EdCone.com

Gary Pearce on beating Liddy: "Recruit one of the General Assembly’s bright and experienced female legislators."

Hmmm.

Hey, did you hear about these newfangled blog thingies? They suck! Unless you are a newspaper editorialist in seach of easy generalizations and an evergreen column subject. Then blogs can come in handy.

This week's guest stars on The Muslim Paranoia Show: Virgil Goode and Debbie Schlussel.

Un film de Troublemaker, talking some Wray and Hinson.

Jim Rosenberg retires Mr. Sun, but plans to return with a new persona.

I remember when he didn't even want to call it a blog. Hurry back, Jim.

Charlotte/Meck schools ban gay penguin book.

Superintendent Peter Gorman admits he failed to follow policy when he nixed the book, a true story, despite the lack of any formal complaints about it: "I screwed this one up."

A teacher's guide to the book, the tale of a same-sex penguin couple and their adopted penguin child, includes a blurb from Harvey Fierstein.

A homeschool dad reviews the book with less enthusiasm, as have some other communities.

NYT [pay site] on the eventual breakup of the penguin couple, Silo and Roy: The two male chinstrap penguins had found each other in the big city. They had remained faithful. They had even raised a child. But then, not too long ago, they lost their home. Silo's eye began to wander, and last spring he forsook his partner of six years at the Central Park Zoo and took up with a female from California named Scrappy. Of late, Roy has been seen alone, in a corner, staring at a wall...things began to fall apart in May 2004 after the two were kicked out of their nest by two aggressive penguins. They drifted apart...

LAT: Drug lord's hippos run amok.

Pablo Escobar assembled a menagerie at his lavish estate. Most of the animals died or were given away to zoos after the cocaine kingpin's terminal encounter with Colombian police. "But the hippos were never claimed because they were too large and ornery to move. Now the original four have multiplied to 16 and, far from starving to death, as some expected, they have learned to forage like cows. In fact, local authorities say they represent a safety hazard...At night, several of them emerge from their watery habitats and roam for miles looking for grass to munch on."

This WaPo article asks the familiar questions about Giuliani's appeal to social conservatives, but it also raises the flip side of arguments made by Schaller and Dean -- that the GOP can't be successful if it is confined to one region.

[O]ther Republicans...see a Republican Party that must establish a beachhead in Blue State America.

"Republicans do understand it is political suicide to keep this red-state, blue-state thing going any longer," said Barry Wynn, former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and a recruit to Giuliani's banner. "We need someone competitive in all 50 states."

Semi-related: Even Sam Brownback is backing off an extreme position.

Mark Cuban on Stern's reaction to the Knicks-Nuggets brawl: "I like that the commissioner fined the teams 500k, but I don't think it goes far enough. Not in terms of dollar amount, but in terms of assigning responsibility. I think the coaches, the President, GM and Owners should have been fined directly instead."

Andy Coon makes a good case for a bigtime college football playoff. A plethora of meaningless bowl games underscores the possibleness of such a tournament from a scheduling point of view.

Still...a tourney would produce a true champion, but would it necessarily identify the best college football team of the year? March Madness often crowns less-than-great teams that get hot at the right time. Football is a different game, and upsets are fun in any case...but the idea of a foolproof system to identify the best team is a fantasy.

One side-effect of Schaller's book is the revelation of some fighting spirit in southern Democrats. More here, and here. Schaller himself has never opposed the 50-state strategy as some presume, and he's listening to southerners who are not ready to sound retreat.

Courtesy of Fec, a Rat Pack Christmas sampler.

Semi-related: Cake, "Frank Sinatra."

          

Hot rumor: the NFL may be considering a pro football team in Charlotte.

No word yet on what this would mean for the Panthers.

So, every company is a news organization in the age of the web, right?

But there are reasons that third-party reporting isn't going out of style just yet.

Exhibit A is the NBA's coverage of Saturday's Knicks-Nuggets brawl. As True Hoop said the day after the melee, "This is one of those days when NBA.com loses all credibility as a news organization...it's like 'what massive fight in the world's most famous arena?'"

The league's site now is headlining the penalties meted out to Punch-and-Run-Carmelo and the rest of the guys, but you don't build credibility by happy-talking while the rest of your wold is buzzing about something bad.

Lisa took this photo recently on West Lee Street (click to embiggen).

Albion Tourgée, an important historical figure who spent more than a decade in Greensboro, is the subject of a new biography. That and lots more in this post from Sally Greene.

The Army and Marine Corps have released a new counterinsurgency manual, the first such document in a generation.

In The New Yorker (unposted; 12/18/06), George Packer talks to some of the people helping to reshape US strategy and tactics for what one of those experts, Australian Lt. Col. David Kilcullen, calls a "long war" in which information is the vital weapon.

Kilcullen argues that proclaiming a "war on terror" is a mistake, because it lumps together unlike enemies when we should be "disaggregating" threats and addressing the particulars of culture, local politics, etc., in each situation. A similar argument is made by another Pentagon consultant, Montgomery McFate, against the use of terms like "Islamofascism."

Packer: "By speaking of Saddam Hussein, the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the Taliban, the Iranian government, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda in terms of one big war, Administration officials and ideologues have made Osama bin Laden's job much easier."

Unfortunately, we've spent the last several years blundering our way through the war. Packer: "McFate saw Americans in Iraq make one strategic mistake after another because they didn't understand the nature of Iraqi society." McFate points to de-Baathification, for example, as a key element in launching "the tribal insurgency."

Kilcullen: "It's now fundamentally an information fight. The enemy gets that, and we don't yet get that, and I think that's why we're losing." Packer says one serious mistake in the larger information war was Bush's appointment of a political operative, Karen Hughes, to a critical information post.

The change in mindset preached by Kilcullen has yet to penetrate the highest level of the Bush Administration, writes Packer.

N&R looks at Kay Hagan's political possibilities.

144 years ago today, Ulysses Grant issued General Order 11, the most stringent anti-Jewish measure in US history. Lincoln quickly ordered it revoked.

I wonder how my great-great-grandfather Cone, who had been running a prosperous business in east Tennessee before the war, felt about it...he did have to give up his store to Union partisans during the war (although not as direct result of the shortlived order), but he stayed in Jonesboro until 1870.

UPDATE: Much more here, from Eric Muller, including some legal/historical context.

This week's newspaper column is a hard-hitting investigative piece about how much I love my daughter.

Atrios points to an NYT article [behind the paywall] from May 3, 2003, which shows just how badly our plans in Iraq have gone awry.

The Bush administration is planning to withdraw most United States combat forces from Iraq over the next several months and wants to shrink the American military presence to less than two divisions by the fall, senior allied officials said today...If the administration plan is carried out, the effect would be to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq from over 130,000 soldiers and marines at present to 30,000 troops or fewer by the fall.

That obviously did not happen, and the failure of the plan shows just how poorly Bush and his team understood what they were getting us into, and how poorly they reacted to reality when it hit them.

But the failure in Iraq has larger implications for US strategy and security, as another clip from the article shows:

The Bush administration's aim is to bring most of the American troops here back to their bases in the United States and Europe so they can prepare for potential crises.

The administration does not want substantial numbers of American forces to be tied down in Iraq. It is eager to avoid the specter of American occupation, and it is hoping to shift much of the peacekeeping burden of stabilizing Iraq to other governments.

In other words, we didn't just mess things up in Iraq -- we tied our own hands in terms of being able to respond to other crises, and we compromised our credibility by becoming an occupying force.

The saddest part may be the kicker, which follows a list of potential problems to be overcome before the plan can work: [T]he administration is calculating that these are temporary problems and that political trends will improve and will allow the disengagement of most American troops.

Mike Munger: "I am a recovering Republican.  One never quite gets over an experience that horrifying."

He goes on to explain one of the ways in which the party left him.

Lisa photographed Calvin Tisdale this week at his auto repair shop on East Bessemer (click image to enlarge).

Maureen Dowd on Donald Rumsfeld's going-away party:

Far from being run out of town, the defense czar who rivals Robert McNamara for deadly incompetence has been on a victory lap in Baghdad, Mosul and Washington. Yesterday’s tribute had full military honors, a color guard, a 19-gun salute, an Old Guard performance with marching musicians — including piccolo players — in Revolutionary War costumes, John Philip Sousa music and the chuckleheaded neocons and ex-Rummy deputies who helped screw up the occupation, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, cheering in the audience.

It was surreal: the septuagenarian who arrogantly dismissed initial advice to send more troops to secure Iraq, being praised as “the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had” by his pal, the vice president, even as a desperate White House drafted ways to reinvade Iraq by sending more troops in a grasping-at-straws effort to reverse the chaos caused by Rummy’s mistakes.

Just imagine the send-off a defense secretary would have gotten who hadn’t sabotaged the Army, Iraq, global security, our chance to get Osama, our moral credibility, the deficit and American military confidence.

Jeri Rowe does a nice job with the story of Trish Godwin and her friend Michelle Moore.

You can still drop off donations at Two Art Chicks on South Elm St -- I'm on my way to do that now.

Swing State Project considers Dems who might run for Dole's seat.

Not mentioned: Kay Hagan.

She's tough, and smart, and doing a lot of good things in Raleigh...

A fitting eulogy for Stanley Shavitz, by Doug Clark. Thanks for saying it so well, Doug. Stanley will be missed.

Reasons people have found not to like It's a Wonderful Life.

Guardian Unlimited: The word "legend" is liberally bandied about in the sphere of popular music, but it is a term which can truthfully be used to describe Ahmet Ertegun, the co-founder of Atlantic Records. Ertegun's death, at the age of 83 following a fall, severs a vital link to some of the most significant chapters in the development of soul, rhythm & blues and rock.

Some good links here.

Update: Lex has a good Ertegun story here.

NYT: "In joining Vermont and Connecticut in establishing the parallel institution of civil unions, New Jersey shunned the option of opening marriage to same-sex couples...Gay couples would gain benefits like adoption privileges, inheritance rights and the ability to take a partner’s surname without going to court.

"But gay-rights advocates continued to contend Thursday that the separate institutions were inherently unequal and promised to keep pushing for nothing short of marriage itself."

As I've argued before, maybe civil authorities should stick to civil unions and leave the marriage stuff to others.

Does David Duke belong on CNN?

Sure, in the context in which he appeared.

He's in the news for going to Iran, and he hanged himself in the interview anyway.

More on reparations from Tim Tyson: "Anybody who hires consultants to suppress voter turnout should go to jail, but that's even less likely than reparations."

Amanda's new digs at ABC.

WRAL [updated link]: "WRAL confirmed Thursday that the [Duke lacrosse] accuser is pregnant and was admitted to University of North Carolina Hospitals. She isn't due to deliver until February, but her pregnancy hadn't been public knowledge until Thursday evening."
WRAL's Julia Lewis has confirmed that the accuser in the Duke lacrosse case gave birth late Thursday at UNC Hospitals.

Fox News posts the woman's name, for a while.

Meanwhile, defense attorneys make their move. N&O: If the motions succeed, the attorneys for three indicted former lacrosse players would undermine the foundation of District Attorney Mike Nifong's case. The motions attack the key weaknesses the defense has raised about Nifong's case -- a questionable lineup, the lack of physical evidence and whether the accuser is a reliable witness.

Update: "District Attorney Mike Nifong told a judge during today's Duke lacrosse case hearing that he was unaware of DNA that did not match the accused lacrosse players until this week, when defense lawyers included the information in a motion."

John Grooms: Check your wallets, people. Liddy's staying put...Last week, after some Washington political bloggers reported that Dole was "completely demoralized" and would not seek re-election in 2008, the Senator's office responded by announcing, "Senator Dole is running for re-election in 2008," and will continue to serve the people of North Carolina.

The trouble here is that Dole has yet to actually serve the people of North Carolina. Serve big banking interests and big oil companies? Yes. Serve the Christian right? Check. Serve pharmaceutical companies and defense contractors? You bet. But serve the interests of ordinary North Carolinians? Please.

If you think Dole's charming Southern accent means she's likely to care about the needs of regular North Carolinians, think again. Dole, who had not lived in the state in over 30 years when she announced her Senate candidacy, is a consummate Washington insider who has spent her four years in the U.S. Senate carrying water for corporations and causes that often harm average people in her home state.

Lisa Scheer: "I shot this and the preceding three pics last week on Patterson Street. The plant manager allowed me to roam around. The company is a former steel foundry that now produces steel tanks. Someday, when I own a tripod and a remote shutter release, I hope to get inside to photograph the tanks being made."

Well, I guess I know what to get her for Christmas, huh?

Diana not murdered, and not bugged by US intelligence...isn't that just what they'd tell us if she had been murdered and bugged by US intelligence?

Previously: my suggestions for dealing with the British royal family.

The ACLU shows its true colors, again.

Here's the Beautiful Star MySpace page.

Related.

Previously.

This reminds me of the time Michael Chrichton got busted for kiddie porn.

Charlotte O: With "Beautiful Star: An Appalachian Nativity," Triad Stage presents its audience a new Christmas package almost overwhelming in its glory and charm. It's the best show I've seen in this or any holiday season -- an irresistible blend of Bible tales and mountain music, staged by a company of extraordinary talent.

Writer/director Preston Lane and composer Laurelyn Dossett work the same magic with the medieval mystery plays as they did with the "Beowulf" legend in "Brother Wolf" earlier this year. The productions distinguish Triad Stage as a leading creator of regionally inspired, regionally relevant musical theater. Charlotte should be green with envy.

Show runs through Dec. 23. Buy tix here.

Instapundit: "Robert Byrd giving up on pork? What's next -- Chuck Schumer avoiding TV cameras? All joking aside, however, this is a big deal and the Democrats will deserve considerable praise if they deliver on these promises."

One of the better stories of the year in GSO: Johnny Thomas, who last month was inducted into the National Honor Society and also signed a letter of intent to play basketball for NC State.

LAT: Given a choice between McCain and Clinton, half of those surveyed said they would vote for the Arizona Republican, compared with 36% for the former first lady. In a matchup with Romney, the poll indicated Clinton would win by just 6 percentage points, 42% to 36%.

Those findings lend credence to some Democrats' fear that despite Clinton's strength within the party, she is too polarizing a figure to win the White House.

Josh Marshall says "the underpinnings of the [Saudi/US] relationship are on the table right now. And just at this moment, the ambassador resigns and gets on the next plane home."

More from TPM.

Paul Krugman has a long piece in Rolling Stone: The Great Wealth Transfer.

"For the first time in our history, so much growth is being siphoned off to a small, wealthy minority that most Americans are failing to gain ground even during a time of economic growth -- and they know it."

More: "The reason most Americans think the economy is fair to poor is simple: For most Americans, it really is fair to poor...Most Americans are little, if any, better off than they were last year and definitely worse off than they were in 2000."

The class war is over. The rich won.

Deadspin on the no-AI-to-Charlotte story: "Uh, isn't Michael Jordan supposedly running this team?...We know that reports have revealed that Jordan has little to do with the day-to-day running of the franchise...but, jeez, if they're paying the guy, isn't this the time to step up and, you know, say something?"

N&O: "Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue announced plans today for legislation that would create a fund to provide incentives and tax credits to environmentally sustainable energy projects."

Is it possible that neither Perdue nor her expected rival for the Governor's Mansion, Richard Moore, have personal/campaign websites yet? I couldn't find anything for either of them. How odd.

Senate 2008 Guru bills itself as a website "Keeping a close eye on developments in the 2008 U.S. Senate races."

The problem with temporary taxes is that they aren't always temporary.

Binker: Legislators should consider keeping the remnants of a temporary sales-tax increase on the books rather than phasing it out next summer as scheduled, Gov. Mike Easley said Tuesday.

"The question I want to take up with the legislature is, 'Is there something we'd rather do with that quarter-cent?'" Easley said during his traditional year-end interview with newspaper reporters at the Governor's Mansion.

Why not do what you promised to do with it?

That is, stop taking it away from North Carolinians in the first place. If the state has a legit need for the money, start from scratch and fund that need. But first, do the right thing -- the thing you told us you'd do all along.