I just stumbled on what looks like a seriously cool blog: John Battelle's Searchblog (“Thoughts on the intersection of search, media, technology, and more. Beta”).
Lots of very interesting stuff on searching and search engines. In what may be ironic, or just sensible, he's writing a book about it all, too.
Brad DeLong is asking people what questions Tim Russert should ask GW Bush. And he's primed the pump with a few zingers of his own. My reactions in order:
The full Supreme Court today endorsed the earlier one-Justice stay of the 9th Circuit's order in Bush v. Gherebi. That means that the detainees will not be informed that the Supreme Court, or anyone, is considering their situation. They can rot in limbo some more.
While it's in no way surprising that the Supreme Court should preserve the status quo pending its decision—indeed it's the only thing it could do given the government's claim of irreparable harm to national security—it is a little surprising that Solicitor General Olson is prepared to sign a brief stating (according to AP) that national security would be damaged by notice that the Supreme Court granted cert.
Communication with the prisoner would “interfere with the military's efforts to obtain intelligence from Gherebi and other Guantanamo detainees related to the ongoing war against terrorism,” Olson wrote in an emergency filing last week.
Seems somewhat implausible that these mid- and low- and very low-level folks have anything of value to say after this long, doesn't it?
The Senate Republicans will throw a senior aide to the wolves this week, in hopes of heading off inquiries into their personal complicity into Hackergate: Leak staffer ousted. Will it work? Much probably depends on what the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms reports when he concludes his investigation.
Wouldn't it be nicer to live in a world where the Senate's forms of civility were reflected in some reality?
I'm not going to keep writing about this, but having noted Discourse.net's promotion to Marsupial in the TLB Ecosystem, I feel honor-bound to also note the near-instant demotion to “Adorable Little Rodent”. It seems that rather than spurring legions of readers to add links to this blog, the effect of my post was to motivate almost 10% of the existing linkers to delete their links. Link numbers do fluctuate, but this drop was much larger than usual.
Rats.
The LA Times gets the scoop:
I'm not saying that every single time a Justice in the course of things related to their official duties gets something of value from the White House they should pay for it, even if the White House has an important case before the court. If, for example, a Justice goes to a state dinner, s/he should not be expected to pay for the meal.
This is totally different. It's a personal not an official thing.
Traditionally the legal definition of chutzpah was 'killing your parents and throwing yourself on the mercy of the court because you are an orphan'. Maybe it's time to redefine it as 'going on a private hunting trip partly paid for by the Vice President's office, then sitting to hear a challenge to the legality of secret meetings held by the Vice President.'
I am certain that history will be brutal to these people, but that's rather cold comfort.
Jotwell Blenderlaw