Here are a few of the interesting things I read today:

popehat.com: A short essay on why government encryption breaking (as recently revealed by the Guardian) is un-American. It's particularly interesting because the author is a famous lawyer and discusses the (ab)use of nefariously obtained attorney-client emails.

rollingstone.com Another article in the series by Matt Taibbi on financial shenanigans in the US. This one is about traders receiving non-government, market-moving data seconds ahead of everyone else.

TheBaffler.com: Why LinkedIn is terrible. Also: interesting discussion about the many business self-help gurus. I didn't know that the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People was such a failure (until he wrote a book about being successful).

TheRecord.com: I didn't know about the federal and Ontario open data websites. It'd be nice if these data sources were APIs that streamed data from the actual sources instead of just periodic data dumps but it's certainly a good start.

OntarioCourt.ca: Someone pointed a BB gun at their friend (who wasn't threatened by it). Undercover investigators from the WSIB were following the man and thought it was a handgun. The investigators reported the gun to the police. The police searched the person's house and found the BB gun. The accused was acquitted at trial but the ONCA ordered a new trial.

Wikipedia.org: Did you know that there are albino alligators?