Compilation of Ruminations: Part II

So maybe my prediction of "more tomorrow" was a little aggressive. Now sitting down after watching the 1st of half of the Giants game, some quick items.

Hartford has made two appearances in the Times in the last week or so. Get them before they go to Times Select land and read all about the Rising Star. [NYT, NYT]

There has been so much buzz on the blogosphere as well as the mainstream media about the NSA-spying-on-Americans ordeal in the last week or so and I wanted to take a minute to comment. First of all, the FISA Court was established for a reason. The fact that exists but has turned down more Bush warrants than the previous administrations combined says a little something about the kind of people this president is looking to spy on. Then when the whole system is circumvented in order to sidestep the process in the interest of national security, there exists a fatal flaw. Should this entire coverup have been revealed sooner? I think so. And it was only released last week becuase the Times did not want to be scooped by its own reporter whose book was released this past week. The Times Obsbudsman wrote in last week's NYT Mag that it was unfortunate and frankly, not even slick the way the Times finally broke the story. I couldn't help but agree.
And there was the absolutely ridiculous story of the NSA's website having persistant cookies on it. Was there a bigger non-story in the last week? Absolutely not. Every website that you got to will have cookies on it these days. It doesn't matter if it's ESPN or Amazon or CNN or your favorite naughyt picture site. You have been cookied. Who cares? Most often, the cookies are used for advertising rates and tracking unique hits. Who cares....