Links and Minifeatures 01 17 Wednesday

Observation: There is an urban legend about how if you throw a frog into boiling water, he'll jump out, but if you put the frog in while it's cold and gradually heat it, he'll stay and get cooked. This isn't true, of course. If you throw a frog into boiling water, he will die a terrible, agonizing death. Nor will the frog stay in the slowly heated water past the point at which it begins to be uncomfortable. Frogs aren't that stupid.



But people are! Cases in point: terrorism, illegal immigration, our creeping nanny state, tax withholding, welfare, the maze of regulations that we live under that make it impossible for any person to live within all of them, all of the wealth transfer and rent seeking behaviors that our government enforces upon us... How many do you want?

The president has determined not to reauthorize the Terrorist Surveillance Program when the current authorization expires," Gonzales wrote in a letter to congressional leaders that disclosed the administration's shift in approach.



Bush has reauthorized the program every 45 days, and the current authorization is mid-cycle, a senior Justice Department official said. Gonzales said a recent secret-court approval allowed the government to act effectively without the program.