LIVING BY PERMISSION: Arthur Silber agrees with William Safire that the homeland security bill is a bad idea. And reader Howard Veit has this to say about the Poindexter plan:

I don’t think there is even a remote chance the Republicans would have carried the day last week if people knew this guy was still in government AND working for the Bush Administration. I am stunned by this. He almost wrecked Reagan, and Bush sure ain’t no Ronnie.

Bad news. Worse news is that the Democrats are so stupid they didn’t think to make an issue of this. I guess “stupid” is the wrong word here, but so self absorbed in their PC petty agenda politics it didn’t seem important.

Yeah. Here’s what I wrote a while back. Here’s another item on the subject. Also here, and, well, here. Meanwhile, here is the sort of thing we ought to be doing instead.

UPDATE: TalkLeft has picked up on my Homeland Security proposal, though some of the commentators there seem mired in rather silly concerns about “vigilantism.” But SKBubba likes the idea! But scroll down for his rather negative take on the Homeland Security bill.