• The end of the letter was actually signed ‘Barack Obama.’ I hope this letter can be kept forever.
• Chinese man Li “Old Li” Liangzheng • Discussing the response he got from the Obama administration about his response to the oil spill. What kind of response was it? An automated one. While Old Li reportedly had a decent idea – it involved a large lid to equalize pressure – the response has perhaps been a little, unexpected. His response has been feted by the Chinese media over the last week. Which, let’s admit it, is kind of hilarious. source

• 
  Meet Alvin Greene Keith Olbermann is perhaps the perfect guy to question Democratic Senate candidate Alvin Greene, who folds no matter what question you ask him. Olbermann questions him as if he was talking to a child – a child who stumbled into an embarrassingly adult situation.
• 
  On that obscenity chargeOK, we all know how Alvin Greene inexplicably won a South Carolina primary. But we don’t know very much about the obscenity charge. Fortunately, the reported victim (and her mom!) told Shepard Smith exactly what happened. Hey, that’s not a picture of a football!
• 
  Good message, bad idea Remember Sophie B. Hawkins? The singer-songwriter who became famous for singing about wanting to be your lover? Well, now she has a song about the oil spill. And it’s awful. Oh boy. Yes, you should donate. No, you shouldn’t listen to this terrible, terrible song.

• It’s this shepherd’s lucky day. He’s standing on so much lithium that he could power your laptop’s battery for decades to come. He doesn’t have to herd livestock in the worst place in the world anymore. There are $1 tRILLION dollars worth of precious metals to mine for. This is big. It could change the entire war and might even be enough to defang the Taliban, if it’s handled correctly. And it could make the value of Glenn Beck’s gold tip downward. (Thank God.) Some more details on the amazing find:

• $1
  trillion the amount of money the country is currently standing on
• $12
  billion the size of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product last year

Some obvious questions

• What’s down there? Lots of stuff, including iron, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium. An internal memo says Afghanistan could be the “Saudi Arabia of lithium.” Wow, nice metaphor.
• how long will it take? It might take a few years to put together the things needed to help Afghanistan take advantage of their vast resources. And the U.S. is already there.
• Current economic driver? Opium. Lots and lots of opium. Part of the reason terrorism is so strong in the region is because so much money comes from the opium trade and narcotics trafficking.

Did Afghanistan mine before?

• This is a country that has no mining culture. They’ve had some small artisanal mines, but now there could be some very, very large mines that will require more than just a gold pan.
• United States Geological Survey geologist Jack Medlin • On the sheer lack of mining history n the country. So why wasn’t this discovered before? Well, there were hints of it in prior Soviet-era documents, but for whatever reason, the potential was overlooked. No longer. The U.S. has spent too freaking long in this country not to start mining it for what it’s worth. It’s estimated that it’s going to take decades to reach their full potential of mining. This’ll be fun to watch. It’ll make their opium crops seem like a waste of time. source

• 6.2x bigger box office than “The Next Karate Kid” already

• $56M the amount the new “Karate Kid” movie made this weekend
• 140% the amount of the film’s budget it made back in its first weekend
• 61% the amount of film’s total take compared to the first “Karate Kid” source

• I couldn’t just not do anything, knowing lives were in danger. It’s classified information, and when you play Russian roulette, how do you know there’s not a bullet in the next chamber?
• Hacker Adrian Lamo • Discussing his decision to tell federal agents that he suspected Bradley Manning was leaking information to WikiLeaks. Since then, it’s been anything but fun and games for Lamo, nicknamed the “homeless hacker” for his fairly transient lifestyle. He’s gotten death threats. People have been ordering pizzas under his name. He’s reviled in the hacker community. And before this, he was simply famous for being the guy who hacked into the New York Times. source

• Smashing Magazine has this amazing gallery of various works of propaganda over the last 100 years. This particular piece, from Russia, is the work of El Lissitzky, whose works greatly influenced the art world in general. source

• $3
  billion amount that was spent to decode the human genome, a project finished a decade ago
• not
  much the project’s benefit to the medical world since then (its original selling point) source

• » Clarification: While the completion of the Human Genome Project led to Bill Clinton saying that it will “revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of most, if not all, human diseases,” it hasn’t led to direct cures but perhaps more informed answers. It’s becoming clear to some that rare variants, not common genes, are likely the cause of many diseases. Meaning it’s not a silver bullet but a definite starting point. “Genomics is a way to do science, not medicine,” said Harold Varmus, the incoming chair of the National Cancer Institute.

• This is extremely harmful. I want to know when are you going to send someone to my backyard and clean up my mess because I can’t even live in my house because of the smell.
• Salt Lake City resident (and biology teacher) Peter G. Hayes • Regarding an oil spill by Chevron that has greatly damaged the city’s Red Butte Creek. Chevron blamed an undetected underground leak for the issue, which spilled 50 gallons of crude oil a minute into the river. What oil spill did you think we were talking about? It’s not that one, although that one is pretty awful. This is the other one. source