This is episode 9 of Boing Boing's Tell Me Something I Don't Know podcast. It's an interview show featuring artists, writers, filmmakers, and other creative people discussing their work, ideas, and the reality/business side of how they do what they do.

John Porcellino is the creator of the long-running, self-published mini-comic series, King Cat Comics (celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2014). His books include Perfect Example (Highwater Books, Drawn and Quarterly), Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man (La Mano), King-Cat Classix (Drawn and Quarterly), Map of My Heart (Drawn and Quaterly), and Thoreau at Walden (Hyperion). His work is characterized by a thoughtful, minimal drawing/writing style and a unique approach to narrative interpretation and temporal representation. Besides his influential work as a cartoonist, Porcellino is the founder of Spit and a Half – a small press comics and zine distribution company that began in the early 90s.

Tell Me Something I Don't Know is produced and hosted by three talented cartoonists and illustrators:

Jim Rugg, a Pittsburgh-based comic book artist, graphic designer, zinemaker, and writer best known for Afrodisiac, The Plain Janes, and Street Angel. His latest project is SUPERMAG.

Jasen Lex is a designer and illustrator from Pittsburgh. He is currently working on a graphic novel called Washington Unbound. All of his art and comics can be found at jasenlex.com.

Ed Piskor is the cartoonist who drew the comic, Wizzywig, and draws the Brain Rot/ Hip Hop Family Tree comic strip at this very site, soon to be collected by Fantagraphics Books and available for pre-order now.

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Bruce Schneier points out that the leaked top-secret list of electronic attack targets picked by the Obama administration is tantamount to a declaration of Internet War on foreign powers, and shows the US government planning attacks that make the much-vaunted Chinese attacks on the USA look tame by comparison.

That's the key question: How much of what the United States is currently doing is an act of war by international definitions? Already we're accusing China of penetrating our systems in order to map "military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis." What PPD-20 and Snowden describe is much worse, and certainly China, and other countries, are doing the same.

All of this mapping of vulnerabilities and keeping them secret for offensive use makes the Internet less secure, and these pre-targeted, ready-to-unleash cyberweapons are destabalizing forces on international relationships. Rooting around other countries' networks, analyzing vulnerabilities, creating back doors, and leaving logic bombs could easily be construed as an act of war. And all it takes is one over-achieving national leader for this all to tumble into actual war.

It's time to stop the madness. Yes, our military needs to invest in cyberwar capabilities, but we also need international rules of cyberwar, more transparency from our own government on what we are and are not doing, international cooperation between governments and viable cyberweapons treaties. Yes, these are difficult. Yes, it's a long slow process. Yes, there won't be international consensus, certainly not in the beginning. But even with all of those problems, it's a better path to go down than the one we're on now.

We can start by taking most of the money we're investing in offensive cyberwar capabilities and spend them on national cyberspace resilience.

Has U.S. started an Internet war?

The Art of Manliness has reprinted "37 Conversation Rules for Gentlemen" from a 1875 book entitled, A Gentleman’s Guide to Etiquette by Cecil B. Hartley. The rules are still valid!

33. When asking questions about persons who are not known to you, in a drawing-room, avoid using adjectives; or you may enquire of a mother, “Who is that awkward, ugly girl?” and be answered, “Sir, that is my daughter.”

37 Conversation Rules for Gentlemen

Actor James Gandolfini, 51, has died of what early reports say was a massive heart attack.

He was in Italy at the time.

HBO has issued a statement:

Read the rest

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I've always loathed her. Now you can too, based on what the press has dug up in a court deposition just now made public.

I grew up in the South, and I know all about "not racist" white people who use that racist slur against black people, but "only the bad ones." Guess what. Those white people are racists.

Some pretty great Twitter jokes coming out of this one, though. And American shitrag National Enquirer says they have video.

Here's the court transcript. And HuffPo picked out the awful bits and served them up on top of an SEO-optimized plate of warm grits and butter. Enjoy, y'all!