GOOD NEWS:

The U.S. economy grew at the fastest pace in 1 1/2 years in the summer as booming auto sales offset the adverse effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But the year is expected to end with much slower growth.

The U.S. Commerce Department reported Wednesday that the gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic health, grew at a 4.1 per cent annual rate from July through September.

That was down from a 4.3 per cent estimate made a month ago but it was still the fastest pace since early 2004. The gain was even more remarkable considering that the country was hit by devastating hurricanes and gasoline prices that topped $3 US per gallon.

Let’s hope this lasts.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Mark Tapscott has two pieces of interesting news.

DAN DARLING: “CIA Director Porter Goss and FBI Director Mueller’s visits to Turkey received extremely little attention in the Western press, but from the stuff that’s leaked out in the Turkish press, there is reason to think that it might do well for all of us to pay attention to what’s going on there.”

LUTTIG SLAPS THE ADMINISTRATION in the Padilla case, suggesting that claims that the Fourth Circuit is a “constitution-free zone” were, um, premature.

OMAR has more on the Iraqi elections.

UPDATE: Still more from Omar here, and worries from Publius. I’m not sure what to make of events so far, but Kaus’s argument that more, closer-together elections would be better is looking pretty good.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Michael McFatter thinks Publius’s concerns are premature:

But this is precisely the point at which democrats don’t exchange blows and instead follow the law. His characterization of “real liberal democracy” being composed of groups who are genuinely “working for the better of the whole country” is I think a little Pollyannish. What distinguishes real liberal democracies from psuedo-democracies is that when a crisis has arisen, like now, leaders seek a resolution which involves compromise on both sides within the rule of law. We have yet to see what Iraqis will do, but this was always going to be the riskiest part of the plan. Will they truly reject quasi-fascist tribalism for peace and prosperity or will the region persist in the road to self-destruction. It’s always been in their hands. Our invasion and assistance has only made the choice explicit and more immediate.

Democratization is a process, not an event. We’ll soon see just how far along in the process we’ve progressed.

MORE: Tom Friedman and Greg Djerejian share guarded optimism, and a cab.

MAX BOOT wonders what happened to concern about leaks hurting national security?

JOHN SCHMIDT, who was Associate Attorney General under Clinton, says that the President has inherent authority to wiretap suspected terrorists for national security reasons.

President Bush’s post- Sept. 11, 2001, authorization to the National Security Agency to carry out electronic surveillance into private phone calls and e-mails is consistent with court decisions and with the positions of the Justice Department under prior presidents.

This may or may not be right as a matter of law, but as with the Jamie Gorelick testimony I noted below, it undercuts the silly notion that this argument is a novel creation of the out-of-control Bushitler regime.

UPDATE: Orin Kerr has more thoughts on the story. In answer to one of his concerns, the question of U.S. jurisdiction over satellites does not depend on whether they are over the United States, but rather on whether they are carried on the U.S. registry. Whether this impacts the Fourth Amendment analysis is not clear; the argument as to whether the constitution “follows the flag” onto U.S. spacecraft is unsettled, though the answer is probably “not necessarily.” That topic gets more discussion here; should it become more important I’ll post something on it.

Meanwhile, via the comments to Orin’s post, here’s a post by Cass Sunstein that also supports the Bush Administration’s position:

It is therefore reasonable to say that the AUMF, by authorizing the use of “all necessary and appropriate force,” also authorizes surveillance of those associated with Al Qaeda or any other organizations that “planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks” of September 11.

The reason is that surveillance, including wiretapping, is reasonably believed to be an incident of the use of force. It standardly occurs during war. If the President’s wiretapping has been limited to those reasonably believed to be associated with Al Qaeda and its affiliates — as indeed he has said — then the Attorney General’s argument is entirely plausible.

Read the whole thing; we don’t know, of course, exactly who was being wiretapped, which matters. Regardless, the Bushitler claims seem quite ill-founded.

UPDATE: Bill Quick says the press doesn’t care about the history here.

ERIC UMANSKY writes that the New York Times is unfair to a pro-democracy program.

WILL THE ’06 ELECTIONS BE LIKE ’02? The Hotline blog thinks they might.

UPDATE: James Somers emails:

If you’d asked me (and you didn’t) three months ago, I would have said ’06 is looking like ’94. But it is indeed heading towards the ’02 paradigm now instead. The “domestic spying” issue reinforces this. I expect CNN, CBS, etc, will be too frightened to actually commission a poll on the NSA wiretap issue. They know what they’ll find – a solid majority of Americans is going to have no problem with what the Administration has done here. In fact, they probably already assumed it was doing exactly this sort of thing.

But for some people, it’s always 1972 – you know, back when George McGovern won in a landslide because Americans were anti-Vietnam war.

Yes.

A SUCCESS FOR DEMOCRACY ACTIVISTS in Hong Kong, according to this report from Gateway Pundit.

IN THE MAIL: Tobias Buckell’s Crystal Rain. The cover art, as I think you’ll agree, is delightfully retro, and it gets an excellent blurb from Cory Doctorow.

DAVID WHITE says the White House has finally woken up.

DAN GILLMOR is launching a nonprofit and nonpartisan Center for Citizens’ Media: “We need a thriving media and journalism ecosystem. We need what big institutions do so well, but we also need the bottom-up — or, more accurately, edge-in — knowledge and ideas of what I’ve called the “former audience” that has become a vital part of the system. I’m also anxious to see that it’s done honorably and in a way that helps foster a truly informed citizenry. I think I can help.”

I’m a fan of Dan’s, and I hope to help too.

DENSITY IS DESTINY: An interesting look at sprawl, urbanization, and the red-blue divide.

GEORGE CLOONEY: NeoCon!

TIGERHAWK looks at victory conditions.

MORE WIKIPEDIA news.

ARS TECHNICA has more on the technology angle to the NSA story. Note the lengthy history.

BLOGGING: Bigger than sex? Maybe. But is it bigger than sex with apes?

And who knew that when Bart Simpson said “God, Schmod, I want my monkey-man!” he was channeling Joseph Stalin?

UPDATE: N.Z. Bear has thoughts on blogging and sex that mirror my own.

But whatever you think about ape sex, ape art rocks!

JONAH GOLDBERG = HITLER? They both like dogs.

PLAME UPDATE: BOB WOODWARD says that Novak’s source wasn’t in the White House. Hmm. Was it Jay Rockefeller?

Oops, wrong leak scandal. (I think). Meanwhile, Tom Maguire has a candidate.

GOT THE XM antenna/headphone combination that I mentioned last week, and it works very well. Definitely an improvement over the clipon that comes with the set.

DARFUR UPDATE: Alas, it’s more bad news.

PROF. TOM SMITH on the NSA flap: “There probably is a law review article here (though one a top 20 review would never publish, because they would not be able to understand it) about how to adapt the law of search to technologies that depend on much more sophisticated treatments of probability than ‘probable cause.'”

The Belmont Club has related thoughts.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Mark Tapscott reports that the Alaska “Bridge to Nowhere” is a family matter for Alaskan Republican Rep. Don Young:

Whatever the policy grounds underlying Young’s determined advocacy of the projects, evidence has emerged that the issue is also a family matter, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

The Alaska paper reports that Young’s son-in-law, Art Nelson, is a minority participant in a partnership that owns a prime 60-acre tract of land near the Knik Arm project. Nelson, who is also Chairman of the Alaska Board of Fisheries, owns a 10 percent share of Point Bluff LLC, which has four other members.

I’m shocked, shocked to hear this.

UPDATE: Reader Steve Wells emails:

The benefits of Young’s family are not disputed, but a quick correction: that’s not the bridge to nowhere. The bridge to nowhere would link Ketchikan, a city in the extreme southeast of Alaska, with Gravina Island, which has a population of 50 people. It also is where the Ketchikan airport is. The bridge that would benefit Don Young’s family, though, is across the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet. It would be a bridge across a tidal inlet right next to Anchorage and would open up a great deal of acreage in close proximity to Anchorage as well as cut substantial commute time from some outlying communities. It really is not a bridge to nowhere and would be beneficial.

However, having said that, I want to say that 1) I’m not at all surprised that Don Young’s family will benefit; and 2) Alaska has more than enough money to pay for the bridge itself and we should not rely upon Congress to pay for it. I would make this modest proposal: Alaska, whether through the State or through private enterprise (which would be much preferable to my libertarian/anarchist politics), builds both bridges and Congress lets us drill in ANWR.

Yes, that’s clear if you follow the link to read the story, but I guess not really from the excerpt.