Since I suspect a slight plurality of my six regular readers have been hanging on my Profound Expert Judgment on all and sundry matters that transpired during my vacation/apartment search/housesitting trip, I will now indulge you with my thoughts on said matters:

• The latest (alleged) NSA brou-ha-ha: same as the previous NSA brou-ha-ha. My copy of the Fourth Amendment apparently omits the clause where it says “when the president says we’re at war, this amendment shall be inoperative.”
• The immigration reform stuff: for once the president gets it exactly right, and gets to play the role of a mid-1980s fictional centrist Latin American leader for his efforts.
• Congressional corruption investigations: a missed opportunity for the Bush administration to do a good old-fashioned J. Edgar-style logroll: “you pass my immigration reform bill, and I tell the Feds to back off.”
• Absent that… well, if you think William Jefferson’s the only corrupt congressman in D.C. (much less from his own state), I have some lovely swampland in Florida I’d be glad to sell you. Then again, I once argued with a straight face that outright vote-buying ought to be legal, so it’s not like I’m particularly worked up about this scandal.
• Whining that Google celebrated Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday but isn’t commemorating Memorial Day: getting worked up about corporate tokenism is silly. I place this on about the same level as all those non-Canadian companies that somehow shoehorn a maple leaf into the logos of their Canadian operations… symbolic nonsense that signifies nothing. (In fact, were I Canadian, I’d go out of my way to avoid spending money any place that slapped a maple leaf on its logo. But maybe I’m weird.)
• The Rebel baseball team winning the SEC: well done. Now kick butt in the NCAA playoffs.
• The Duke women’s lacrosse team: I can’t say they took the subtlest of approaches, and I won’t be caught dead wearing a “Free the Duke Three” t-shirt, but any faculty member who would ever discourage a student from standing up for her convictions (no matter the content) would be doing her a disservice.
• Houston Baker: interesting that he took the big bucks from Vanderbilt instead of going to a school that manages to reek less of “white male privilege” than Duke—i.e. pretty much any place but Vandy.
• Mike Nifong: still a putz.