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Kathy Sierra of the Creating Passionate Users blog posts: Death threats against bloggers are NOT “protected speech” (via).

Last day of my work week, and partly in honor of Zefrank’s Ride the Fire Eagle Danger Day, here’s a couple of things in US news to bowl you over:

• FOX News Blames Democrats For Iran Captives. Please tell me the video makes sense, because it looks so surreal to me.

• Moscow sources have predicting that a US strike against Iranian nuclear installations codenamed Operation Bite has been scheduled for April 6 at 4 AM until 4 PM local time (source). Another article on the topic. No, I’m not out to spread paranoia; like paranoia isn’t already rearing its ugly head. And a no again is my answer to the question if I believe it.

• U.S. Unprepared For Oil Supply Crisis: Government Report (source). Someone on the Digg thread the US then should rely on technology. Ok, great, but I’ve additional news for ya: U.S. falls from first to seventh place in global information technology ranking . Why? Because “the U.S. decline was mainly due to the relative deterioration of its political and regulatory environment” according to the World Economic Forum.

Sorry if it had to be from the Digg feed. I’ll try to expand my US news sites horizon next time.

And for local news:

• ‘Keep up good work,’ Arroyo tells deployed Metro troops. Besides medical missions and construction of schools, etc., can they make public a copy of what exactly the message of the military is to everyone else? Just to make sure this isn’t just a timed smear campaign against anyone who doesn’t agree with the administration.

• ‘Gunman’ ni Satur pumiyok! All this type of news has to be synched into election time, of course.

• Here’s a user-generated, election-related graphic I can’t seem to put a finger on. Funny and annoying at the same time.

• And the taxi driver who got me to work is vehemently complaining that traffic EVERYWHERE is getting worse because of the election campaigning.

I know, the ‘asides’ concept should already cover this, but my current handling of asides posts usually merit a one or two paragraph commentary. Hence, the need for a ‘Links Of The Day‘ or ‘LOTD‘ -insert snarky reaction, you know you want to- post every so often.

And for today:

• Ricoh’s Caplio GX100: not a DSLR, not a point-and-shoot (via Engadget). Promising, but my imaginary money is still for the Sigma DP-1.

• Ruined Russian gangster’s towering log cabin (via BoingBoing), in my humble opinion, should not be torn down. Come on, its freak architecture at its best.

• Military men are also patroling the rich neighborhoods, too (via jessicarulestheuniverse). Immersion? Looks like ill-planned propaganda to me.

• UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Philip Alston: Govt reaction to visit ‘deeply schizophrenic’ (via Inquirer). Frankly, no need to comment on this one.

• Sonic Youth in Shanghai (via Shanghaiist). Crap. Well, just weed through some of my photos featured on the expat-centric site instead (though I don’t think the listing is complete).

I honestly don’t know what to make of Inquirer.net’s Babe Republic blog. There’s already a thriving local resource (MSM: FHM, Maxim; Indie: Kiven) for the audience I’m assuming it wants to capture, with unquestionably better pictures, video, and content.

Blame it on birth pains, but so far, only Inquirer.net’s Current blog is worth your precious bandwidth.

Time Inc. said on Monday it would stop publishing Life, the iconic photography magazine that has been a weekly newspaper insert since 2004… Although April 20 will be Life’s last print issue, the brand name will survive on the Internet, Time Inc., a unit of Time Warner Inc., said in a statement… Time will make Life’s collection of 10 million images available online, with “the most important collection of imagery covering the events and people of the 20th century” available for free for personal use, it said (source)

Links of the day:

One: Mesmerizing photos over at Shorpy, The 100 Year-Old Photo Blog.

Two: The supposed world’s highest man-made structure is the skywalk over the Grand Canyon. A unique photo-op, that I apparently won’t enjoy fully if and when given the chance, due to mild acrophobia (which was brutally challenged here).