Gosh, pointing out the internal contradictions in your own essay means I didn't read them? I apologize for not explaining that the contrary evidence to your overheated conclusions were obtained from your own piece.

I'll try to keep my sentences shorter in the future.

Simple answer to your extensive cut and paste critique.

Obama supporters are not unconcerned by violations of privacy under the current FISA law. We just realize that fixes to such a complex set of problems and requirements for security will not come quickly. Actually, such changes are the responsibility of Congress. Which appears (and Glenn, I got this fact from your report, OK?) to be actually looking at reforms as we speak. Not even 100 days into Obama's Administration. It took George Bush Jr 8 years to thoroughly bollux everything up, even with the enthusiastic help of the Mediacracy.

Let's give Obama a couple years to fix things, mmmmm?

As far as hoping for prosecutions under the old FISA laws, well, keep hoping, Ralph, er, Glenn. I knew Obama was a centrist when I supported him. He's not going to blow up our intelligence apparatus in order to please privacy absolutists. There is something of value in the program, which is unfortunately a state secret. I just gotta trust Obama on this, and I do. Judgement call. Obama has shown consistently impressive judgement, IMHO.

The easy way out would have been for Obama to be out of town during the vote (it didn't need his vote to pass). That he stayed and put his votes on record (and has endured the predictably endless shrill criticism for it) indicates that he felt there were important security concerns involved.

Or, he's in league with Satan and wants to kill puppies. Where was Obama when Michael Vick was running the dog fighting farm? Obama didn't stop it, even though he made campaign stops in Virginia, where Vick committed his crimes? Obama's a puppy-killer! Run, Bo, Run!

I don't object to your concerns about our intelligence apparatus and its potential for abuse. I object to the highly subjective conclusions you reach and the apocalyptic way you choose to express them. And to the lack of balanced content you manage to achieve despite the sheer quantity of verbiage.

Unfortunately, nobody pays me to write, so I'll conclude this and get back to work. For the paranoid types on this board, I work for myself and make less than you probably do. I am not a tool of the Secret Government nor am I a servant of the oligarchy. However, if anybody knows of any openings with the above, I'm available.

Especially if they have a health plan!

Speaking as a Player/Moderator on Runscape, I have to advise all and sundry that trying to take advantage of Runescape Gold's offer will certainly result in your account being stolen.

That's why they want you to be a paid member.

Don't be stupid, please.

On Topic, Tyson is a fascinating, if somewhat repugnant character.

I'd like to think of him as a victim, but he personally scares the living shit out of me.

YMMV.

An ugly interview. O'Herir's false equivalence of the Palestian/Israeli body count was obscene. No one should be able to call themselves a journalist after uttering such a rotted lie. The fact that Palestinians are being killed at a 100-1 ratio, and that Corrie's body was displaced by a man killed by an Israeli Defense Force sniper because he went outside for a cigarette is all one has to know.

The ugly anti-semitism displayed in many of these letters. The list of Jewish Media executives raised my hackles, but the numbers, and high position of many of them does provide some information about our current media climate. The nasty speculation about the ethnicity of politicians, including Arlen Spector, was only ugly.

The raw hatred of Jews spewed by certain posters is frightening, and completely counterproductive. If the choice was mine, we would supply the Palestinians with defensive weapons against tanks, planes and bulldozers, and prevent Israeli Air Force bombing raids against Israel's neighbors. I'm one to be counted among the supporters of Israel. Yet I found the references to "yids" and far worse sickening. Not the least because such ignorant hatred will become fodder for the extremists on the Israeli side. Every one of you screamers against Jews is linked in a dozen places by now, and your vicious racism is the cement being used to harden attitudes against peace and respect between the peoples of the Middle East.

And on the other side, the denial of the humanity of the long-suffering Palestinian people. People who are trying to rebuild their destroyed houses right now using clay bricks because the Likud in Israel denies them steel and concrete. Who drink brackish water. Who live under constant threat of deadly attack, not just worry about the occasional crude rocket (however brutal and stupid and pointless those worthless rocket attacks are).

Palestinians who were denied the right to flee as their land was attacked by a world-class army. Who live under constant supersonic overflights, creating nighttime sonic booms to panic women and children who know all too well the destructive force of 155mm artillery. Who never know whether the power will stay on, or if there will be cooking oil or kerosene available.

For years and years and years.

Under such conditions, I would lose my humanity. That the Palestinians continue to persevere and still entertain any thoughts of peace and justice is a miraculous testament to their humanity.

That is the only beauty in this situation. That, and the courage of people like Rachel Corrie, who still believed that by standing in front of a bulldozer with a bullhorn and an orange vest, she could re-connect to the humanity of the oppressors and prevent some of the destruction, and stop some of the hate.

Someone who still dared to believe in the beauty of hope, so strongly that she died for it.