It looks like this stink over the so-called 'domestic spying' thing isn't going away any time soon. The Senate Judiciary Committee has been questioning Alberto Gonzales, and I even heard that Senator Leahy was asking Gonzales who's phones have been tapped! Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think it's a very good idea to be broadcasting just who we're surveiling. On top of that, the revelation of the program to the press, and, therefore, to the public, has already broadcast to any terrorists who are listening of practical ways to avoid detection by the NSA. This is just what we need in the War on Terror - major media outlets and US Senators helping our enemies avoid detection.

According to WorldNetDaily, the Bush Administration didn't get full Congressional approval for the wiretapping program because they feared that the program would be leaked - they kept Congress informed, but on a very limited basis. With the information that is now out there, it seems that they were right.

Now, the conservative/libertarian in me says that we should be careful with this wiretapping program, but common sense stells me that the average American has absolutely nothing to worry about - at least, not from this program. If it were as illegal as the Democrats are alleging, the President would already be walking out of his impeachment hearings and into his criminal trial. The average American only needs to fear this program if they're on the phone with Al-Qaida...which in and of itself takes them out of the "average American" category.



On the issue of the anti-cartoon riots, one of the never-published cartoons has been proven to be a fake. It was taken from an AP photo of a man participating in a pig-squealing competition in France. It wouldn't surprise me if the others were proven fake, as well - one of the two remaining inflamatory 'cartoons' looks like a bad copy of a photo (like the one proven fake), which has been doctored...the other looks like a child's drawing, but the fact that it was never published in any European newspaper prior to the riots is telling indeed.

Of the 12 cartoons that were published, none of them is particularly inflamatory. They basically just criticize militant Islamists, who, I believe, should be criticized - if the global community finally bands together to condemn militant Islam, maybe they'd finally see that terrorism isn't the solution to their problems.