I forgot to comment on this earlier. The Attorney General has announced that the NSA will send requests to wiretap all phone conversations through the FISA court from now on (instead of only sending requests that the NSA's lawyers felt needed a warrant). Some people have commented they think this is due to the Democrats controlling Congress (trying to avoid a Congressional investigation).

I seriously doubt that the Democrats would want to "investigate" the "Terrorist Surveillance Program." The last time it was in the news, something like 80% of Americans were happy the NSA was listening in on phone calls between Al Qaeda and other people, especially when one person in the conversation was in the US. A Congressional investigation would only remind voters that the Democrats see things differently when it comes to handling terrorism.

I think the change in policy is more likely due to the EFF vs. AT&T case. There is a law requiring the government to get a warrant in certain cases, and there is another law requiring AT&T (and other companies) to see that warrant before helping the government actually perform a wiretap. The AT&T case is about AT&T not seeing that warrant because (gasp) there isn't a warrant issued. AT&T's lawyers are arguing that they had proper legal permission to help the government, but there is always a risk that the judge in that case would legally prohibit AT&T from helping in the future. And the change in policy makes a lot of that lawsuit unnecessary (especially since the plaintiffs can't say that they were spied on, only that they could have been spied on).

The New York Times is running a "sobering" article about Greenland and Global Warming. Except I don't consider it all that sobering.

The world is getting warmer. I'll admit it. I don't think that Global Warming will kill three-quarters of the world's population in the next five years.

Now that we've hashed that out, let's get down to the important questions. (1) How many coastal areas flooded because of Greenland's melting ice? (2) Is a warmer Earth better or worse than what we've got today? Would longer growing seasons in parts of the world (especially poorer parts of the world) improve the lives of people living there, and increase food supplies? Would that improvement "make up for" fewer ski resorts? (3) What is the optimal global temperature? (4) Even if humans stopped all greenhouse gas production, the world would still warm; is this good or bad? etc, etc, etc.