Morning Coffee and Paper

1. Biologist, Adam Warwick, jumps into the Gulf of Mexico to save a 375-pound bear from drowning. Stud. (ht to Digg.com)


2. Christopher Hitchens volunteers to get waterboarded (ht to instapundit). Of the method, he writes, "I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture."

3. Anti-virus software manufacturer, McAfee conducts an interesting anti-SPAM experiment. They provided a free PC and an email account to participants who would reply to every piece of SPAM they received, and chronicle the efforts in a diary, for exactly one month. She actually went steps further than I've heard people going - she gave the spammers her physical address, which resulted in a flow of junk mail to her house that grew exponentially, leave "the neighborhood postman somewhat aghast." Interestingly, and not surprisingly, the most obvious result of this effort was that the computer she was using became so congested and infected with spyware and other malicious software that it slowed down considerably. By the end of the month, the US participants had received over 23,000 spam emails. Strangely, Brazil and Italy were in second place with roughly 15,000 spam emails, but the UK and Mexico had over 10,000. The Netherlands and Spain had between 5000-9000. So it doesn't seem to be falling the income of the nation, in other words. British volunteers received, by far, the most Nigerian scams, too. I wonder what explains all these differences?

4. Marty Feldstein provides some explanation for why oil prices have doubled in such a short period of time.