At 6am this morning, I got an email from one of my sleazier contacts. It simply said "looks like Silk Road has collapsed". I fired the Tor browser you need to connect to the site and, indeed, it wasn't there.

I'm not sure which show makes more sense to be on Comedy Central. Jon Stewart is a pretty funny dude, but smart money says the real comedic geniuses are working at Fox News (buried deep inside the subconsciouses of the Fox anchors).

John Kohler is a gardening celebrity on YouTube and his "GrowingYourGreens.com" shows are played so often in our house I SWORE I'd seen him on TV... but I guess I was mistaken. Still, he is so well-known for his work encouraging people to grow their own food that I'm sure his neighbors know he's not growing pot in his bathroom.

In NYC, an arbitrary stretch of road which previously allowed parking, was suddenly changed to no standing any time. After the change, within 25 minutes, parking enforcement arrived and began issuing $115 parking tickets. When confronted about the sudden rule change and the fact that people did not have time to move, none of them seemed to care.

Furthermore, the official response basically told the owners of those cars that if they didn't like the ticket then they can fight it in court.

From Will Grigg's Pro Libertate Blog: "The Persecution of Rita Hutchens"

In a bill passed earlier today, the Government of New Zealand announced that software in the country will no longer be patentable. New Zealand’s largest IT representative body, the Institute of IT Professionals, expressed relief and said the decision removed a major barrier to software-led innovation.

For cutting down six trees on his newly bought property in Woodside without a permit, Rajiv Gujral will have to pay a $26,250 fine.

But it could have been worse.

Woodside officials asked the town council to fine him twice that amount -- $52,500.

When most of us think of weapons of mass destruction, we think of nuclear bombs, or nerve gas, or biological agents. Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged with using a WMD after he and his brother allegedly detonated a bomb made from a pressure cooker. How is this possible? Well, as is often the case, the common sense definition and the legal definition are not the same. The "legal definition" smacks of "Thought Crime" to me. To my mind, if you kill a bunch of people, it doesn't matter what weapon you used. it's the results which count....

We’ve written on the hyperdeflation problem before. Basically, with Bitcoin prices surging, nobody wants to buy anything, you just want to hold onto your Bitcoins. Conversely, when they collapse, nobody wants to sell. So volatility means nobody wants to transact in Bitcoins, because there’s a good chance that the next day someone will feel like a fool.

"What follows is my response to a question that was posted on the Rugatu website asking, "What is the legal status of Bitcoin?" After composing this over the course of 10 minutes or so, I realized I liked the response, and decided I want to "polish it up" into a better op-ed style article. Any feedback, positive or negative (though keep it constructive, please) is appreciated.