Friday Snippets

*USA Today on domestic surveillance: Never mind:

Based on its reporting after the May 11 article, USA TODAY has now concluded that while the NSA has built a massive domestic calls record database involving the domestic call records of telecommunications companies, the newspaper cannot confirm that BellSouth or Verizon contracted with the NSA to provide bulk calling records to that database.

Not the best of apologies, but an apology just the same.

*Dead Tree Wars--The WSJ slams the NYT. I'll take Paul Gigot in a death match over Pinch Sulzberger any day.

*The economy in Britain must be in the tank with all those hooligans, er...soccer fans drinking Germany dry.

*A nice turn of phrase:

"Progressive" is the new term Democratic spinmeisters have come up with to try and shed the politically deadly baggage that the "liberal" label has become.
It's the political equivalent of the automobile companies transforming old, recycled "used" cars into elegant and prestigious "pre-owned" cars.

*Update: Brendan Miniter has a great piece in the WSJ.

*A slight digression if I may. I was watching a bit of the World Cup. I figure I coached soccer for a few years and it is an intriguing sport...that is when it's played by kids.

The adults who play it are the softest men in the world (not all, but the Euros and South Americans in the world cup sure are.) They get tripped and act as if they've been shot with bullet full of lemon juice and salt. I saw a guy from Italy get his arm stepped on--which granted probably did hurt a bit--and he was taken off on a damn stretcher. My son's a catcher and took a foul ball off his hand a few days ago and didn't miss a pitch and in fact batted right after.

A football player gets stepped on ten times in one game and never comes out.

Come on Euro's, suck it up and play at least one game where your not rolling around like your legs been amputated after an opposing player accidently leans into you. Until that point, Americans won't watch.