Cellphones and the Internet make communication easy and instantaneous, but may hamper developing face-to-face relationships. Home entertainment is more readily available via cable and DVDs than in generations when the front porch and neighbors were entertainment mainstays.

The commentary is pointed at one religion but you can read a universal message to counter isolation. 

Are we the increasingly isolated? Do we use this faceless world of internet communication to give or avoid?

Update Aug 9

Lawrence Tribe says that the proposed signing statements and NSA surveillance solutions are not solutions, but the current situation should not be left unchecked. [More in comments]

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I am continuing to update this thread to track the issue and expand at least my understanding.

Explaining the pesky numbers [regarding signing statements]  .... The largest number, and most important, is the number of laws and provisions in laws that are challenged in Presidential signing statements:

Bush has challenged > 800 laws

Previous 41 presidents challenged a total of about 600 laws

The number of signing statements that contain these challenges is irrelevant. The Administration also does not distinguish between the challenges to laws in Bush statements and other Presidents' statements which are Hallmark card words.

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Why care about the issues at all??

Bush is using signing statements as part of putting the unitary executive in practice.  Cherry picking the pieces of legislation the Executive Branch won't follow is a virtual veto: it is done out of public view, eliminates a legislative overturn and negates judicial review. A signing statement was already cited in a Supreme Court, this time just a dissenting opinion. 

Supreme Court - Charlie Savage points to the dissent to Hamdan, decision on Guantanamo Bay military trials, as a "milestone in the debate over the administration's expansion of executive power:" 

Scalia's dissenting opinion gave Bush's signing statement ... equal weight to statements by the bill's authors, suggesting that there is no legal difference between the views of Congress and the president about what a law means.  Scalia's dissent was joined by [Thomas and Alito], making three justices who endorsed Bush's signing statement as relevant to a discussion of the law's legislative history

ABA Task Force Report on Presidential signing statements - history, analysis, and recommendations. 

TPMCafe dicussion in early May 2006 about these articles:

...1. Charlie Savage article about Bush claiming the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since 2000, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

...2.  Charlie Savage article about the Senate Judiciary Committee holding hearings on ''very blatant encroachment" of congressional authority by Bush.