Maggie's Farm

Al Gore admits lying in his warming movie. He calls it "over-representation of facts" - but it's "for a good cause".  I guess there is  "no controlling legal authority" for Leftist propaganda. Will write more about this moral weakness of his later, because I think it is dangerous.

Bertie Wooster and the "insurgents" have something in common. They hate shorts. Iraq insurgents murder tennis players - LGF.  At the same time, Anchoress points out the hilariously redemptive humor of P.G . Wodehouse, without whom life would be much less delightful than it is.

The military murders in Iraq. A damn shame, if true. We train very professional soldiers, but we must have some sympathy for those few who lose it, in combat. Not to forgive it - but some understanding. Tragic, terribly wrong, but it does not discredit our effort to build freedom. The anti-American, anti-freedom forces will exploit any evil to the max in the effort to create false moral equivalencies. In war, bad shit happens. The best trained soldiers are only human and, who knows, it could have been me. I  pray that these guys have not shamed our country by descending to the moral level of the enemy.

John Kerry just won't go away. The reason the Swiftvets had an impact was because it was clear that the guy just smelled like a phony, pompous person, regardless of his military service. Our pal Kesler.

This is a somewhat re-worked piece from earlier in the week:

We have always asserted on Maggie's Farm that the Left has fascist impulses, which is the main reason we fear them. Many of us have been there - in our liberal youths - and done that, so we know what it's like to imagine that one knows how to run a utopian world. 

We believe that the Left wishes to control everything and anything they can -from the food we eat, to the games we play, to the cars we buy, to the guns we shoot, to the medical care we seek, to the stores we use, to where we enjoy tobacco, to the ways we participate in politics - in their illusion of wisdom and their will for power. I believe that this is why they can seem so strangely sympathetic towards, and apologists for, dictators like Stalin, Fidel, Chavez, Saddam, Hamas, etc. No Pasaran takes a look at the "progressive" adoration of Chavez.

The concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" persists, but, as it has always been, that becomes the dictatorship of thugs and the power-mad. Plato's philosopher-king doesn't work in real life.

When I see people from liberal democratic societies kissing the feet of socialist dictators - feudal kings, in effect - it gives me a chill, and gives anyone a chill for whom individual freedom - the free choice which confers dignity, and the consequences of our choices which confer humility as often as they confer joy and glory - is the holy grail. I know I am preaching, but I fear the tendency in the human species to be willing to sell one's birthright for a bowl of lentils or a bottle of snake oil.

But more than that, I fear  the lentil salesman.

Life was meant to be difficult and to stretch our neurons and muscles and spirit to the fullest as we seek our path through the dark woodlands and deserts of life, guided by whatever star or stars we chose. And still, we will fail in many ways. "Fail, and grow. Succeed, and stagnate." I said that.

Which leads to the subject of Risk. The freedom to take risks is one of the fine things about free capitalist societies, and you could make a case that people are compensated, in part, by the amount of risk they are willing or able to shoulder in their work (military, cops, miners, and firemen excluded - those are government jobs, so they don't count). Risk and responsibility go hand-in-hand. As a newspaper reporter, I have minimal responsibility other than covering my local assignments glibly, and, if I screw up, no-one really cares. But a whole world of work is open to me, if and when I decide to jump into the cold water and make a change. Freedom to fail - a very fine thing indeed. But it hurts.

Part of being American is a willingness to sustain the hurts without running to Mommy Government for a kleenex. (Americans run to trial lawyers instead - which is almost as much of a culturally-subversive trend.) 

I guess I have little more to add to what The Beatles say in Revolution and what Dylan says in My Back Pages. (excerpt):

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

(Ignore that continuation page below - I can't make it go away)

In our past pieces on weather and climate, we have predicted that any bad weather from 2005 until the election will be attributed to Bush. I even heard our Lieut. Gov. of Massachusetts last week attribute a week of heavy rain to global warming. A typical political ignoramus: did global warming give us this past gloriously cool and sunny May week in the Commonwealth, too? If so, give me more of it.

You might almost imagine that bad weather began with Bush. Somebody tell Noah.

From the two reviews (links below) I have seen, Al Gore's movie sounds like a propaganda exercise, filled with distorted, incorrect, and cherry-picked data points. And why ignore the Medieval Warm Spell? But why did he approach the subject in a non-objective way? And to what end? Altruistic? Political? Grandstanding? Playing Chicken Little? Or hoping for a TV weatherman job ("A band of thunderstorms with heavy hail are working their way across Kansas this morning, due to Bush.")? You tell me.

My opinion on climate? Climate changes happen. It is never static for long, regardless of the cause. And even if mankind did cause the current tiny upswing, nothing will be done about it. So enough hysteria, please! And Al Gore is a scold and a crank, like an old lady. What is the cure for the Common Scold?

One critique here, by Dr. Robert Balling, a Prof of Climatology, at TCS

And a letter to Al Gore from Dr. Roy Spencer, also at TCS

Is your house a "tear-down'? Around here, they are called "scrapers" if each bedroom lacks its own bathroom and walk-in closet, or if the parlor is larger than the family room. Prosperity sure does spoil folks in the US, but don't tell me they don't work hard for it, or take risks for it.

Dean reassures Dems: "We will find a way to screw this up." 

Maggie needs to lose 1000 lbs., but she won't exercise. We need to put her to work on the Farm, pulling pick-ups out of the mud, or pulling a plow, or pulling up stumps, or stomping deer poachers into fertilizer.

Love and Suicide. A new Moro film, made in Cuba. With a great photo of Cuba today.

Wounded soldiers (and healthy ones) find distraction and productivity via their laptops.

The limits of reason. John Stuart Mill got the importance of reason, but not of wisdom.

Sir Edmund Hillary advises - Don't leave the dying behind - help them.  Hey, Sir Edmund - when you need to get to the top of the heap, who cares? Let 'em die. "Honor" is old-fashioned and obsolete. Remember when Hillary Clinton told an audience in Australia that she was named after Sir Edmund - but it turned out she was born before he climbed Everest? The Everest climb has become a tragic joke, but an expensive one, in money and lives. If you want to do something with your life, do something worthwhile...not that there is anything wrong with climbing mountains.

From Michael Yon:

There are several new items posted on the website today, including a new dispatch entitled "Hiatus Corpus."  Also, a veteran who served in the Gulf War and at Mogadishu submitted two poems for the Frontline Forum.   There is news about our Canadian allies  in the Vox Sententia  box, and today we launch a new segment called "First Person Singular" where people who are in the news, and sometimes making the news, answer important questions about what they do and what they believe in. Bill Roggio  is our first "First Person Singular. "  Please visit http://app.bronto.com/x/trackclick.php?id=17062880_f182de20_129115&url=http://www.michaelyon-online.com/xyqyxBMIDSxyeyx17062880-f182de20-129115 and look for the New This Week box at the top center of the home page, all the above posts can be accessed from that spot.

On amnesty - stolen (but do laws matter anymore?) from Polipundit:

Liberty is the very last idea that seems to occur to anybody, in considering any political or social proposal. It is only necessary for anybody for any reason to allege any evidence of any evil in any human practice, for people instantly to suggest that the practice should be suppressed by the police.

G.K. Chesterton (1921)

Immigration and the conspiracy against American workers. It is always cheaper to import cheap labor than to mechanize, but do not imagine that all of this cheap labor will come from Mexico. It's already coming from Asia, too. An open-ended guest worker program will flood this country, solely for the benefit of businesses who understandably do not want to pay any more than they need to. VDARE goes into the subject at length. Labor has become a global commodity, as Marx surmised. 

We have always asserted on Maggie's Farm that the Left has fascist impulses, which is our main reason to fear them. We have been there and done that, so we know. We believe that they wish to control everything and anything they can, in their illusion of wisdom and their will for power, which is why they can seem so strangely sympathetic to dictators like Stalin, Fidel, Chavez, Saddam, Hamas, etc. No Pasaran takes a look at the "progressive" adoration of Chavez. It gives me a chill, and gives anyone a chill for whom individual freedom - the free choice which confers dignity, and the consequences of our choices which confer humility as often as they confer joy and glory - is the holy grail. I know I am preaching, but I fear the tendency in the human species to be willing to sell one's birthright for a bowl of lentils or a bottle of snake oil. But more than that, I fear the lentil salesman. Life was meant to be difficult and to stretch our neurons and muscles and spirit to the fullest as we seek our path through the dark woodlands and deserts of life, guided by whatever star or stars we chose. And still, we will fail in many ways. "Fail, and grow. Succeed, and stagnate." I said that. I guess I have little more to add to what The Beatles say in Revolution and what Dylan says in My Back Pages.

Deluge. A new book - the story of Katrina. Opie recommends it highly.

Why is it always the US? Why doesn't some other country invent renewable energy? RTLC

Cats cause eczema. Dogs prevent it.

Idaho Gem, a cloned racehorse, will compete against the natural variety.

George McGovern (!?!) tells unions that "more" is not always the best answer.

Will 2006 be a bad year for Repubs? Don't believe the hype. The Dems are leaving the center far behind.

Ouch. Many catheters are unnecessary. Make sure they give you a good reason, besides the convenience of the nurses. Catheters are not nice, especially for fellows. Is "intrusive" the right word?

Madeleine Albright, one of the favorite targets of normal people, is "worried" about Bush's faith. Better worry about Iran, Madeleine. Jeez. What a bozo.

Harry Reid drank the Kool-Aid.  Will he die? We shall see. I hope not - we need kooks like this around, as constant reminders.

Paranoids on Parade. Just check this out. They call themselves "truthers." I call them nuts. What a world. These people vote?

It was only a couple of years ago that we were barraged by "Hunger in America." That was one scam: the latest is "Obesity in America."  Life is just one crisis after another, for "activists." "Activists,", aka socialist quasi-revolutionaries, are like ambulance-chasing lawyers: any issue will do to find an excuse for more government intrusion into our lives. But obesity is a funny choice. The explanation, apparently, is that the American "poor" eat in restaurants too often. RWN can't find many fat people, but maybe they are all at Disney World. Or sitting in restaurants.

Multiply by 7? There is a better way to calculate your dog's age.

Government's conspiracy to use our money to keep their jobs and to keep us poor and stupid. Cut their pay and send them home. Further comments on that Examiner piece by our hard-workin' pal Kesler.

Performativity at Harvard. What? How your money is wasted paying for your kids' college stupidification. The New York Sun.

Slavery in Islam. Apparently it can be quite acceptable in parts of the Moslem world. Including selling little boys as sex slaves, to support Jihad. Can we say that Islam has a "different" view of humanity? Isn't tolerance fun?  Rhymes with Right

And, speaking of Allah,  California schools say Yes to Allah, No to God. Michelle. California is so enlightened.

Christians are swine. Jews are more highly ranked: they are apes. So say the Saudi textbooks. Patterico. 

May 20 - a good day for yard work. Everyone needs a nice wheelbarrow like this one. Read our piece on how wheelbarrows work, here.

Fake but accurate? This story turns out to be apocryphal, but it sure was believable:  Iran will require that Jews be identifiable by their clothing.

Illegal immigrants - good slide show from the border.

Becoming a Legal citizen - it's a big deal. NYT 

Tom Friedman's 6-month time frame. I guess many of us have seen it the same way. FAIR

Ned Lamont - Connecticut's own John Murtha. Funny piece on his Kos commercial at RWN. Ned is a great guy, but he's way wrong on this one.

Those darn basic Christian tenements. We listen to actors? From Cannes, via My Vast ...:

“If we have offended any Christians I would ask them to forgive us, which seems to be one of the main tenements in the New Testament,” actor Paul Bettany, who plays Silas in the film, said with a smile during an interview with CNN’s Brooke Anderson at Cannes Tuesday.

Why doesn't the RC Church demand that Mexico improve conditions for its people? All they do is demand things for illegals, and ignore Mexico. Any reason? Sensible Mom has an opinion.

Phin welcomes a permanent underclass of manual laborers. Well....,

Round-up is good stuff, safe, and useful. So says Synthstuff. Glad to hear it.

The University of New Jersey at Durham. Never knew it was called that.

Talking out of school, and the next "Prep"? A new book, based on Horace Mann. Whole piece at NY Sun:

As a graduate of the Deerfield Academy, a boarding school in Massachusetts, Mr. Trees is no stranger to the world of the wealthy. He also received a degree from Princeton and a doctorate in history from the University of Virginia. The onslaught of tell-all books about the children who reside in the city's wealthiest zip codes and the people who educate them has some schools now talking about asking teachers to sign nondisclosure forms.

Milberg Weiss gets hit, hard. Couldn't happen to nicer people. Cap'n Ed.

More on the Big Airplane: From the final edition of Airline News Weekly, an article on the first A380 landing at London Heathrow:

“Although modifications are required at airports for handling the A380, Airbus believes that by 2010, 66 airports worldwide will be ready for the aircraft.

“At Heathrow, around £450m ($845m) was spent in upgrading existing facilities to accommodate the A380, with £105m ($197m) spent on the new Pier 6 which can handle up to four A380s and 2,200 passengers simultaneously.  The current runways and taxiways have also been modified including the construction of new taxiways and upgraded runway lighting.”

Does anyone want to guess how much money the US might want to spend to help Airbus succeed?

Boeing projects that long-term airline passenger demand will grow at a compound rate of 4.8% through 2024, and air cargo to grow at a 6.2% rate.  Airbus substantially agrees, and concluded that a much larger airplane must be built to serve that growth, and thus the A380, which they hope that 66 airports will each spend the necessary $850 million to support.

At a conference Boeing sponsored in New York on May 9, Boeing stated that since 1985, the air travel growth rate has been 5.8% a year, but that the average seats per airplane has grown only 2% over the entire period.  Since 1990, the average airplane size has actually decreased.  As Boeing says, “Airlines have met air travel growth with higher frequencies and more nonstops.” [linking more city pairs].  For example, Boeing points out that in 2004, US-China air travel linked 17 city pairs with 313 flights per week.  Their forecast is that by 2024, 58 city pairs will have nonstop service with 860 flights a week.  Even inside China itself, there were 170 city pairs linked in 1990, growing to 605 in 2000 and to 706 in 2005, and during that period the average airplane size dropped from 157 seats in 1990 to 154 seats in 2005.  Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner series with 242-280 seats and a 8,000 nautical mile range will be able to link any US or EU city with any Chinese city.  To get to Atlanta from Wuhan, you will be able to fly nonstop; it will not be necessary to fly to Beijing and be shoveled into an A380 with 554 other passengers and then clear customs and immigration in LA with those same 554 travelers before staggering onto the final leg to Atlanta.

This is a multi-billion dollar bet by each manufacturer – which side would you bet on?

This an excerpt from a piece at Classical Values:(my bold print)

From Evan Coyne Maloney (link via Pajamas Media) I have found a perfect example of real life imitating satire, quoted verbatim from the Seattle public school system's Definitions of Racism:

Cultural Racism:
Those aspects of society that overtly and covertly attribute value and normality to white people and Whiteness, and devalue, stereotype, and label people of color as “other”, different, less than, or render them invisible. Examples of these norms include defining white skin tones as nude or flesh colored, having a future time orientation, emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology, defining one form of English as standard, and identifying only Whites as great writers or composers.

It would be downright hilarious if it wasn't the official definition of racism at a taxpayer-financed public school.

Yeah, that darn white future time orientation. Who needs it, anyway? It is just so white bread.  I always felt worrying about tomorrow was just a waste of time, but I didn't realize that it was because I am white. May I safely assume that if I "think brown" that I don't have to do my homework? Hey - the gummint will take care of me, right? Or my girlfriends or my Momma? Somebody?

And may I say that I am deeply offended by this stereotyping of whites. My white girlfriend is never on time. Maybe she is "brown" under her skin?

Mr. Free Market had this: "Is there a word in Italian for manana?" "Yes there is, but it doesn't have quite the same sense of urgency."  

But Italians aren't "brown," are they? Or are they? Maybe the Sicillians are a little bit brown, being so close to Africa...and the Neapolitans somewhat less so...What gives?

Is this a black thing, or a brown thing, or a Mediterranean thing? No wrist watches? No sundials?

I guess I just don't get it, and I never will. I am so sick of this BS. Can't we just take people as individuals?  Woops - wrong - I guess that's not the "collective ideology." My apologies to Mao's sacred corpse: for a moment there, I must have imagined that I was a person and not a minor fragment of a collective. Shame on me - as usual...but it's not my fault - my nasty skin color did it to me, and my skin doesn't "think collective". Skin pigmentation determines your thoughts - I must never forget that important, simple fact. From now on, I will let my skin do my thinking for me. C'mon skin - think hard and deep and true!

And, by the way, Roll over, Beethoven.

See the clip of the new Airbus A380? World's largest plane. How the heck does this thing take off?

Norm, on how the Left needs to straighten itself out.

Russia tries to deal with declining birth rate.

Frankencotton. NYT Science Times

Japan will fingerprint all entering foreigners. Remember: Japan permits NO immigration. Period.

Senate determines English to be our national language. Aw, man - now I have to learn English? I hate languages.

Polipundit took the trouble to check on Mel Martinez' campaign platform on immigration. Guess what? Martinez deleted that item from his website, but PP found it cached!  You can't fool Mother Internets.

Woops.

And today, the Senate decides that illegals should have retroactive Social Security, even if they used fake SS numbers. Michelle. Huh? Are these guys nuts?...or are they buying votes?

Methinks the latter. Plus she has info on NC permitting illegals to vote. What a country...if it is a country anymore.

Fence passed Senate - so it's a sure thing.....But where will we get the Mexicans to build it?

A little simple truth-telling from the Newt-man:

Nobody who's not involved in terrorism should be at risk. Nobody who's making normal phone calls should be at risk. But the idea that we're going to say to the United States government, for libertarian reasons, "We'd rather lose a city than have you gather data," I think is totally out of touch with the danger of the modern world.

Extended comments on the subject from Gingrich at American Future.

Tony Snow: I saw a clip of his first day with the press yesterday. Tears welled up in his eyes when asked about his colon cancer for which he was treated last year, and he could not speak. Finally he said "It was the best thing that ever happened to me."  After composing himself, he quipped "I guess that was my Ed Muskie moment." Tony is one hell of a fine gent.

Gen. Pace's commencement address at The Citadel: Wow. Makes you want to enlist right now.  Laura's site - for the audio, scroll down on "Need to know."

2 1/2-hour long Da Vinci Code leaves critics cold: Reuters. They say it drags, and lacks both suspense and romance.

London color-blind traffic camera-computers accused of racism. Those computers need a racial sensitivity training program, preferably beginning in nursery school.

From Jay Leno (via Laura on the radio last nite): "Who says we can't deport 12 million people?... Mexico did."

World's largest archive of Nazi files to be opened to historians. Video.

Conspiracy nuts and paranoid schizophrenics love this stuff. The Annual Get-together for the Roswell UFO MYSTERY.

Unequal justice at Duke: VDARE points out the similarities with Tom Wolfe's novels in the Duke fiasco, and notes the following

Just in the last week, three prominent minority football players have been arrested on felony charges.

Defensive back Ricky Manning Jr. celebrated his new $21 million contract from the Chicago Bears by getting nabbed for assault with a deadly weapon in a Denny's on a laptop computer-using stranger whose nerdishness seems to have offended him.

Utah St. quarterback Jerod Walker was arrested on charges of raping a coed.

So was USC quarterback Mark Sanchez. (Playing quarterback for the USC Trojans, this decade's top team, is perhaps the most glamorous position in all of college sports—two of the last four Heisman Trophy winners have been USC quarterbacks, Matt Leinart in 2004 and Carson Palmer in 2002.)

Yet none of these cases have received a fraction of the attention that the Duke Lacrosse team has garnered—even though football is the most popular sport in America and lacrosse is close to the most unpopular.

Read the whole piece (h/t, LaShawn)

The speech? What speech?

Outsourcing tutoring to India: Naturally, the unions are going bonkers. Too bad - it's a global economy. And a good idea too. WaPo

The Comfy Chair: This is a good day to link to the Spanish Inquisition and the Comfy Chair torture.

Am I the last person to find out that you can get XM satellite radio free on AOL?

To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.

Aldous Huxley

Everyone on the radio, TV, and on the blogs are concerned - or, in some cases, pleased - by the prospect of Bush falling on his face tonite with his immigration speech. The whole issue is a no-win for him, whatever he does. Like HH, most of us at Maggie's want a fence. And want people to get in line for their legal immigration status.

NYC up to its ears in cash: Highest tax receipts ever. Want to bet they find some way to spend it all? NY Sun

Joke of the Day:

Last night, my wife and I were sitting in the living room and I said to her, "I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug."

She got up, unplugged the TV and threw out my beer.

Bitch...

Pimm's #1 is IN. Who knew? It has been around since the Celts, I think. My Life in Stockholm. Plus a recipe. Perfect for a wedding - punch! - in a carved-ice bowl. Cheap, Anglo-Saxon, delicious, and not overly-intoxicating. A sort of Brit Mint Julip.

Dems join suit to quit terrorist surveillance. Good for them. What a genius idea! Osama and pals salute your dhimmitude.

A Hornet at 30 feet. Nice photos.

We are deploying aircraft carriers in the Gulf. Damn - is anything finer than an aircraft carrier? Tammy.

Passenger dies. Tour bus continues on schedule. Hilarity ensues. What's the big deal? A dead person is just a person who quit breathing. People do that all the time, on a daily basis. At a certain point, it just becomes too tiring, and people say "what the heck."

Fewer Americans go to church weekly than has been thought. Of course - there are so many more worthwhile things to do, like, ummmm. (h/t, News for Christians)

How to endear yourself to Philly fans. Some catch. Some bruises, too.

Nude fencing? There's an idea whose time has come. I'd prefer they wear the standard helmet, though, in case they aren't attractive enough in the face. For their eyes, too. Still, this could be a boon to the fencing world.

A list of books Uncle Norm likes to read to kids, and grandkids.

The complicated politics of illegal immigration. Rick covers it, with reference to Podhoretz's piece. It is a maze. Just do what is right, and boldly cut through the tangle.

Antidepressants cause suicide? Great - a new trumped-up hysteria. Trial lawyers - take note. And they will. Guess what? Depression can be a serious problem. If you frighten folks from treatment, you are doing them a serious disservice.

It becomes clearer that this sad, feckless, larcenous gal got caught up in something bigger than she could handle, and then it became too late to back down. But it is never too late to tell the truth. She could be facing some serious civil suits, but she has no money, so she is "insulated."  Latest news.

By the way, note that she is referred to as a "dancer." Martha Graham was a dancer; Baryshnikov is a dancer. This lady is a stripper: I believe the liberals refer to that as a "sex worker," not a "dancer." Check your manual, AP writers.

Yes - there is definitely racism at Duke: black racism against whites. Sexism too: Women against men. That is proven, now, by all of the loud noises emanating from Durham. Also, for a small minority, envious hatred of the athletes with their puny SATs.

Who wants to address those "issues"? What is with this assumption that white guys are always guilty, just for "happening to be" white and male? How about a federal "program" to deal with that "crisis"? God knows, for college admission and job application purposes, we would all be black females. I would happily be black - I don't care.  Or maybe, to be fully up-to-date and totally cool, an illegal Mexican.

No "race or gender" has a monopoly on wrong-doing or stupid-doing or lying. We are all prone to it, which is why we all need to be careful about what we do and say.

If I am wrong in my instinct about this, I promise to drink a 6-pack of Ballantine Ale in one hour, without enjoyment.

But, by the way, where are our fave race-pimps, Jesse and Al? Running away? Hmmm. Show some courage; come back, fellas! Jump into the fray and get your pretty faces on the news again. Hey! Where did they go? Hit and run? What? Oh...I heard that they are all in their black-tinted window SUVs, heading out of North Carolina, leaving smokin' tire marks in the parking lot. Must be nice to have professional drivers, just in case you'd like to have a few roadies on the way home, with an "intern" or two in the back seat.

Image: Note to the Associated Press - That is a "dancer": Suzanne Farrell in Serenade. "My Stradivarius", as Balanchine referred to her. Your reporters need to get out of the Bada Bing Club and see the world.

I am shocked - shocked!  The sudden phony shock and alarm about NSA phone data-mining is a nice bit of acting, but congress has known about it for years, and the whole story was reported earlier by the NYT, as seen here.

Is it constitutional to data-mine phone records in search of suspicious international calling patterns? I don't know, but the laws are on the books - Calif Conservative lists them. I can easily see its potential usefulness: it's like taking a CAT scan of the nation, to find a tumor. There really is no other way to try to do it, and our phone records are not secret or confidential - but their content is, so wiretapping is another matter.

However, effectiveness is no justification for unconstitutional acts: only in love and war can the ends possibly justify the means. (It's a shame that the Supreme Court forgot that principle over the past 30 years.)

So I suspect that how people feel about all this depends on whether they view us as being in a war or not - a war against Jihad, but an unconventional war with a pre-industrial people, which requires that Jihad plant organizations within the US. Is this crime, or war? You tell me. It might be a matter of semantics, but to me, it's a kind of war.

If anyone wants the NSA to stop doing this, they should speak up and say so. I trust the NSA not to mis-use their data, but I still do not like the idea.

My plan: let no-one into the US unless properly vetted and checked, and find and kill the terrorists, and then quit this operation.

The "white guy" won! Booker won in Newark, despite being a lighter-skinned black than his opponent. Talk about playing the race card. The good news? Democrat Booker is pro school choice. Moonbattery

Enviros are anti-illegal immigration, but they won't admit it because they do not want to alienate their liberal donor base. CSM

Half of US kids under 5 are minorities.  Related chart below from the CSM story above:

The condition of being forgiven is self-abandonment. The proud man prefers self-reproach, however painful - because the reproached self isn't abandoned; it remains intact.

Aldous Huxley