[rules-users] Newbie question: can I create a variable in the rules file?

Hi, I'm mew to this rules stuff, and although I've looked at rules engines such as Corticon before, I got introduced to JBoss Rules through JBoss Seam's security mechanism. I'm trying to expand on Seam's built in functionality to assess a user's permissions. My use case is that a user of the system may or may not have permission to a resource based on the user's role AND the current date. The system accepts certain actions only if "now" is between a certain start and end date. What I'd like to do is something like this: rule CanDoHisStuff activation-group "permissions" when c: PermissionCheck(name == "stuff", action == "do", granted = false) now: new Date() <--------------------------------------------------------------How can I accomplish this? ap: AppProps() Role(name == "A Role") eval(now >= ap.startDate, now <= ap.endDate) then c.grant(); end; Now, I understand that in my code, I could assert an object "now". However, a lot of the security is hidden behind the scenes in Seam. For example, this rules will be fired from an XML definition file. E.g. <page view-id="/restricted/doStuff.xhtml"> <restrict>#{s:hasPermission('stuff', 'do', null)}</restrict> <navigation from-action="#{createStuffManager.yesConfirmSave}"> <end-conversation/> <redirect view-id="/restricted/viewStuff.xhtml"/> </navigation> </page> While I could start extending Seam's security model, that seems a bit invasive for such a simple task. Thanks /Kris