Google has launched a site that allows you to do searches on keywords for graphs of their usage, as well as the top cities, regions, and languages involved. This is the right way to expose this kind of data. This type of statistical data is useful, but does not infringe in anyone privacy. This will be useful for trend spotting and interest gauging.

Google Trends

The American Constitution Society and the Liberty Coalition host a speech by Fmr. Vice Pres. Al Gore at the DAR Hall in Washington. Gore speaks about the limits of executive power, the issue of monitoring domestic communications and the authorization of the use of torture in the war against terrorism.

Gore has been doing the speech thing for a while. Sometimes he slips in a good point or two if you can stomach the partisan swipes, but I think the media is growing a bit tired of him. This speech is getting a lot of traction because it really says what a lot of people are thinking. In reading it, it appears to be a clearer, cleaner position then I recall his previous speeches taking. This is good Gore...

Transcript here.

C-SPAN: Fmr. Vice Pres. Gore Speech on Executive Powers

WASHINGTON - In the 50 years that Grant Goodman has known and corresponded with a colleague in the Philippines he never had any reason to suspect that their friendship was anything but spectacularly ordinary. But now he believes that the relationship has somehow sparked the interest of the Department of Homeland Security and led the agency to place him under surveillance.Last month Goodman, an 81-year-old retired University of Kansas history professor, received a letter from his friend in the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip of dark green tape bearing the words “by Border Protection” and carrying the official Homeland Security seal.

As Globalization proceeds and more of our regular daily interactions are with foreign parties what good do civil liberties do us if they don't apply? If the fbi was randomly reading mail it would be a constitutional crisis, but if its dhs is all good.... We are going to have to fundamentaly rethink how this works....

Homeland Security opening private mail - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com

Is the American middle class in jeopardy because modern communications technology enables U.S. firms to use workers in India for tasks such as call-center staffing and software development? Pundits appear to be divided on this issue.

I recommend this article because it is wrong. As someone eloquently stated in the threads attached to it, equilibrium conditions are states you reach in physical systems only when things stop changing, which only happens in idealistic models. Understanding whats wrong with this picture and you understand why you can't rely on the "everything is going to be fine in the long run" arguements from arm chair free market economists. The long run they are talking about could take generations... This article also links to a number of articles that this author disagrees with. The enemy of my enemy?

Taking Advantage

"Battlefield sites are considered noble places in the landscape of American history. Gettysburg, Bunker Hill, and Normandy stand as monuments honoring the people who fought and died there. Massacre sites, no less a part of our history, are often hidden. Vaguely worded road signs might give some indication of the tragedy, but visitors are not greeted by museums as they are at battlefield sites, and there are no official cemeteries in which the victims lie. Because they are shameful episodes in our past, massacres are not commemorated and the innocent dead are not honored. The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Sand Creek Massacre, and Tulsa Race Riot do not usually come up in history class, but over 500 people were brutally killed in these events. Although they took place long ago, they exemplify the impact--emotional, legal, and political--that the past can have on our own society today."

For better or worse, archaeology is opening the lid on American massacres