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The Super Bowl went off without a security hitch thanks to Miami's high-tech Fusion Center, one of the country's 100-plus collaborations between local police and counter-terrorism experts aimed at collecting "actionable data" and foiling terrorist activity. The centers, though, pose a few problems. One in Ohio, which has spent $2 million, doesn't seem to do anything. One in Texas has spent its time, despite "no specific intelligence," targeting Muslims and peace activists. And oh yeah, the ACLU says much of what they do is illegal.

"The idea that the tolerance advocated by the groups being targeted would be treated as a menace to American security demonstrates a disregard for civil liberties and a disdain for democracy itself." 

Sarah Palin's mean-spirited, often-incoherent, $100,000 speech to the Tea Party Nation has inspired the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to launch an online contest to remind those who might need reminding, as hard as it is to imagine, how mean-spirited and often-incoherent she is. Tell them what you think she's saying here. 

"They're not knowin' what are we gonna do if we don't have Tea Party support."

Accepting that our good guys are often profoundly flawed, we choose to remember Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, who died today at 77, not for his ethical lapses or hawkish views but for his blistering criticism of the Iraq War - a criticism that meant renouncing much of what he had ever believed in. It must have cost him dearly.

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion."

Citing godly exhortations, which is always tricky, Minnesota's wacko Rep. Michele Bachmann says U.S. support for Israel is handed down from on high, and without it "there is a curse that comes into play." She herself in her "private Bible time" is working through Isaiah, she told the Republican Jewish Coalition, who must number, what, 17 people?

"I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States."

The tabs on your o.j. carton and the stickers on your CDs can all go to art, and helping save the planet, as part of the International Plastic Quilt Project. The Oregon-based Leave No Plastic Behind is seeking people to make quilt squares and, if you can handle it, enter a three-month plastic-free challenge to raise awareness of how much plastic you use but don't see. 

"Oh the places you'll go! Plastic travel has a sickening romantic feel as I imagine the personified plastic bits jet setting around the globe. As for waste reduction - that is ongoing. Once you begin to reduce the unecessary and the convenient, there is still the unavoidable."

After prison, drugs, a long winter in America, Gil Scott-Heron is back with his first album in 16 years, called I'm New Here. Revisit his classic The Revolution Will Not Be Televised here.

A Christian group in Michigan has filed a lawsuit against the new Hate Crimes Act, arguing it's really an effort to "eradicate religious beliefs opposing the homosexual agenda." Taking illogic to a new level, the Thomas More Law Center says the law actually creates hatred, hate crimes against homosexuals are the fault of other homosexuals, and only 243 violent crimes last year were motivated by the victim's sexual orientation so just what is the big deal?

"The sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin."

Along with the ads and beer and Nachos of Super Sunday lurks a grimmer, sadder sales product - girls as young as 11 or 12 brought in as prostitutes for the hordes of men who come to town. Children's advocates are setting up outreach programs to try and reach, and rescue, the many underage runaways being trafficked.

"This is truly an example of supply and demand." - Ernie Allen, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children