If I were a republican/big business/big money/wall street-type functionary, I'd be quaking in my boots over the proposed adoption of these new FISA rules. Don't these folks realize that, by the very nature of humans, when the leadership in the White House changes hands and the Congress becomes more overwhelmingly democratic, these surveilance powers will be used by the Justice Department to enforce already-existing laws (which have been ignored since the Reagan administration) against them, their extensively-interlocking, monopolized international business and banking dealings and the behind-the-scenes manipulation of the international media? There will be terror, indeed, as their formerly-secret machinations are revealed, but it won't have much to do with Al Qaida.

Hey, folks. Even if they caught Rush in bed high on every illegal drug in the book sexually wedged between an underaged boy and girl, his devoted followers would find a way to ignore it. He feeds their dysfunctions. He tells them the world is exactly the way they need it to be and still feel comfortable living in it. If Rush were ever to get emotionally/psychologically/spiritually healthy and start telling the unbiased truth about the world, what needs to happen and how things REALLY work (instead of how they want them to work and how everyone who disagrees is a moron), he'd be out of business in a month. As long as he keeps telling them what they desparately need to hear, he'll have a loyal following.

Since we're talking about Hollywood's fantasies, and the "ticking time bomb" scenario, let me suggest that if we need to fear a bomb, the plot of the movie, "The Sum of All Fears" is a far more likely real-world possibility than anything we've seen on "24" (the torture plots of which seem disturbing enough to drive its star into alcohol abuse). It's the treatment of the fascist plot as a detective/law enforcement issue, an approach so totally derided by our current fascistic leadership and their blind followers, with rapid detective work by the CIA that saves the day. The same has been the case in each plot foiled since 9/11 which, of course, was not itself the result of a failure of toughness or military will, but a failure of national and international law enforcement/spy agencies to connect the dots. The military approach and special rendition and Gitmo and tough-guy posturing will never win the war on terror, they will only multiply terror around the world until we all live in constant fear of those seeking to "protect" us and the nations are not ruled by the most intelligent, reasoned and capable people but by the best terrorists (after all, isn't that what the Republicans are claiming to be as they compete for the tough guy award - the one most likely to be just like the "terrorists" we're supposedly at war with).

Now, of course, if we'd just listen to Pat Robertson, et al... the REAL source of this problem must surely be that gay people want to get married.

How else could they maintain their seriously skewed view of the world in spite of massive, verifiable, often scientific evidence to the contrary. Willful, arrogant, stubborn ignorance is what they celebrate, what they support, what they worship, WHO THEY ARE. As our good friend Forrest Gump so wisely quipped, "Stupid is as stupid does." The real tragedy is that Gump's quip so often describes our nation these days.

Congratulations on your perceptive and forward-thinking foreign policy, Mr. Bush! With your "for us or against us" statements, you've put Mr. Mussharaf in a position where his enemies see him as your lapdog. If he now backs down, he risks a freely-elected Islamic Republican Pakistan armed with nuclear weapons. If he does what Mr. Richardson suggests, he's likely to provoke a full-fledged civil war leading to a forcefully-installed Islamic Republican government in Pakistan armed with Nuclear Weapons. With all our troops and most of our resources tied up in Iraq, we're relatively powerless to act in either case, not that any action we might take could or would have positive results. And you were worried about Iran! Again, congratulations, Mr. Bush! and you, Ms. Rice! Disappointing indeed!

Plus, of course, the small problem that, when these ideologically pure, loyalty oath sworn types have the more experienced, local people try to explain to them that Minnesota doesn't have a large human trafficking problem, rather than hold a rational discussion examining the facts and statistics involved, they decide that those who are trying to point out the facts to them are just attacking THEM, and pursuing "McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of any public servant who is now, or ever may have been, a member of the Federalist Society; a person of faith; and/or a conservative (especially a young, conservative woman of color) is truly a disservice to our country."

Any disagreement with these ideological types, no matter how logically, factually based is seen as a personal attack. You're either for them (which means you agree with them completely and agree to do things their way even if there's no evidence to support what they want to do) or against them. They don't have ideas, they have ideologies which are so woven into the way they see themselves and the world, that any disagreement feels to them like a personal attack.

So, as a resident of Minnesota, I can only say, farewell, Ms. Paulose. After your departure maybe the local federal prosecutor's office can actually go back to discovering what needs to be one and doing it, rather than ignoring what needs to be done in order to pursue your ideologically-based crusades.