TIM BLAIR EXPOSES DOUBLE STANDARDS.

UPDATE: Also, check out the Carnival of the Lies. (Via DailyPundit).

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh.

And heh, again.

MORE: Ed Morrissey fact-checks the New York Times on another error.

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (free link) has a roundup on the NSA intercept issue, and notes that nobody in a position to talk knows enough about what actually went on to know whether it was legal or not — though, of course, that isn’t stopping lots of people from offering opinions. (More on this at Volokh, and also here, plus further thoughts from Tom Maguire.)

Meanwhile, TalkLeft has more on cellphone companies’ willingness to sell your data to pretty much anyone, and observes, “A cellphone company must surely be concerned about its own civil liability to its customers for invasion of privacy or theft of trade secrets.”

As I said a while back, David Brin’s The Transparent Society is looking more prophetic all the time.

UPDATE: Max Boot:

I CAN CERTAINLY understand the uproar over President Bush’s flagrant abuses of civil liberties. This is America. What right does that fascist in the White House have to imprison Michael Moore, wiretap Nancy Pelosi and blackmail Howard Dean?

Wait. You mean he hasn’t done those things? All he’s done is intercept communications between terrorists abroad and their contacts in the U.S. without a court order? Talk about defining impeachable offenses downward. . . . If the president’s critics want that part of the nation that doesn’t read the Nation to believe that he’s a threat to our freedom, they’d better do more than turn up the level of vituperation. They’d better find some real victims — the Eugene Debses and Martin Luther Kings of the war on terror.

The anti-Bush brigade hasn’t had any luck in turning up actual instances of abuse, despite no end of effort. The ACLU compiled a list of supposed victims of the Patriot Act. After examining each case, however, Sen. Dianne Feinstein — no friend of the administration — said “it does not appear that these charges rose to the level of ‘abuse.’ “

Read the whole thing.

MORE: Lots more links from Hugh Hewitt.

ANDREW FERGUSON writes that after Abramoff, Congress is fixing the wrong problem. No surprise there.

Meanwhile, John Shadegg is in the Wall Street Journal, (free link):

Republicans promised the American people two things in 1994. First, we promised to rein in the size and scope of the federal government. Second, we promised to clean up Washington. In recent years, we have fallen short on both counts. Total federal spending has grown by 33% since 1995, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Worse, we have permitted some of the same backroom practices that flourished in the old Democrat-controlled House. Powerful members of Congress are able to insert provisions giving away millions–even tens of millions–of dollars in the dead of night. The recent scandals involving Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff have highlighted the problem, but this is not just a case of a few bad apples. The system itself needs structural reforms.

Indeed.

UPDATE: On Hugh Hewitt’s show, John Boehner answers questions from Hewitt, bloggers, et al.

CHRIS ANDERSON rejoices on finishing his manuscript. I can dig it.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON:

Have you seen the coming attraction trailer for “Democratic Presidential Nomination ’08: Al vs. Hillary” yet? It just opened yesterday, in the dueling speeches by Al Gore and Hillary Clinton.

And you can already see the two different approaches.

I think a better analogy is the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals.

“I WAS A NAZI FOR FAIRLEIGH DICKINSON UNIVERSITY:” Well, that’s what the story says, more or less.

DEAN PETERS is spoofing Pat Robertson and Ray Nagin in the same graphic. They seem to deserve each other.

A FRENCH POLL looks at Chirac’s successes and failures, and in doing so explains a lot.

HILLARY CLINTON: The House of Representatives is “run like a plantation.”

JOHN PERRY BARLOW’S essay in response to Jaron Lanier (he also responds to me, and to Eric S. Raymond) is now up at Cato Unbound.

TOUGH TALK ON IRAN from Mohammed El-Baradei.

JIM GERAGHTY reports from Jordan, and says the Washington Post errs regarding security at the Amman airport.

TAXPROF reports on a court battle between Turbo Tax and H&R Block’s Tax Cut.

I’m actually in the market for one or the other this year — the Insta-Wife does our taxes, and she’s decided that software-assistance is a good thing. (Back when I was single, I always used Turbo Tax, but that experience is ancient in software terms, so it’s not worth much.) The Block software is cheaper, but is it good? The Amazon reviews don’t seem much different.

UPDATE: Also via TaxProf, reviews of different tax-software packages.

I HAVE TO SAY, the Pluto mission is pretty cool:

The scheduled launch of the New Horizons spacecraft Tuesday afternoon, and a successful, nine-year journey to Pluto, would complete an exploration of the planets started by NASA in the early 1960s with unmanned missions to observe Mars, Mercury and Venus.

“What we know about Pluto today could fit on the back of a postage stamp,” said Colleen Hartman, a deputy associate administrator at NASA. “The textbooks will be rewritten after this mission is completed.”

Now we need to start resume moving humanity out beyond Earth orbit.

ARNOLD KLING: “Most of my friends are liberals. This series is the conversation I wish that I could have with them. I wish they would let me finish my train of thought before interrupting. I wish that they would consider my arguments, rather than try to bury them in rhetorical put-downs.”

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Well, at least we’ve gotten their attention, as House Majority Leader candidate John Boehner waxes eloquent for reform in today’s WSJ:

We must start by addressing the growing practice of unauthorized earmarks–language in spending bills that directs federal dollars to private entities for projects that are not tied to an existing federal program or purpose. The public knows the practice better by a different name–pork-barreling. Unauthorized earmarks squander taxpayer dollars and lack transparency. They feed public cynicism. They’ve been a driving force in the ongoing growth of our already gargantuan federal government, and a major factor in government’s increasing detachment from the priorities of individual Americans. Earmarks have also fueled the growth of the lobbying industry. Entire firms have been built around the practice. As more entities circumvent the normal competitive process, confidence in the system erodes, encouraging others to take the same shortcuts. . . .

As long as the federal government is as big and powerful as it is, there will be corrupt lobbyists like Jack Abramoff. The best way to deal with influence peddling in Washington is to move more power out of the Beltway and back to states and communities. We can start by putting Congress on a lower-pork diet and fixing the broken system we have today.

On the other hand, his argument for lobbying reform (because “literally anyone can be a lobbyist”) seems less impressive. What we need is transparency, not another Washington-insiders guild.

HEATHER MACDONALD says that law school legal clinics are stuck in the 1960s. That’s no doubt true in places, though I believe our clinic at Tennessee, together with the Center for Entrepreneurial Law, is working to provide the kinds of services to small businesspeople that she calls for.

UPDATE: A U.T. Legal Clinic client, now residing in London, weighs in.

RAY NAGIN CALLS FOR A “CHOCOLATE NEW ORLEANS.” Ian Schwartz has it on video. Kind of ironic, on this of all days.

UPDATE: Nagin was also channeling Pat Robertson:

Mayor Ray Nagin suggested Monday that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other storms were a sign that “God is mad at America” and at black communities, too, for tearing themselves apart with violence and political infighting.

God’s apparently also mad at us for being in Iraq, according to a further statement by Nagin.

Nagin seems to be doing his best to squander what little sympathy was left after the Louisiana delegation squandered most of it with its absurd demand for $250 billion in “reconstruction” money, much of which seemed destined to go straight into the delegation’s pockets. Louisianans are not blessed in terms of their political class.

ANOTHER UPDATE: California’s political class is a close second.

AL GORE SPEAKS, and people are looking at history. And Tim Lynch has responded by emailing this link to a Cato look at the Clinton-Gore administration and the Constitution.

Some people, on the other hand, are just getting mean.

Sigh. I remember when I used to be impressed with Al Gore. Seeing what’s happened to him makes me sad.

UPDATE: More on how Gore acted when he was in power, as opposed to how he’s talking now. Meanwhile, an endless array of emailers recycles the “no controlling legal authority” line.

HEZBOLLAH creates more problems in Lebanon.

JOHN SHADEGG was on Hugh Hewitt’s show tonight, answering some tough questions. Here’s the transcript.

JOE GANDELMAN offers thoughts on why Democrats lose independent voters.

IF, LIKE DANA MILBANK, you don’t know what Humphrey’s Executor is about (and, in fact, dismiss it as “gobbledygook”), then you probably shouldn’t be opining on Supreme Court candidates and their views of executive power.

UPDATE: On the other hand, boasting a Humphrey’s Executor screen saver may be carrying devotion a bit too far.

THE MANOLO IS HOSTING the Carnival of Couture. It’s super-fabulous!