But I didn't finish the article before I had the same objection as J.C. Miller.

Anxiety itself is not a selection pressure so its lack can't be a survival advantage. The lack of anxiety that group cohesion provides of course DOES confer reproductive advantage.

Its the shared rituals that provide advantage (plus the added benefit of not being stoned to death for blasphemy).

made fun of my statement last week that, in the end, it all comes down to guys with blue uniforms and guns please comment on the following story:

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003231.php

And now Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) and ranking member Arlen Specter (R-PA) are angry.

“You ignored the subpoena, did not come forward today, did not produce the documents and did not even offer an explanation for your noncompliance,” the senators wrote in a lettter to Alberto Gonzales today. “Your action today is in defiance of the Committee’s subpoena without explanation of any legal basis for doing so.”

This NSA scandal just isn’t going to touch very many people in that same personal way, I believe. And that’s the problem, in my view.

If the potential for abuse doesn't scare people, how about the potential for idiocy?

PS: I do think the hospital bed standoff would make great TV!

I actually shelled out money and own The Presidents Analyst. What distresses me more is the number of young people who haven't seen "Dr. Stranglove" If it were up to me they'd be showing in High School History classes.

Of course the real question is will they be making black-comedies about the GWOT anytime soon?

TPM is of course well on top of this.

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003232.php

It’s time that the Democrats in Congress blew the lid off of the NSA’s surveillance program. Whatever form it took for those years was blatantly illegal; so egregious that by 2004, not even the administration’s most partisan members could stomach it any longer. We have a right to know what went on then. We publicize the rules under which the government can obtain physical search warrants, and don’t consider revealing those rules to endanger security; there’s no reason we can’t do the same for electronic searches.

John Ashcroft defends the forth Amendment against the totalitarian encroachments of the Clinton administration:

http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/1097/ijge/gj-7.htm

He may be an odd duck but he at least does have a passing familiarity with the Constitution.

The Washington Post editorial board writes: "James B. Comey, the straight-as-an-arrow former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, yesterday offered the Senate Judiciary Committee an account of Bush administration lawlessness so shocking it would have been unbelievable coming from a less reputable source.

This is of course the clarion call for the character-assasin squad. Watch for Hindraker and Malkin to search high and low for evidence of Comey's leftist proclivities. (if it hasn't begun already.)

with any program that it is done in secret and extra-legally, it will have fewer rules and procedures open to oversight, and no enforceable requirements for record keeping, which is a situation that just begs for abuse

Even if everything the defenders of the NSA program has said was spot-on (bear with me), as long as its operated without oversight by human beings, its going to become corrupted. It's simply a matter of time and human nature.

The fact that it stank of rotten fish fromn the get-go just compounds the problem...

Just a reminder that there ARE indeed national security concerns that the Senator is aware of and respectful toward. I'm sure that when the original program was ordered, it was motivated by panic and genuine concern over another devastating terrorist attack. But the law in this case resembles an egg. Once it was broken, there was no going back.

And I might add, once the program was in place, it was sitting there, they might as well use it, hence the political abuse that all here suspect.

Since I never raised children, I had the luxury of being able to ignore whatever has been happening in our schools for quite a while now. It's clear to me now that whatever it was, its now a major contributer to the current pollution of our discourse.

While, as you point out, individual reporters are merely churning out whatever is rewarded institutionally by their organizations, in the meantime those higher up in the organization are concentrating their efforts on determining whatever will do the most to enhance revenue flow.

We can all see the results of this process, which of course moves expensive haircuts and continuing saga's of missing pretty white women to the fore of news coverage. (Never underestimate the power of that photo that accompanies the 10 second teaser for the next segment)

So, as I assert, the lousy news coverage is demand driven, how can we create demand for substantive coverage? Why, in school of course. If we were doing an adequate job of teaching that the demands of citizenship include paying attention, developing informed opinions and voting, then (eventually) the demand for decent serious news coverage would grow.

Needless to say, the process takes years to accomplish, but it is simply one of the better investments we can make in our future.

Yesterday I speculated that either the NSA program had not had any resuts or that if it did have results then those results remain in the realm of none-of-our-damn business.

This article is about is pertinent to the None-of-our-damn business portion of the program:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051602395.html?hpid=opinionsbox1