Is America Becoming A Police State?

‘Americans do not fear adversity, nor do they quail at the sight of brave men and women dying – as long as it’s in a good cause. The only causes one can discern in the current conflict, however – a lust for oil, and the seductive power of America’s pro-Israel lobby – are hardly enough to inspire a crowd much bigger than the editorial staff of the Weekly Standard.’ (Antiwar article).

They’ve Got Your Number
‘The single greatest blog post ever written about the Bush administration contains this wise dictum at its heart: “Good ideas do not need lots of lies told about them in order to gain public acceptance.”‘Thus, it should raise eyebrows when former Bush administration official Richard Falkenrath’s prominent defense of the National Security Agency’s massive, secret, illegal telephone record database project involves repeatedly assuring us that the information stored has been “anonymized,” meaning “stripped of individually identifiable data, such as names and place of residence.” The idea of an anonymized phone number is a bad joke. The National Security Agency is no doubt aware by now that last week I placed some phone calls to (212) 989-XXXX and (212) 254-XXXX (NUMBERS TAKEN OUT BY JRL TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT). To discern the identity of the mystery man behind those contacts (my father, as it happens) you would need to . . . punch the numbers into Google.’ (American Prospect article).

I WONDER WHY HIGGINS AND HAYNES DON’T HAVE THEIR OWN BLOGS.  IS IT JUST BECAUSE THEY’RE CONTENT TO HAVE ME DO THE WORK?  HMMMM.