found the patience to figure out if this guy is on to something here or not.
• An example of a non-capitalist economy.
• Reading things like this make it difficult for me to decide how much our corn subsidies are screwing everything up.

Security

• Vista may have some unfixable security flaws. Schneier talked about this not too long ago too.
• "War on Terror" board game confiscated in UK.
  

Politics

• Lawrence Lessig, the professor who's been at the forefront trying to reform digital copyright law (even arguing before the Supreme Court against the extension of Micky Mouse's protection) has now turned his focus to the nature and elimination of corruption. Here's a summary of his plan for reforming congress (first his diagnosis, and then his recommendation)
• Book review: the wrecking crew. How conservatives got us where we are.
• A careful article laying out the argument that corruption this bad was not an accident.
  
• Can you tell the difference between Bush and the old 50's era Batman from reading quotes?
• Does selecting Biden make Obama seem more like the candidate of change again?
• Alternatively, does it mean Obama is acknowledging that the "change" argument hasn't been made yet?
  

World

• China's policy is less "communism" and more Chinese nationalism.
  
• I've long assumed growth would lead to capitalism in China, but not everyone agrees.