Recently in Items of Interest Category

~ Per the Guardian (London), during the recent Israeli incursion into Gaza, Israeli soldiers were told to 'open fire and don't ask questions'. Check out this article and the accompanying video. It doesn't look good for the IDF when its soldiers talk so nonchalantly about use of innocents as human shields and other abhorrent practices in support of the IDF's concern that the number of Israeli casualties be held to a minimum so that there was no outrage spurred within Israel against the action.

~ Good background article on the Uighur territory within China, formally known as the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) via @maddow. Provides a little perspective on the events that forced the Chinese president Hu Jintao to miss the G8 summit.

~ Here's a thoughtful piece by Tim Fernholz on knee-jerk foreign policy as practiced by the current Republican party leaders. I couldn't agree more with his conclusion.

~ Cory Doctorow reviews Justin Fox's new book, The Myth of the Rational Market: A History of Risk, Reward, and Delusion on Wall Street. He describes it as "a book that chases down a provocative debate that the author discovered while working for Fortune magazine: the idea that the market is driven by fear, psychological quirks, fads, and other "irrational" factors, and as such, it does not represent a set of prices derived from the decisions of millions of actors, but rather a set of nearly impossible to predict fluctuations that are about as useful as a series of coin-tosses."

~ One more Boingboing entry sums up the sheer absurdity of the birther line about Obama's citizenship and the refusal of an Army major to deploy to Afghanistan because he's so stupid as to have bought into the birther nonsense.

~ Jon Favreau's alma mater has put up a nice piece about the young presidential speechwriter. Via Ben Smith.

~ Found via twitter somewhere, check out this junkyard tree shrine.

~ One of my web designer friends highlighted this interview on twitter:
Bright Green: Worldchanging Interview: Wangari Maathai. They're both interesting women.

~ My friend Ilona Meagher highlighted this study: Study: Communities must do more for vets

~ Way to go, Rosa. Don't let the IG off the hook.

~ Read to the end of this TPMCafe blog post for what's not being said in mainstream media about the OPR and the efficacy of its investigation.

~ Interesting stat via McClatchy: 1 in 5 Americans are wireless only

Wireless-only households jumped at a record pace of almost 3 percent in the last six months of 2008 and now are 20.2 percent of the total, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Wednesday.

~ Jeffrey Rosen of The New Republic has posted an outstanding example of smear journalism which is now being eagerly propagated through out the right-leaning media and wingnut bloggers. My initial reaction is that it is horrid journalism as well as being both racist and sexist. Glenn Greenwald offers more particulars on its inaccuracy as does law professor Darren Hutchinson. Even Wonkette gets how bad a post it is. And FDL points out just how tough a fight those poor white males must endure to gain adequate representation on the Supreme Court. And last but not least, a former clerk speaks up on Judge Sotomayor's behalf [via Ambinder].

~ My husband read "Going Dutch: How I Learned To Love the European Welfare State" in NYT magazine this weekend. It's an interesting and provocative read. It's certainly earning comments elsewhere in the blogosphere.

Ezra Klein's are certainly worth some time.

It turns out that there's a bit of a paradoxical relationship between believing your country has a lot of economic mobility and your country actually having a lot of economic mobility.

~ Matt Yglesias got it right in this comment about an ADL of Israeli Jews (no Israeli non-Jews) and their attitude towards a preemptive strike on Iran. [via]

Just as food for thought, what would the ADL say about a poll showing a large majority of Iranians supported the idea of military action aimed at destroying Israel's nuclear facilities?

~ Interesting article about Desiree Rogers in the WSJ magazine, of all places. Don't bother with the comments though unless you really like reading ignorant and racist slander.

~ Jane Hamsher highlights an exchange of letters between Glenn Greenwald and wingnut Clark Kincaid. Greenwald's response is a zinger.

~ Maureen has a winner in this column, "How Character Corrodes".

~ Thanks JNS. These auto warranty calls are so irritating.

~ What recession really means, courtesy of one of Andrew Sullivan's readers.

~ It seems Andrew Sullivan inspired Obama's reference to Churchill and torture during his press conference the other night. Marc Ambinder says that someone confirmed the reference. [via]

~ CJR does a little 'connecting the dots' on the WSJ's scoop about the NY Fed president and his highly questionable behavior. Of course, WSJ put it behind the firewall so you're really reduced to reading the CJR article and its excerpts. Let's hope the right people in government have a subscription to the WSJ and get to read the whole story.

~ Sen. Inhofe, climate change denier extraordinaire, surprises us all by joining Al Gore in his call for an investigation into soot and its impact on our environment. [via]

~ Not highly significant but nonetheless amusing: It seems there's a blog devoted to covering how the media handles printing corrections to errors which have appeared in their newspapers. This particular post describes an Irish paper's lengthy discourse on how 'public' turned into 'pubic'. [via CJR]

~ Markos mentioned the 'Specter switching parties' rumor this morning. Just heard the NPR on-the-hour newsbreak mention that it had happened. CNN has some more details. Eric Kleefeld at TPMDC has posted a good analysis on how the changing political landscape in Pennsylvania likely influenced Specter's decision.

Now if only Norm Coleman will pay attention to the people of Minnesota who have overwhelmingly indicated they want him to concede now and let Al Franken be seated.

~ Deanie Mills has posted another great one over at TPMCafe. If you have the time, scroll through Deanie's post posts there or at her blog, Deanie's Blue Inkblots. Look for her posts about her son and nephews in the military or her commentary on torture. You won't be sorry.

~ Jack Cafferty unloads a doozy on Darth Cheney.

~ Lots of interesting comments in this article on Michelle Obama's impact on women of color around the globe.

~ I expect Ezra's right about Biden's statement on avoiding the flu.

~ Karen Tumulty occasionally posts items titled "Why God Invented C-SPAN" on the Swampland blog. It's a pretty good one today. Newt reveals the truth about the RNC. [via]

~ Congrats to Nate Silver on his blogger of the year award at The Week magazine's Opinion Awards dinner. [via]

~ Washington Independent has an interesting story about Little Green Footballs and its blog-owner, Charles Johnson, and his turning back from the right-wing fringe. It's definitely created a rift in the right-wing blogosphere. He makes some good sense. Nice to see a conservative pointing out that it's wrong to hang out with neo-nazis and racists.

~ Set aside all the federal dollars that flow into Texas courtesy of NASA and all the military bases, it seems that Governor Big Hair has asked for more FEMA money more often than any other state. Awfully dependent on that federal government that you're so anxious to secede from, arent' you Gov. Perry?

~ How Fox News books people to appear on show, paraphrased:

We need someone to come say that Obama's cocky and his cockiness is going to hurt him.

Oh, not interested? Okay. We also need someone to come on Neil's show and say that Hillary can't be trusted.

Michael Smerconish shares his emails with Fox News producer. Ahh... nothing like "Fair & Balanced".

~ Michael Scherer posted Obama's response to a foreign policy query at his Trinidad press conference with this comment.

...[it] reads to me as just about the clearest, most succinct statement yet of Obama's diplomatic approach (with a little editing).

He's right. Go read it yourself. It's so nice to have a grownup who does nuance and outreach in charge again.

~ And speaking of Obama, Mark Halperin who isn't usually an Obama fan put up a post titled "Why Obama is Exceptionally Good at His Job". He makes some good points.

~ This should be very interesting. Nick Bauman points out that the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize to NYT's David Barstow for his investigative story on "former military officials who were organized by the Pentagon to cheerlead for Bush administration war policies as "analysts" on cable television" creates a new threshold for the news organizations that relied on those analysts and ignored the original story.

~ I didn't know this about Tom Friedman. File this under learn something new everyday and wonder how this influences his journalistic endeavors.

~ This is so wrong. Give our soldiers a break. They deserve it. After the failure to uparmor humvees and the deployment of soldiers with Vietnam-era armor vests, one would think that the Pentagon would have cleaned up its act. Evidently not.

~ Yeah for poblano aka Nate Silver. One of dkos's and the blogosphere's own has co-authored a NYT oped on the declining rate of close elections and the reasons for that decline.

~ Someone's keeping track of how many times a given politician utters a given word. Check the new entry from the Sunlight Foundation: Capitol Words. WaPo's Reliable Source blog has a nice writeup on it.

~ Marc Cooper of the LA Times had the best "advice" on the loco teabagger events.

The Web is buzzing with information about how to throw an anti-Obama Taxpayer Tea Party, something organizers hope will be held today from Santa Monica to South Carolina. But no need to burn up your bandwidth reading complicated instructions. Here's a simpler recipe:

Go to a hobby store. Buy a scale model of a U.N. One-World-Government Black Helicopter and a tube of glue. Toss the model kit. Sniff the entire tube of glue. You're all set for the party.

As he also points out further down in his column:

Writing in Forbes magazine, conservative policy analyst Bruce Bartlett, who has a long anti-tax history, says: "The irony of these protests is that federal revenues as a share of the gross domestic product will be lower this year than any year since 1950. ... The truth is that the U.S. is a relatively low-tax country no matter how you slice the data."

But that bit of reality will no doubt never influence those who like to create their own reality.

~ Gail Collins fills in for Molly Ivins in her comment about Gov. Big Hair's secession babble. I think Molly would be pleased.

~ How "green" is your water bottle? NYT does a little research.

~ Collecting DNA upon arrest. Somehow we're sliding down the slippery slope of civil rights vs. invasive law enforcement practices. Though I'm not unsympathetic to the need to collect DNA samples and the existence of DNA databases, this statement always makes me uneasy.

"If you haven't done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear," he said.

And sure enough, one of the defenders of the practice has uttered it.

~ Here's an interesting column from Nicholas Kristof on "How to Raise Our IQ" and some of the implications and results.

~ Via Fast Company:

Urban planners know a secret that you probably don't: The world's most advanced bus system is in Bogota, of all places. The city' ex-mayor, who created the system, is frequently asked to explain Bogota's bus system to city officials hoping to emulate their best practices at home. As GOOD reports:

"It's hard to believe until you've seen it for yourself, but the city bus can, in fact, be a sleek, fast, efficient, and first-class way to get around town. Unfortunately, you can't find that kind of bus service in any U.S. city. You've got to travel down to Bogotá, Colombia, and ride the TransMilenio bus-rapid-transit system."

"As you step aboard your first TransMilenio vehicle, it hits you pretty quickly: When it comes to buses, the United States is a Third World nation."

~ This post is "big gulp", "sick to my stomach" scary. Now we know why the congressional people looked so damn scared coming out of those meetings. And it illustrates just how ridiculous John McCain's campaign shenanigans and more recent GOP rhetoric is. What is it that these people don't get about this crisis?

~ This is obscene. Can't someone somewhere kidnap this man and relieve Zimbabwe from his dictatorial, ruinous excesses? [via @joetrippi]

~ Digby makes an excellent point.

In the current political world, I believe that Obama and the Democrats need a strong left wing that is out there agitating in order that we can continue to build popular support and also give them a political excuse to do things that the political establishment finds too liberal. Being cheerleaders all the time, however enjoyable that is, is not going to help them. Leaving them out there with no left wing cripples them.

~ Here's a side-by-side comparison of the Senate and House versions of the stimulus bill from govtrack.us.

~ This is good news.

If Joe Lieberman decides to run for a fifth term in 2012, a new Quinnipiac poll suggests that it may be a lost cause. The new poll tests Lieberman as an independent against Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. The numbers: Blumenthal 58%, Lieberman 30%. Yikes.

~ Here's a nice post on Biden's influence in policy making. It's good to know that Joe is watching out for the middle class. [via]

~ David Wade got a very nice profile from Politico after his return to Sen. Kerry's senate team in a new position as Chief of Staff. They did miss pointing out his deft skewering of opponents. "Porcine political operative" still brings a smile to my face.

~ This is truly disturbing. Someone has lifted the covers on the 401k scam and it does sound like scam is the right word. More of those wealth management people helping themselves to our money with the acquiescence of corporate executives looking for some way to get themselves out from under pension plans.

~ A site to watch for geeks who are interested in deployment of technology within government: www.nextgov.com. The big story today is on the pick for OMB's e-gov chief.

~ Fidel Castro lectures the US on the dangers of protectionism. Really.

~ And the moral of the story is: don't die if you owe any money on your credit cards. At least according to the Bank of America, you are responsible for the economic collapse of our country if you do so.

~ Via Joe Trippi on twitter (@JoeTrippi), comes this interview on The Real News Network with economist William Engdahl. It's scary as hell. Not sure I wanted to hear his analysis but I suppose that part of being reality-based is that you have to listen to the really dire stuff too.

~ Jeremy Bingham, aka ct, DailyKos's resident tech whiz gets a really nice nod for his work in this Tech World article.

~ The Air Force has created a flowchart to help its people determine when and how to respond to a blog post. It's quite entertaining.

~ DKos's resident food industry guru has the latest on the salmonella peanut butter distribution and some back history on story. The list of products is surprisingly extensive.

~ Another good writer is dying.

~ James Wolcott has an interesting review of the winners and losers in the 2008 campaign. Lots of interesting blog name dropping. Of course, what pulled me in was Joe Lieberman's name in the title. Anything that trashes Joe from the outset has got to be interesting, right? Wolcott lists him as the biggest loser. Yep. That's about right.

~ According to Peter Kafka, "Google product manager Katie Jacobs Stanton will be the new President's "director of citizen participation," starting in March, sources tell me." [via]

~ A small business that's sustainable and thriving in this economy. Its owner talks about his growth plan. Suggestion: read the post first and then watch the video that he included. Now to go look up my local providers.

~ This shouldn't happen. Hope Mike has a good month off.

~ In another well-done analysis from Daily Kos bloggers, lawyer NCrissieB explains what's wrong with the news articles that have trumpeted that Obama is siding with the Bush administration in the El Haramain case.

~ EJ DIonne has done a thoughtful analysis of Obama's inaugural speech. He's made several good points worth consideration.

~ Not sure just how well this concept will work: printed blogs. Right. [via]

~ A little off the beaten track but innovation is always interesting. It's even better when it's a kid who thought it up: "Ottawa boy's invisible invention warns birds about deadly windows". [via]

~ WaPo's David Ignatius makes a stupid comment. Hunter points out just how ignorant it was and how irrelevant Ignatius is in his pithy yet eloquent style.

~ Here's an interesting view from The Moderate Voice blog of why Republicans are partly responsible for helping Obama become President. {via]

~ Talk about detective work. People worked really hard on tracking down the photo that was used as the original source of the iconic Shepard Fairey poster of Obama.

~ The NY Daily News has a photo gallery of front page coverage of the Obama inauguration by newspapers around the world.

~ Time has a behind-the-scenes slideshow that has a few different shots from Newsweek's version. Time also has a slide show of people around the world watching Inauguration ceremony and celebrating Obama in other ways.

~ Barbara O'Brien of Mahablog is one of my long-time fav bloggers. I've noted more than once that we seem to channel the same thoughts. Her blog needs some fund-raising attention if you're in a position to help out.

~ The agenda for President Obama's first day in office.

~ Following up on their other behind-the-scenes looks at the Obama campaign, Newsweek has posted photos taken from behind the scenes during yesterday's Inauguration. My favorite is the one where Obama has his eyes closed. They have more slide shows up including this one of photos from around the world. Zimbio also has pictures.

~ GlobalPost has done an incredible job rounding up reports about Obama's inauguration from around the world. There's a lot of expectations riding on that man's shoulders. Be prepared to spend some significant time dipping through all the links.

~ Al Jazeera English has a roundup of world leaders' comments on Obama's inauguration. Another item from Al Jazeera to consider:  The article on Obama's first full day in office is interesting for the views of other leaders that they solicit and quote.

~ This is truly unfortunate. The imperial vice president strikes at our nation again.

~ Here's another unfortunate legacy of the neo-con Republicans and their politicization of our military.

To the military officer who thinks that he failed: I am so sorry you were placed in that position. In my book you are not a failure. We all do what we can.

~ If John Podesta's opinion counts, Obama is keeping his Blackberry. UPDATE: Marc Ambinder confirms that Obama will get to keep his Blackberry after it's been appropriately modified. He has more technical details.

~ What do Rush Limbaugh and Osama Bin Laden both wish for the US? In Rush's own words: "I hope he fails." The "he" in question being President Obama, of course. So much for your so-called patriotism, Rush. You've just defined yourself as the fringe of the fringe. One last loony-tune outpost of hate.

~ A roundup of newspaper covers from around the world. Here's what the World has made of what we accomplished today.

~ The best 404 error page ever. [via]

~ Features of the new presidential limo - the tank that thinks it's a car.

~ Read this WSJ public health oped on doctors and health care staff and the cleanliness or rather the lack of cleanliness of their scrubs and uniforms. And then plan on avoiding touching any area that one of them has touched, sat in or otherwise had contact. The comment at the end that the only cleaning method that killed the bacteria was bleach was a nice touch.

~ Though Joe Klein was late to the party on so many points, he did get this one right. Though it is so hard to pick just one 'most despicable act' -- there are so many from which to choose. [via]

~ Ron Kampeas tells us about 'the best reporter in Gaza'. His name is Ibrahim Barzak. [via]

~ And a heads-up from NIST. If you've got a real Christmas tree up, this is what can happen if you don't take it down now. [via]

That's under 60 seconds. Ouch.

~ In the "a picture is worth a thousand words" vein, Jonathan Tasini has posted a good one. He has this to say about the chart.

Basically, the basic bargain was roughly this--if you worked hard and became more productive, you would see that sweat of the brow in your wages. And from the post-war era until the 1970s, that deal basically held--as you can see from the lines that are basically close together until the 1970s.

Then, the lines diverge--dramatically. You can see it yourself. If the lines had continued to track closely together as they did prior to the 1970s, the MINIMUM WAGE would be more than $19 an hour. THE MINIMUM WAGE!!!

So, in short: people had no money coming in in their paychecks so they were forced to pay for their lives through credit--either plastic or drawing down equity from their homes. There are lots of reasons that this happened--greed, the attack against unions, de-regulation, dumb trade deals.

$19/hour minimum wage. A living wage. What a concept. Wonder how this chart would compare to the rise in wages and benefits of the top 10 employees of every Fortune 1000 company.

~ Obama's choice of Leon Panetta to head the CIA appears to have surprised many but in the end, it appears to be a sound choice. David Ignatius does a good job of summarizing why.

~ This post by Daoud Kuttab at WaPo's PostGlobal.com website begins to cover some of the complexities in Gaza in a way that we don't see in much of the US media coverage. I've thought more than once that part of the Hamas issue is that they need to separate the political-governance arm which provides services to the Palestinians from the radical military resistance arm, as the IRA did with Sinn Fein. Eventually the resistance arm was choked off while the British developed a truce and eventually peace with the political arm.

~ Thomas Friedman does a good job summarizing the challenges facing Obama in the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.

It's the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: "Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn't we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?"

That is, Gaza is a mini-version of three great struggles that have been playing out since 1948: 1) Who is going to be the regional superpower -- Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Iran? 2) Should there be a Jewish state in the Middle East and, if so, on what Palestinian terms? And 3) Who is going to dominate Arab society -- Islamists who are intolerant of other faiths and want to choke off modernity or modernists who want to embrace the future, with an Arab-Muslim face? Let's look at each.

There are so many nuances and complexities in this arena that a simple summary will never do it justice but as an attempt to gather the larger issues together and create an addressable framework, Friedman's summary works well. A challenge that we all hope the Obama administration is well prepared and uniquely situated to address.

~ It seems there's a some splintering and falling out going on at the premier neocon think tank, AEI. Jacob Heilbrunn has the details. [via]

~ Dean Baker takes on the Washington Post which has chosen to allow an oped declaring that it's all of us who are responsible for the real estate bubble. He makes some good points. Pay attention WaPo.

~ Look at the list of who all wants to be a bank now that there's money with no strings attached available in the TARP fund. (Teeth grinding over the incompetence in the Treasury Department.)

~ Sully calls attention to Melissa Etheridge's post at HuffPo.

Brothers and sisters the choice is ours now. We have the world's attention. We have the capability to create change, awesome change in this world, but before we change minds we must change hearts. Sure, there are plenty of hateful people who will always hold on to their bigotry like a child to a blanket. But there are also good people out there, Christian and otherwise that are beginning to listen. They don't hate us, they fear change. Maybe in our anger, as we consider marches and boycotts, perhaps we can consider stretching out our hands.

Sounds like a good plan. As someone at dkos pointed out to one angry raver, sometimes you get a lot further with honey than you do with hate.

~ Another comment on the discussions over at dkos about Warren and gays that makes a lot of sense.

Ben Folds has a great line: "God help me if I'm right. I'm lonely and I'm right."

Did Warren and his ilk hurt the LGBT community? Yes. Did Obama reopen that wound by inviting him to give the invocation? Yes. Is bigot accurate? Sometimes; ignorance is much more applicable because most people simply don't know better. People can be unaware of their prejudice, and "bigot" is too harsh for those people. They need an eye-opening education, not a heart-closing insult. Using the word bigot on everyone else, because one is hurt, will just make one lonely in his/er rightness.

Actually the original diary and the discussion in comments on this particular diary is one of the more thoughtful and useful ones that I've seen. NCrissieB is a lawyer with an articulate writing style. Worth watching out for her posts.

~ Via dkos:

Bruce Raynor on the obvious attempt by Republicans to destroy the UAW:

When one compares how the auto industry and the financial sector are being treated by Congress, the double standard is staggering. In the financial sector, employee compensation makes up a huge percentage of costs. According to the New York state comptroller, it accounted for more than 60% of 2007 revenues for the seven largest financial firms in New York.

At Goldman Sachs, for example, employee compensation made up 71% of total operating expenses in 2007. In the auto industry, by contrast, autoworker compensation makes up less than 10% of the cost of manufacturing a car. Hundreds of billions were given to the financial-services industry with barely a question about compensation; the auto bailout, however, was sunk on this issue alone.

~ Here's a step-by-step analysis of September, October and November's economic news and how it combined to bring the country to the edge of another depression. The day-by-day itemization of September events is eye-opening.

~ Many of the left blogosphere went up in flames yesterday when it was announced that Rick Warren would deliver the Invocation at the Inauguration. As Salon points out:

This time, though, the decision to get involved with Saddleback was actually not Obama's. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, run by the House and Senate, put together the program for the swearing-in ceremony. Congress, not Obama, invited Warren

And there is a second pastor on the schedule whose credentials are impeccable. Phoenix Woman has the details on Joseph Lowery.

~ BarbinMD says all that needs saying about the state of the media this week:

The unifying theme throughout this [Blagojevich] coverage is, when you have a corrupt politician, caught on tape peddling influence and cursing like a sailor, guilt by imaginary association trumps boring issues like the economy and health care any day of the week.

~ Counting absentee votes mistakenly set aside in the Minnesota election has become the big issue. Here's a video that helps clarify what's at stake. [via]

Also, as TPM's Eric Kleefeld notes, the number of wrongly rejected ballots continues to mount:

At least 358 Minnesotans did everything right on their absentee ballots -- they sent them in on time, signed them where they should have and were properly registered -- but their votes were not counted.

Those voters live in just 12 of the state's 87 counties and their ranks will undoubtedly grow. Counties and the state have just begun figuring out how many mistakenly or improperly rejected absentee ballots there are.

The fate of those ballots is hotly contested but unclear.

The state's canvassing board meets on Friday to consider the fate of these and other uncounted votes.

~ Here's an interesting, if unsettling, interview with Michael Ware, CNN's Iraq war correspondent. I wonder if he ever posted the video he talks about anywhere on the net. [via]