Shuffling her feet in her Garden Grove home last weekend, Mariela Muniz stared into the carpet and suffered, as teenagers do, the silent deliberation of her parents. Soon, her father nodded and her mother uttered the words she'd been waiting to hear: "Lo puedes hacer."

"You can do it."

Still, when the tardy bell rang Monday morning, Muniz had no idea what to expect. Teenagers can talk a big game. But would they follow through?

She waited in front of the school. Soon, the doors opened, and scores of students — most of them Latino, but a handful of whites, African Americans and Asian Americans too — joined her. They marched through Garden Grove and Anaheim, picking up students at several other schools as planned through MySpace bulletins. By 1 p.m., they had covered 10 miles. An estimated 1,500 students had walked out. Muniz was a truant — and, to her friends, a hero.

School administrators have since informed her that she'll have to perform community service as penance. Back at her home, a humble ranch-style house with family photographs on the wall and avocados on the dining room table, she said it was worth it.

"Sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in," she said. "We did. And it worked."

Student walkouts, organized by BBS.

Student Protests Echo the '60s, but With a High-Tech Buzz - Los Angeles Times

J. Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA told the Special Operations Forces Exhibition (Sofex-2006), that his company could supply private soldiers to any country. Black, a former U.S. State Department counter-terrorism coordinator, said Blackwater has been marketing the concept of private armies for low-intensity conflicts.

In his presentation in Amman, Jordan, on March 27, Black said Blackwater could supply peace-keeping forces. He said the company was capable of providing a brigade-sized force on alert.

One option, Black said, was for Blackwater to provide forces for Sudan's Darfour province. He said the company could bolster existing peace-keeping forces from the African Union.

"I believe there is a contribution to be made by a small force," Black said. "The issue is who's going to let us play on their team?"

Black said Blackwater would not participate in conventional military operations. He said he has discussed his concept with the United States and NATO.

"There is clear potential to conduct security operations at a fraction of the coast of NATO operations," Black said. "It's unusual and that's why I'm raising it. This is not what you do if your objective is more money."

Blackwater offers 'private armies' for low-intensity conflicts

You know that scene in Die Hard when Alan Rickman and crew finally gets the vault open? Remember how Fur Elise starts playing and the robbers see stacks and stacks of bearer bonds? This is totally like that.

Microsoft Opens IE Bug Database

Users will be able to report bugs found in the Web browser.

To post or view bugs, users must sign up for a Passport account on the Microsoft Connect Web site.

"Many customers have asked us about having a better way to enter IE bugs. It is asked, "Why don't you have Bugzilla like Firefox or other groups do?" said the Microsoft blog post.

Microsoft is only accepting bug posts for Internet Explorer 7 and future versions.

This is interesting. IE 7 is a 1.0 product in a 7.0 wrapper. There are going to be lots of bugs MS's QA department just didn't get to. More importantly, there will be more bugs than they can fix. There will be a backlog that is ripe for 0day.

This will make for interesting things in the Layer 7 world.

Microsoft Opens IE Bug Database!!!

The Airborne Laser, or ABL, is a Boeing 747 aircraft being equipped with a high-powered chemical laser to destroy ballistic missiles in their boost phase. Chicago-based Boeing Co. is the prime contactor on the effort.

[Obligatory Real Genius reference]

Airborne laser weapon stays on course - Space.com - MSNBC.com

Googling around for Younis Tsouli produces some interesting links including this one:

TrackingTheThreat.com is database of open source information about the Al Qaeda terrorist network, developed as a research project of the FMS Advanced Systems Group. Our goal is to apply new technologies and software engineering approaches to open source intelligence while providing researchers and analysts with information about Al Qaeda.

This site has some interesting features:

Use the Network Navigator to perform graphical link analysis on the Al Qaeda network.

Also, take a look at the product suite that FMS Advanced Systems produces.

trackingthethreat.com

This is always my favorite week of the year to be in China. It’s the time when the China debate goes from the inside to the outside, as the National People’s Congress segues directly into the China Development Forum.

This was the last question of the meeting -- and the final word from the Chinese leadership at this year’s China Development Forum. The Premier was especially animated and intense in framing his response. “China views this relationship as very important,” he said, “and takes these risks very seriously.” He implied that efforts will be made to further expand Chinese imports from the US as well as deal with the all-important concerns over intellectual property rights. He was emphatic in re-emphasizing the limited role that foreign exchange policy could play in tempering the US saving shortfall and related trade imbalance -- in effect, implying no major change in the RMB exchange rate. At the end of his discourse, he leaned forward, looked me straight in the eye, and stated with great emphasis, “You can take this message back to the American people: It is unfair to make China a scapegoat for structural problems facing the US economy.”

The next morning, as luck would have it, I had the opportunity over breakfast to run Premier Wen’s comment by three US politicians who just happened to be in town -- Senators Schumer, Graham, and Coburn. As they put it, the liberal, the moderate, and the conservative, respectively, had come to China in a rare moment of solidarity to demonstrate both the breadth and depth of bipartisan political support to bring the US-China trade issue to a head once and for all. Schumer and Graham, of course, are co-sponsors of a bill (S. 295) that would impose 27.5% tariffs on all Chinese imports into the US unless there was an RMB currency revaluation of a like amount. They were steeped with confidence that this bill had overwhelming support in the Senate and most likely comparable support in the House. And since it played to the angst of middle-class US wage earners, they did not expect the first veto of a politically-weakened President Bush to be exercised on this issue.

“It worked in Japan and it will work in China.”

The big risk is that China calls Washington’s bluff and the two parties start to stumble down the very slippery slope of trade frictions and protectionism.

“I care deeply about the loss of US manufacturing jobs to China. If I am successful in cutting our trade deficit with the Chinese, not only will those jobs come back home but I will have succeeded in boosting US saving and cutting excess consumption. My bill can do all that and more.”

“Let me get this straight,” I gasped, “tariffs will boost saving?”

In a short span of 24 hours, I had heard it all on both sides of the China debate. The Chinese leadership was amazingly transparent in expressing their own hopes and concerns at a critical juncture on the nation’s extraordinary journey. And then the Washington crowd blitzed into Beijing with an agenda of its own. What was missing was a willingness to bend -- for both sides to come together in the best interests of the collective whole. The great paradox of globalization never seemed more vivid -- our economies may be global but our politics remain decidedly local. Unless we resolve that paradox, I am afraid the win-win dreams of globalization advocates could remain fleeting.

Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley (from Beijing)

This is the best Internet map I've see yet.

CIO Blogs - Internet Map

It is sometimes convenient, for purposes of rhetorical effect, for national leaders to talk of a globe neatly divided into good and bad. It is quite another, however, to base the policies of the world's most powerful nation upon that fiction. The administration's penchant for painting its perceived adversaries with the same sweeping brush has led to a series of unintended consequences.

Although this is not an administration known for taking advice, I offer three suggestions.

The first is to understand that although we all want to "end tyranny in this world," that is a fantasy unless we begin to solve hard problems.

Second, the Bush administration should disavow any plan for regime change in Iran — not because the regime should not be changed but because U.S. endorsement of that goal only makes it less likely.

Third, the administration must stop playing solitaire while Middle East and Persian Gulf leaders play poker.

This is the world, the president pledges in his National Security Strategy, that "America must continue to lead." Actually, it is the world he must begin to address — before it is too late.

Madeleine Albright has an editorial in the LA Times. I only quoted the first line of several paragraphs, so go read the whole thing.

Good versus evil isn't a strategy - Los Angeles Times

Welcome to SourceWatch, a collaborative project of the Center for Media and Democracy to produce a directory of the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda. SourceWatch's primary focus is on documenting public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. Over time, SourceWatch has broadened to include others involved in public debates including media outlets, journalists and government agencies. Unlike some other wikis, SourceWatch has a policy of strict referencing, and is overseen by a paid editor.

SourceWatch

While the ICANN Board considers these concerns, and until they are remedied, CIRA will as of this date:

* Suspend its voluntary contribution of funds to ICANN;
* Hold in trust CIRA's voluntary contributions to ICANN;
* Suspend consideration of any Accountability Framework;
* Decline to host or be a major sponsor of any ICANN event; and
* Cease chairing the ccNSO's IANA Working Group.

Canada is the only place in the official DNS system with what I would consider a reasonable whois privacy policy.

Canada suspends involvement with ICANN.