As a followup to Shoe's post on June 12th about the growing sense of unrest among many constitutionalists and the folk at large, here's a link to the Not In Our Name statement. You'll recognize a majority of the names that have signed it, and watching this grow in the time before our fall elections will certainly be interesting.
Conspiracy nuts unite! Was Padilla part of the OKC bombing?
So this is making the rounds of the blogs, so why not ours as well. In the minds of some,Jose "Dirty Bomb" Padilla, resembles the elusive John Doe from the OKC attacks. The OKC newspaper hasn't picked up on it yet, but Salon has an old 2001 article on JD #2, and personally I find that it supports this conspiracy theory better than just the sketch does. Your mileage may of course vary.
A TV ad for the MicroSloth X-Box game console ran briefly in the UK, then was banned. Slate (owned by MS, as it happens) has a short article on it, and why, but you can see the entire ad here (once you choose your "job title" from the drop down list displayed--pick any one and you'll be taken to the QuickTime download/display). It made me laugh, which is more than any Microsoft product has done in years.
A Rant on the "enemy combatant" Twist in the "War on Terror"
I'm quite concerned, frightened even, by the designation of Jose Padilla (AKA Abdullah Al Muhajir), an American citizen, as an "enemy combatant" by President Bush. He is being held without charges and without access to his attorney. If the guy is guilty, let him be found so through due process. This seems not only to be a flagrant abuse of power, but a craven disregard in the faith and right of our constitutionally established judiciary to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Quoted in this CNN article, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, ""Our interest is not in trying him and punishing him. Our interest is in finding out what he knows." How inconvenient that the constitution doesn't grant the executive branch or the military the right to torture U.S. citizens whenever they see fit. I guess the administration's answer is to simply ignore it.
The "enemy combatant" designation was established by the Supreme Court in 1942 during World War II. All of the petitioners in that case were born in Germany, and all of them were found not to be US citizens. You can read the opinion here.
With whom are we at war in this "war on terror"? Can the president arbitrarily declare drug users "enemy combatants" in the "war on drugs"? Can he declare martial law on a whim?
There's a great piece by Jacob G. Hornberger called Declaring and Waging War: The US Constitutionhere. In it, he offers this quote (among others) from James Madison (bracketed text is by Hornberger):
The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war [and] the power of raising armies. A delegation of such powers [to the president] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments. The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.
I also find it telling (and the height of hypocrisy) that this administration insists on labeling captured (or is it "detained") fighters from Afghanistan "unlawful combatants", but when US fighters were captured, the President, Secretary Rumsfeld, etc. insisted that they be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. Another CNN article mentions that here.
I have no sympathy for those who perpetrated the September 11th attacks and their backers / supporters, and I find it very scary that President Bush and friends seem to think that it's just fine to ignore the constitution when it's convenient in the name of defending same.
Pyra Labs named "Coolest Media Company 2002" by Fortune Magazine
Pyra Labs, the folks (mostly Evan Williams, actually) that bring you Blogger (the software that brings you BellyFuzz), was named the coolest media company of the year by Fortune magazine. Woo Hoo! It does seem odd though that Fortune, which I hold to be decidedly uncool, has taken it upon themselves to bestow the mantel of coolness on others. Everyone has a right to their lists I suppose. Check out the article here. You might also want to read the related (and somewhat dated) article about the loss of "freebies" on the web.
