If language isn't just the expression of thought, but the raw symbols with which we perform cognitive operations, then we have to allow that freedom of speech is a fundamental prerequisite to our freedom to hold and exchange ideas. No matter what brilliant scheme you've conjured up to save the world from itself, it'll die along with you if you aren't allowed to share it.

I don't know what you're talking about! You certainly do enough gabbing right here, seems to me.

You: I just started a Weblog—you oughta go check it out.

Friend: What's a Weblog?

You: It's like a Webpage, see, it just changes every day.

Friend: Cool. Give me the URL and I'll take a look.

But These Guys Will Find You

Looks like we broke out the party favors too early. TIA is proving harder to kill than Michael Myers and more dangerous than Gale Norton coming down from a 3-day crack binge. Says here that yesterday the Pentagon announced the formation of two boards to supervise some trial runs of the Total Information Awareness data-mining scheme. Oh, they know it's unpopular, but someone's been asking the key question, "Will this dog hunt?" Here's what the two boards are supposed to do:

One, inside the Defense Department comprising senior civilian officials, will establish policies on how any TIA technologies would be transferred to law enforcement or intelligence agencies for their use.

The second, a federal advisory committee, has been appointed to advise Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on how TIA proposals mesh with privacy laws.

What's TIA again? It's "computer software that can analyze millions of financial and visa transactions, such as airline-ticket purchases and car rentals, and identify a pattern unique to international terrorists." Knowing how these people work, I'd say they're going to get a functional TIA prototype in place, and then claim that dismantling it would be waste of the taxpayer monies that built it in the first place. No, instead they'll just promise to "use it wisely."

Hope These Guys Don't Find You

Starting to look like a bad time to be a muslim in the U.S., if you ask me. This morning's LA Times is running a story about so-called amateur terrorists who are planning to join the jihad.

The idea is that once war breaks out and significant Iraqi casualties mount, your friendly neighborhood mosque is going to declare the Crusades officially back "on" and start passing out sticks of dynamite to the faithful.

"The feeling will be that the war of the civilizations has gotten underway: the Christian-Judaism followers against Islam," the official said. "There will be immediate reprisals; they will want to show that they are doing something, wherever they can."

This Guy Should Have Kept Quiet

Here's a fun one. Ibrihim Aletwei, a Jordanian grad student, is being given the bum's rush out of our country. Seems that he told the FBI that "he once considered becoming a suicide bomber," but why did he do that?

Aletwei, 30, said he has changed his views and confessed in order to help U.S. authorities better guard against people like him.

Watch What You Don't Say

Never thought I'd see this headline: Schools risk funding if they bar prayers.

It's exactly what you'd expect. The Bush administration is Gung-Ho on the idea of students praying in school because...well, we're not sure why.

Schools that don't allow students to pray outside the classroom or teachers to hold religious meetings among themselves could face the loss of federal money, the Education Department said Friday.

"Public schools should not be hostile to the religious rights of their students and their families," Education Secretary Rod Paige said. "At the same time, school officials may not compel students to participate in prayer or other activities."

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