Who needs Math and Science? We Do!

Science and math have zoomed to the top of the nation's education agenda. Yet Amanda Cook, a parent of two school-age girls, can't quite see the urgency.
"In Maine, there aren't many jobs that scream out 'math and science,"' said Cook, who lives in Etna, in the central part of the state. Yes, both topics are important, but "most parents are saying you're better off going to school for something there's a big need for."
Nationwide, a new poll shows, many parents are content with the science and math education their children get -- a starkly different view than that held by national leaders.
Fifty-seven percent of parents say "things are fine" with the amount of math and science being taught in their child's public school. High school parents seem particularly content -- 70 percent say their child gets the right amount of science and math.
- thanks to the Associated Press for this.

Well, Amanda, computer jobs are being outsourced to India, menial jobs are being done by illegal immigrants, and manufactured goods are made for five cents on the dollar in Indochina. Maine isn't going to have as wide a variety of jobs when your kids are in their twenties as you had.
Your two children will basically have two options when they grow up.

Working in a cutting edge industry that doesn't exist yet, for which they'll need lots of math and science.
Or ditchdigger. Decide.

Olympic "glory"

Ah, the Olympics.
They were first run for the glory of the gods.
They were revived to be run for the glory of the athletes.
Today, they are run for the glory of the countries.

Look up any news page concerning the Olympics. Now try to find the names of the winners.
If the page is devoted to the Olympics, you shouldn't have a problem. But if you have picked a general sports page, then what you get is a list of countries, with how many gold, silver, and bronze they've won.
They've won. The countries. Not the athletes.
Next year this time, you won't even know their names. The athletes aren't important anymore. The ones who manage to win several medals may end up on a Wheaties box for a month, but then it's back to Michael Jordan.

We dishonor the ideals of the Olympics every time we run them. We change the definition of "amateur" so that Canada can fill its hockey squad with the NHL All Stars, and The US can field the NBA's finest as their Dream Team. Across the pond, the Eastern Europeans were famous for pumping so many steroids into their athletes that the women needed sex tests, and the men looked like the Incredible Hulk. The legacy of those days go on, as competitors are required to take so many tests you'd think they were headed for Mars. I wouldn't be surprised if Interpol has a special Olympic squad of its own, dedicated to running down all the frauds pertaining to this "pure" competition.

And yet, the ideals are still there. For every pumped up warrior dreaming of a Nike contract, there are 10 kids who have spent the last four years doing nothing but train day and night. So long as these kids remain in the majority, the Games are worth saving.

Reclaiming the Political Middle

The middle ground is becoming awfully empty in America these days.
It seems that the farther out to the wings you go, the more you claim leadership for your side.
Take a look at the Cheney incident.
The right would have you believe that it is no big deal, and that the MSM is demonizing the vice president as part of a liberal scheme to retake the government and surrender to the terrorists.
The left would have you believe that the government should be impeached because a witness to the shooting got to the press before Scott McClellan.
The truth is that the vice president accidentally shot a man, causing a serious condition. Mr. Cheney has taken responsibility for the incident. At worst, which is if the man dies, this is what Jack McCoy on Law and Order would call a class B felony. Not reckless endangerment, just involuntary manslaughter. Serious, but not world shaking.
The delay in meeting the press was probably due to the amount of bad press the administration has received lately. They wanted to spin it. Spin is not an impeachable offense.

Take a look at the wiretapping incident.
The right would have you believe that no crime is involved; it's just the president doing what a president should do.
The left would have you believe that the administration is preparing a palace coup, to install Presidente-for-Life Bush as our master.
The truth is that the president overstepped his boundaries. If he were Cheney, he would no doubt have said his Mea Culpa by now, promised to go back to wiretapping only with an easily-obtained warrant, and gone back to work. Not being Cheney, he has managed to turn this incident into a scandal.
Nonetheless, we are looking at the same sort of thing. Bush has committed a minor crime. Not a felony, not an impeachable offense, but a crime.
He should admit it, apologize, and go on.

As for us, we need to take a few Valiums. Society is not being overthrown by the Right, and the Left is not helping to smuggle terrorists over the border. We need to stop listening to these overreactors, reclaim the center, and start thinking again.

What is FEMA doing now?

News Item: FEMA cheated of millions through duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names. In addition, FEMA wasted millions on overpriced rooms, such as $438 rooms in New York City and $375/night beachfront condominiums in Panama City, FL.

OK, they got scammed, or they were caught having to improvise, or whatever. The deed's done, the money's gone.
What about next time?
A show of hands please, how many people out there think that we're in for a repeat of hurricane season in the South, similar to the last two years?
Don't you think that FEMA should be preparing now? You'd think that they would be getting equipment in place, contingency plans fine tuned, databases created and verified, personnel prepped and ready, transport arranged.
Wouldn't you?
I haven't heard of anything like that happening. All I've heard from FEMA is a steady chorus of "no comment" when referring to Brownie's testimony. As for the parent group, the Department of Homeland Security, well, they haven't even issued a terror level since Katrina.
I know we're all more security conscious now, but don't we have a right to know whether the government organization in charge of preparing for emergencies, is preparing for the next few emergencies?

Phelps revisited.

One reader took offence that I wrote , in a blog entry a few days ago, about the Westboro Church's protests at funerals, and their pastor, the Rev. Phelps.
As I wrote in the comments, and repeat here,
"People like Phelps never think of themselves as extremists. They think they are the only true centrists, upholding truth and justice. I said they probably thought of themselves as conservatives. They probably do, even if no one else does. They probably think of us as liberal apologists for not joining them on the picket lines."
This goes for most other extremists. The people burning Danish embassies probably think that other Muslims are wusses for not helping. They are, after all, defending Islam from Infidel attack.

People who go to extremes are extremists. People who overreact, who react with violence when no violence is offered, who react with personal epithets to arguments that don't attack them personally, . . . are extremists.
Don't support extremist behavior. Support conservative behavior.
Leave the bombs at home.

Enough with "The Cartoons"

News Item: Calgary magazine to print "The Cartoons".
All right, already!!!
OK, papers. You bad. You tough. We get it.
Now stop dragging this thing out.
The "cartoons" are available all over the Internet now, for the morbid and the goons to look at.
We don't need to see them in print anymore.
It's no longer a matter of free speech. It's become a stroke of defiance.
It's being done to rag on the Muslim extremists. To pull their chain. To show them that you aren't going to be dictated to. OK. We know that.

I just hope you're just as obstinate when the Christian Right object to Doonesbury next time.

Free Speech = Protests at Funerals.

We have all heard that the Muslims hate America, and are behind the slaughter of American troops in Iraq.
Many of us have also been told that the liberals and apologists are responsible for America's woes.
Well, you're all wrong.
It's God.
So says the Westboro Baptist Church, its pastor, the Reverend Fred Phelps, and his family, including his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper.
"We are delivering a message. God is punishing this nation and he is using the IED as his weapon of choice," she said.
Over the last few weeks, demonstrators from the church have turned up at memorials for soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, the funerals for the 12 West Virginia miners who died in a mine explosion last January, and even the funeral of Coretta Scott King in Georgia.
They have carried signs reading 'Thank God for Dead Soldiers,' 'You're Going to Hell', 'Fags Doom Nations', 'God is America's Terror' and 'Don't Worship the Dead'.
They are undaunted by efforts to stop them, claiming that the right to free speech allows them to protest like this. "It's all good. It's not going to stop us," said Phelps-Roper. "We have the moral high ground."

No doubt they consider themselves "conservatives".

End of the Machine Age?

The illegal influx of immigrants over the US border may have yet another drawback for society.
It reduces the need for innovation.
Why build a new labor saving device when labor is so cheap? Used to be that production lines became automated because robotic devices were cheaper than union laborers, what with medical and dental plans, retirement and compensation packages, and ever increasing salaries. Mechanisms that didn't require vacations and coffee breaks looked good back then.
Today, humans from Asia, Mexico, and South America, willing to work 18 hour days for spare change, are by far the better deal. The automated assembly line is passe.

So is innovation. You can't sell a better way of doing things anymore unless it is somehow cheaper and more cost efficient. What could be more efficient than a self-motivated, self-correcting, self-repairing upgradable multi-function work unit, especially one that doesn't and never will have a union?

On the other hand, countries like China do have a reason to develop technology, as their industry develops. With all of America's current developments, from CDs to robotics, at their disposal, they may yet be the culture to develop the house robot and the totally automated factory.

It's no wonder President Bush came out in defense of illegals. It's a dream come true for CEOs.
True, it may cost America its technological lead in the long run, but hey - our generation will all be dead by then, right?

Europe's hope?

A pundit mentioned today that Europe's only hope is for the moderate Muslims to prevail over the militants.
Moderates.
Let's be men, ok, and call them what they are.
The liberal Muslims.
The militants are the conservative, perhaps even the neo-con, muslims. The accept no criticism, never change, God is Supreme, defend by attacking, muslims.
The moderates are the sit and talk, words not deeds, change is possible, let's all be friends, muslims. The Liberals.

There's a lesson here for those in America.
Too bad the militants won't see it.

We Live In Fear

I used to chuckle at the people who recommended that everyone be required to bear arms.
Now I cringe.
We are no longer a tolerant society, and I am not referring either to religion or race.
We are not tolerant in general. Zero tolerance is the rule now.
A boy writes a short story that a teacher finds frightening, and the boy is shipped off to a psychiatric hospital.
A kindergarten student is suspended for sexual assault. Yes, you heard that right. He touched her underpants. Lucky for him it was a girl - who knows what they might have accused him of it he'd touched a boy's undies.
People are going mad over cartoons. Religious leaders order assassinations - both Muslim and Christian.

And someone wants to arm these whackos?

We live in fear.
We are afraid our kids are going to shoot, that our beliefs can be destroyed, that our civilization will crumble.
We see terrorists under every bed. (Guess the communists have moved out.)
More than we ever did in the Fifties, we live under the Sword of Damocles, certain that doom is a day away, and that there is nothing we can do but decisively crush any threat, or possible threat.
We steer away from dark alleys, stick to our "own kind", and cling to the belief that only brute force can get out of this situation. That's why we want guns. We think that with a gun in each hand, we can get them before they get us. Like Rambo.
Unfortunately, our enemies are not coming after us with AK-47s any more. Rambo didn't have to deal with an enemy that planted a nuke in the city he was in, or released a toxin into the water he drinks. These, you see, are not enemies you can handle with a machine gun.

It's not the Wild West anymore. We no longer live in a world where a fast draw and a 44 can keep you alive, anymore than we live in a world where a rapier and some swordmanship will suffice. It is a new world, and we need a new defense.

Write a note and get committed

An exerpt:
"It’s no wonder many kids today just give up and give in to drugs. Obviously it doesn’t make it right but it would be hard for me not to understand where many of them are coming from. The gap of understanding between adults and children is widening more everyday as both side stick fingers in their ears and scream, “La la la la, I’m not listening.” It’s sad really. It saddens me that in the 12 short years since I graduated from high school the notion of children as being a mild but nurtured nuisance seems to have devolved into regarding children as mass murdering pariahs.I never thought I’d say this but thank God for the ACLU. It’s not fair to judge every child, especially with all the subversive influences out there, by the same measuring stick as the kids who were obviously ill and rampaged through their schools. Had I been born 10 years later, who knows how my parents would have reacted to the childish antics of my youth."

This is a post from a man who wrote "bad" stuff while at school. He was banned from the school newspaper, but that's about it.
The case he is referring to is a boy who also wrote "bad" stuff in school. However, in this post-Columbine world, this other boy was taken by force to a psychiatric hospital.

Read the whole thing here. It's worth it.

Regulators

If a government has any function at all, it is to function as a protector.
First internationally, through the Armed Forces and the State Department. Second, locally, through the police.
And thirdly, through the regulators. These are the most important defenders of the country, because they defend our greatest assets.
Our unity and our trust.
The regulators make sure that the con men and grifters don't prey upon us. They make sure that the medicine we buy is real medicine, and cures what it is supposed to cure. They make sure that the powerful auto manufacturers do not sell us defective cars, that the doctors don't operate while drunk, and that monopolies cannot shut out competition and force us to pay whatever they can squeeze out of us.
Congress and the courts are important components of the regulators. Congress forms the regulations, the laws that prevent the wolves from preying on the sheep. The courts enforce these rules, punishing any errant wolf.
If either of these organizations fails in its job, we all suffer.

Congress falls down on the job unless it deals with changes in society in a timely manner. It needs to learn, from real experts, the nature of the new elements, whether they be computer scams or terrorist movements, and to face these truths without flinching. They need to create new law, based on the needs of society as a whole, not some small section.
Much of the time, they don't. Their actions are based on pork, on re-election strategies, on lobbyist recommendations, on ideology. Such actions debase Congress.
The courts, too, must enforce the law in such a way as to best benefit society. Some might belittle these "activist judges" - but what else is a judge for? A judge must inflict punishments that will act as a true deterrent to crime, while refraining from revenge and cruelty. Each case being different, a judge must use judgment, rather than reliance on precedent, to walk this tightrope properly.
A judge who relies on ideology, on party loyalty, on bias, is no judge.

The greatest harm that scandals like the Abramoff payoffs cause is that it destroys our trust in our regulators. If we cannot trust our regulators, we become prey again for the grifters.
The grifters know this. The grifters want this. This is why the grifters continually try to tempt Congressmen.
This is why Congressmen who succumb, all of them, must be punished, in such a way as to be a true deterrent to the act.
Otherwise, we may as well let the terrorists win. Better them than the grifters.

Gonzales testifies

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales testified to a Senate Judiciary committee today.
But not under oath. Senator Arlen Spector, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman , stated he didn't have to.
Gonzales told the committee that the program is:
(1) limited to communication between someone in the U.S. and someone in a foreign nation.
(2) triggered when a NSA professional beliefs one of the parties is tied to al Qaeda.
(3) designed to minimize the amount of information collected and disseminated.
(4) reviewed by NSA supervisors and the NSA inspector general.
(5) renewed every 45 days.

Well, Mr. Gonzales,
(1) Why was it so hard to get a FISA warrent for this "obviously legal" wiretap?
(2) How does the NSA professional acquire this "belief" that someone on the line is talking to al Qaida?
(3) And what would that minimum be, sir?
(4) Why not the Senate, as well? They're mostly Republicans - don't you trust them?
(5) So, you're not doing it now, right?
and
(6) Why can't anybody connected to the White House testify under oath anymore? What have you got against oaths?

Oh, and
(7) Why haven't you just said "Mea Culpa - it was wrong, we won't do it again." and go back to using FISA warrents to get legal wiretaps? Why draw this out?

It's all about sex, you know.

What is it about homosexuality and the Religious Right, anyway?
The Ten Commandments say nothing about sexuality. They do, however, ban murder, robbery, and lying. The ban on homosexuality comes from a few Old Testament parables and some apostolic commentary.
Yet Pat Robertson and his friends go after homosexuality with a fervor they never show towards depictions of murder. Brokeback Mountain catches ire, but Rambo never got a peep out of them. Even Grand Theft Auto barely registers on their radar.
The most blatent problem is with "Thou shalt not commit false witness against thy neighbor", which can be translated as "No Swift-boating". No lying about another's nature. No slander.
Now, this isn't an interpretation of an off-subject text, like the arguments against abortion. This is a Commandment - one of the original "set in stone" laws. The meaning is clear, the wording concise and unequivocal. Pat and friends should be screaming every time someone makes a personal attack in Washington.
But they don't.
It couldn't be that the Religious Right are willing to sacrifice their principles for temporal power, could it?

God's Will and Right Wing protesters

Levitate yourself.
Go ahead - just . . . umph yourself upwards. I'll wait.
Hard, huh? They used to say that if God had meant man to fly, He would have given him wings.
What they should have said was, God didn't want man to levitate, so he doesn't.

There are a couple of useful illustrations in this simple fact, applicable to several of today's situations.

First, when God doesn't want you to levitate, you don't levitate.
No going to Korea and levitating there. You don't levitate anywhere. Becoming a secular humanist doesn't get you around God's will, nor does rewriting holy scripture or issuing a papal bull. You don't levitate.

Second, God doesn't need help in preventing levitation. No one has to issue a fatwa, enact a law, start a war, or even carry signs outside a courtroom to prevent people from levitating. It isn't necessary because no one levitates.

Next time you are tempted to protest, or even fight, about something being against God's will, just remember - if that action were really against God's will, there wouldn't be a need for your actions to stop it. God would not let it happen. Ever.

That's the nice thing about omnipotence.
Now stop yelling.

When Criminals Make the Laws

What is a government for, anyway?
In most of the countries of the world, the government exists for the benefit of the governors. These tyrannies and kleptocracies drain the resources, sell off the valuables, and work the people to death in order to provide a few elite individuals with an unparalleled lifestyle of hedonism and luxury.
A few naive nations, however, believe that a government exists in order to create the best lifestyle possible for the citizens.
I hope none of these naive people live in the United States.
The Bush government continues to claim that it has unlimited powers to break laws, due to the war.
The Bush government started the war, on the grounds that Iraq, and its WMD, endangered the United States.
Depending on who you talk to, the WMD are either (a) imaginary; the invention of the Bush government, or (b) in Syria. Either way, they make poor grounds for a war in Iraq.

The Bush government continues to insist that the war in Iraq must be fought until victory is achieved - and, as a result, insists that the Bush government retain unlimited powers to break laws until the War on Terror is won.
The condition for victory in the War on Terror has not been stated, whether it is a pro-Republican government in Iraq, the death of every terrorist in the world, or just the withdrawal of troops. The Bush government claims the right to decide what constitutes victory.
Thus, the Bush government claims unlimited powers to break laws until such time as the Bush government decides to give them up.
And if you disagree, you are an enemy of freedom.

Yeah. Me too.

The President's Energy Plan

This is what George W. Bush promised in the State of the Union address, when he promised to work towards oil independence.
Coal. $281 million to develop clean coal technologies.
Solar power. $148 million to research solar power technology.
Wind power. $44 million for wind energy research.
Ethanol. $150 million for research into ethanol powered cars.
Plug-in hybrids. $30 million, to research vehicles that will use virtually no gasoline.
Hydrogen. $289 million, to develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

A few observations.
1) Notice that all of this money is for research. They don't have to produce a single new invention; they just have to do the research.
2) Most of this money is to go into the auto industry - the industry that produces cars, be they ethanol, hydrogen, or treadmill powered. A total of $469 million to revitalize the Big Three, who have been shutting down plants because they can't compete with Toyota. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.
3) The second biggest morsel went to the coal industry. Whatever happened to the Power of the Free Marketplace, which Rewards good businesses, Punishes bad businesses, and Can Monitor Itself? Apparently, if you control enough political clout, you don't have to worry about things like fair competition.

I wonder - has anyone told the President about Tidal Generators? Little turbines placed in a row offshore that are turned by the movement of the tides? Has anyone told the President about Ocean Thermal systems? Deep water is colder than surface water. You take a long pipe and warm the water down there, which rises. Put a turbine in the shaft, and you get electricity. Power the heater at the top with solar power, and you're in business.
Are any of these ideas getting funding?
Or is it all pork?

The State of the Union speech - with comments

Here's some of what was said - with observations. After all, Observations are what this blog is all about.

"In a system of two parties, two chambers, and two elected branches, there will always be differences and debate. But even tough debates can be conducted in a civil tone, and our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger."
So, you won't be calling Murtha a coward anymore, right? Fat chance of this happening, George - the neo-cons are the most insult-happy people on earth!
"In 1945, there were about two dozen lonely democracies on Earth. Today, there are 122."
Name them. Places like Zimbabwe, Egypt, and all the other democracies-because-we-SAY-they're-democracies don't count, by the way.
There is no peace in retreat. And there is no honor in retreat ... The United States will not retreat from the world, and we will never surrender to evil."
Battle of Cannae - Hannibal pulls back his center. The Romans rush forward. Hannibal pulls in his flanks, encircles the Romans, and wipes them out. One of the greatest victories in the Ancient world. Sometimes there's victory in retreat, George, so long as you're a good general.
"We are on the offensive in Iraq, with a clear plan for victory."
"Shoot them all" is also a clear plan for victory, George. Do you have a workable plan for victory? And what do you consider victory? If a united Iraqi people decide to sell oil to China exclusively, and resolves never to speak to the US again, would that be victory? What is it you are trying to accomplish?
"Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy."
So what is responsible criticism, George? When you're failing, every criticism sounds like defeatism. Second guessing may not be a strategy, but the first step to revising a strategy is second guessing. And acknowledging that something is wrong.
"The Palestinian people have voted in elections – now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace."
You just threw out their election platform, George.
"America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our Nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran."
Just don't do anything we don't want you to, own any weapons we don't want you to have, elect any governments that don't espouse Western values, or sell your oil to China.
"Fortunately, this Nation has superb professionals in law enforcement, intelligence, the military, and homeland security. These men and women are dedicating their lives to protecting us all, and they deserve our support and our thanks. They also deserve the same tools they already use to fight drug trafficking and organized crime – so I ask you to reauthorize the Patriot Act."
Drug trafficking and organized crime are flourishing, George - your superb professionals need new tools. And pay raises. And more staffing.
"It is said that prior to the attacks of September 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al-Qaida operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late. So to prevent another attack – based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute – I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al-Qaida operatives and affiliates to and from America."
And hopefully the unsuspected al-Qaida operatives will be stupid enough to hold phone conversations as if they were characters in an episode of Get Smart, so that you'll notice them. And hopefully nobody will be tempted to use these intercepts for less noble purposes.
"If there are people inside our country who are talking with al-Qaida, we want to know about it – because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again."
And if your superb professionals tell you about it, will you listen this time? Gathering the information is not the problem. Interpreting and acting on the information is the problem, George, and you are not famous for doing either.

There's more - Bush says we must seek alternatives to oil (I'll believe that when I see it - Exxon has a lot of pull around here - ), says we must have illegal immigrants because the economy depends on them ( - although not as much pull as Haliburton does.), refuses to allow further stem-cell research (no biggie - all the CEOs will just have to go to Korea for treatments), and says that the economy is strong, with 4.6 million new jobs (minus the ones Ford cut.).

More later.

A different state of the Union

A few looks at what's going on.
- Just last month, the GAO issued a report warning that the administration still had no plan in place for freezing terrorist cash assets. So, we'll listen to their phone messages but we won't stop their spending. Cute.
- Ford received $250 million in tax credits as part of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004. They just eliminated hundreds of jobs. Cute.
- Vincente Fox estimates that there are 23 million Mexicans in the US illegally. They have been given maps to help them get here, and the Mexican Army has been known to provide them with fire support, "accidentally" of course. The government response: hire them to rebuild New Orleans.
- Saddam's WMD may have been shipped out of Iraq right under the government's noses. Pardon me, guys, but while you were raving about how Saddam could use these weapons on us at any moment, shouldn't you have been watching to make sure they weren't? I mean, getting them out of Iraq would have been the first step, right?
- The Abramoff scandal: Republicans respond to corruption charges by saying that the Democrats took money, too. As if that made it all right. Hey, guys - if the Democrats jumped off a cliff, would you jump too? Meanwhile, the president has just "promoted" the head investigator to a new job. As reported elsewhere, Abramoff got away from his last scandal, in Guam, when the president removed the US Attorney running the investigation.
- Exxon, which just posted record profits for the year, wants the money - $5 billion - it spent on the Exxon Valdez disaster . . . refunded.
- China, future enemy #1, is the number one for worldwide foreign investments, while France, the neocon punching bag, is number 2. America's annual trade deficit is a half-trillion dollars, which means all those America-First ultra-patriotic corporations, like Haliburton and Exxon, are either not selling too much, or are putting their profits into offshore banks. So much for their faith in America.
- Domestic spying, by both NSA and the Pentagon, defended with the statement "national security". In other words, we need to do this in order to know if anyone is planning to attack us. Meanwhile, bin Laden announces - on international TV - that he intends to attack us.

And so it goes.

What happens to wiretap info?

As George W. Bush continues to defend his wiretap policy as essential for the defense of the country, one has to wonder what he would do with the information once he got it?
FEMA is still a shambles. The police and fire services still haven't received any extra money for hiring. The FBI is still looking for a computer system that works. Customs still works on random sampling. Cargoes still enter port with only superficial checks.
Why do I get the feeling that if the NSA intercepted a call saying "All is ready. Begin the operation in two days.", the only thing the Bush government would get out of it is a two day head start on the Blame Game?

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