Social Security will be bankrupt by the time I retire, but at least we'll have a National Day of Prayer, encouraging us assess our faults, fast, be humble, and pray to God for guidance. Feel free to read the full text of H.Res. 153. I propose a National Day of Passing Meaningful Legislation.

Two reporters are working on a terrorism story. One sends the other an envelope. The Customs Service seizes the FedEx package, and gives the package to the FBI. What's worse? The content of the correspondence was a document unclassified eight years ago, they had no warrant, and did not notify either reporter or the AP. The Customs Service says that the inspection was part of their random inspections. The FBI says the material, which covered the items seized from Ramsey Yousef's apartment in the Phillipines, was sensitive. You'll remember Yousef as the fellow behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and a planner in the Pacific airline plot. These same documents were entered into evidence into two seperate trials, so the FBI claim fails spectacularly. Let's recap:

• Customs Service seizes mail (well afield of its jurisdiction)
• FBI decides unclassified material (in the public record!) is classified again.
• The government took personal correspondence without warrant or notification.
• FedEx violated its own policies by not referring AP to the Customs Service, and instead paid $100 to compensate for the missing parcel.
• The AP only discovered the seizure after a receiving an anonymous tip

Let's be totally clear about this: the Customs Service is opening your mail and will surrender it to any governement agency functionary without notice or warrant, and did so with the tacit cooperation of FedEx. Balls. PS - The intended recipient of the package, AP Washington Bureau reporter John Solomon, is on the FBI's shit list. There was an unpleasant episode in May of 2001 involving Senator Robert Torricelli and an anonymous FBI informant that resulted in a secret wiretap on Solomon's phone. How many times does the FBI have to go rogue before Congress starts taking it apart? Add this to the even-longer list of reasons for a formal domestic intelligence agency with proper oversight and controls. Having these federal cops running around taking my mail without a warrant is absolutely chilling. This should be a front-page scandal, not buried on the AP wire.

You heard it here first. This afternoon, Republicans in the Senate are going to file a cloture motion in the Senate, which be the beginning of the end for the Estrada confirmation filibuster. Significantly, Republicans are divided on this -- some think fighting the filibuster is right, and others think its sets a bad precedent by creating a de facto 60 vote requirement for confirmations. Word has it that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) is going to keep filing clotures until Estrada is nominated. Minority Whip Harry Reid (D-NV) says he's got 41 solid votes against Estrada, which would keep the vote from occuring with or without cloture. More than ever, this is a P.R. battle -- the Senate has a boatload of work on its agenda, and the side that can make their opponents look like radical obstructionst whackos is the side that will win.

The start up of the Homeland Security department is threatening to become one of those stories that just seems to never really happen, but keeps appearing in the news over and over and over again. Today there are wire stories about the department's first day. Didn't we already have that? I'm so disinterested in this department I'm too lazy to go check what all that fuss was about a week or so ago. This is like the story "Human Genome Mapped" that kept infecting newspapers. When it really happens, lemme know. For Homeland Security it's even worse becuase the whole department seems to be an intellectual abstraction anyway. Homeland Security Dept. Marks First Day By RON FOURNIER, AP White House Correspondent WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) promised a "united defense of our homeland" Friday in marking the launch of the department created to answer the danger of terrorism. The Homeland Security Department combines the forces of 22 agencies and 170,000 workers who patrol America's borders, secure computer networks, check for contamination of crops and otherwise help guard against terrorism. Saturday is its first full day of work.

HR 534 or Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2003 bans all forms of cloning -- even creating clusters of cells or an embryo for stem cell research. You don't even have to be successful -- just trying to create a clone would be a felony. What if another country breaks the technology first? Don't even think about it. The 10 year / $1M fine applies to the import and export of clone material or anything derived from clone material. It passed through the House, 241 to 155. Kudos to the Clerk of the House for being Johnny-on-the-spot with the roll call. The debate is this: if you leave cloned cells alone, they die. If you put them in a womb, they grow into a baby. Even if they don't grow into babies, they can be used in stem cell research, which promises to give us an unprecedented ability to mess with the human body -- like grow new organs. Interestingly, this isn't a subphylum of the abortion issue. You'll find abortion opponents for theraputic cloning, and vice versa. HR 801, an alternative bill, would prohibit only the baby-making part, but ups the fines to $10 million.

You have probably never heard of Robert Shrum. He's the most sought-after Democratic strategist right now, and today we find out that he's signed on with Kerry. ABC's The Note refers to this as winning "the Shrummy" or the "Shrum Primary." Last year, Joel Klein wrote a piece prophesying the importance. Why the excitement?

Just so it's all in one place. In October 2001, the lab received unauthorized shipments of anthrax. In August 2002, two Los Alamos employees are put on administrative leave for abusing expense accounts. The lab says they took $2,500. A watchdog group says it's more like $900,000. From July 2001 to October 2002, two more employees pilfer TV monitors, CB radios, GPS navigators, picnic table, gas grill, lawn chair and dozens of hunting knives they bought through the lab. That got the attention of the Albequerque DA. Finally, in January 2003, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham made sure that John Brown, director of Los Alamos, stepped down. He was replaced by Navy Vice Admiral Pete Nanos. Two weeks later, investigators hired by the University of California (which operates the lab for the government) were fired, probably because they talked with outside investigators about $2.7 million in pilfered items and expense abuses. LANL promptly lost a laptop containing designs for nuclear weapons. Joke's on LANL: the two investigators have since been called back. Is that everything? Today, Congress starts hearings on this debacle. Watch it at work!

Los Alamos National Laboratory is in trouble again. The world's most important nuclear research facility, and birthplace of the atom bomb, was broken into -- not by a crack team of commandos, but a Wired reporter with a torn Achille's tendon. Now, in addition to the camping gear bought on their credit card, the LANL has to explain how this reporter was able to enter the "secure" Technical Area 33. They'll have to think quickly: Congressional hearings on mismanagement at Los Alamos start tomorrow.

The EPA is being sued by seven Northeastern states, who are each hoping that the agency will be found negligent in its implementation of the Clean Air Act. There are a number of different actions pending. The states don't like sneaky procedural changes that don't treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant and prevent a thorough review of emissions from power plants. The NYT article highlights the poor treatment that the environment gets in this administration. Case in point: the voluntary carbon dioxide control program that the President touted in lieu of the Kyoto Protocol was announced in the cafeteria of the Department of Energy.