– Curzon at ComingAnarchy considers a little-known bilateral relationship: Thailand and Saudi Arabia.

– Been wondering if the Pants Bomber really has made flying more difficult for us? GOOD and Design Language have teamed up to bring you an infographic on the new delays at American airports.

– Looks like we might finally have a real replicator on our hands. MIT has created a food printer that appears to be everything I want it to be. And it’s green as can be, for those who care (not to mention the definition of self-sufficient).

– How is the American intelligence community like Detroit’s Big Three? Luis Garicano and Richard Posner have the answer.

– Any society can produce good hardware, but you need open, innovate markets (and politics) to produce good software. “Free markets require free minds.” Daniel Gross in Slate:

The United States had China’s present-day economic profile—per-capita GDP of about $5,000, 40 percent of the work force in agriculture, 30 years of industrialization and urbanization—in 1900, a time when there were no direct elections for Senate, women couldn’t vote, and segregation reigned in the south.