Clay Shirky: "... Microsoft's ambitions for [Hailstorm] are large: they would like to create the world's largest address registry, not only of machines but of people as well. In particular, they would like to host the identity of every person on the Internet, and mediate every transaction in the consumer economy. They will fail at such vast goals of course, but succeeding at even a small subset of such large ambitions would be a huge victory."

Washington Post: Fossils of giant dinosaur found -- "The long-necked plant-eater lived 90 million years ago, weighed between 60 and 70 tons and may have been 100 feet long...."

Reuters: Oklahoma bomber McVeigh seeks execution delay -- After reviewing thousands of pages of previously withheld documents, attorneys for McVeigh allege that the government is withholding even more evidence, some of which may point to a wider conspiracy.

NY Times: A beautiful life, an early death, a fraud exposed -- Hundreds were devasted when "Kaycee" died of leukemia. Hundreds more were devastated to find out her story was a hoax.

CNN: Police hope older sister will defuse kids' standoff -- The coverage of the kids who don't want to be taken away by The Man after their mother was arrested has been interesting. The reference to a "cache of guns" keeps recurring. By the sound of it, this is a modern-day frontier family who knew how to live off the land, i.e., hunt for game to eat. Many accounts convey the impression of a pack of gun-toting maniac children. Whatever is going on, at least the authorities in Bonner County are playing it low-key and not pushing things too hard.

NY Times: "They're scared, I'm sure. Your dad dies a couple of weeks ago, and then your mother's taken away from you -- that would be a little unnerving, don't you think?"

Salon: UFOs in the land of the rising sun -- An entertaining look at the UFO culture in Japan.

NY Times: Bush's mistake in California -- Gov. Gray Davis' editorial explains why the president is full of beans.

CNN: Deputies wait out armed children in Idaho -- "County authorities backed away from a standoff with armed children outside a northern Idaho home Wednesday after the children released a pack of dogs on officers who arrested their mother." More at ABC.

Reuters: Amid California sequoias, Bush talks environment -- The administration feels that its anti-environment image is unfair and seeks to devote more funds to national parks. Critics write it off as a meaningless photo-op.

Dan Gillmor: Microsoft's dominance may just be beginning -- With the court-ordered breakup likely to be tossed out on appeal, Redmond chugs along unchastened.

David Coursey: Why Office XP could be your last big MS upgrade -- Interesting predictions on the coming subscription software model. A friend raised an interesting point recently: How does this "software rental" concept mesh with your right to use your computer that you paid for? Coursey thinks the rest of the world will fall into line with this model; I hope he's mistaken. :-)

Nando Times: Internet access rates on the rise -- With the death of "free internet service" companies and a substantial rate increase by AOL, other Internet service providers are following suit.

NY Times: Oil boom nears for Alaska, even if refuge isn't drilled -- Alaska is on the verge of a boom as large as that of the mid-seventies when the Trans-Alaska pipeline was built.

Found on an online forum: "When my goverment can FLAWLESSLY administer parking tickets, truancy, taxes, social security and welfare, THEN I will allow them to administer a law that allows them to kill me."

Reuters: Daschle blasts tax bill, wants meeting with Bush -- the incoming Majority Leader referred to the taxt cut, passed this weekend, as a "ticking time-bomb."

AP: McVeigh documents raise new questions -- "One of the newly discovered FBI documents handed over to Timothy McVeigh's lawyers calls into question evidence used to discredit a witness who testified he saw McVeigh with a second man an hour before the bombing, according to a published report."

The day after

One day after Sen. Jim Jeffords announced he would leave the the Republican party, the GOP and the Bush administration are plainly scrambling for damage control. Sure, this is understandable, but they're kicking up so much dust in the process that it's hard to mistake.

Although White House chief of staff Andrew Card said "I wish I had served the president better," Karl Rove, Bush's senior political strategist implied none-too-subtly that Jeffords' decision was based not on principles but on chairmanships. Sore loser...

In Mr. Bush's Fumble, the New York Times notes: "[Jeffords'] departure reflects a historic ideological shift in the G.O.P. resulting from President Bush's mistaken choice since taking office of trying to placate the conservatives to whom he feels he owes his nomination and election, at the risk of alienating party moderates who hold the balance of power in Washington

From yesterday's Washington Post: Right-wing media turn up the heat on Jeffords

Washington Post: Bush's tougher leadership challenge -- "...It is imperative Bush recognize it is not very smart to say, 'I'm a conservative, and I don't care what the results are. I'm going to govern the way I want to govern.'"

Bruce Shapiro: Will Trent Lott pay for losing the Senate? -- "Bush and Lott have between them managed to lose the Senate over a simple matter of respect, the most basic political currency in Washington, and one that often transcends ideology. Their willful disrespect of Jeffords turned a policy disagreement into a personal grudge match, and finally into a political crisis."

NY Times -- "[Jeffords] seems to feel the way Ronald Reagan felt when he switched to the Republican Party in the 1940's. Mr. Reagan said he had not deserted the Democratic Party, but rather that the party had deserted him. That is precisely what happened to Mr. Jeffords as Mr. Bush pulled his conservative bait-and-switch with the American electorate after running as a moderate."

Jake Tapper: Why'd he do it? -- "...The White House's 'Vengeance Is Mine, Sayeth the Bush' campaign -- a mystifying combination of charmlessness and cluelessness said to be orchestrated by senior presidential advisor Karl Rove and the White House's Hill lobbyist, Nick Calio -- seems to have worked its magic: Bush has now cut off his Jeffords to spite his face."

The balance of power shifts

AP: Jeffords Leaves Republican Party -- "In order to best represent my state of Vermont, my own conscience and principals that I have stood for my whole life, I will leave the Republican Party and become an independent." Many Republicans are furious. A Vermont resident expressed a different sentiment: "He's voting his conscience. I just wish the rest of the Congress was like that." Amen.

Washington Post: Jeffords announces GOP defection -- "The Democrats' majority status will enable them to set the tone for hearings on an array of issues, including Bush's nominations of federal judges. Chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee, which conducts such hearings, will switch from conservative Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to liberal Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)." While gasoline prices and California blackouts having been garnering most of the headlines, the matter of Bush's conservative judicial appointments has been worrisome; their effects will last long after this administration's tenure.

Boston Globe: Move could slow president's agenda -- "This will significantly alter the legislative landscape in Washington and create a very different environment for George W. Bush. The American people are going to be awakened to what the judgment of a single senator means." Also of note, Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico will likely replace Senator Frank Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, as chairman of the Energy Committee. Sen. Murkowski has favored opening the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) to oil drilling; Sen. Bingaman has been opposed to the idea.

It is worth noting that the current Democratic euphoria may be easily undone if a conservative Democratic senator opts to defect. For now, at least in these parts, this change feels like a breath of fresh air and a cause for tempered optimism.

NY Times: Researchers debunk placebo effect, saying it's only a myth -- "Over and over again, medical journals and textbooks [have] asserted that...placebo effects were so powerful that, on average, 35 percent of patients will improve simply if they are told that a dummy treatment is real." The new study indicates that this phenomenon is actually a cherished myth with no substantive basis.

President Bush will meet with Gov. Gray Davis next week to discuss California's energy crisis.

Bush meets the Dali Lama

Salon: The White house vandal scandal that wasn't -- How the incoming Bush team nudge-nudged a credulous press corps into swallowing a trashy Clinton story.

Senator Jeffords has postponed his announcement until Thursday.

Reuters: Jeffords change could switch balance in Senate -- "Members of both political parties expect Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont to bolt the Republicans, a dramatic defection that would give Democrats control of the now evenly divided Senate for the first time since 1994." Jeffords is expected to make an announcement today.

Washington Post: Sen. Jeffords may quit GOP -- "A switch by Jeffords would have a profound impact on the balance of power in Washington, giving the Senate a 51-49 Democratic majority and posing new problems for Bush's legislative agenda."

Taliban: Hindus to be required to wear label -- "The edict -- reminiscent of the yellow Star of David that Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany -- prompted an angry statement from Hindu-dominated India." [AP]

Reuters: Japan scientists find possible Alzheimer's cure -- Fifteen years of testing may still lie ahead, however.

BBC: Astronomers reach the 'edge' of Universe -- "It is becoming clear, researchers say, that there is a great deal of light in the Universe that cannot have come from normal galaxies and for which, as yet, we have no adequate explanation."

CNN: Beefing up power plant threatens California refuge wildlife

Dan Gillmor: Bush energy plan: drill and burn

Puritans in Cyberspace

Reuters: High court to decide Internet pornography law -- The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments starting in the Fall concerning the Child Online Protection Act. "To comply with the law, operators would have to severely censor their Web sites or would have to adopt age or credit card verification systems to shield minors from material deemed harmful 'by the most puritan of communities in any state,' the appeals court said.

When COPA was passed in 1998, Congress apparently saw no irony in trying to apply the community standards of a small Bible-belt town to an international computer network. ACLU lawyer Ann Beeson noted, "How else can you explain a law that makes criminals of our clients, who include the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, writers of sexual advice columns and Web sites for a bookstore, an art gallery and the Philadelphia Gay News, to name a few."

David Gergen: A Presidency Reconsidered -- An interesting look back at personal convictions and the Ford presidency.

Dan Gillmor: Professor's battle exposes abysmal copyright law -- "...The arrogance of the music industry has thrust Felten, a computer science professor at Princeton University, squarely into the middle of a fight that will help draw some crucial boundaries in the digital age."

Thomas L. Friedman: A Perfect Storm? -- "President Bush is not responsible for America's energy crisis, its current economic slowdown or even for all the tension between the U.S. and China and the U.S. and certain allies. What he is responsible for, though, is managing these situations. And that is what's worrying." (NY Times, free registration required)

Salon: Wanted -- An interesting case for trying Henry Kissinger as a war criminal.

Reuters: Bush says energy plan will avert 'darker future' -- "President Bush called for expanding U.S. coal, oil and nuclear power production and offered conservation incentives on Thursday to beat back high gas prices, blackouts and 'a darker future.'"

Notwithstanding the power problems in California, the nation is not necessarily experiencing an energy crisis. However, fueling that belief will certainly benefit the administration's pro-oil anti-conservation agenda.

Anthony York: Feeling the heat -- "As Bush unveils his industry-friendly energy plan, even members of his own party are starting to sweat."

Washington Post: Bush plan: Deja vu all over again -- "The energy crunch eventually will abate and most Americans will forget about it until the next time fuel prices soar and rolling blackouts darken homes and offices. It has happened often before, and veterans of past encounters say it will happen again." Also an interesting look back at previous energy "epidodes" and their outcome.

Reuters: California OKs steep electric rate rise -- "California regulators on Tuesday approved a staggering set of electric rate increases -- as much as 80 percent for some energy hogs -- in a bid to narrow the gap between retail rates and soaring wholesale prices."

NY Times: In Energy Plan, Property Rights May Be an Issue -- "President Bush's energy plan, set to be released on Thursday, is widely expected to include recommendations to allow the federal government to seize private property, using eminent-domain authority to place new electric transmission lines, administration officials say." (Free registration required)

Also from the Times, Indifference to California -- "...Mr. Bush continues to give short shrift to a genuine crisis that needs immediate attention -- the energy mess in California, which is likely to become even more burdensome to individuals and more dangerous to California's financial integrity as the summer months approach."

Reuters: Brain Growth Does Not Stop in Adolescence -- Our brains continue to develop till nearly age 50, not stopping at adolesence.

CNET: Eazel is shutting down -- Development of Nautilus, the company's friendlier front-end for Linux, will continue privately, however.

From the Totally Absurd Department: Manure payments vex Russian doctors. In the town in question, hospital doctors' salaries range from $24 to $52 a month. [ABC]

Yesterday was hardware upgrade day: a new flat-screen display and a replacement hard drive. What a difference!

USA Today: FBI's repeat offenses -- "It is not entirely fair to view the FBI solely through the lens of its most colossal failures.... But each public incident of bumbling, often followed by a coverup, seeds doubts about every other act of the FBI, no matter how perfectly performed."

NY Times: Senators Criticize F.B.I. on McVeigh Papers -- "...Lawmakers cited what they called F.B.I. bungling in a number of other high-profile cases, including the fatal assaults that ended standoffs between federal agents and citizens in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and against the Branch Davidians' complex near Waco, Tex., in 1993. They also mentioned the bureau's failure until this year to arrest one of its agents, Robert P. Hanssen, who has been accused of espionage dating back many years." (Free registration required)

It is perhaps stretching coincidence that the FBI "discovers" thousands of pages of documents in December; Director Louis Freeh announces he is leaving the FBI early; and the news of the "missing" documents is broken six days before McVeigh's scheduled execution. Hopefully an investigation will get to the bottom of matters; on the other hand, perhaps Mr. Freeh will appear before Congress and, as has been written elsewhere, smile and waltz away.

Reuters: High court says no medical marijuana exception -- "The nation's highest court unanimously refused to carve out a 'medical necessity' exception from the federal law that prohibits the distribution of marijuana as an illegal drug." Proponents are crying foul; however, federal law classifies it as a controlled substance, and there is only one exception allowed under the law: government-approved research projects.

CNN: Singer Perry Como dead at 88

AP: California gas artificially overpriced -- An Assembly subcommittee has determined that natural gas suppliers drove up prices artificially. "At one point there was a 2,795 percent difference between the price of gas at its source in the Southwest and its cost at the California border."

LA Times: FBI has 'terrible record' on high-profile case data -- "The discovery of long-missing documents in the Timothy J. McVeigh prosecution marks at least the fifth time in recent years that the FBI has failed to disclose evidence in a major case, triggering calls for an overhaul of the agency's record-keeping and investigative procedures."

Salon: Botched! -- "If the government can't get it right in this case, how can we rely on it to get it right in any case?" Experts react to the FBI blunder.

NY Times: Europe's view of the death penalty -- "European politicians and intellectuals, who view the death penalty as a human rights issue, are incredulous that Americans support a punishment that fails to deter crime, targets mainly those who cannot afford a decent lawyer, is used on the mentally retarded and has often gotten the wrong man." (Free registration required)

Utne Reader: An Antidote to the Spin Doctors -- PR watchdog John Stauber talks about corporate disinformation and collusion. "If I could wave my hand as the benevolent despot and make a sweeping change in the U.S. legal system, I would undo the hundred years of court decisions that have given corporations all the rights of citizens and relegated all the rest of us living, breathing human beings to second-class citizenship."

ABC: Sir Bubba? -- Tony Blair reportedly ponders continuing a virtual tradition, that of knighthood for former U.S. presidents.

NY Times: The F.B.I.'s Lost Files -- "Even if the the failure to turn over documents in this instance is determined to be unintentional, as agency officials claim, it would still not excuse an antiquated record-keeping system that misserves both prosecutors and defense attorneys. Such lapses could, in a different case, end up costing an innocent person his freedom or even his life." (Free registration required)

Washington Post: Energy crisis solutions years away, Bush says -- The president continues to insist that tax cuts and building more refineries are the road to salvation. New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat, noted "...Whatever tax cut we pass will not compensate most families for the enormous increase they're seeing in gas prices and prices for their home heating and electricity."

AP: Rolls-Royce issues recall after car explodes -- "...Rolls-Royce engineers found the electric current from the power windows ignited fuel vapors that had entered the car." The Corniche model in question only costs US$360,000.

Reuters: U.S. delays McVeigh's execution until June 11 -- "[Attorney General John] Ashcroft also ordered an investigation into why the FBI failed to give [McVeigh's] lawyers thousands of pages of documents. Perhaps the FBI's antiquated computer system is to blame.

Salon: Dick Cheney's 10 energy-saving tips!

Dan Ackman: A phantom energy crisis -- "Vice President Dick Cheney, in a speech last week in Toronto, pointed to the situation in California as a harbinger of doom.... It looks like the administration's public relations efforts are bearing fruit. A recent poll indicates that 53 percent of Americans believe we are in an energy crisis and a like number are willing to put the extraction of new supplies ahead of environmental concerns."

Microsoft will launch Windows XP, their new operating system, on October 25. "Windows XP is designed to enable multiple users to save files on one computer while keeping those files private from each other, to give an authorized person access to another computer over the Internet to fix problems and to allow a PC user to access his or her computer from another through a new remote access function." [via Nando Times] For Unix/Linux users, this is hardly revolutionary. The piece makes no mention of the dubious "Hailstorm" (part of Win-XP), in which users' files will reside on Microsoft servers. Hide your data! ;-)

Reuters: Distracted drivers pose safety hazard -- Cell phones were only cited in around 1.5% of the cases.

Joe Consason: Bush league -- "America's ouster from the U.N. Human Rights Commission reveals the arrogant incompetence of Bush's vaunted 'wise men.'"

BBC: Chernobyl children show DNA changes

Reuters: BBC: Genetically altered babies are born -- "The world's first genetically modified babies have been born in the United States after women unable to conceive naturally underwent a revolutionary new fertility treatment, the BBC reported on Friday." The full BBC article is here. The infants are reported to be healthy; they possess genes from their father, mother, and a third woman.

Linus Torvalds' great rebuttal to Microsoft's recent attack on open-source software as the destroyer of intellectual property. Remember Isaac Newton?

Reuters: Murder victims' families try to spare McVeigh -- "In the months after his daughter's death, Welch admits he wanted to see McVeigh 'fry' but then came to see the death penalty as nothing more than revenge and hate -- the very reason why Julie Marie and 167 others died."

CNNFN: Microsoft rewards tattlers -- "Microsoft Corp. is rewarding computer makers who turn in customers who want to buy machines without the Windows operating system, a published report said Wednesday."

Microsoft: Free-software licenses are the devil's work! -- Andrew Leonard takes a look at how Microsoft's latest attack on open-source software may backfire.

CNN: U.S. ousted from U.N. Human Rights Commission -- "In what amounts to a stinging rebuke, the United States has been voted off the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva." Speculation as to motive includes U.S. policies in the Middle East and the Bush administration's recent bail-out from the Kyoto climate treaty.

Reuters: 'Enemies of the Press' named on Press Freedom Day -- "Marking 10 years since the United Nations declared May 3 World Press Freedom Day, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) issued a hard-hitting statement protesting against the murder of journalists and calling for 'zero tolerance' of violence against press freedom."

Dylan Tweney: Open secrets -- "The state of privacy on the Internet is almost as confused as the state of online copyright. Actually, it's worse."

Joel Achenbach: Conservatives aren't conservationists -- "There are some things I don't understand about conservatives, such as why they don't like to conserve anything."

Anthony Lewis: The two George W. Bushes -- "The lesson of the [China spy plane] episode should not have been lost on Mr. Bush. For all its power, the United States cannot just impose its will on the world. Unilateralism has limits, and costs. The interesting question now is whether Mr. Bush will think about applying that lesson in domestic affairs. For on a whole host of domestic policy issues he has sought to impose his will even more starkly." (NY Times, free registration required)

Salon: Olson's inconsistencies -- "After further questioning, Bush's solicitor general-designate now admits he knew more about the anti-Clinton 'Arkansas Project' than previously stated."

Reuters: Embarrassed Pentagon reverses order on China ties -- "An embarrassed Defense Department on Wednesday reversed an order issued by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office which had mistakenly suspended American military ties with China."

BBC: China blasts Bush policies -- "His whole-hearted wish is to cast off the shadow of 'the weak president.'"

SJ Mercury News: Microsoft declares war on 'free software' model -- Yet another Microsoft exec says Linux and the General Public License will mean doom for intellectual property. Right...

ABC: Gene therapy helps blind dogs see -- The discovery may help the nearly 10,000 people who are born with Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA).