Mild-mannered spam victim strikes back. Wired News story about a graphic artist whose domain and professional reputation were effectively hijacked by a spammer -- and what he did to fight back:

One week later, the spammer struck again, using Markley's domain. Five days after the second attack, the spammer struck yet again. Thousands of bounce reports and hate e-mails arrived in Markley's inbox. And Earthlink reps told Markley they could do nothing to help him. So "blood boiling, furious and literally foaming at the mouth," Markley set out to track the spammer down. (...)

Markley checked the headers on the original spam returned with some of the bounces. Then he learned how to access domain-registry information and how to use a trace-route program. Over the next two weeks, he painstakingly worked his way through a half-dozen hijacked servers and a dozen spoofed e-mail addresses and bogus identities to find "his" spammer. "Last Thursday, at around 7 p.m., I finally knew without a doubt that my nemesis was Eddy Marin, who has a reputation as the world's most prolific spammer," said Markley.

Link [Boing Boing Blog]

Bravo for Better Brains

Scientific American's September special issue "Better Brains" provides some important detail on several aspects of our emerging neurosociety.  Here I've highlighted each article's key point and put a link to a Brain Waves post where I came to the similar conclusions.   

• A Vote for Neuroethics - the editors - "Do we really need another subdiscipline of a subdiscipline?  After all, we have bioethics..."  "Our vote is a decided yes for moving ahead.  The technologies of the mind and brain are special..." Accelerating the Neuroethics Discussion
• The Domesticated Savage - Micheal Shermer - "Like foxes, humans have become more agreeable as we've become more domesticated."...A plausable evolutionary hypothesis suggests itself: limited resources led to the selection for within-group cooperation and between group competition in humans...this bodes well if we can continue to expand the circle of whom we consider to be part of our in-group" (note Jared Diamond is a biogeographer.)   A Relative Emotional Gauge
• Ultimate Self-Improvement - Gary Stix - "More important, the technology (brain imaging), perhaps coupled with genetic testing will create a more sound basis for diagnosing brain disorders."  Neurotechnology will Define Mental Disorders
• Brain, Repair Yourself - Fred H. Gage - "The challenge now is to learn more about the specific growth factors that govern the various steps of neurogenesis -- the birth of new cells, the migration of newborn cells to the correct spots, and the maturation of the cells into neurons..." Neurons Love to Kiss and Run
• The Quest for a Smart Pill - Stephen S. Hall - "...there are four million Americans with Alzheimer's disease, another 12 million with a condition called mild cognitive decline and approximately 76 million Americans older than 50, many of whom may satisfy a recent FDA definition for age-associated memory impairment (AAMI), a mild form of forgetfulness." Cogniceuticals to Enhance Memory
• Stimulating the Brain - Mark S. George - "...the use of rTMS (repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) as a treatment for depression is still considered experimental by the FDA...(but) has already been sanctioned for use in Canada..." Stimulating a Smarter You?
• Mind Readers - Philip Ross - "Should this concept-recognition system work with even minimal reliability, it might be coupled with lie-detecting fMRI software to produce a much more sophisticated tool.  In principle, law-enforcement officers might use.." When will the Feds Mandate Brain Scans?
• Taming Stress - Robert Sapolsky - "...such insight carries with it a social imperative: namely, that we find ways to heal a world in which so many people learn that they must always feel watchful and on guard or that they must always feel helpless." Dear Mr. President
• Diagnosing Disorders - Steven E. Hyman - "By combining neuroimaging with genetic studies, physicians may eventually be able to move psychiatric diagnosis out of the realm of symptom checklists and into the domain of objective medical tests." Neurotechnology will Define Mental Disorders
• Is Better Best? - Arthur L. Caplan - "It is the essence of humanness to try to improve the world and oneself...the answer is not prohibiting improvement."  "It is ensuring that enhancement is always done by choice, not dictated by others." "Market-driven societies encourage improvement.  Religious and secular cultures alike reward those who seek betterment; every religion on the planet sees the improvement of oneself and one's children as a moral obligation.  If anything, the impending revolution in our knowledge of the brain will require us to build the legal and social institutions that allow fair access to all those who choose to do what most will feel is the right thing to do."  Neuroethics: The Battle for Your Mind

Interesting crossover to say the least.  In my forthcoming book -- Brain Wave: Our Emerging Neurosociety, I weave a non-fiction future built on these issues that details the future of business, geopolitics and culture in a world driven by neurotechnology.

[Corante: Brain Waves]

Depressing Poem Generator  [via Idle Type < The Presurfer] [jenett.radio: dailywebthing]

Those folks at google just don't quit.

Courtesy of Scott Hanselman the folks at Google now have search by location.

While I don't know why they are choosing an obscure location on the near SW side as a starting point, and why Gino's East, Giordano's, Uno's, Due's, Pizza Capri, Leona's, etc. aren't listed first ;-) it is a very cool tool.

 http://labs.google.com/location

 

[Sean 'Early' Campbell & Scott 'Adopter' Swigart's Radio Weblog]

Other Dimensions? She's in Pursuit. Fascinating piece on one scientist and her obsession with 10 dimensions in the NYT:

It might seem obvious that we live in a world of three spatial dimensions and one of time. But physicists have become enamored of string theory, the "theory of everything," which posits that nature is ultimately composed of tiny vibrating strings. And the theory only makes mathematical sense if space-time actually has 10 dimensions.

To explain the discrepancy between theory and experience, string theorists have posited that the extra dimensions are rolled up, like the pile on a carpet, into little circles or six-dimensional balls, less than a trillionth the size of an elementary particle.

[[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]]

Great Aurora Picture.     [Astronomy Picture of the Day]

MusicMatch Store Boosts Windows Media Audio. Today's launch of the MusicMatch digital music store is a significant win for Microsoft's Windows Media Audio technology. MusicMatch's approach, like Apple's, demonstrates digital rights management done right. To purchase songs, users need to upgrade to MusicMatch 8.1. Like Apple's... [Microsoft Monitor]

Disney's Utopian EPCOT in an academic book. Walt Disney and the Quest for Community is a (pricey, $50) academic text on Walt's Utopian dream of building a city called EPCOT -- Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow -- on the grounds of his planned Florida theme park. EPCOT would have asked its worker-citizens to sign away their Consitutional rights in favor of a code-of-conduct specified by Walt and embodied in the Park's designs, and included plans to be electrically self-sufficient through the construction of a nuclear power-plant.

Written by a professor of Urban Planning, the book seems to have been written from the perspective of utopianism in urban design, with Walt as a kind of Bizarro-world Jane Jacobs. This is a subject that's always fascinated me -- the idea of a top-to-bottom Disney-mediated utopian community. There was a generation of Americna entrepreneurs who dreamed of these things -- Ford reportedly built planned communities in Brazil called "Fordlandia" where he subjected his rubber-plantation workers to his utopian vision (which included the banning of the local booze in favor of Tom Collinses, which were inherently Utopian in Ford's eyes).

"Mannheim does a remarkable job in detailing the Disney's revolutionary urban planning contributions that shape most of the modern world."
Edward J. Blakely, Dean, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University, New York, USA

"The book is the first to reveal Walt Disney's deep personal concern for the urban "crisis" of the time..."
Gerald Gast, Associate Professor, Portland Urban Architecture Program, The University of Oregon

Link [Boing Boing Blog]

Sci-fi writer Bruce Sterling fingers ten obnoxious technologies that deserve to die... [[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]]

Bush’s Watergate?.

When Richard Nixon authorized the crime of breaking and entering into the Democratic committee offices in Watergate, he was riding high in the opinion polls, and faced a relatively weak opponent.  It was Nixon’s hubris, the belief that laws didn’t apply to him in terms of political power, that ultimately brought him down, once his lawbreaking scheme was uncovered.

 

But it took relentless pursuit of the lawbreaking before it finally rose to the level of an official and public scandal.

 

Today, we have the first indication of Bush’s Watergate.  It appears that Karl Rove has committed a felony in the Whitehouse, and the CIA has asked the Justice Dept. to investigate.  

 

The Felony was Rove’s telling Robert Novack that Valerie Plame, the wife of U.S.

Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA operative.  This was in political retaliation for the report and article written by her husband, Wilson, explaining his trip to Niger and how the reports of Iraqi attempts to acquire Niger uranium were discredited a year before Bush used that pretext to go to war.

 

Now, we have a situation where Ashcroft’s Justice Dept. is being asked to investigate a felony by Karl Rove.  This will go nowhere unless the newly empowered democrats pick it up, and hold hearings, force the press to cover it, and in general exercise some oversight with Ashcroft.

 

Ultimately, it will lead to the impeachment or defeat of Bush, who now has a documented case of his chief political advisor committing a felony to smear those who have said he was lying about Iraq.

 

Kos is asking the press to pick up on this.  I suggest that it get reported all over the blogs until the mainstream press is embarrassed into actually pursuing a story that is not fed them by their right wing masters.

[Toby's Political Diary - 'Let it Begin Here']

Exercise in social change (applying game theory to have more fun). After looking for a decent technical support forum I one day stumbled upon a site called Tek-Tips. The web site which I highly recommend for IT professionals is a place where anyone can go with a technical questions and receive answers from talented volunteers worldwide. The site is divided in forum for different programming languages and computer programs and uses a positive feedback channel called the star system. To give a star all you had to do is press a button and it showed to that person that their answer or post was helpful to you. The stars each individual receives is added up and counted by the site owners to create the list of each forum's top experts. Being in a forum top expert list is a much coveted distinction and silent competition happens to reach top spot. My brother and I decided to analyze the dynamics of this web site and see how we could beat a system in the fastest time possible. This story explains our attempts to reach top spot in our favorite forums. [kuro5hin.org]

'Consciousness': Reality Programming. Adam Zeman, a neurologist trained in philosophy, plumbs both the mystery and the physicality of consciousness. By William H. Calvin. [New York Times: Books]

Edison Schools.

Edison Schools

I am speechless.

[The Agonist]

BeardCon comes to the US. The World Beard and Moustache Championships are coming to Carson City, Nevada on Nov 1 -- this'll be the first BeardCon on US soil in over a decade! Maybe the first EVAR! Link (via Geisha Asobi)
[Boing Boing Blog]

living and renewal. An Audit for the Soul As we enter the Jewish High Holy Days--the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah (the new year) and Yom Kippur (the day of atonement)--some examinations on how personal reflection and renewal is essential to a healthy life, whether continual, periodical, or annual. [MetaFilter]

How To Do The Asian Squat. "How To Do The Asian Squat" is a 1950's style mockumentary by Daniel Hsia which explores the mystery and wonder of the Asian Squat. [Quicktime.] [MetaFilter]

Illbient, Neurotrance, VGM, Psytekk..... Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music, v. 2.0. Now covering 140 genres with 635 samples. I'll just go ahead and say it:

[this is good]

[MetaFilter]

Blazing a trail.

River Person or Goal Person.

Dina Mehta quotes from an article by Chuck Frey:

The late self-help expert, Earl Nightingale, once explained that there are two types of people: river people and goal people. Both types of people can experience personal fulfillment and success in life, although in different ways.

Goal People

Most of us are undoubtedly familiar with goal people. They are the individuals who write down their objectives and timetables for reaching them, and then focus on attaining them, one by one. By laying out a roadmap of future achievements in front of them, goal people give their creative minds a clear set of stimuli to work on. Their subconscious minds can then get to work incubating ideas and insights that will help them to reach their goals.

River People

River people, on the other hand, don't like to follow such a structured route to success. They are called river people because they are happiest and most fulfilled when they are wading in a rich "river" of interest -- a subject or profession about which they are very passionate. While they may not have a concrete plan with measurable goals, river people are often successful because they are so passionate about their area of interest.

River people are explorers, continually seeking out learning opportunities and new experiences. For river people, joy comes from the journey, not from reaching the destination -- exactly the opposite of goal people.

Recognizing both qualities in yourself -- Most people are a combination of these two personality types. I know I am. In my full-time job, I am expected to be goal oriented. I have specific personal and departmental objectives for which I'm responsible. At the same time, however, I get the most "juice" out of being an explorer, learning new skills, collecting information and writing about innovation and technology.

So beautifully written. I guess I am a bit of both, though the river person tends to dominate. What about you?

[E M E R G I C . o r g]

I've have always used a different metaphor. I would rather blaze a trail than build the town. Finding a new path is much more exciting for me than getting just the right brick for the wall. I would rather wander, finding things I would never think to look for, than make sure the roads are straight. Adventuring versus process. We need both but I prefer the former and will fight to be allowed to go a'roamin'. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]

Compaq FAQ explains the 'Any Key'. Someone tell Homer [The Register]

Free Monopoly money PDFs. Hasbro has released high-rez, printable PDFs of Monopoly money. Great stuff, especially if you're playing a Cheapass Game that needs currency-tokens. Link (Thanks, Zed!)
[Boing Boing Blog]

Mighty Brew for the Do-It-Yourselfer. How long does it take to find an Internet site that would satisfy a yearning for a cup of dark, strong coffee so assertive that it risks assault charges? By Michelle Slatalla. [New York Times: Technology]

Hammersley's Florentine travelogue. Ben Hammersley -- hacker, journo, gentleman adventurer -- has moved to Florence with his three high-strung doggies and his devastatingly tall, brilliant and beautiful Swedish wife, and is chronicling an adventure there right out of a (very funny) fairy tale.

Down at Marco's, my newly adopted cafe-for-the-evening, a habit is forming. Pico bounds in the arms of someone lovely, Mischa wanders into the bar and receives pizza crust benediction, and Lucy stands outside and watches the passers-by, leaving me, leads taut in three directions, stretched in the doorway, balancing my caffأ¨ coretto on the icecream fridge, and trying to remember enough Latin roots to work out what people are talking to me about. It's really quite amazing how long you can keep a conversation going without understanding more than one word in ten. I had a long one yesterday afternoon about hare coursing in Argentina. I think. Still: lovely chap.

Link [Boing Boing Blog]

Michael Moore Responds to "Wackos" on Bowling for Columbine. "Bowling for Truth", "Moore Lies", "Moore Watch", "Michael Moore Hates America" -- the right wing has been busy in its campaign to discredit filmmaker and author Michael Moore and his film Bowling for Columbine in particular. Last month, I wrote a response to the critique by NRA lawyer David Hardy, which has been the main source for many of the anti-Moore sites. But I was somewhat disappointed by Moore's responses to the criticisms -- Moore has always been Internet-Savvy, but up to this point, there was only a somewhat meager FAQ (the link is now dead; Google cache). In light of his pending book publication in October (Dude, Where's My Country?), Moore is now fighting back against the "Lying Liars" (an Al Franken expression which Moore has borrowed for the title of his response). On his Wacko Attacko page, he answers in detail to the most common criticisms of the film. [kuro5hin.org]

Neal Stephenson launches a Wiki to explain his new novel. Inpsired by Quicksilver, his giant doorstop of a new novel, Neal Stephenson has put up a wiki where his readers can collaboratively annotate the ideas in the book:

My own view of the Metaweb is pretty straightforward: I don't think that the Internet, as it currently exists, does a very good job of explaining things to people. It is great for selling stuff, distributing news and dirty pictures, and a few other things. But when you need to get a good explanation of something, whether it is a scientific principle, a bit of gardening advice, or how to change a tire, you have to sift through a vast number of pages to find the one that gives you the explanation that is right for you. Generally this is not a problem with the explanations themselves. On the contrary, it seems as though a lot of people like to explain things on the Internet, and some of them are quite good at it. The problem lies in how these explanations are organized.

We have been looking for a way to get an explanation system seeded for a long time, and it occurred to us that a set of annotations to my book might be one way to get it started. At first, the explanations here will be strongly tied to characters and situations in QUICKSILVER and so may be of only limited interest to those who have not read the book. However, with a few clicks we might move on to more general explanations. For example, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle appear as characters in QUICKSILVER, and so early on we might see annotations concerning specific things that they are shown doing in the book. But later these might link to explanations of Boyle's Law. Such an explanation need not refer to QUICKSILVER in any way, and so it could be useful to, say, a high school student who has never heard of me or my book but who needs to understand Boyle's Law and why it is important.

Link (Thanks, Jeremy!) [Boing Boing Blog]

Magnificent space-age illustration gallery. Dreams of Space is an enthusiastic and wonderful gallery of vintage space-related illustration from the 1890s to the 1970s, divided by era. Link (Thanks, Charles)
[Boing Boing Blog]

Pick A War, Any War.

Pick A War, Any War

Do you really think Bush's economic war on the middle class, is any less lethal than his military war? With legislation on bankruptcy pushing so many people over the edge of the cliff, taxation that favors the wealthiest in this country and the vaporizing of 3 million jobs, you don't have to wear camo and take a trip to Iraq to be taken out by Bush. You can be murdered right here at home in this economic holocaust. And don't they dovetail perfectly? The $87 billion he'd like us to give him for military spending and the defiicit he's building should be sure to get rid of the middle class for once and for all, and turn the good old USA into a bankrupt third world country. [Halley's Comment]

It's me, I'm Cathy, I've come home. Is this really the most depressing book cover of the year? Because I kinda thought this one was. [via AntiPixel] [MetaFilter]

Moodstats - Also for your blog. Moodstats rocks. It's a small tool you have to install on your computer to update your moodstats. You have three... [Blogcritics]

Extra-terrestrial beings: what if they turned out to be not only technologically ahead of us, but morally too? Paul Davies on E.T. and religion... [Arts & Letters Daily]

Thanks, MetaFilter, It's Been Interesting. "May You Live in Interesting Times": The 'Chinese Curse' is semi-debunked.
A scholar (over-)documents his search for the true origin of this oft-repeated quote (Google found it 10,800 times). Here's more about/from Professor DeLong. And here's a semi-official response from China. Appropriate, since here's how one writer amended the original. And, just for snarkiness, here's a related quote from a familiar figure. [MetaFilter]

Benefits of Diet Can Kick in Late in Life [Scientific American]

How To: By You. How To: By You is a "sociological project is about the study of knowledge among human society and how it can differ and change." Topics range from how to cook the perfect grilled cheese sandwich to catching fish, with seemingly no limit to the possibilities. Got a question for the unwashed masses? Or maybe you have the ultimate martini recipe. Show off your intuition. [MetaFilter]

101 Ways to Cope with Stress  [via Dewayne Mikkelson and his Radio WebDog, Shadow] [jenett.radio: dailywebthing]

Inside the Eagle Nebula (2003 September 21 ) [Astronomy Picture of the Day]

Testing the 'Five-Second Rule' on Dropped Food [NPR News (Audio)]

Pursuing the 17th-Century Origins of the Hacker's Grail. Neal Stephenson's gargantuan 927-page historical novel, "Quicksilver," imagines a project to organize all of human knowledge. By Edward Rothstein. [New York Times: Technology]

More -- what happens when friends are full of shit? [Scripting News]

The Elegant Universe on PBS. One of my favorite books, The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, is being turned into a three part NOVA special to be aired on PBS in late October & early November. Here's what I wrote about the book back in April 2001: The Elegant Universe (paperback version) is easily the most accessible book on modern (and postmodern?) physics I have ever encountered. The examples, metaphors, and analogies Brian Greene uses... [kottke.org]

Exploring the Brain's Boundaries (A Six Part Blog by Tom Ray)

Next week Tom Ray, tropical ecologist, artificial life expert, and now neuro-mapping pioneer will share his thoughts on accelerating our understanding of the neurochemistry of consciousness by mapping what he calls "receptor space."

Tom is a true complexity expert -- an evolutionary ecologist of both the biological and digital worlds.  Tom's rich research agenda and advice have inspired me over the past 15 years.  His ecological research and conservation efforts in Costa Rica stimulated my work on disturbance behaviors in Atta cephalotes (leaf cutter ants) at Finca La Selva.  His work at the Santa Fe Institute on Tierra, a distributed digital artificial life reserve, pushed the science of complexity to new levels.

Hundreds of articles have been written about Tom's previous research.  I'm confident his approach to mapping the potential mental states that the human mind can experience will prove to be his most important work to date.  Few people have first-hand experience with multiple complex evolutionary systems.  It is this deep perspective that should allow him to contribute significantly to our understanding of the human mind.

As Paul Allen mentioned earlier this week, understanding the brain and how the mind emerges from it remains one of great frontiers of science.  I'm honored to have Tom Ray, for the first time, share his new research direction with us on Brain Waves.  Expect great thoughts!

[Corante: Brain Waves]

Another Bush Tall Tale. "Mostly, we've been watching the president's rhetoric spring leaks in Iraq and Afghanistan. So perhaps we haven't paid enough attention to how many holes have popped open in his domestic socks. Joblessness that was supposed to be stanched by the Bush tax cuts. Urban food kitchens overwhelmed by the demand from people who are working but underemployed and end up out of money three weeks into the month. A domestic Peace Corps program (AmeriCorps) that is praised publicly by the president as admirable volunteerism but is being starved of money by the White House and congressional Republicans. But, still, you wouldn't think he would stiff children and their schooling. That's maybe the most disappointing thing this president has done here at home."

Looks like the "No Child Left Behind/'accountability is the true foundation of education reform'/Texas education miracle" is just another Texas tall tale. [MetaFilter]

A damn good documentary. A 45 minute version of Franny Armstrong's Drowned Out will be shown Thursday under the title the Damned on Wide Angle on PBS (check local listings). It tells of the struggle to prevent a dam project in India which will displace thousands of families. Writer Arundhati Roy has focused on... [TV Barn]

Includes a blueprint for a life well lived.

The Interview Game. I have been interviewed by the Dynamic Driveler. Here are his 5 questions: 1. Do you believe in reincarnation? Give 3 reasons for your answer. 2. What do you hope to do in your life time to leave the world... [Indigo Ocean]

WordPirates. Messrs Weinberger and Gillmor have set up a site called WordPirates that captures submissions of instances of words whose meanings have been hi-jacked by practitioners of marketing-speak and politicians.

"Just in time for "Talk Like a Pirate Day" (Sept. 19), Dan Gillmor and I have this morning launched a site called www.WordPirates.com, a place where you can list and discuss words that have been hijacked by commercial and political groups for their own nefarious purposes.

For example, people who share MP3s may be many things, but they're not "pirates." And try telling the hotel checkout desk that because you were their "guest," you don't owe 'em a cent."

This is a growing movement close to my marketing revolutionary heart and it got me thinking that if Roman Catholic church ever launched an online donations service......

[Momentary Lapses Of Dilution]

Offered without Comment Because It's Just So Damn Absurd.

Ashcroft Mocks Librarians and Others Who Oppose Parts of Counterterrorism Law (Note: I can't even decide what to bold for emphasis because the whole thing is one giant foot in his mouth that would be funny if it wasn't so terrifying coming from the Attorney General of the United States.)

"Attorney General John Ashcroft today accused the country's biggest library association and other critics of fueling "baseless hysteria" about the government's ability to pry into the public's reading habits.

In an unusually pointed attack as part of his latest speech in defense of the Bush administration's counterterrorism initiatives, Mr. Ashcroft mocked and condemned the American Library Association and other Justice Department critics for believing that the F.B.I. wants to know 'how far you have gotten on the latest Tom Clancy novel.'

The association, which has argued for months that the government's new antiterrorism powers risk encroaching on the privacy of library users, took some satisfaction from the broadside....

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the department, said the speech was intended not as an attack on librarians, but on groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and politicians who he said had persuaded librarians to mistrust the government.

The American Librarian Association "has been somewhat duped by those who are ideologically opposed to the Patriot Act," Mr. Corallo said.

Mr. Ashcroft's remarks, he said, 'should be seen as a jab at those who would mislead librarians and the general public into believing the absurd, that the F.B.I. is running around monitoring libraries instead of going after terrorists....'

Mr. Ashcroft said critics had tried to persuade the public that the F.B.I. was monitoring libraries to "ask every person exiting the library, `Why were you at the library? What were you reading? Did you see anything suspicious?' "

The Justice Department, Mr. Ashcroft said, 'has no interest in your reading habits. Tracking reading habits would betray our high regard for the First Amendment. And even if someone in government wanted to do so, it would represent an impossible workload and a waste of law enforcement resources'  " [New York Times]

Ashcroft Bars the Doors to Democracy [Editorial]

"But while Ashcroft was telling Boston police how the government was using its powers under the Patriot Act, he didn't mention a January 2003 report from the General Accounting Office that revealed that three-quarters of the 'international terrorism convictions' for 2002 had been wrongly classified as terrorist crimes. They were, instead, routine immigration violations.

Nor did he mention a March 2, 2003, Washington Post report that out of 62 cases of 'international terrorism' that New Jersey prosecutors claimed to have handled, all but two involved Middle Eastern men who were accused of paying other people to take their English exams and who were not linked to terrorism in any way.

He may have repeated the claim, first made in a May 13, 2003, Justice Department report to the House and Senate Judiciary Committee, that FBI agents have contacted only 50 libraries nationwide to obtain records of library patrons, and then mostly in response to requests from librarians who saw something suspicious. But in testimony given to the House Subcommittee on the Constitution on May 20, 2003, then-Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh stated that 'Most, if not all of these contacts that we have identified were made in the context of a criminal investigation.'

In other words, the number "50" referred to criminal -- not national security -- investigations of libraries." [Boston Globe]

 

[The Shifted Librarian]

My wife likes this political site (misleader.com), cause she's doesn't like George Bush.

[The Scobleizer Weblog]

Franken's Supply-Side Jesus. One of the funniest bits in Al Franken's brilliant and scathing Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right is the comic-strip "Supply-Side Jesus." Now the strip's online -- enjoy! Link
[Boing Boing Blog]