] This ad is most definitely a nod to the filmmakers Peter
] Fischli and David Weiss. Their 1987 film, "The Way Things
] Go" is a 30-minute-long showing of a contraption they
] built out of household items.

I sat here with open jaw for the 60 seconds it took to watch the advertisement on my computer. OMG!

Honda's New Accord

] A federal judge ended a contentious hearing Friday by
] extending a temporary ban on a book that argues Americans
] do not have to pay income taxes.

The last time I checked, the first ammendment pretty much kept the government out of the business of deciding what books were publishable or not, especially when the book contains political or non-fictional elements such as a biography.

] In arguing for a permanent restraining order, Davis
] called Schiff's ideas "frivolous interpretations" of U.S.
] tax law.
]
] "Criminal prosecutions (of those who follow Schiff's
] advice) can take months, if not years. The harm is
] occurring now and it must be stopped now," he said.

So let the harm occur now, and let it be corrected in the future. (tongue in cheek: let them continue to denude the rights of americans via the Patriot Act and its ilk by making the book purchase history of american citizens be subpeona'able to find those who MIGHT be cheating on their taxes, and don't forget to look at library lending records, and maybe think to embed RFID chips in the binders of each book so that you can find them more quickly with remote scanners. Okay, so I went overboard... :) )

U.S. judge in Vegas extends temporary ban on no-income tax book

] Galactic Civilizations is a single player space based
] strategy game in which you are in control of humanity's
] destiny.
]
]
] The game begins at the dawn of a new age of interstellar
] travel. The humans and 5 alien civilizations are vying
] for control of the galaxy. As leader of United Earth, you
] must research new technologies, build an economy, create
] a powerful military force, all the while carefully
] balancing your political, diplomatic and trade skills.

I can post no better recommendation than the statement that I am going to buy a copy of this game.

Galactic Civilizations - The definitive space based strategy game

] I heard about all them folks protesting,
] As if I really want this war.
] But that don't stop me from believing
] There're just some things worth fighting for.

A song by Dustin Evans. Very simple: vocals and a guitar. Powerful singing, heartfelt, brings tears to my eyes.

-andy

If I Die Before You Wake

] Noam on the war, etc.

Interesting reasoning behind "Why did we go to war".

ZNet | Interviews | Noam Chomsky Interviewed

] The doors of the town house opened to reveal a playboy's
] fantasy straight from the 1960s: mirrored bedroom, lamps
] shaped like women, air-brushed paintings of a topless
] blonde woman and a mustached hero battling a crocodile.
]
] On the wall and in the bedroom were photos of Saddam
] Hussein and one of his mistresses. Military officials
] suspect they found one of the paranoid Iraqi leader's
] many safe houses.
]
] "This must have been Saddam's love shack," said Sgt.
] Spencer Willardson of Logan, Utah.

Safe house or bachelor pad? Troops discover home of one of Saddam's hideaways

This article gives some insight into the flaws of the National No-Fly List associated with CAPPS and CAPPS II. Along with the horror stories of existing problems, there are examples of why the new plan for CAPPS II is even worse than the current one.

"Remember, this isn't just about privacy, it's also about accountability," Tien says. "It's not just Orwell -- it's Kafka."

A bigger problem with CAPPS II, though, is that it may not work very well at finding terrorists. In May 2002, Samidh Chakrabarti and Aaron Strauss, two graduate students in computer science (and a few other disciplines) at MIT, decided to see if they could come up with an algorithm that terrorists might use to beat a profiling system like the current version of CAPPS. After studying everything that is publicly known about CAPPS, the pair determined that anyone with the will and not very many resources could easily get around the system. They concluded that airlines would be safer if, instead of profiling, they instead selected a portion of fliers at random and subjected them to more thorough searches for weapons. (Chakrabarti and Strauss wrote up their findings in a term paper for a class, but it was picked up by First Monday, a peer-reviewed academic journal on the Web.)

'Please step to the side, sir'

] Scientists have completed the finished sequence of the
] human genome, or genetic blueprint of life, which holds
] the keys to transforming medicine and understanding
] disease. Less than three years after finishing the
] working draft of the three billion letters that make up
] human DNA and two years earlier than expected, an
] international consortium of scientists said on Monday the
] set of instructions on how humans develop and function is
] done

GATTACA anyone?

Human genome sequence completed

] U.S. health officials are reporting what appears to be
] the first domestic case of the respiratory disease known
] as SARS being spread at the workplace.
]
] The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is
] paying close attention to a 47-year-old woman from
] Gainesville, Florida, who is believed to have contracted
] Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS. She works
] with a 60-year-old woman who recently visited Asia, and
] was hospitalized last week with a suspicious respiratory
] infection.
]
] The CDC says, if both cases are confirmed as SARS, it
] would constitute the first instance in the United States
] in which the disease appears to have been spread in the
] workplace.

Poor hand washing hygeine is listed by the CDC as the number one cause of the spread of infection.

VOANews.com

] Opera Software today released Opera 7.10 for Windows and
] Opera 7.10 for Linux Beta with features that are not only
] new to Opera, but also completely new to the world of
] browsing. Right from the beginning, users can see the two
] new buttons FastForward and Rewind in the toolbar,
] accelerating Opera users' Web navigation. Users can also
] speed up researching with the completely new Notes
] features or view photo files with SlideShow.

I've been a purchaser and more-or-less supporter for Opera since 1997 or so. Up until MSIE 5.0, the Netscape technologies were superior, with Opera a close contender. Since then, inertia keeps me on MSIE 6.0, but I'm getting used to Mozilla 1.4 alpha with its bayesian-based spam controls for both home and eventually office use. Drowning in spam every morning and evening is not my idea of relaxation.

Opera introduces brand new features in double release