Instead of buying a TV station, as it was previously rumored to be considering, the NRA has decided to take its message to the Internet via NRANews.com, "Freedom's Last Channel of Communication." They'll have daily webcasts, including a three-hour live segment. Advantages?

-Lower overhead.
-Not having to deal with the FCC.
-Less pesky FEC/Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act crap to worry about; FEC regulations implementing BCRA expressly exempt Internet communications from the definition of "electioneering communications." For now. . . .

Gorelick told CNN yesterday that she will not resign. "The wall was a creature of statute. It's existed since the mid-1980s," she said.

Several of Gorelick's colleagues on the commission rushed to her defense, characterizing her as qualified and nonpartisan, and complaining privately that she was ambushed by Ashcroft.

"We don't want to get in a fight with the attorney general, and I hope he doesn't want to get in a fight with us," said commission Chairman Thomas H. Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. But "people ought to stay out of our business." . . .

The time and attention of Washington's top policy makers is Washington's most precious commodity. According to news reports, Rice and her staff spent hours preparing her public testimony: briefing her, assembling timelines, "war-gaming" likely questions. Each of those hours was an hour not spent on national security. Meanwhile, an armed uprising -- the most dangerous yet -- was erupting across Iraq.

Maybe Rice's diverted hours didn't matter. Sometimes, though, when policy makers take their eye off the ball, bad guys kick it. In 1998, Saddam Hussein took advantage of President Clinton's impeachment distraction to throw weapons inspectors out of Iraq, and that same distraction may have impeded an effective U.S. response. . . .

[D]istractions in time of crisis do not help. And Washington could not have chosen a worse moment than now for a paroxysm of finger-pointing. "Our focus has been on 9/11 -- who did what and who didn't," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, R-Ind., told ABC's "This Week". "But it ought to be on June 30," the date when sovereignty is supposed to be transferred in Iraq.

Economists speak of transaction costs. Washington needs to master the concept of investigation costs. A government saddled with a high-profile probe is a government less focused on other tasks, and wartime is the worst time for distractions. . . .

Above all, Bush's attitude toward sensitive information has remained consistent from his pre-9/11 behavior: Transparency is overrated, secrecy is a virtue, and post-Watergate reforms curtailing the government's ability to snoop, prosecute and act freely are a serious obstacle to protecting the country.

These beliefs don't make him venal, just wrong. History has shown that a government that acts without the checks and balances of scrutiny is a government that abuses its power. Secrecy is often just another word for "it would be embarrassing for me if you saw that." And transparent examination and debate, however untidy, unlocks the genius of distributed, free-flowing intelligence -- one of America's biggest competitive advantages -- and gives citizens their deserved seat at the decision-making table.

Consider for a moment how things would be if Bush would have gotten his way on the 9/11 hearings: We would not have seen the strangely cathartic (and/or infuriating) gesture of Richard Clarke apologizing to the surviving families of Sept. 11 victims, Condoleezza Rice would not have faced public grilling, Bush probably wouldn't have held a rare primetime press conference, and we certainly wouldn't have been able to read the infamous PDB memo. Reforms would have been handled by the wise men and women of the congressional intelligence committees and the internal investigators at the CIA and FBI. Our knowledge of the changes would be limited to whatever leaks were thrown our way (as opposed to daily sworn testimony of officials like George Tenet and John Ashcroft). . . .

You should know that as of today the Conspiracy is banned in Burma (Myanmar). The yellow flag says "banned phrase found."

Its alleged anti-semitism isn't the only problem with Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. There's also the small matter of it being in Aramaic. To help enrich your enjoyment, here is a handy glossary of useful terms . . .

B-kheeruut re'yaaneyh laa kaaley tsuuraathaa khteepaathaa, ellaa Zaynaa Mqatlaanaa Trayaanaa laytaw!
It may be uncompromising in its liberal use of graphic violence, but Lethal Weapon II it ain't.

Da'ek teleyfoon methta'naanaak, pquud. Guudaapaw!
Please turn off your mobile phone. It is blasphemous.

Shbuuq shuukhaaraa deel. Man ethnaggad udamshaa?
Sorry I'm late. Have I missed any scourging?

. . .

Ma'hed lee qalleel d-Khayey d-Breeyaan, ellaa dlaa gukhkaa.
It sort of reminds me of Life of Brian, but it's nowhere near as funny.

. . .

Lawyers can sure make it tough to have a good time! I am eagerly awaiting the time the first of my friends got a Gmail address[.] The victim (friend) was going to immediately get a short paragraph from me about refinancing and "male enhancement."

The Senator has represented a good portion of the Silicon Valley for the twelve years she has been in the legislature, and has earned the respect of much of the high-tech community for her concern about the unique and challenging issues this industry raises.

More important than that, though, the issues with Google's proposal go a bit deeper than just the Nanny State pejorative would suggest, and I wanted to offer some of thoughts for you to consider.

After speaking with Google's policy and legal staff, it became clear to us that Google had not thought through some of the key problems of consent that G-Mail raises. You are certainly correct that the G-Mail subscriber consents to the service's requirements. But, as you acknowledge, there is a separate problem about the consent of non-subscribers who send e-mail to a G-Mail customer. The problem is that Google seems to have less interest in scanning the e-mails their customer sends out than in scanning the e-mails their customer receives. And those people are not asked -- and, I think, could not practically be asked -- to consent to having their personal sentiments scanned for ad-friendly content.

This variation on the issue of consent has some similarities to the question of taping telephone conversations -- something that, in California, requires the consent of both parties, if I remember correctly. The fact that Google thought only in terms of one party -- its advertisers' target -- confirms what we learned from Google's staff -- that they hadn't thought about those people's rights at alll, and had no interest in exploring it.

You make a good point when considering your own concerns about how your e-mail to someone else might be treated, and how the ad would be "associated" with it. But that is exactly what is so odd about G-Mail -- what other form of private and personal correspondence (telephone, letters) has anything close to this sort of potential issue? Yes, the ads are targeted at the recipient, but they are based on someone else's thoughts, sometimes quite personal or sensitive ones. In those other forms of communication, the only way any outside party can have any access at all to the content of the conversations is to get a court order based on some sort of suspected wrongdoing. G-mail proposes a different standard -- however benign it may seem right now -- for e-mail.

Is this a good idea? Google has a technology that CAN scan e-mail, while the phone companies and the US Postal Service do not, and, most likely, can not. But because a technology exists is not, in itself, a reason to use it. We are accustomed to a very broad notion of privacy in those other contexts, and, up until now, have seldom had reason to question the sanctity of e-mail privacy. In fact, this is one of the barriers e-mail services had to overcome in order to get people to use it in the first place -- and they did a rather good job.

Now, though, comes G-Mail. Google presents G-Mail as a very small step, but I think it is more than that -- I think it begins to work a change in the very notion of communicative privacy altogether. It's clear to me that Google doesn't intend to collect information about people's private correspondence, but by telling people they will now be reviewing e-mail -- even using a non-human technology -- the idea that e-mail is as private as a letter slowly recedes. At the very least, we should stop and think about the implications of that.

These are the reasons Senator Figueroa's initial letter to Google said that she thought this might ultimately be a Faustian bargain. She is convinced that Google has made a very big mistake in this, and that the market will ultimately work against them. I believe that, too. But some mistakes, I think, may be too dangerous even to make -- at least without more thoughtful consideration of their consequences. G-Mail seems to be one of those.

I think there is much more to this issue than your initial post might have presented. I hope all of this leads to a more productive discussion about what, exactly, is at issue here. At the very least, I hope, if you disagree with any bill we might introduce -- and you very will might -- that there is a more informed discussion than the current press would lead people to believe.

Under these guidelines, it certainly seems to me that Ms. Gorelick should not be participating in the portion of the Commission's investigation that focuses on law enforcement's role in counterterrorism. I think it would have been wise for her not to be present at the hearing yesterday.

On the other hand, she's a very smart lawyer and her participation in other hearings has, to my eye, been very focused and helpful.

I think the calls for her outright resignation are exaggerated. On the other hand, I think she should confess that she ought not be playing a role in the Commission's law-enforcement-related inquiries, and should recuse herself from all further deliberation on the matter.

Robert Gulley, an unemployed radio technician, was ticketed for alleged drunken driving as he drove away from the patrol office in this city near Vancouver. He had asked for a job application. . . .

When Gulley walked into patrol headquarters Wednesday afternoon, he was slurring his words, had glassy eyes and his breath smelled of alcohol, Trooper Maureen Crandall said.

When she told him it wasn't a good idea to apply to be a trooper while intoxicated, Gulley denied drinking, another trooper said.

So Trooper Rich Bettger, who'd overheard what was going on, offered to measure Gulley's blood alcohol level with a hand-held breath tester.

Gulley blew a 0.095, above the state's legal limit for driving of 0.08, indicating he'd had at least three drinks, March said. . . .

When the troopers asked Gulley how he got to the station, they said he told them he'd been given a ride. The officers said they warned Gulley not to drive home.

But after leaving the office and pacing back and forth on a nearby side street for 10 minutes, Gulley got into his car and drove away, troopers said.

He was promptly pulled over and ticketed. . . .

"I actually still want to join the police department," Gulley said. "Those guys are doing their job keeping the roads safe."

But state troopers said Gulley's career prospects with the patrol appear dim. . . .

Moreover, freedom of thought and expression "includes both the right to speak freely and the right to refrain from speaking at all." Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705, 714 (1977). We do not suggest this right not to speak would sanction abuse of the copyright owner?s monopoly as an instrument to suppress facts. But in the words of New York?s Chief Judge Fuld:

"The essential thrust of the First Amendment is to prohibit improper restraints on the voluntary public expression of ideas; it shields the man who wants to speak or publish when others wish him to be quiet. There is necessarily, and within suitably defined areas, a concomitant freedom not to speak publicly, one which serves the same ultimate end as freedom of speech in its affirmative aspect." Estate of Hemingway v. Random House, Inc., 244 N.E.2d 250, 255 (1968).

Courts and commentators have recognized that copyright, and the right of first publication in particular, serve this countervailing First Amendment value.

I don't think that it's correct to fault Scalia for claiming a legal right not to speak on radio or television, since that plainly seems not to be the case if you read the whole sentence:

The electronic media have in the past respected my First Amendment right not to speak on radio or television when I do not wish to do so, and I am sure that courtesy will continue.

He's clearly calling respecting his "First Amendment right not to speak on radio or television" a courtesy, not asserting that it's a legal right. This juxtaposition is quite odd, but I think that since it's contained within the same sentence one must interpret the first half in the context of the second clause (even if they are two conjoined independent clauses). Whatever Scalia means, it can't be implying a legally enforceable right.

If one is required to guess what Scalia meant by "First Amendment right", I would imagine he meant that the right to silence is as much a part of the spirit of the first amendment as is the right to speak, and so when he wants to be silent, or partially silent, granting him this right is within the spirit of the First Amendment, and hence a matter of courtesy. . . .

A week ago Saturday, about 250 residents of the community settled into their seats at Memorial Stadium, expecting a local version of an Easter play.

Depending on whom you talk to, what the audience got was either a sadistic torturing of the Easter Bunny or a lesson in what Easter is really all about.

Both sides agree that various performers explained to the Easter Bunny the death of Jesus and what he endured, using streamers to portray how Jesus was whipped, and either plastic eggs or something else to depict stoning.

From there, the stories differ a bit.

Non-church members called the performance disturbing to smaller children, who cried when they saw the bunny being "whipped" and eggs trampled or thrown at him. Then, they said, performers shouted that there is no Easter Bunny, causing further trauma to the children. . . .

Church members, however, said the whole thing was overblown.

They said the bunny was not whipped or chased. The performance simply showed how Jesus was crucified. Only about a dozen children were upset, they said. The rest understood it to be a play. . . .

A California state senator said Monday she was drafting legislation to block Google's free e-mail service "Gmail" because it would place advertising in personal messages after searching them for key words.

"We think it's an absolute invasion of privacy. It's like having a massive billboard in the middle of your home," said Sen. Liz Figueroa, a Democrat from Fremont, Calif.

"We are asking them to rethink the whole product," she said.

In late March, the Web search giant announced plans to launch Gmail--a service that would offer users 1GB of free storage, more than 100 times the storage offered by other free services from Yahoo and Microsoft.

But in return for the extra storage, users would agree to let Google's technology scan their incoming e-mail, then deliver targeted ads based on key words in the messages. For instance, a user receiving a message about a friend's flu symptoms might also receive ads for cold and flu remedies. . . .

Nowadays, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is primarily known for his reclusive nature, his pursuit of nuclear weapons, and his tyrannical rule of a famine-ridden gulag state. But those who know him well also know him as something of a film buff. In fact, in 2001, he published a book of criticism, On the Art of Cinema, which you can buy at Amazon.com. I haven't had the pleasure of reading it yet, but here's an excerpt from the preface:

The cinema is now one of the main objects on which efforts should be concentrated in order to conduct the revolution in art and literature. The cinema occupies an important place in the overall development of art and literature. As such it is a powerful ideological weapon for the revolution and construction. Therefore, concentrating efforts on the cinema, making breakthroughs and following up success in all areas of art and literature is the basic principle that we must adhere to in revolutionizing art and literature.

Unfortunately, On the Art of Cinema hasn't sold very well thus far, with a disappointing sales rank of #455,145. Kim's other critical work, Kim Jong Il on the Art of Opera: Talk to Creative Workers in the Field of Art and Literature September 4-6, 1974, ranks even lower at #789,855. And his real potboiler, Our Socialism Centered on the Masses Shall Not Perish, reached only a paltry #1,060,827.

What kind of showing is that for the absolute leader of a totalitarian state? Where are the mass purchases, the sycophantic reader reviews? Which faceless apparatchik has fallen asleep at the wheel? (I was tempted to buy a few copies, just to help the poor guy out, but decided that I could find better uses for my money than supporting the concentration camps.)

In a strange twist of fate, Kim's literary success has now been eclipsed by that of UCLA professor Eugene Volokh, whose Academic Legal Writing (which I purchased in the course of revising my thesis) now ranks at a healthy #2,118.

Which should just go to show you: in the fight between the friends and enemies of freedom, the bloggers will always win.

[L]ast Friday evening[,] a man walked into the [police] department to report that a woman had stolen his crack cocaine. . . .

[Police officer Philip] Anelli said the man told him that he and a woman were riding around when he decided to pay for two rocks of crack cocaine. The man planned to smoke one of the rocks and give the other to the woman in exchange for sexual favors. The plan was apparently moving along fine, until the woman smoked both rocks and then ran off without giving up any favors.

Angry, the man went to the police department to turn the woman into the police. . . .