Bloggers are reacting to the short extension granted the Patriot Act in the Senate, rejoicing at the end of the New York transit strike, and breaking down the now one-horse race for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.

Patriot Inaction: The Senate voted Wednesday to extend the Patriot Act for six months, preventing the controversial counterterrorism bill from expiring at year's end but falling short of updating it. President Bush had said he'd oppose a short-term extension of the act, but the White House reportedly is on board with the compromise. Later in the day, the House voted for a one-month extension and sent that back to the Senate, where a late vote is expected.

Many are reading this as a victory for the Democrats, righties included. "It's a funny thing," said  John Hinderaker at conservative Power Line. "(W)hen the Democrats are in the majority, the Democrats run Congress. When the Republicans are in the majority, the Democrats still run Congress. How does that work?"

But Blogs for Bush sees  a silver lining here, in the 2006 midterms: "Polls show that a majority of Americans support the Patriot Act in its current form, or want it tougher," Matt Margolis writes, pointing to Gallup numbers. "So, this delay in the debate over the Patriot Act is sure to help Republicans in 2006."

The Patriot Act passed 98-1 in the Senate in Oct. 2001. Since then, in the absence of terrorist strikes on U.S. soil—plus the presence of constant intelligence scandals—attitudes like that of Michael Stickings at The Moderate Voice have become more common: " I do not support the Patriot Act in its current form ... this extension means that a deal could still be worked out between the Act's critics on both sides of the aisle and stalwarts in the Republican caucus who refused to budge until this latest vote."

On Balkinization, Marty Lederman links Bush's authorization of warrantless wiretapping and the re-enactment of the Patriot Act and starts down this theoretical road: "What virtually no one is pointing out is the incongruity of these two arguments -- that if the President is correct about the legality of his wiretapping protocol, then there is little need to reenact the PATRIOT Act."

Read more about the Patriot Act.

Strike out: New York City's three-day transit strike ended today, as the union's executive board voted to accept the preliminary framework of a settlement plan. City transit employees returned to work today, and most subway and bus service was to resume by Friday morning.

"Thank God," writes  poster CHFDigital on Gawker, "it's now safe to leave my apartment."

Brooklyn-based Vermillionsun  provides a typical commuting narrative: "The car went slower than walking pace for a good portion of the trip — there were cheers of glee every time we got up into 2nd gear ... Also my prayers to God, Mother Mary, Ganesh, and St. Christopher must've worked, because we instinctively chose the one route that was still nominally moving (the West Side Hwy) only a few minutes before it all gridlocked behind us. The trip took 2 hours door-to-door, which sucks in comparison to a typical 40 minutes on the subway, but really it wasn't so bad."