] "A U.S. citizen accused of plotting to explode a
] radiological "dirty bomb" in the United States must be
] granted access to an attorney to challenge his detention
] as an enemy combatant, a federal judge in New York ruled
] yesterday."

This should be considered a significant victory in the fight to prevent the establishment of an alternative legal system which does not operate under constitutional requirements.

Judge Grants 'Combatant' Access to an Attorney (washingtonpost.com)

] "Every site designated 'dot-kids' will be a safe zone
] for children," Bush said in a small Roosevelt Room
] signing ceremony for the domain legislation."

After about a decade of bad ideas the government finally passes a reasonable proposal for creating a kid friendly space online. The fact that ICANN is opposed to it should be proof positive that it is going to work. ICANN is opposed to anything that demonstrates that alternative TLDs are functional. Its a red letter day when the government does something right, particularily online.

CNN.com - Bush signs child Net safety law - Dec. 4, 2002

] "Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."

Or how about "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."

I hope these quotes sound different when they aren't taken out of context!

Famous Quotes - Henry A. Kissinger - Power is the ultimate...

] The splintery metaconsciousness of the solar-system has
] largely sworn off its pre-post-human cousins dirtside,
] but its minds sometimes wander nostalgiawise. When that
] happens, it casually spams Earth's RF spectrum with plans
] for cataclysmically disruptive technologies that emulsify
] whole industries, cultures, and spiritual systems.
]
] A sane species would ignore these get-evolved-quick
] schemes, but there's always someone who'll take a bite
] from the forbidden Cox Pippin. There's always someone
] whom evolution has failed to breed the
] let's-lick-the-frozen-fencepost instinct out of. There's
] always a fucking geek who'll do it because it's a
] historical goddamned technical fucking imperative.

More fun Sci-fi from Cory Doctorow. This one is him and another author basically bouncing emails back and forth.

JURY SERVICE - Episode 1

In protest of TIA John Gilmore provides Poindexter's home address, phone number, and aerial photographs of his house!

Eyeballing Total Information Awareness

] "But since Sept. 11 and the government's expansive
] campaign of monitoring and detention, people are turning
] to the 82-year-old organization to help safeguard their
] liberties. Among them are conservatives who made the
] phrase "card-carrying member of the ACLU" a political
] insult, but who are signing up. "

This is good to hear... Conservatives spent a decade talking smack about the ACLU because the Christian right likes perpetuating misconceptions about the first amendment with the goal of establishing religion. This obviously conflicts with the general conservative notion of upholding "individual liberties." This is the most central contradiction in modern conservative thought. Of course the Libertarians have been saying that for years.

ACLU Membership up

I've been unimpressed with the auto industry in the last few years. Cars should by fun, affordable, and comfortable. The industry usually asks you to pick one. Sometimes they get two. This is one of the few times in recent memory where they've managed to hit all three.

They took your mother's mazda and added many of the performance tweeks you'd expect the local street drag kids to be running. They even let Calaway get their hands on the engine. They also throw in a suped up stereo system complete with mp3 support. Its a $20,000 high tech race car. Its fast and furious. It looks like loads of fun.

If I was in the market for a car I would seriously consider this.

NOTE: Mazda does this really lame thing with their website where if you come in with a browser they don't recognize they spit you to an error page rather then letting you deal with it. So load this one up in IE.

MAZDASPEED Protegé

] "One of the problems the tablet PC is supposed to solve
] is the barrier that's formed between you and another
] person when you use a conventional laptop. The screen is
] purportedly some kind of offensive shield that cuts
] people off from one another and erects an insulting wall
] between them."

There are some interesting observations in this article about the dissonance that laptops have had fitting into a world designed for paper. Laptops with big screens hide faces in meetings... PCs teetering on college lecture desks designed for taking hand written notes on a small notepad...

At Nanog, most of the people in the audience sit on their laptops during talks. People will often get up to speak and make the mistake of commenting on it critically. This is a great way to signal to the audience that "I've never been to nanog before and I'm a little clueless so you can kind of half listen to me." Many of the people in the audience sit on IRC during the talks. The channel is usually about 80% "passing notes in class" and 20% useful filler information and critical thoughts about the talk.

The question is, who will bend:

1. The culture.
2. The technology.
3. The environment (start designing desks for meeting rooms that have cavities for laptops).

The answer will be found by determining how these peices can work together in a way that does not eliminate any of the functionality that each provides.

Any ideas?

Laptops and social norms...

] "We've seen the bond market, particularly in the belly
] of the curve, rally on this news. A lot of people had
] thought the economy had turned the corner and this brings
] us back to reality. Manufacturing is mired in this no
] growth area and I think that's going to continue to be
] the case for a while."

Yuck... Bad news on a rainy monday.

Forbes.com: INSTANT VIEW-ISM Nov factory index at 49.2, still shrinking

] "Dr. Hussain [not Hussein] said he had been held in solitary
] confinement for most of that time but that he was able to
] hear the cries of young children being tortured in
] adjacent rooms."

This is fairly grim stuff.

Britain Accuses Iraq of Systematic Torture and Killing