Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

• How the War on Terror Has Militarized the Police – The Atlantic. "We’re seeing a lot of police activity in the US these days, and much of it is violent. US Marines are required to adhere to the Geneva Conventions, which means that (among other things) they treat wounded enemies and don’t attack medical workers. But police forces seem to have just as much force as armies, with none of the constraints. This Atlantic piece looks at the militarization of domestic law enforcement. Yikes." (Alistair for Hugh).
• Mary Meeker’s 2011 Presentation On Internet Trends – TechCrunch. "Roughly a year ago, I listed Mary Meeker‘s presentation on the state of the Web as one of my weekly links. She updated it, and it should be required reading for any geek or entrepreneur. I particularly like her reconsidered hierarchy of needs: Food and water; shelter; and the Internet." (Alistair for Mitch).
• UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car – YouTube. "On November 18, University of California Davis police – at the request of the university chancellor – moved in on some of the Occupy protesters on the university campus. You can find the YouTube video of one of the cops pepper spraying a group of seated, peaceful student protesters. It’s jarring stuff. There was an uproar – demands for Chancellor Katehi‘s resignation from students and faculty. Katehi held a press conference, to which students were barred. This is what happened when when she left the building. An incredible piece of video, the kind of stuff we never would have seen before the Web." (Hugh for Alistair).
• Ignorance is bliss when it comes to challenging social issues – SciGuru. "Will education about the huge issues facing humanity save us from all the stupid decisions humans make? Maybe not: ‘The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed.’" (Hugh for Mitch).
• Anatomy of Facebook – Facebook Blog. "You can imagine how many Tweets, Facebook messages and Blog posts I got this week when Facebook announced that there are no longer six degrees of separation between us all, but rather 4.74 degrees of separation. I keep trying to explain to people that it’s no longer about degrees… it’s pixels… we are all intrinsically connected. That notwithstanding, this Blog post digs into the data and analytics of how Facebook compiled this very interesting dataset. Think about it this way: the original "six degrees of separation" study (done in the late sixties) used 296 volunteers. Facebook’s research is culled from over 700 million Facebook users – which is more than one tenth of the world’s population. Big data FTW!" (Mitch for Alistair).
• Russian billionaires battle for Fisher Island – Miami New Times. "This is the kind of story you could see Ben Mezrich writing about and turning into a Hollywood blockbuster. It’s almost too surreal to believe that this is not a work of fiction. As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to capture the interest of the world, this story will give you pause. If we’re talking about the 99% versus the 1%, I wonder who these people are? The 0.0001%? This is a crazy story… only made crazier by the fact that it’s true. Ahh, the wonders of business and real estate and sharks." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it’s your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.