Things are getting hectic over at Language Log, in a conversation about the rise of “snuck” instead of “sneaked.” (The chart at left: usage in the Times over the last few decades.)

reginaldo writes to clue us that pirates in Somalia have opened up a cooperative in Haradheere, where investors can pay money or guns to help their favorite pirate crew for a share of the piracy…

In a quest to be EXACTLY the place where Jemaine, Bret, and Murray WOULD come from, New Zealand has managed to launch a wee little rocket just slightly beyond our atmosphere into a stratum of area that could technically be called space. It then triumphantly fell into the Pacific Ocean.

A formal complaint was filed in California (caged PDF) last week by John Lindstein naming David Miscavige and the Church of Scientology International as defendants. Lindstein claims that for sixteen years (from age 8) he was forced to work as a slave at Gold Base, a secret CoS site run by Golden Era Productions with ‘razor wire, security guard patrols, surveillance posts, and three roll calls each day.’ The pay was $50 a week. The allegations include ‘Violations of wage and hour laws as well as unfair/illegal business practices actionable under California B&P 17200 Et. Seq.’ and a complaint under the 13th Amendment of the US Constitution, which abolished slavery. Members of the group Anonymous praised the summons.”

Best article from The Daily WTF in a long time.

As if the $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers wasn’t enough, Clayton Homes, a Tennessee-based seller of manufactured, modular, and mobile homes, is offering a little something to sweeten the deal: a can of pork and beans.

Nine was forced to drop one of its episodes of The Secret Millionaire after one of its benefactors, Leanne Wesche, accrued debts said to be in the ‘hundreds of thousands.’

Tweet: What does the post-page, post-site, post-media media world look like? @stephenfry, that’s what.

Michael Arrington announced the death of the CrunchPad on Monday morning in a blog post heavily spiced with angst and drama. According to Arrignton, the Cruchpad, a 12-inch Web tablet expected to be priced at about $300, was just days away from launch. At the last minute, however, Arrington received an email from Chandra Rathakrishnan, the chief executive of manufacturing partner Fusion Garage, apparently trying to cut Arrington out of the product on the eve of the launch. Fusion Garage, according to Arrington, wanted to market the device itself under its own name; which obviously was the deal breaker. Arrington claims that the company had overcome obstacles at every stage in the business such as deals with Intel, retail launch, securing venture capital and angel investments. Interesting bit is that some were already speculating that the Crunchpad was not real.”

“India is about to pull the plug on 25 million cell phones in the name of fighting terrorism and fraud. ‘The ban by India’s Department of Telecommunications has been unfolding gradually since Oct. 6, 2008, six weeks before the attacks in Mumbai killed 173 people and wounded 308. A memo then directed service providers to cut off cellphone users whose devices didn’t have a real IMEI — or unique identity number — in the interests of “national security.” Since then, the move has picked up steam as a way to circumvent terrorists using black market, unregistered cellphones. The Mumbai attackers kept in touch with each other via cellphones and used GPS to pinpoint their attacks, which started Nov. 26, 2008, and went on for three days. The telecommunications department has issued warnings and deadlines through 2009 but has announced this one is for real, telling operators to block cellphones without valid IMEI numbers. Previously, it warned companies to stop importing them and customers to stop buying them.’”