The 30 minute video here is not to be missed.

America's Secret War - George Friedman - Author interviews

] The plus: the multidimensional topology of space in three
] dimensions will seem simple at last and a million dollar
] reward will be there for the asking. The minus: the
] solver does not claim to have found a solution, he
] doesn't want the reward, and he certainly doesn't want to
] talk to the media.

http://www.math.purdue.edu/ftp_pub/branges/apology.pdf

Maths holy grail could bring disaster for internet

] Overdue debtors beware: You may not be able to rely on
] Caller ID to screen out those annoying bill collectors
] much longer. A California entrepreneur has a plan to
] bring the hacker technique of Caller ID spoofing to the
] business world, beginning with collection agencies and
] private investigators.
]
] Slated for launch this week, Star38.com would offer
] subscribers a simple Web interface to a Caller ID
] spoofing system that lets them appear to be calling from
] any number they choose. "It creates an extra avenue for
] them to have someone pick up the phone," says founder
] Jason Jepson.

This is a good thing in away..."Please hold on one minute while i verify your telephone...Hmmm, It appears that this telephone # does not belong to the company you claim to be from. I don't know who you are, so I can't answer any of your questions. I will report this call to the police."

US website offers Caller ID falsification service | The Register

Having finally had time to sit down and read Hamdi v. Rumsfeld its clear to me that the press reports so far have been confusing at best and misleading at worst. While I am heartened that the court has decided that there are some limits to the power of our executive, their decision is far from the stalwart defense of our traditional understanding of civil liberties that it has been presented as. I must express that I share the cynicism of the Russian commentator whose article I posted in spite of that commentator's hypocrisy.

My (apparently incorrect) understand of how things work in this country is that the legislative branch makes the laws (within the framework of the constitution), the executive enforces them, and the judicial interprets, applies, and upholds them. In this case the legislative passed a vague authorization for the use of military force against Al'Q and the T. From this the executive invented an entirely unprecedented and undefined legal status for prisoners. We'll call this "legislating from the Oval Office." In this decision the judicial has upheld the existence of this undefined status and invented a vaguely defined and unprecedented legal standard to go along with it. We'll call this "legislating from the bench."

From now on, as long as Congress has authorized the President to use "force" against an "enemy" the President may name any citizen an "enemy combatant" and place them in prison. The President is required to present its case against these individuals to a neutral decision maker (which need not be a civilian court), but the standard in these cases is "guilty until proven innocent." This is an enormously important precedent that will continue to impact our history forever.

I do not recall "guilty until proven innocent" ever being a part of how Americans view justice. Nor do I recall that the Supreme Court has the power to invent standards like this for cases of this sort. Missing from every event leading up to this moment (the solidification of a new legal standard for certain prisoners in our justice system) is the explanation of why. Why won't standard POW processes work for "combatants" in Afghanistan? Why do we need a new standard? Why is this situation so significantly different from any we've faced in the past? Justification is what you'd get if this new creation was the product of a normal legislative process. Instead what we have is the technical assertion of power by the executive and the judicial, with no more explanation then "these are bad people."

Maybe the court has reached the right balance here and this is the standard we ought to have. Its certainly preferable to me then Justice Thomas's unsaid statement that the only recourse that you have against unreasonable executive detention is to Impeach him. (If Thomas's well referenced dissent is correct, then I would say we are in need of new laws immediately!) However, I think it ought to have gone through the legislature, and that it ought to have been birthed in the open, with the traditional discussion of ends and means that is typically afforded a democracy when creating a new basic legal framework.

Repeating my basic point to ram it home: A new legal standard has been created in our justice system. It applies to enemies of the state. The standard is guilty until proven innocent. Its use requires Congressional authorization, but that authorization need not be specific. This is a watershed event that will inform future generation's basic understanding of what the Constitution means.

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld - Now THATS legislating from the bench!

] A police officer stops you on the street, then taps
] something into a device in the palm of his hand.
]
] The next minute, he knows who your relatives are, who
] lives in your house, who your neighbors are, the kind of
] car you drive or boat you own, whether you've been sued
] and various other tidbits about your life.

"Sir, what is your name?"

CNN.com - Cop on the beat now a walking database - Jul 1, 2004

] And so it's come to this. The American people -- proud
] heirs of a bold revolutionary spirit now marking the
] 228th anniversary of its fiery eruption into the world --
] have been reduced to thanking the robed Olympians on the
] U.S. Supreme Court for preserving a few crumbs of the
] nation's once-vast ancient liberties.

Damn...

A Russian view of the Supreme Court Decision

The 155-mm shells containing sarin gas that exploded in Iraq May 17 were manufactured before 1991, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. That was a pre-Gulf War shell, a different category than the weapons being sought by the Iraq Survey Group, Brig. Gen. David Rodriguez, the joint staff deputy director for operations, told a Pentagon news briefing.

...

For what it's worth in the debate over the shells.

Sarin Shells Made Before 1991 War

] Scientists have created a miniature medical computer out
] of DNA that can detect cancer genes in a test tube and
] respond by releasing a drug. Proving what had been only a
] concept, the feat offers a vision of how medicine might
] look in the future.

Injectable Medibots: Programmable DNA could diagnose and treat cancer: Science News Online, May 1, 2004

This is random but entertaining. Literally. Comic frames and random punch lines are remixed. Its a little like looking for shapes in the clouds.

exhilarator

A Japanese company has built Kaneda's Bike!

Fully functional replica of Kaneda's Bike (Akira)