Slate‘s “explainer”: What Are Hamas and Hezbollah?

The Israel Defense Forces responds to the killing of the Palestinian boy. “The IDF wishes to express its sorrow at the death of the child and any incident in which lives are lost, but emphasizes that the Palestinians make cynical use of children’s lives by sending them to throw stones under cover of Palestinian fire that endangers their lives.”

Britannica.com‘s navel-gazing. And the Chicago Tribune‘s take on it.

Find your local haunted house. Go.com

Annals of the Erosion of Privacy (cont’d.): ACLU Action Alert: Secret Evidence. “This week, the House may vote on a bill, which has

already passed the Senate, to drastically expand

government power to seize personal information

without judicial approval.

The bill, H.R. 3048, would allow law enforcement to

obtain any kind of document it wants, without first

getting a search warrant or a subpoena from a court.

These documents include any written or electronic

document possessed by an individual or, more

frighteningly, any document held by a third party (such

as bank records, credit card records, telephone

records, school records or an Internet Service

Provider’s customer records). The bill would gut the

Fourth Amendment requirement that private documents

should be searched only after a court issues a warrant

based upon probable cause.” If you agree with ACLU’s efforts to oppose this bill, two clicks will send a fax to your Congressional representative saying so.

The Presidential candidates responded in detail to queries from the New England Journal of Medicine about their positions on health policy issues: the uninsured, Medicare, patients’ rights, and quality of care.

Ritual Objects of Cosmology: “DISCLAIMER: Manipulation of the space-time continuum may have unexpected consequences. We are not responsible for the release of

quantum singularities, or any electromagnetic, gravitational, nuclear or temporal effects including orbital perturbations, annihilation of

matter, suspension of physical laws, time loops, or other consequences, intended or not, that may result from normal, excessive or improper

use of these devices.” Explore the fermion accelerator, the graviton detector, the quantum flask and other exotic devices.

Both Oppose E-Mail Tax Bill (Good, Because It Doesn’t Exist). Someone in the audience asked Hilary Clinton and Rick Lazio, at their Oct. 8 debate, about their positions on the pending legislation that would levy a tax on email messages. Now you know, I know, and the New York Times knows that that is an endlessly recycling internet myth for the endlessly gullible, but Clinton, Lazio and their moderator took the bait and ran with it (and we’re eating up the egg on their faces?)