NSA Spies on People Inside the US

It's not in the least bit inconceivable that the NSA spies on US citizens instead the country. The NY Times published a long article about it today, just as the Senate was debating whether to extend the Patriot Act.

I haven't read the whole article yet, but a paragraph at the end of the first section surprised me:

The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.

How much self-censorship does the Times practice? You would think Judith Miller's reporting on WMDs would have taught them to be more skeptical of administration claims about issues like these. Why did they decide to publish it now?

Easton Recommendations

Easton, Pa. is a small city; the smallest of the three cities in the Lehigh Valley. You can't get sushi or good Chinese takout in the city. There are some very good restaurants in the are.

• River Grille: This restaurant is our standard choice for a nice meal. On the lunch menu, the lobster quesadilla is a good choice.
  


• Sugar: Sugar is actually just over the free bridge in Phillipsburg. It's smaller and a bit more intimate that River Grille. As the name suggests, the desserts are amazing-- delicious and beautifully constructed.
  


• Cosmic Cup coffee shop: It's not really a restaurant, but the coffee is excellent, the espresso is Intelligentsia black cat blend. I also like the cinnamon scones. When we moved to College Hill, we wished there was a coffee shop on the hill. We couldn't have asked for a better one.
  

New Blog

Another new blog is here. My old one, dully titled Jeremy Hylton's Web Log, won't be updated any longer.

The old blog was to hard to maintain. It used crufy software I wrote myself. The software ran on my desktop at home, which made it difficult to use from anywhere else, and it required shell access to www.python.org. I also wanted to get the blog off python.org, because I didn't want to create the impression I was speaking as a PSF member.

The old name was dull, and I've delayed creating a new blog for weeks because I couldn't think of a better name. I'm not sure I have a great name, now, but it will do. I've been enjoying the running "inconceivable" joke from The Princess Bride:

[Vizzini has just cut the rope The Dread Pirate Roberts is climbing up]
Vizzini: He didn't fall? Inconceivable.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.