Mark Frauenfelder:

Max Blumethal went to the College Republican National Convention Tour and discovered that these well-groomed young men and women strongly support the war in Iraq. But when Blumenthal asked them why they weren't fighting in Iraq, the students offered creative and entertaining excuses. Link

biednyFacet writes "It has long been suspected that there is a silent policy that makes Hotmail automatically delete the majority of attachments to save on bandwidth and internal disk space. Therefore it really doesn't matter if every client has access to 2GB of storage since they don't deliver the attachments to fill that space up anyway. If that truly is the case, then Microsoft may be liable for several hundred million cases of conspiracy and mail fraud."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Frauenfelder: Todd says:

The latest Executive Order from the War Criminal Administration facilitates and sanctions the taking away of property of anyone who is deemed to be "undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people". Left in those terms, it isn't too much of a stretch to envision this Administration deciding that any particularly vocal critic of the Iraq occupation is "undermining efforts" and thus a target for seizure of property or assets, Fifth Amendment be damned.

Big news indeed, and yet it has received scant little attention in the media. Shameful in every regard, but it troubles me even more that this latest criminal act has crossed a new threshold in reckless disregard for the US Constitution, and yet hardly a soul even knows about it.

As Wonkette sums it up: "If the White House decides that you are in any way 'undermining efforts' in Iraq, or related to Iraq or pretty much anything else, the Treasury Department is authorized to seize your money, property, stocks, etc. The pride is back!"

Link to the White House's Executive Order

Reader comment:

Robert says:

Sorry to criticize, but you screwed up on the White House Executive Order story.

The Order clearly only applies to people who have "committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of: ... (B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people"

In other words, it doesn't apply to anyone who is "undermining efforts." It requires violence + undermining efforts. You left off the first part. I'm not saying that this makes the order any better, but at least it limits it.

Further, the President cannot take away property of US citizens by fiat. That's prohibited by the Fifth Amendment. This is directed to foreign nationals who are holding their assets in the US.

Greg says:

Robert is incorrect about the scope of the executive order and who it applies to.

1) it has a broad theoretical reach, i.e., anyone who the executive branch says "pose[s] a significant risk of committing" acts of violence that "undermine efforts" in Iraq. It's like the Dept. of Pre-Crime.

2) the EO applies to "U.S. persons," a group which includes U.S. citizens, not just foreign nationals parking their money in the U.S.

Talking Points Memo has some analysis from the ACLU and other experienced voices on the topic.

juct writes "The FBI has used PC spyware for the first time to reveal the identity of an offender who sent bomb threats to a high school in Washington state. According to heise Security, a declaration from the FBI official who applied for the search warrant describes the mode of operation of the spyware which the FBI is using under the abbreviation CIPAV (Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xeni Jardin: Matt Sullivan from Popular Mechanics says,

In the wake of nearly 200 people going down in flames with a Brazilian airliner this week, we took an exclusive look at 36 years’ worth of NTSB reports and seating charts. The best way to live through a disaster in the sky? Move to the back of the Airbus.

Link

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "Researchers at New Jersey Institute of Technology have developed an inexpensive solar cell that can be painted or printed on flexible plastic sheets. According to the lead researcher, "Someday homeowners will even be able to print sheets of these solar cells with inexpensive home-based inkjet printers. Consumers can then slap the finished product on a wall, roof or billboard to create their own power stations." The team combined carbon nanotubes with tiny carbon buckyballs (fullerenes) to form snake-like structures. Add sunlight to excite the polymers, and the buckyballs will grab the electrons. The article abstract is available through the Journal of Materials Chemistry, with an illustration of the technology."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xeni Jardin: Kevin Poulsen from Wired.com broke a story this week about the first confirmed use of an FBI Trojan horse program in a criminal investigation. He tells BoingBoing,

Last month the FBI sent a program it calls a "computer and internet protocol address verifier," or CIPAV, to the owner of an anonymous MySpace profile linked to bomb threats against a high school near Seattle. The code led the FBI to 15-year-old Josh Glazebrook, a student at the school, who pleaded guilty Monday to making bomb threats, and related charges. From my article:

The spyware program gathers a wide range of information, including the computer's IP address; MAC address; open ports; a list of running programs; the operating system type, version and serial number; preferred internet browser and version; the computer's registered owner and registered company name; the current logged-in user name and the last-visited URL. The CIPAV then settles into a silent "pen register" mode, in which it lurks on the target computer and monitors its internet use, logging the IP address of every computer to which the machine connects for up to 60 days.

Link to Kevin's story. The FBI search warrant affidavit describing the CIPAV is here: Link (pdf)

Xeni Jardin: BoingBoing reader Billy says,

Four federal inmates were indicted Tuesday on allegations that they copyrighted their names, then demanded millions of dollars from prison officials for using the names without authorization.

The inmates sent demand notices for payment to the warden of the El Reno federal prison and filed liens against his property. They then hired someone to seize his vehicles, freeze his bank accounts and change the locks on his house. Unfortunately, the person they hired turned out to be an FBI agent.

Link

Xeni Jardin: Snip:

[Counselor name] is available to speak with parents and children, as well as the media, on how to cope with feelings of grief and loss. This is a particularly timely issue with the release of the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows scheduled for release this Saturday, July 21, 2007. Recent articles have sparked rumors suggesting that one or more main characters will die. This could have a serious impact on children, millions of whom have grown up reading, watching and profoundly enjoying the characters and storylines of the Harry Potter series.

Link (via needcoffee, thanks John "Widgett" Robinson)

After quarters upon quarters of nearly flawless performance, Google has finally hit a speed bump. The company failed to meet Wall Street earnings expectations, owing to a combination of rapid hiring and unimpressive advertising sales. By the standards of any other company, this quarter would've been very strong, but since it's Google, it's held to a much higher standard. Still, the company is publicly putting on a brave face, claiming that things look bright going forward. Google's freewheeling hiring and spending shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to anyone, seeing as the company continues to aggressively recruit, all the while releasing a slew of new offerings. If the company's problems are as simple hiring too much, then the continued growth of its business should eventually make up for the extra overhead. But if the company's problems are deeper -- and some of the advertising woes suggest they could be -- then its management will be find itself in uncharted territories, as it tries to right the ship amidst a slowdown.

Mark Frauenfelder:
Todd Lappin writes about this gallery of breathtaking photos from atop the Bay Bridge, taken by a person identified as "Unaesthetic."

I work for a company who does wireless networks and IP camera systems. We had some equipment up there that wasn't working properly and when the opportunity arose in talking to them I basically made it absolutely clear that I would definitely have to go up there to fix it.

Link

No doubt it's a Scoble world.

And he says Facebook is a black hole.

Sucking up all the data from all other apps.

But I wonder.

Could it be that the real revolution is that all the other apps were ready to be ported into any environment? That there already was enough data portability in the broad support for RSS in the base of apps that is enabling it to appear as if Facebook is subsuming everything? Could it be that Facebook is just another way of reading feeds?

I don't really know because unlike Scoble I haven't been sucked into Facebook myself. I'm enjoying the summer. I bought a car. Hanging with friends. Flirting with and orbiting around the opposite gender. Feeding coins into parking meters. Thinking about what I can do to help my country. Almost anything but getting obsessed with Facebook.

Could it be that the world is passing me by?

Yes, it could be.

Or it could be that I already have a great feed aggregator and the world is just catching up?

What do you think?

PS: Did you read this in Facebook?

PPS: I've had a chance to get to know the Parakey guys, and I can vouch for their idealism. They just joined Facebook. So that bodes well for Facebook de-siloing and really opening up to the rest of the web, in the spirit of sending them away so they can come back.

Mark Frauenfelder:
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission announced a recall of the Easy-Bake Oven due to entrapment and burn hazards. The recall notice says:

Young children can insert their hands into the oven's opening and get their hands or fingers caught, posing an entrapment and burn hazard.

I posted the first recall of the hideous oven in February. The old design (left) was much better, and prettier, too.

Last weekend (inspired by Merlin Mann's recent de-cluttering kick) I happily threw my kids' Easy Bake Oven in the trash. Maybe I'll build them a dorkbake oven to replace it. Link (Thanks, Bob!)

Mark Frauenfelder: Sigbritt Lothberg of Stockholm has 40 gigabits-per-second fiber-optic Internet connection. It just might be the fastest residential connection on Earth.

In less than 2 seconds, Lothberg can download a full-length movie on her home computer — many thousand times faster than most residential connections... The speed is reached using a new modulation technique that allows the sending of data between two routers placed up to 1,240 miles apart, without any transponders in between...

The article says she uses her connection to read online newspapers, and nothing more. Link (Thanks, Mike!)

RobertB-DC writes "With no fanfare, and apparently no outcry from the privacy community, Anonymizer Inc. discontinued its web-based Private Surfing service effective June 20, 2007. No reason was given, either on the Anonymizer web site or on founder Lance Cottrell's privacy blog. Private Surfing customers are now required to download a anonymizing client that handles all TCP traffic, but the program is Windows-only (with Vista support still a work-in-progress). And of course it's closed-source, which means it has few advantages over several other alternatives."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xeni Jardin: This week marks the birthday of 18th century English naturalist Gilbert White. Chris Vallance from the BBC tells BoingBoing, "Mrs V has just started blogging his journals which he wrote day-by-day..well worth checking out." Snips:

# 1776: July 19, 1776 – Sambucus ebulus. Dwarf elder blows. Fungi begin to appear.

# 1772: July 19, 1772 – Some thunder & hail. Smart showers.

# 1771: July 19, 1771 – Tabanus bovinus. Trenched out celeri. Wind tears the hedges & flowers.

# 1768: July 19, 1768 – Young swallows are able to take flies for themselves.

Link.