Waffen SS and Wiretaps

Good Morning. A few new items got past NSA censors today.

• The Constitution has been in assisted living for the better part of the last five years. Thursday it had a nice little outing in the sun, compliments of a 73-year-old federal judge, a Carter appointee, who declared the Bush junta's NSA-wiretapping scheme unconstitutional. The reactionaries were quick to pounce. Liberals are dancing. Libertarians may be breathing a bit easier, though with them you never know anymore. Pierre has "A Brief Hang-up On Wiretaps."
  

• It's not as big a story here as it is on the other side of the Atlantic because literature barely has a cult following in the United States anymore, foreign literature even less, and history no memory at all. But Gunter Grass's revelation that he was a Waffen SS in the waning days of World War II has Germany breaking up all over again--either in stitches or in vengeful self-righteousness. Helped by lustful memories of his own, Pierre defends the author of "The Tin Drum" in "The Stoning of Gunter Grass..."
  

• How do reactionaries politely, intellectually call Islam a terrorist religion and get away with it? Roger Scruton shows how in his smelly-styled "Islamofascists," compliments of the Wall Street Journal's aromatically challenged OpEd page.
  

• Candide's Latest has been a beehive lately: too much to recap here, but it's always there.

A special thanks to the many new subscribers of the last couple of weeks: the numbers are up, the response gratifying. Remember to check the front page of The Notebooks for roving updates. Have a good weekend.pt