Midday Open Thread

• The U.S. Senate could intervene in the Minnesota election.

  "Ultimately, the Senate has complete authority to determine who was elected," Washington University political scientist Steven Smith told the broadcaster, citing the canvassing board's decision this week to disallow disputed absentee ballots that Franken had urged be counted.

  The board's move was "a cause for great concern," Reid said this week, and those comments may indicate his willingness to start a Senate investigation of the Minnesota recount, Smith said. And if so, it's possible that Franken's argument regarding rejected absentee ballots could be reconsidered by U.S. senators.

  Under the constitution, the Senate is the final arbiter of its membership, MPR noted.

• A U.S. interrogator speaks out about interrogation methods used by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• The Department of Defense is increasingly concerned about cyber warfare after combat zone computer networks were recently hacked.

Reporting from Washington -- Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President Bush this week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on Defense Department computers that may have originated in Russia -- an incursion that posed unusual concern among commanders and raised potential implications for national security.

Defense officials would not describe the extent of damage inflicted on military networks. But they said that the attack struck hard at networks within U.S. Central Command, the headquarters that oversees U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and affected computers in combat zones. The attack also penetrated at least one highly protected classified network.

Military computers are regularly beset by outside hackers, computer viruses and worms. But defense officials said the most recent attack involved an intrusive piece of malicious software, or "malware," apparently designed specifically to target military networks.

• Arkansas has experienced five earthquakes this month and scientists are beginning to ask whether there might be a previously unknown fault line in the region.  Scientists caution the smaller quakes could be a precursor for a larger quake.