Some people spend hours ensconced on their couches enmeshed in the melodramatic meanderings of sordid soap-opera offerings. Others hover above their keyboards surfing sources for unsavory political punditry and picayune policy pronouncements.

But is there really much difference between soap operas and politicking? Consider:

In the ever-evolving war against airline passengers, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) continues to develop new weapons of mass dysfunction.

Travelers have long been harassed with X-ray machines, metal-detecting wands, and inscrutable verbal vetting such as "Did someone put something in your luggage when you weren't looking?"

Then in 2006 the TSA began quietly testing two new anti-personnel weapons.

Click Here to View Archive List of Botsko vs Davenport Civil Rights Commission Coverage in the Reader.

Click Here to Watch or Download the 30 Minute Video of the Appeal Proceedings

We have a president who does just about whatever he wants, the Constitution be damned. He has, among other things, asserted unchecked unilateral power, conducted surveillance on American citizens in violation of federal law, and ignored universal prohibitions on torture. And although years from now historians may refer to the "Bush Doctrine" in much the same way that they talk about the Monroe or Truman doctrines, they will most likely not hold it in the same esteem.