perfidy

Well this is interesting...

The New York times is reporting that the looting of the National Museum in Baghdad is likely much, much, MUCH less severe than originally thought. The Times cites a number of twenty-nine items verifiably missing, down from 170,000. I’m going to be a nut here and suggest that the damage lies somewhere in the middle range, probably closer the high end. Nevertheless, this sucks slightly less than previously thought.

In other news, Orin Kerr suggests that, if librarians are in a purple rage over the Patriot Act's provisions pertaining to libraries, they should also be campaigning against about pre-existing statutes. Whereas the Patriot Act makes it possible for the FBI to obtain library and bookstore records secretly, that power has long existed for any enforcement agency who can get a subpoena for them. So there. I'm married to a librarian, and respect them very much. I just want to make sure they don't get off on some Quixotic campaign and ignore other possible dangers to the integrity of their profession and the privacy of patrons.