Today's Internets.

Thailand jails magazine editor over articles defaming king | World news | guardian.co.uk: "Somyot Prueksakasemsuk of Voice of the Oppressed sentenced to 10 years in prison under lese-majesty law"

Let's Teach Literal Creationism in Public Schools. | Free The Animal: "Kids: If your parents, relatives, or friends profess belief in any sort of supernatural being (God, Jesus, Allah, Ghosts) or places (heaven, hell, purgatory) they are not dealing in reality and no matter how wonderful they may be as parents, family, or friends and no matter how good their intentions, they are giving you false, primitive information based on superstition and ignorance that will likely make you uncompetitive, and potentially, a laughing stock in this modern, increasingly informed and critical world."

The Untouchables: How the Obama administration protected Wall Street from prosecutions | Harry J Enten | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "Obama justice officials both shielded and feted these Wall Street oligarchs (who, just by the way, overwhelmingly supported Obama's 2008 presidential campaign) as they simultaneously prosecuted and imprisoned powerless Americans for far more trivial transgressions. As Harvard law professor Larry Lessig put it two weeks ago when expressing anger over the DOJ's persecution of Aaron Swartz: "we live in a world where the architects of the financial crisis regularly dine at the White House.""

US military says Martin Luther King would be proud of its weapons | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk: "Yesterday, I highlighted the extraordinary anti-war speech Martin Luther King gave in 1967, in which he said, among other things, that the US government is "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today" and the leading exponent of "the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long." The speech was devoted to arguing that America's militarism and war-fighting were degrading the soul of the nation and the citizenry and - for financial, political and cultural reasons - were making domestic progress impossible. The US Air Force's Global Strike Command yesterday posted a truly vile bit of propaganda in which it appropriates King's image, name and words in order to claim that he would "be proud to see our Global Strike team . . . standing side-by-side ensuring the most powerful weapons in the US arsenal remain the credible bedrock of our national defense""

Fred On Everything - Severus: "Guns are a curious fracture line: As a nation, America is way and gone the most militarily aggressive country on the planet, as note Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Mali, Mexico, Columbia, Somalia, and so on. The economy is militarized beyond redemption. Yet if a little boy draws a picture of a soldier with a rifle, or a little girl points a gun blowing soap bubbles at a friend, they are likely to be led from school in handcuffs and subjected to psychiatry. "

Atheism Should End Religion, Not Replace It - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com: "Religion is not morality. Theists ask me, “If there’s no god, what would stop me from raping and killing everyone I want to.” My answer is always: “I, myself, have raped and killed everyone I want to ... and the number for both is zero.” Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don’t need religion."

Living Freedom » Blog Archive » Various & sundry ramblings: "I couldn’t decide whether the Second (or is it third?) Coronation of King Obama was more like a Roman spectacle or more like Germany in the 1930s. All it needed was Leni Riefenstahl."

The Pomp and Circumstance of the Inauguration - Reason.com: "Congressional Quarterly's comprehensive "Guide to the Presidency" helpfully explains that "the only part of the inaugural ceremony that is required by the Constitution is the taking of the oath of office." If only somebody had bothered to check, we could have wrapped it all up Sunday when Chief Justice John Roberts swore Barack Obama in for his second term, and spared ourselves an extra day's worth of pomp, circumstance and dreadful poetry.

After his swearing-in, "Calvin Coolidge simply went to bed in 1925." George Washington's admirably brief second inaugural clocks in at 135 words. But modern presidents fail to appreciate that for presidential inaugurations, as with presidential activism, less is more."