Meanwhile in the world

A federal judge declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional in the US.

Junk food provides one third of all calories in US diet, found researchers in Berkeley. I'd love to see their definition of "junk food". For that matter, I'd like to see anyone's definition of "junk food". Seems that different people use the term to mean totally different things, with some people meaning "food sold by fast-food restaurants", some "cheap food that is sweet or greasy", some "food that is unhealthy by any definition" and some "food high in calories". With the latter definition it's not surprising that junk food provides so many calories.

In Japan a 11-year-old girl killed a classmate with a boxcutter knife, and the country is in shock. I can understand shock over any violent crime in a place where violent crime is rare, but I don't really get the surprise over the age of the murderer. For a number of people the only thing that prevents them from committing some violent crime is the realization that they are likely to get caught. I don't find it surprising that someone so young has less sense to realize that they will get caught than an adult. i wonder about the motive though.

Jose Padilla, an American terrorism suspect who has been held in custody without charges for 2 years, is about to get his case heard in Supreme Court. I can't fucking believe it that it takes a hearing in Supreme-fucking-Court to decide that you cannot put a civilian US citizen on US soil into military detention for 2 years without charges - and the court hasn't even decided so yet. Even though from all I heard the guy probably really is a terrorist. The Padilla case will probably be resolved by the state presenting charges and evidence, but the question remains: what do you do with your own citizens who turn out to be enemy combatants?