This was actually taken yesterday–our gorgeous beach weather has given way to nasty freezing rain (though the freezing rain makes a really cool sound). But while I’m working on other things, I thought I’d share yesterday’s sunshine, dunes, and really cool ice formations.

The New York Times heralds that, Swiss Locate Funds Linked to Mubarak But what the story really reports is that the Swiss have located just “several dozen million Swiss francs,” which works out to less than $38 million of the up to $70 billion Hosni Mubarak reportedly looted from Egypt. The real headline of the story [...]

In news that will not surprise you in the least–but will put you off your breakfast–Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo will not be charged. Federal prosecutors have shelved a criminal investigation of Angelo R. Mozilo after determining that his actions in the mortgage meltdown — which led to $67.5-million settlement against him — did not amount [...]

Jack Goldsmith links to an interesting document from the RummyLeaks library: then Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld’s memo to President Ford reviewing possible candidates to replace William Colby as head of the CIA. But Goldsmith doesn’t call out the most amusing part of the memo: the way that Rummy asserts that Poppy has the intelligence [...]

Here’s the main thrust of Judge Richard Mark Gergel’s decision to dismiss Jose Padilla’s Bivens suit against Donald Rumsfeld and other high level Bush officials who denied him his Constitutional rights. The Court finds that “special factors” are present in this case which counsel hesitation in creating a right of action under Bivens in the [...]

AFP has a report (notably picked up by Pakistan’s Dawn) on the Senate’s hand-wringing over whether we should tie aid to Pakistan to the release of Raymond Davis, the “consulate employee” who shot two alleged Pakistani spies. Here’s what Lindsey Graham had to say: But Senator Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on Leahy’s subcommittee, strongly [...]

When Jason Leopold linked to a WSJ report titled, “Obama breaks bread with Silicon Valley execs,” I quipped, “otherwise known as, Obama breaks bread w/our partners in domestic surveillance.” After all, some of the companies represented–Google, Facebook, Yahoo–are among those that have been willingly sharing customer data with federal law enforcement officials. Which is why [...]

Hunton & Williams, the law firm that solicited HBGary and two other security firms to spy on Chamber of Commerce opponents, has remained silent so far about its efforts. But it hasn’t covered its tracks. The SEIU reports that people from Hunton & Williams spent 20 hours last November–at the time when Themis was pitching [...]

“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?” “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” “The dog did nothing in the night-time.” “That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle (Silver Blaze) [From ew: William Ockham, who knows a whole lot more about coding [...]

A year and a half ago, I warned that if you bought certain beauty supplies–hydrogen peroxide and acetone–you might be a terrorism suspect. I’m going to make a wildarsed guess and suggest that the Federal Government is doing a nationwide search to find out everyone who is buying large amounts of certain kinds of beauty [...]