A major piece at the Guardian out today: recently-disgraced General David Petraeus and veterans of America's dirty wars in Central America are revealed to be behind Iraq commando units implicated… Read the rest of the article: Pentagon's link to Iraqi torture centers revealed in new Guardian report

Car maker Volvo will release a cyclist detection feature on new cars, to help prevent fatal accidents. Automobiles with the new system "will be able to detect threats including a… Read the rest of the article: Volvo to launch alert-and-brake car system to spot bicyclists

Image: Goddess of phone calls, from x-ray_delta_one's photostream. Artist: Alonzo Earl Foringer (American, 1878-1948) an illustrator based in New Jersey. A quick Google reveals that this piece was known as… Read the rest of the article: Our lady of telephones

Full circle, guys. Created by Olde Payphone, a sketch comedy group from Los Angeles.

"Aaron Swartz was brilliant and beloved. But the people who knew him best saw a darker side." A masterful profile of the late activist, through the testimony of many who… Read the rest of the article: New Yorker: Larissa MacFarquhar on Aaron Swartz

Dawn on Saturn is greeted across the vastness of interplanetary space by the morning star, Venus, in this image from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging Team Leader and… Read the rest of the article: Morning star of Saturn: Cassini views Venus

Kaki King's new album is a masterpiece of layered, melodic guitar, with accompaniment by a string quartet. It's her best work ever.

From "North Korea Has a Friend in Dennis Rodman and VICE." Not 'shopped; you can tell by the pixels. Argo 2.0? Former NBA star and noted weirdo Dennis Rodman told… Read the rest of the article: Kim Jong Un wants Obama to Call Him Maybe, says new bestie Dennis Rodman after Vice mag North Korea junket

SpaceX's Dragon space capsule launched into space today, March 1, 2013, toward the International Space Station on its second cargo mission for NASA. It launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force… Read the rest of the article: SpaceX Dragon launches successfully; thruster problem will delay ISS arrival

I've been working and adventuring in Hawaii over the past few weeks, and my Twitter friend Jose Gonzalez says I should try this restaurant in Honolulu. I am so very… Read the rest of the article: The Angry Korean Lady of Honolulu: a restaurant I plan to patronize while in Hawaii

A Florida man is presumed dead after a sinkhole 30 feet wide and 20 feet deep opened up beneath his bedroom, at 11:00pm local time last night. Video here.

Colorado College students who are members of the school's ultimate frisbee team convinced the crew of a Frontier Airlines fight to let them do the "Harlem Shake." The FAA, the… Read the rest of the article: FAA investigating "Harlem Shake" on plane

Yochai Benkler, in The New Republic, on an exchange that took place in a military courtroom in January during pre-trial hearings in the Bradley Manning/Wikileaks case: The judge, Col. Denise… Read the rest of the article: Yochai Benkler: The dangerous logic of the Bradley Manning Case

President Obama tried to drop a gratuitous nerd culture reference in a press conference about serious business, and blew it. He said earlier today he couldn't perform a "Jedi mind… Read the rest of the article: Jedi Mind Meld

Army private Bradley Manning pleaded guilty on Thursday to 10 of the 19 total charges made by the US that he leaked unprecedented amounts of classified material to Wikileaks, the… Read the rest of the article: Bradley Manning military trial updates: live-blogs, who to follow on Twitter, and analysis

A pediatrician on CNN who co-hosts the CBS show The Doctors said something stupid and trans-hatey on the February 27 edition of CNN Newsroom. During a panel discussion about Coy… Read the rest of the article: TV pediatrician on CNN says something stupid about transgender girls

Boing Boing pal Jesse Thorn points us to a fun-sounding comedy/alt-culture cruise: The Atlantic Ocean Comedy & Music Festival, presented by MaximumFun.org, Splitsider and KCRW. Best url ever: boatparty.biz. Talent… Read the rest of the article: Floating alt-comedy festival on a cruise ship sounds pretty cool

Truthout reports: "The US Secret Service has refused to release its records on Aaron Swartz to Truthout. The agency claimed in a letter, sent to Truthout and a researcher in… Read the rest of the article: Secret Service denies Truthout's FOIA request for Aaron Swartz documents

A Hyphen magazine short doc on the life of an Asian immigrant farmer in Silicon Valley.

An opinion piece by Chris Arnade on the asymmetry in pay (money for profits, flat for losses), which he describes "the engine behind many of Wall Street's mistakes" That asymmetry… Read the rest of the article: Game theory and bad behavior on Wall Street