Up today is a firmly tongue in cheek guide to all those strange organizations you hear about from the guys in the tinfoil hats.

What's Masonry? the Trilateral Commission? The Order of Skull and Bones? And more?

What's behind the vague names of all these meeting groups of the powerful?

Find out at the link.

Filed under: Trilateral commission, freemasonry, skull and bones, bilderberg, world economic forum, and davos

Of course they always would - pricey batteries are what make electric cars like the Tesla Roadster expensive.

Giving away the car in return for a battery service contract is like giving away the razor and selling blades at a profit, or giving away the printer and selling ink. Both are very profitable businesses, and the customer is better off because he doesn't have to come up with a lot of up-front money.

This venture is particularly interesting because it has wired up two entire countries - Israel and Denmark - with charging stations. So whereever you go in those countries, you can easily get a charge from where you park.

A really cool idea but it seems like something that might not scale well to larger countries and cities.

Filed under: electric car, free, and batteries

The idea behind free range kids is to give our children the freedom to be children, instead of being ultra-paranoid all the time.

I have a friend who has kids, and every time I see them locked up in their car seats, I think of the seats as little jails. It just seems like locking them up is a bad idea.

This author doesn't go that far. In fact, she specifically reaffirms the virtues of car seats. But she does make a great point in articles like "Is snow going to kill your kid?" and "Why I let my 9-year old rise the subway alone".

I remember having similar freedom during my own childhood and it didn't hurt me. Would it hurt your kids to give them more freedom and less structure? Are we infantilizing our kids by taking them everywhere and filling their days with constant structured activities?

From their manifesto: "Free Range Kids believes in safety, but we also believe that a lot of parents are going overboard, creating quivering masses of helplessness instead of independent humans."

Filed under: free range kids and child care