Daily Link Dump - April 2, 2012

Tonight is the NCAA Mens' Basketball Tournament Championship Game. Here's a piece on how the NCAA is making gobs of money while exploiting the "student-athletes". I really do think NCAA football and basketball need to throw out any pretenses of collegiate athletics and admit they are essentially minor leagues for the NFL and NBA and start paying their athletes.

Here is a wonderfully done character profile of Ron Swanson by Mary McNamara of the L.A. Times. Keenest observation: "Ron is not apathetic, Ron is Zen.

The story that just won't stop: NBC altered George Zimmerman's 911 tapes to make him look racist.


Bruce Schneier destroys former TSA adminstrator Kip Hawley in a debate at The Economist. One of the highlights:

He wants us to trust that a 400-ml bottle of liquid is dangerous, but transferring it to four 100-ml bottles magically makes it safe. He wants us to trust that the butter knives given to first-class passengers are nevertheless too dangerous to be taken through a security checkpoint. He wants us to trust the no-fly list: 21,000 people so dangerous they're not allowed to fly, yet so innocent they can't be arrested. He wants us to trust that the deployment of expensive full-body scanners has nothing to do with the fact that the former secretary of homeland security, Michael Chertoff, lobbies for one of the companies that makes them. He wants us to trust that there's a reason to confiscate a cupcake..., a 3-inch plastic toy gun..., a purse with an embroidered gun on it..., a T-shirt with a picture of a gun on it... and a plastic lightsaber that's really a flashlight with a long cone on top....

The U.S. government continues its march towards war with Iran. Meanwhile, in Syria...

People publicly make it known where they are at any given moment, make personal information publicly available online and then proceed to get upset when others use that information.

The Arkansas Supreme Court declares that a law forbidding sex between an adult student and teacher is too broadly worded and is therefore an unjust infringement on the privacy of consenting adults. For reasons that are really beyond my understanding, some are upset at the court recognizing sexual privacy.

Here's a graph that shows the effects of U.S. copyright law on the availability of book titles at Amazon.

And, finally, Vincent Mancini of FilmDrunk breaks down the plot of Step Up: Revolution based off what is seen in the trailer.