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The NYTimes has a spot-on editorial on current FISA legislation.

In an op-ed column in the New York Times today author Robert Harris creates some very intriguing parallels between the recent political climate in the United States and Rome circa 68 B.C.

IN the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.

The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.

excerpt from:

Pirates of the Mediterranean
By ROBERT HARRIS
Published: September 30, 2006
New York Times

We need to remind Bush what his job is.

Whenever I hear the president mention, oh, every 12 minutes, that his greatest responsibility is “to protect the American people,” the insufferable civics robot inside my head mutters: “Actually, sir, your oath, the one with the Bible and the chief justice and the Jumbotron, is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. For the American people are not mere flesh whose greatest hope is to keep our personal greasy molecules intact; we, sir, are a body politic — with ideals.”

excerpt from:

Down With Torture! Gimme Torture!
By SARAH VOWELL
Published: February 5, 2006
The New York Times

The New York Times has an article about Rev. Gregory A. Boyd, an evangelical minister in Maplewood, MN who grew weary of his congregation asking for the church to do their political thinking for them.

In a New York Times editorial today Ohio secretary of state, J. Kenneth Blackwell is called out for implementing regulations that could hit voter registration workers with criminal penalties for perfectly legitimate registration practices.

From the article:

Mr. Blackwell, who also happens to be the Republican candidate for governor this year, has a history of this sort of behavior. In 2004, he instructed county boards of elections to reject any registrations on paper of less than 80-pound stock — about the thickness of a postcard. His order was almost certainly illegal, and he retracted it after he came under intense criticism. It was, however, in place long enough to get some registrations tossed out.

This year, Mr. Blackwell’s office has issued rules and materials that appear to require that paid registration workers, and perhaps even volunteers, personally take the forms they collect to an election office. Organizations that run registration drives generally have the people who register voters bring the forms back to supervisors, who can then review them for errors. Under Mr. Blackwell’s edict, everyone involved could be committing a crime. Mr. Blackwell’s rules also appear to prohibit people who register voters from sending the forms in by mail. That rule itself may violate federal elections law.

To be sure, both parties have shown a willingness to try to use election law to get results they want at the polls but Mr. Blackwell’s rules are just plain absurd.

The New York Times had a bit on May 12th by Stuart Elliott about how the show Stomp is going to have for one night only (for now, at least) a live advertisement before the evening performance. More details in the article (free sub. required). I don’t know how much a ticket to Stomp costs but a typical broadway ticket is going for $80 to $120. I’m not sure how I would feel being subjected to pre-show ads after paying that much for a ticket.

In the latest Crypto-Gram Bruce Schneier comments on columnist John Tierney’s op-ed in the New York Times. Bruce has some interesting thoughts on terrorism and the media. I definitely recommend taking a few minutes to read it. Here’s a bit from the article.

Consider this thought experiment. If the press did not report the 9/11 attacks, if most people in the U.S. didn’t know about them, then the attacks wouldn’t have been such a defining moment in our national politics. If we lived 100 years ago, and people only read newspaper articles and saw still photographs of the attacks, then people wouldn’t have had such an emotional reaction. If we lived 200 years ago and all we had to go on was the written word and oral accounts, the emotional reaction would be even less. Modern news coverage amplifies the terrorists’ actions by endlessly replaying them, with real video and sound, burning them into the psyche of every viewer.