I'm on vacation starting Friday morning. For the next several weeks, I'll be posting somewhat less regularly than normal -- although probably something above nothing.

For literally billions of people around the world, this announcement not only won't be considered startling, it will pass totally unnoticed. One can only conclude that the poor souls haven't yet discovered what they've been missing.

However, if you are part of the small, elite group of humanity who might have a crisis triggered in your life by this development, allow me to express my concern:

Too bad. So sad.

And with that pro-active apology out of the way, the trout and salmon await ...

The war on terror has suffered another blow. A federal judge in Detroit has declared the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program to be illegal and unconstitutional. She wants it halted at once.

The NYT's Adam Cohen argues why the seminal Bush v. Gore ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States that handed the presidency to Dubya shouldn't be allowed to slide down the memory hole.

My blog turned two on Saturday. And, with more than 3,150 posts, is still going strong.

Do with this information what you will.

The Globe and Mail's Guy Dixon had a story published Tuesday about InsidetheCBC.com, a blog about the Corpse by Corpse staff.

I'd been carrying around the Aug. 7-14 issue of the New Yorker for days and days, but on Tuesday night on the subway, I finally read Nicholas Lemann's critique of citizen journalism.

You can too by clicking here. Personally, I think every journalist interested in the topic should read it too.

Here is the raw version of a commentary I wrote for Digital Journal magazine way back in June 2005:

Lamont and his supporters

U.S. Veep Dick Cheney laid it out for CNN last week after Democrat Sen. Joe Lieberman, a fellow traveller on Iraq, lost in the Connecticut primary to war opponent Ned Lamont.

He saideth: "Our adversaries in this conflict, the al Qaeda types, clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people."

The Daily Show's senior terror analyst John Oliver explains how right Dick is.

NYT public editor Byron Calame revisits the paper's decision to hold publication of the NSA eavesdropping story, which it may have had before the Nov. 2,  2004 election but didn't publish until Dec. 16, 2005.

This NYT analysis looks at how the U.S. is framing the current series of conflicts with Islamist groups.

Meredith Vieira wanted off the grueling track of ultra-big-time U.S. TV because she valued family more than career. Fifteen years later, she's making $10 million US per year hosting the most-watched morning show in America.

Now she finds herself asking if she's sold out. Other people frame it this way: Has she won?

Media organizations in South Africa say the say the Film and Publication Amendment Bill would mean that print and broadcast news would have to be pre-approved by government regulators.

From the Salon blurb: Homegrown U.K. terror is a growing threat, multicultural "tolerance" can't combat it, and the war in Iraq will only make it worse.

In the United States, the vacation appears to be dying as people maintain their electronic tethers to the office, fearful that if they don't, they'll get shit-canned or, even worse, lose promotional opportunities.

Israel wants some short-range artillery rockets from the United States that use cluster-munition warheads. Israel wants them to attack Hezbollah missile batteries, but can you say, 'collateral damage'?

This NYT article looks at how the U.S. has focused on learning from the lessons of 9/11 while forgetting about the possibility of new emerging security threats.

According to this BBC story, many Muslims are not happy with Dubya's talk of Islamic fascists as he reacted to news of the latest terror plot.

Political writer and academic Timothy Garton Ash looks at why Britain's Muslims appear to be the most alienated in Europe, according to a Pew Poll.

OK, so now we have a UN-approved resolution to halt the hostilities in Lebanon. How easy will de-fanging Hezbollah be without a political settlement that Hezbollah can buy into? I think we all know the answer: Not very.

Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, has decided to cut the budget of CJR Daily in an attempt to fund a subscription drive for the Columbia Journalism Review magazine.

With all the other things to target -- buildings, transit systems, to name a few -- why do Islamist militants keep returning to aircraft as a target? Defence studies professor Michael Clarke explains why.

This Slate column observes that U.S. businesses that cater to the mass affluent are reporting disappointing financial results. It sets out to explain why, and part of the answer is that "yuppie inflation" is rising faster than core inflation.

An excerpt from a commentary by Slate national correspondent William Saletan (h/t to The Tyee):

We're living in a liquid world. All the solid lines—states, borders, battlefronts—are melting. British Home Secretary John Reid made that point in a speech yesterday. Then he reassured Britons that their government, through tougher immigration control, was protecting them from terrorists, "many of whom come from far beyond our shores and have no real connection with our nation."

Nice try. According to reports, all 20 or so alleged conspirators arrested in the new plot are British citizens. Sealing your borders won't protect you.

So, what do we do? As Reid put it,

What happens when the threat to our nation, and hence to all of us as individuals, comes not from a fascist state but from what might be called fascist individuals? Individuals who are unconstrained by any of the international conventions, laws agreements or standards, and have therefore, unconstrained intent? Individuals who can network courtesy of new technology and access modern chemical, biological and other means of mass destruction, and who have therefore unconstrained capability?

The answer is, some of us die. And the rest of us grieve, but we go on, doing our best to fight the bad guys and heal the world. The grieving and fighting and healing never end the dying. "We are probably in the most sustained period of severe threat since the end of World War II," Reid observed. "While I am confident that the Security Services and Police will deliver 100% effort and 100% dedication, they can never guarantee 100% success."

That's the bottom line: We die. In a liquid world, you can't seal off evil. All you can do is fight liquid with liquid. You have to absorb the tragedy, flowing around and through it. You need the strength of a river, not a rock. You need resilience. You can't be untouchable, but you can be undefeated.

Reid ended his speech with a quote from Charles Darwin: "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." It isn't the individual who has to adapt and survive. It's the species.

This Globe and Mail analysis asks whether al Qaeda is back.

The Beeb rounds up what the Brit papers are reporting in their Friday editions on Thursday's 'bomb plot' arrests.

If you go to this CTV.ca story and click on the Kathy Tomlinson video item, what you'll learn that it's not that easy to blow a plane out of the sky. Plenty of planes have survived small explosions with minimal loss of life.

(On the other hand, The Globe and Mail headlined one story: Liquid-based explosives could easily down airliners. The paper has a story on a previous al Qaeda plot known as Operation Bojinka, which sought to blow up airliners over the Pacific Ocean).

As such, some of the intonations from officials about "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" strike me as hyperbole. Had the 9/11 bombers hit lower on the World Trade Center towers or hit a half-hour later, they could have likely killed thousands more people than the roughly 3,000 they actually did.

However, the fanatics behind these plots are not stupid people (although fortunately for us, they aren't criminal masterminds either). One of these times, they will get "lucky" -- and mass tragedy on a scale even greater than 9/11 will ensue.

The one I still fear is a dirty bomb or suitcase nuke detonated in a world financial capital.

On The Daily Show Thursday night, senior carryonologist John Oliver said: "I'm afraid these terrorists have struck at what we in the West hold most dear: Our beverages.

"They resent our wide array of fluid refreshment options. We live in the most easily quenched part of the world, and they hate that."

In discussing what types of fluids are now banned from aircraft, Oliver said: "At what viscosity do we draw the line? Is custard a liquid? How about clotted cream ... and what about yogurt. My God, that's a Pandora's box. We know there's fruit at the bottom, but what else lurks there?"

Oliver noted that the human body is 75 per cent water. "You, me -- Everyone is a walking bomb!

"If I had it my way, they'd be setting up steam rooms at all security checkpoints to evaporate the threat!"

There's another issue: All the people involved were British citizens, which means Britain must not be a democracy. "For as you know, democracy is the only known antidote to extremism."

When Jonno asked what that means, Oliver replied: "It means regime change, Jon. America must topple the British government.

"And don't worry, because Tony Blair has already pledged full backing for the overthrow of himself."

Jon Stewart had NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. on tonight, and didn't ask even one question about Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. That's made even stranger by the fact that Earnhardt had a cameo in the film.

From The Onion:

New Oliver Stone 9/11 Film Introduces 'Single Plane' Theory

NEW YORK—The controversial new film throws previous theories of multiple planes into serious doubt.

Prohibitively High Rocket-Fuel Prices Bring Mideast Crisis To Standstill

BEIRUT, LEBANON—Lines at the pump extended for miles as frustrated Hezbollah soldiers waited for hours to fill up their Katushyas and Qassam-2s.

Iraqi authorities took four Iraqi men into custody in connection with the Jan. 7 kidnapping of Jill Carroll, a young American journalist who had been freelancing for the Christian Science Monitor.

She was held for 82 days. Her interpreter was killed when she was grabbed in a west Baghdad neighborhood.

More at this BBC story.

As you may have heard, Reuters has cut a Beirut photographer loose for two cases of digital photo manipulation.

Gawker has one of the photos.

A Beeb editor, Steve Herrman, discusses the issue at the BBC editors' blog. He quotes Phil Coomes, the image editor for the Beeb website, as follows:

"Digital photography has altered the landscape of photojournalism like nothing before it, placing the photographers in total control of their output. All the news agencies have photo ethics policies, many of which are rooted in the days of film. The standard line is that photographers are allowed to use photo manipulation to reproduce that which they could do in the darkroom with conventional film.

"This usually means, colour balance, 'dodging and burning', cropping, touching up any marks from dust on the sensor and perhaps a little sharpening. If we are honest though, an accomplished darkroom technician could do almost anything and there are many historical examples of people being airbrushed from pictures.

"All this sounds fine until you look at the reality - one man’s colour balancing is another's grounds for dismissal.

"By definition a photograph is a crop of reality, it’s what the photojournalist feels is important. But it doesn't equate to the whole truth, and perhaps we just need to accept that."

Can someone remind me who said (words to the effect of): "A photo is accurate. It is not the truth." If one accepts the logic of that statement, then digitally editing a photo to enhance its accuracy should be acceptable. Adding something like more smoke should be out of bounds.

And it was! :)

Democracy Now! spoke with Richard Debs, member of the international advisory board for Morgan Stanley and the former chair of the board of the American University in Lebanon.

This Lebanese-American thinks the current conflict in Lebanon will be a long-term catastrophe for U.S. interests in the region.

Joe Lieberman's fate, apparently. The three-time Senator from Connecticut got dumped by his party last night. They went with Ned Lamont, who fiercely opposes the Iraq War -- and who didn't get bussed on the cheek by Dubya after the 2005 State of the Union speech.

What does it all mean? Adam Nagourney of the NYT has an analysis.