This last few weeks, I have been mostly going insane with stress (or the "Coffs Harbour lifestyle", as it's known), and only reading:

• “Where to Invade Next” Is the Most Subversive Movie Michael Moore Has Ever Made — Jon Schwarz, The Intercept: By the end of Where to Invade Next […] you may realize that the entire movie is about how other countries have dismantled the prisons in which Americans live: prison-like schools and workplaces, debtor’s prisons in order to pay for college, prisons of social roles for women, and the mental prison of refusing to face our own history. You’ll also perceive clearly why we’ve built these prisons. It’s because the core ideology of the United States isn’t capitalism, or American exceptionalism, but something even deeper: People are bad.
• Iceland's Pirate Party secures more election funding than all its rivals as it continues to top polls — Matt Broomfield at the Independent: The anti-establishment party, which calls for a 35-hour working week, direct democracy and total drug decriminalisation, has the lead in eight out of the last ten polls. They look set to form a crucial part of a coalition government in this autumn's general election.
• Disappointing: Elsevier Buys Open Access Academic Pre-Publisher SSRN — Mike Masnick at Techdirt: Everyone involved, of course, insists that "nothing will change" and that Elsevier will leave SSRN working as before, but perhaps with some more resources behind it (and, sure, SSRN could use some updates and upgrades). But Elsevier has such a long history of incredibly bad behavior that it's right to be concerned.
• EFF Asks Court to Reverse Chelsea Manning’s Conviction for Violating Federal Anti-Hacking Law — Electronic Frontier Foundation: "Congress intended to criminalize the act of accessing a computer that you aren’t authorized to access, such as breaking into a corporate computer to steal user data or trade secrets or to spread viruses. The law should not be used to turn a violation of an employer’s computer use restrictions into a federal crime. That’s what happened here," said EFF Legal Fellow Jamie Williams.