For a decade, Canada's previous petro-tory government prosecuted scientists who publicly reported their results without first passing them through the party's commissars, almost as though reality had a well-known left-wing bias and couldn't be trusted.

When Hillary Clinton supporters are confronted with the evidence of their candidate's financial ties to dirty coal and oil, dirty finance, dirty autocratic governments, and so on, they insist that there's nothing to see here, because no one can link any specific contribution to a specific policy outcome.

My latest Guardian column, Allow Clean Reader to swap 'bad' words in books – it's a matter of free speech expands on last week's editorial about the controversial ebook reader, which lets readers mangle the books they read by programatically swapping swear-words for milder alternatives.

The 200-year-old nonprofit newspaper has turned the gorgeous 19th century railroad goods shed opposite their King's Cross office into an event space, and members can attend stellar, intimate events with Vivienne Westwood, Russell Brand, Jimmy Page, Naomi Klein and more.

(In 2010, Boing Boing was pleased to feature as a guestblogger Arthur Goldwag, author of Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more. — Read the rest

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Terry Savage happened upon two little girls giving away lemonade at their roadside lemonade stand. She was affronted at this economic illiteracy: after all, the raw materials for the lemonade had come out their parents' pockets, so they should be charging for the product! — Read the rest

Happy International Women's Day to everyone, but especially to all the strong, brave women who fought and fight for a world where women and men have equal opportunities, equal representation in all fields of endeavor, and equal rights in society, custom and law. — Read the rest

Guestblogger Arthur Goldwag is the author of "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more" and other books.

(CC-licensed photo on Flickr by 911conspiracy)

Forty-five years ago, Harpers magazine published Richard Hofstadter's essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." — Read the rest

(Douglas Rushkoff is a recent Boing Boing guest blogger — below, a previously-planned excerpt from his new book, the last in a series of excerpts which ran during his guest-blogging period.)

Tiffiniy from A New Way Forward sez,

Thanks to readers on Boing Boing and many others, the movement for dealing with the economic crisis has grown to 40,000 people in two months! But, so many people want to actually learn about what's going on, learn about the insider groups that are preparing to fight.

Yee-HAW! EFF, the ACLU and others are suing the government — in multiple suits! — over the new spy bill that "legalizes" warrantless bulk surveillance and immunizes the telcos from civil prosecution for their past bad deeds in cooperating with the President in wiretapping the whole nation. — Read the rest

In "China's All-Seeing Eye," Naomi Klein explains the terrifying and banal reality of China's new surveillance state, and the way that it represents a triumph of "Homeland Security" technology swaps between the US and China:

In Guangzhou, an hour and a half by train from Shenzhen, Yao Ruoguang is preparing for a major test of his own.

Siva sez, "In cooperation with the Media Education Foundation and La Lutta, Free Culture @ NYU is screening Freedom of Expression®: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property at 9pm on Thursday, January 31.
Narrated by Naomi Klein, the film features interviews with Stanford Law's Lawrence Lessig, Illegal Art Show curator Carrie McLaren, Negativland’s Mark Hosler, UVA media scholar Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Free Culture @ NYU co-founder Inga Chernyak, among many others. — Read the rest

David Byrne interviewed Radiohead's Thom Yorke for Wired Magazine about Radiohead's In Rainbows, an album that was released on a pay-what-you-care-to basis online. The conversation is fascinating — as is anything that David Byrne is involved with. Byrne is not only my all-time favorite musician, he's one of my favorite thinkers and writers too (and a kick-ass blogger besides). — Read the rest

Here is a roundup of the posts our readers found most interesting this week, selected by volume of comments and permalink traffic:

* Last year, photographer Siege spent his life's savings on a trailer for his mom (above) and 13-year-old brother in Louisiana. Katrina destroyed their trailer home, and ate their belongings. Siege returned to Louisiana with his girlfriend to help them recover. — Read the rest

Jacob Appelbaum blogs from Algiers, Louisiana:

Today one of the better adhoc hacks I've seen came into town.

Behold the glory of a lunch pail made into a low power FM station.

I've been told that this radio station is planned for 94.5 FM.