A few quick pointers (and, save for Billmon's piece, quick reads):

• The Daily Kos has just the facts about our spiraling national debt. Billmon, the blogger so good you wonder if it isn't his day job, has the implications.
• Nathan Newman on how zealous enforcement of copyright law is literally rotting away our cultural heritage
• The scene: Shreveport, Louisiana. The crime: driving while black. The aggravating circumstance: carrying a cell phone. The penalty is death.

And, via Charlie Stross, a late addtion:

• An eyewitness account from a street medic of Swiss police taking the Candidia Cruikshanks approach towards protestors at the G8 meeting in Lausanne. (Here's the Reuters account, with a very different slant).