From Every Time Zone

The headlines, from the Notebooks’ Home site:

Updated Monday, January 16, 2006 10:02 AM EST

1. Abramoff pipe points to Chr'tian centerfold R.Reed (WPot)


2. Nationwide demonstrations protest US strikes (Pakistan DT)


3. Democracy inaction: US warns Hamas election (AlJzera)


4. Ausralia moves toward national ID card (The Age)


5. Pro-democracy campaigners arrested in Swaziland (JG&M)


6. Canadian conservatives hold lead over liberals (Globe & Mail)


7. UN powers debate Iran nukes escalation (BBC)


8. Canadian inquiry fins no fault in CIA flights (Montreal Gzt)


9. Iran threatens soaring oil prices in retaliation (Guardian)


10. 76yr.old Californian next on US death penalty hit list (LAT)


11. India's girl deficit biggest amon educated women (CSM)


12. Taliban defector shot dead in Kandahar (BBC)


13. Bachelet elected Chile's 1st woman president (SantiagoTms)


14. Terrorist elected to British Legion Com'tee (Belfast Times)


15. China reserves soar to $819bln, US deficit to $700 bln (FT)


16. How New York's mean streets were tamed (Guardian)


17. El Baradei doubts Iran's peaceful nukes claims (Haaretz)


18. The living wage as an emerging campaign issue (NTM)


19. Scientists discover diabetes heredity gene (NYT)


20. Halliburton picked to build in anti-war town (The Australian)


21. Austria's EU pres'cy, Mozart's 250th connected? (WPH)

Blog World Round-Up: Monday, January 16

1. Talking Points Memo sorts out who was on Arbamoff’s take


2. Echidne’s fairy tale: Of emperors without clothes, peas and carrots


3. Corrente celebrates Bachelet’s win in Chile


4. Pacific Views on the mockery of Republican Health Care Benefits


5. Paperweight on liberal patriotism without qualifiers


6. Crooks and Liars give us Arlen Specter implying Bush Impeachment


7. Peter Daou on liberal bloggers in the wilderness


8. James Wolcott adds valuable fizz to Peter Daou’s depression


9. Brian Maloney weeps over WOR’s Bob Grant, huffs over Jerry Springer


10. Shadow of the Hegemon takes on Roger Ebert taking on video games


11. American Street on the flaws in “King Kong”


12. The Angry Arab on the two Lebanons dividing over a US visitor


13. Eye of smog will have you in hysterics over vaginal madness


14. Urban Semiotics on what’s so hateful about Internet Explorer


15. Carter’s Little Pill on rhyming poetry and arrested development


16. This Fish rediscovers the joys of middle school humiliation


17. Anonymous co-worker gives the low-down on that room’s sounds

Featured Blog I: Kentucky FriedIntelligent Design's Next Crow
THE J TRAIN


[The J Train is a primary care physician in eastern Kentucky and an alluringly original writer. He's old enough to be routinely saving lives but too young to remember Louie Nunn, Kentucky's last Republican governor--until Ernie Fletcher took over in 2003, apparently not for Kentucky's better health. The J Train diagnoses.]


Ernie Fletcher would love nothing more than to change the subject. Kentucky's first Republican governor in my lifetime, thanks to Paul Patton's pecadilloes, he started his term by taking a dump on the state's teachers (and other state employees) before waltzing into his own little cronyism scandal. Rather than owning up to his mistakes and taking it like a man, he issued pre-emptive blanket pardons for anything anybody involved might have done. The only people left who truly support him are the ones who have drunk so much of the Kool-Aid that they frequently burst through walls and exclaim, "Oh yeah!". So, clearly, Ernie needs the state to start talking about something else, and his State of the Commonwealth (remember, we're a commonwealth, for some reason) Address was the perfect time to set new ideas afloat. Read the rest at The J Train...


Featured Blogger II: Washington Putsch

The Naked Lies of Deborah Howell, Washington Post Ombudsman Jane Hamsher/Firedoglake, January 15, 2006


Deborah Howell is an outrage. Or rather, her title of "ombudsman" is an outrage. If you just change it to "Official GOP Steward" I would have far less problems with her continued presence at the WaPo. But they probably have adequate reason to fear that people like John Harris would then start to bristle and covet it for themselves. It is obvious that on a day-in, day-out basis Howell is being bombarded by representatives of GOP think tanks to complain about any deviation from the official GOP slant on any story, a job which she clearly relishes. She is most certainly happy to print obvious distortions on a daily basis, like this one in today's column about Jack Abramoff:
Schmidt quickly found that Abramoff was getting 10 to 20 times as much from Indian tribes as they had paid other lobbyists. And he had made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties.
That is just an out-and-out, boldfaced lie. It's hard to tell whether Howell is a hack or just an idiot and I suspect a bit of both, and I'm not going to waste any more time beating that one into the ground. I've already been there, as has anyone else paying even the littlest bit of attention. Then Howell goes on to indulge her favorite myth -- the smoke-and-mirrors "well both Democrats and Republicans are unhappy so we must be fair and balanced." I'm sure mother Dahmer was upset at the outcome of young Jeffrey's trial too, but that hardly adds up to "two equal stories." Read the rest at Firedoglake...