PC World: Sircam worm: crawling fast but easily crushed -- "Every e-mail user has the power at their fingertips to stop Sircam and other worms that arrive in online mail-- by simply hitting the 'delete' key. But the originators of these worms are counting on e-mail recipients' curiosity to override their common sense." When the message is from someone you know, it's even more likely that the attachment will be opened.

CNN: Rice vows 'resolute' action against Iraq -- George is getting pissed off.

Reuters: Iraq says Baghdad can beat any U.S. military attack.

NY Times: Urban police jobs are losing their appeal.

Salon: The war against nurses -- Urban cops aren't the only professionals in danger.

Washington Post: GOP won't try to halt last rules by Clinton -- "The Republicans' loss of the Senate, coupled with the growing assertiveness by GOP moderates, has forced Republican leaders to back down, according to lawmakers and strategists."

Lawrence Lessig: Jail time in the digital age -- "Something is going terribly wrong with copyright law in America." (NY Times, free registration required)

Another unexpected week off...

Washington Post: House backs arsenic rule -- "The Republican-controlled House voted yesterday to reinstate the tougher standard for arsenic in drinking water that had been issued by the Clinton administration." Slap George again...

Anthony Lewis: The vision thing -- "Underlying Mr. Bush's response on these matters there is a failure of vision. He takes a parochial view, driven by ideology and a narrow sense of where American interests lie. But in today's close-knit world our interests cannot be so easily separated from global needs." (NY Times, free registration required)

Salon: Kooks 'R' U.S. -- "By going its own way on biological weapons, Kyoto, missile defense and a growing list of global issues, the Bush administration is turning the United States into a pariah."

Woman sues over flaming Pop-Tarts -- Whatever happened to common sense??

Anthony Lewis: Bush the radical -- "[Bush's] changes in national security policy are even more radical, upsetting fundamentals that have defined our international outlook for more than 50 years." (NY Times, free registration required)

Reuters: Manslaughter probe of policeman in G8 shooting -- "The death of 23-year-old Genoa resident Carlo Giuliani overshadowed the opening of the three-day summit and triggered appeals for calm by G8 leaders as fresh protests were planned."

For all the average folks who throw up their hands and wonder "Why are they demonstrating?", Philip Jones offers a brief and to-the-point look at globalization.

Multi-national corporations are often not nice folks...

Joe Conason: Exporting corporate control -- Barrick Gold Mining, a company with cozy ties to the Bush family, is suing the British press in an effort to quell an unfavorable news story. "Several independent newspapers in Tanzania reported in August 1996 that as many as 52 miners were buried alive when bulldozers operated by Kahama Mining Company Limited, a firm later acquired by Barrick, filled in the pits, assisted by armed troops."

The editor of Surprise notes, "The thousands of peaceful men and women, who came not to destroy but to demonstrate, are used by people who are driven by hate. The peaceful demonstrators have become living shields for them."

Reuters: Killing of demonstrator clouds G8 summit -- "Italian police shot dead an anti-globalization demonstrator on Friday, bleakly sweeping aside the worthy words of world leaders on the opening day of a Group of Eight summit." The demonstrator had thrown a fire extinguisher at a police van.

Salon: Memo to George -- "We got ballot trouble in Florida, boss. Don't return any calls from Katherine Harris, and your lame brother? Think Fredo in 'The Godfather.'"

Newsbytes: Get ready to pluck your data from thin air -- An interesting look at unchaining personal data from the desktop computers we're so accustomed to.

On the other hand, Adam Barr, speaking of Microsoft's .Net strategy (store your stuff on their servers) notes: "I can't see paying money for central storage, when I can get better reliability for free by keeping the data where it already is, on my home machine."

Frozen geeks -- "...Techies make up a large percentage of those who have signed up for cryonic suspension, an experimental procedure used to preserve legally dead bodies in the hopes that future medical breakthroughs will allow them to be brought back to life." [Wired]

BBC: Schizophrenia 'linked to lack of sun'

Salon: Faith no more -- "In another slap at President Bush's agenda, a group of perhaps 15 or so moderate Republicans staged a minor revolt in the House of Representatives Wednesday, temporarily derailing one of Bush's top legislative priorities by threatening to join with Democrats unless the bill drops a provision critics describe as threatening civil rights."

Bush tours London, rejects isolationist charge [Washington Post]

Arkansas woman celebrates 119th birthday -- Maybe it's the Crown Royal whiskey? [AP]

Climate changes may unleash 'monster' hurricanes [CNN]

OK, we're back after an unexpected week's hiatus due to family illness. A lot of stuff has been going on!

Dan Gillmor: Case highlight's law's threat to fair-use rights -- The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 threatens to undermine the long-standing doctrine of fair use of copyrighted materials, seemingly only because they're in "digital" form.

President Bush is going back to Europe. Shudder...

Tom McNichol: Bush rests comfortably after surgery to implant pacemaker in brain.

The House of Representatives is backing Ashcroft's plan to shorten the amount of time that gun-purchase records are held.

In Defusing the Explosive Child, Lawrence H. Diller, M.D., argues that "Prescribing drugs, not discipline, will only escalate conflict, lead to more difficult kids and weaken our already-lax culture of parenting." [Salon]

Vice President Cheny would really like the Navy to pay his light bill. What a sterling example from the nation's energy czar.

NY Times: How Bush Took Florida: Mining the Overseas Absentee Vote. When presented with the results of six months' investigation by the Times, all Ari Fleischer could come up with was a comment that the people of Florida elected Bush, and only partisan die-hards were unwilling to move on. Hey, Ari, what about all the election reform that everyone talked about last December? The broken voting machines? The funky ballots? Oh, well -- I guess none of it matters now.

Bush père calls Saudis on president's behalf -- "The former president told the prince that President Bush's 'heart is in the right place' and that his son was going to do the right thing,' a Middle East diplomat was quoted as saying." This is not exactly reassuring regarding the present administration and our foreign policy. [Reuters]

ABC: Lawmakers pressure Bush on stem cells -- "Proponents of the research -- which scientists say could lead to cures for diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes and more effective treatments for debilitating brain and spinal injuries — praised its potential for medical breakthroughs." Critics, including House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), deem the proposed research "appalling." Delay declared, "Human life is too valuable! Let us condemn the logic of faulty research that extinguishes one life on the pretext of extending others." Mr. Delay, hailing from the execution capital of the U.S., should have noted that only certain lives are valuable.

Microsoft has agreed to give computer manufacturers more leeway and not require them to include the Internet Explorer web browser in off-the-shelf PC systems. The move is seen as further evidence of the company's willingness to settle its antitrust case with the government. However, almost everyone seems to have forgotten that Microsoft insisted during the trial that the browser was an inextricable part of Windows, and that the operating system would not even work without it (which was a load of bull anyway).

AP: Senate votes to bar mining and drilling -- "The Democratic-led Senate voted Wednesday to bar coal mining and oil and gas drilling inside federally protected national monuments in the West, dealing a fresh blow to President Bush's energy production plans."

Washington Post: Fossils of oldest human ancestor discovered -- "Paleontologists searching the bleak desert of central Ethiopia have unearthed the fossilized bones of a 5.5 million-year-old creature that appears to be the oldest human ancestor yet discovered."

NY Times: Zero-tolerance policy is challenged -- "In a lawsuit that could affect subsidized-housing policies nationwide, several civil rights and women's rights groups yesterday challenged, as a form of sex discrimination, an Oregon zero-tolerance policy allowing the eviction of the entire household after a domestic assault."

Reuters: Justice Department reverses gun rights position -- "Reversing a position it adopted nearly 30 years ago, the Justice Department is preparing a formal legal opinion that individuals, not just groups, have a constitutional right to own guns, a view advocated by Attorney General John Ashcroft, department officials said on Wednesday."

AP: White House backs off religion exemption -- "Weaving its way through a fresh round of controversy over funneling federal money to religious groups, the White House backed off a plan to let the groups ignore local laws that ban discrimination against gays and lesbians."

Salon: "Microsoft threatened to sue unless the administrative offices and all 264 schools conducted an audit and proved that every piece of installed Microsoft software had a valid license."

Washington Post: Charity cites Bush help in fight against hiring gays -- "The Bush administration is working with the nation's largest charity, the Salvation Army, to make it easier for government-funded religious groups to practice hiring discrimination against gay people, according to an internal Salvation Army document." White House spinmeister Ari Fleischer insists the Salvation Army "misinterpreted" matters completely. The discrimination issue becomes nettlesome if "faith-based" charities start receiving federal taxpayer dollars. The Post also notes: "The document offers a rare glimpse into the private dealings of the Bush White House, and it suggests President Bush is willing to achieve through regulation ends too controversial to survive the legislative process. It also underscores the close allegiance between the administration and conservative groups."

BBC: Climate change 'will hit the hungry' -- "The warming climate will mean the world's poorest countries could lose up to a quarter of their food production, scientists say."

CNET: MSN outage enters fifth day -- While Microsoft scrambles to restore service to users across the globe, the outage casts a shadow on their upcoming Hailstorm and .Net services, which are based on users storing data on Microsoft's systems.

Newsbytes: Civil liberties group plans effort to protect Net parody -- The effort is geared to counter the "growing trend of trademark and copyright holders sending threatening cease-and-desist letters to the creators and hosts of constitutionally protected parody on the Internet."

Eli Lilly Co. inadvertently revealed the e-mail addresses of over 600 Prozac users. These individuals had signed up at Lilly's web site to receive automated e-mail reminding them to take their medication. So much for common sense... [Nando Times]

ABC: Lawyer says 'land grab' was spark for Idaho standoff -- Were Idaho authorities really concerned about JoAnn McGuckin's children, or were they more interested in the seized 40 acres of land that had been the family home?

Frank Rich: It's good to be the king -- "What's been farcical about the Bush presidency so far is how quickly his smug policy assertions . . . are upended almost instantaneously by events or facts (some of them supplied by his own administration)." (NY Times, free registration required)

YLife: The People's Net -- The Internet is far from dead.

CNN: Microsoft delays deadline for new licensing program -- If people scream loudly enough, Redmond will sometimes listen.

OpinionJournal: Court Ruling Was No Victory for Microsoft -- "In any case, Microsoft is hardly a leading innovator. It bought the technologies for its major products. Its genius has been in business and predation, not innovation."

The Daily Telegraph: Stop them taking liberties -- An impassioned editorial calling for sanity on Britain's road to becoming a surveillance state.

The New York Times reported yesterday that the Bush administration plans to define a fetus as a person eligible for medical coverage under the Children's Health Insurance Program. This sounds benign on the surface but is seen by critics as a back-door attack on Roe v. Wade. Of note, there are other perfectly functional ways to allow low-income pregnant women medical care under CHIP.

AP: Stem cell cloning flawed -- "This instability raises the possibility that using stem cells to treat health disorders may not work as well as some scientists have suggested, said Dr. Joann A. Boughman, vice president of the American Society of Human Genetics."

Washington Post: The boundaries of ignorance -- "Mercer walks up to an unsuspecting Ivy League student in Boston and asks: 'Do you think Canada should join North America? It's a big story up north. Care to comment?' The university student, who says he is studying politics, looks deeply into the camera and answers, seriously, that he is not quite sure."

NY Times: Christian school questioned over discipline for wayward -- Is shoveling manure old-fashioned punishment or felony child abuse?

Also from the Times, more on the Arizona 'boot camp' for troubled kids.

Steve Gibson: Microsoft does not understand security -- Richmond's decision to implement the full Unix sockets specification, unprotected, in the home version of Windows XP will literally leave everyone's front door not unlocked but wide open.

Dan Gillmor: At Microsoft, customer security comes second -- Trying to patch another security hole in 'Word' is daunting.

Linux Today: Who is "viral" now? -- "Are you prepared to bet your career, or your company's existence, that Microsoft will never sue if you write code that (a) behaviorally resembles a Microsoft product, (b) competes with a Microsoft product, or (c) clashes with the color of Bill Gates's underwear this week?"

AP: 14-year-old dies at Arizona boot camp -- "Anthony Haynes of Phoenix died Sunday at the America's Buffalo Soldiers Re-enactors Association camp near Buckeye, where the regimen includes forced marches, black uniforms, in-your-face discipline and a daily diet limited to an apple, a carrot and a bowl of beans for the day." At the camp for "troubled youths," the kids were also allegedly beaten and forced to eat dirt. So much for "tough love." The Maricopa County Sheriff is investigating. If I'm not mistaken, Sheriff Arpaio is the guy who bills himself as the "toughest sheriff in America," forcing prisoners to live in tents in the blazing desert sun.

Washington Post: Justice O'Connor questions death penalty -- "Speaking to a group of women lawyers in Minneapolis on Monday night, O'Connor noted that 'serious questions' are being raised about the death penalty, and pointed to the cases of 90 death row inmates who have been exonerated since 1973."

What do you do when your girlfriend becomes your step-sister?

Arianna Huffington: The matchmakers -- "Two hundred and twenty-five years after our nation's founding, we're still waging a battle for independence -- only now, it's not King George's rule we're fighting but the corrupting influence of special-interest money."

CNN: Tampa uses cameras to scan for wanted faces -- Tampa, Florida, is the first U.S. city to implement computerized facial recognition via permanent surveillance cameras. Critics' reactions range from mild discomfort to "Big Brother is here." Police say the system is no different than an officer standing on a street corner holding a mug shot. Beg to differ...

After Fidel Castro's recent fainting spell, Florida plans for turmoil in case the Cuban leader is incapacitated or dies. (NY Times, free registration required)

Egyptian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" deemed Satan's handiwork. [BBC]

While Bush-Cheney, Inc., push for more drilling, and Japan waffles on the Kyoto protocol, Europeans are discussing wind power as one alternative to burning fossil fuels.

William Safire: "Time for a new patriotism with less bombast but profound pride." (NY Times, free registration required)

David Grenier -- A thoughtful look at capital punishment as human sacrifice, and our hypocrisy over "collateral damage."

In thirty years' time, trans-Atlantic commuters might zip through a tube at 2300 MPH (in a vacuum!). Wow, I thought BART was claustrophobic; I'll pass, thanks.

ViewFromTheHeart: "The VP is going to be shocked (sorry) the first time this thing goes off in defib mode; it kicks like a Missouri mule. And if it happens during a press conference, the whole world is going to know the meaning of the word plotz."

Places to not move to: Prince George County. "Almost half of those shot were unarmed, and many had committed no crime. Unlike many departments, Prince George's top police officials concluded that every one of the shootings was justified." [Washington Post]