links for 2009-05-22

• Boston Molasses Disaster – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  via Sam Anderson: "Okay, seriously, forget it: I hereby release you to go look up the Boston Molasses Disaster. A giant wave of molasses destroyed an entire Boston neighborhood 90 years ago, swallowing horses and throwing an elevated train off its track. It took months to scrub all the molasses out of the cobblestones! The harbor was brown until summer! The world is a stranger place than we will ever know."
  (tags: boston molasses disaster history strangetrue)
• In Defense of Distraction
  au contraire, Mr Anderson: I read your article from start to finish! albeit, mostly out of guilt that, had your article been about something else, I might not have. note to self: remember the value of attention. (I guess that's why they say we "pay" it).
  (tags: samanderson nymag attention internet psychology declineandfall future inspiration)
• Expenses row: MP who claimed for 500 trees accuses constituents of 'jealousy' | Politics | The Guardian
  "We have a wretched govern­ment here which has completely mucked up the system and caused the resignation of me and many others, because it was this government that introduced the Freedom of Information Act and it is this government that insisted on the things which caught me on the wrong foot, which if I'd been cleverer it wouldn't have done. What right does the public have to interfere with my private life? None."
  (tags: weasels justdesserts)