Must read links 8/25

• Good morning, worker drones: this week in mayhem – Zero Hedge continues to break big stories, this one that the Fed seems by its own statistical admission to be trading derivatives – heavily; and a hot war threatens in Central Asia
• Bernanke's Self-Promotional Reappointment Campaign A Stunning Success – Mish, drawing upon John Hussman.  Doubling-down has become a way of life in D.C.
• The Electronic Police State, 2008 National Rankings, Cryptohippie – h/t orlingrabbe.com  Assume that any computer connected to the Web is a public place; that all your non-cash financial transactions are known to the government; that you have broken some law somewhere that the government could use to destroy you financially by forcing you to defend yourself in a court of law
• Clarion Call from Cantarell – Mexico’s biggest oil field running dry; more chaos to the south likely
• Nils Gilman on the ascent of deviant economies in the coming post-Western, post-modern age – h/t/ orlingrabbe.com