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USA: Molly Ivins: The Day the Constitution Died: “When, in the future, you find yourself wondering, ‘Whatever happened to the Constitution?’ you will want to go back and look at June 8, 2004. That was the day the attorney general of the United States — a.k.a. ‘the nation’s top law enforcement officer’ — refused to provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with his department’s memos concerning torture. In order to justify torture, these memos declare that the president is bound by neither U.S. law nor international treaties. We have put ourselves on the same moral level as Saddam Hussein, the only difference being quantity. Quite literally, the president may as well wear a crown — forget that ‘no man is above the law’ jazz. We used to talk about ‘the imperial presidency’ under Nixon, but this is the real thing. The Pentagon’s legal staff concurred in this incredible conclusion. ”

USA: Cooking Up Excuses With the Pentagon - How to torture alleged terrorists and get away with it. By Phillip Carter: “However, no amount of caveating can save the latest Defense Department memorandum on the legality of torture (first reported by the Wall Street Journal) from being construed as what it is: a cookbook on how to conduct illegal torture and get away with it. The memo discusses ways to deprive federal courts of jurisdiction over Guantanamo Bay, lays out ways for government employees to avoid culpability under federal law, and explains why the president can unilaterally nullify the federal war-crimes statute, among other things. In case that’s not enough, it also recommends that spooks and interrogators get written orders from the president, so they can offer a Nuremburg-style ‘superior orders’ defense if prosecuted. ”

World: Reagan’s Soviet Adviser ‘Damn Lucky’: “‘Gorbachev told me that he [Reagan] had extraordinary human instincts,’ Massie said. ‘That’s very important for Russians.’ Washington bureaucrats had a stale approach to U.S.-Soviet ties, leaving the two sides locked in an arms race that had the two superpowers living in fear of each other. ‘They all just assumed that the Soviet Union was immutable, would never change. Think how many careers were built on that — bureaucratic careers. So status quo was much more convenient than anything else,’ Massie said. But Reagan turned the tide with his unique approach and interest in the Soviet people. ‘He really wanted to know how ordinary Russians thought and lived and their aspirations, rather than bureaucrats,’ she said. ‘He was the first president, I think, to understand very clearly the difference between ‘Russian’ and ‘Soviet’.’”

Sports: SI.com - NCAA Football - BCS’ 5th game to rotate between existing sites - Thursday June 10, 2004 3:12PM: “The Bowl Championship Series will play five games at the current four sites starting in the 2006 season, with the bowl that hosts the national championship game also hosting an earlier contest.”

World: Yahoo! News - Man’s Body Lies Undisturbed for 20 Years: My alibi: I was sophomore at the College of William and Mary. “The decomposed body of a man dressed in pajamas was discovered in an abandoned Tokyo apartment building 20 years after he is believed to have died, police said Thursday. A Tokyo Metropolitan Police official said construction workers were preparing to tear down the building earlier this month when they found the man’s skeletal remains laying face-up on a mattress on the tatami reed mat floor of a second-floor room. The morning edition of a newspaper dated Feb. 20, 1984 was on a table nearby and a calendar, opened to the same month, hung on the wall, said the official, who refused to be identified. ”