Top Officers Hopeful That Obama Will Bring More Realistic View Than Bush  —  Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went unarmed into his first meeting with the new commander in chief — no aides, no PowerPoint presentation, no briefing books.

‘I was told to kill to my last breath’: Captured terrorist's account of Mumbai massacre reveals plan was to kill 5,000 … The only terrorist captured alive after the Mumbai massacre has given police the first full account of the extraordinary events that led to it - revealing he was ordered to ‘kill until the last breath’.

Acorn Watchers Wonder What Happened to Crop  —  The idea seemed too crazy to Rod Simmons, a measured, careful field botanist.  Naturalists in Arlington County couldn't find any acorns.  None.  No hickory nuts, either.  Then he went out to look for himself.  He came up with nothing.

GOP Looks to Young Louisiana Gov. Jindal as Its Own Version of Obama  —  Jindal May Prove To be Republicans' Version of Obama  —  CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Last weekend, 18 days after Barack Obama decisively defeated their candidate for president, a mostly Republican crowd of self-described …

At 5am I found a bottle of vintage Cristal champagne.  ‘No, no!’ cried the head waiter, ‘Those are the wrong glasses’ … If Briton Nick Hayward had finished his meal at the Taj Mahal hotel 30 seconds later, he would have been caught in the gunfire.  —  ‘I was very lucky,’ he said.

Stop Covering Up And Kill The CRA  —  Regulation: The Community Reinvestment Act is to blame for the financial crisis, but it so powerfully serves Democrats' interests that they'll do anything to protect it — including revising history.  —  Read More: Business & Regulation

The ongoing disgrace of NBC News and Brian Williams  —  (updated below - Update II)  —  The New York Times's David Barstow, whose excellent and aggressive journalism led to the uncovering last April of the Pentagon's domestic propaganda program involving network “military analysts,” …

Google's Gatekeepers  —  In 2006, Thailand announced it was blocking access to YouTube for anyone with a Thai I.P address, and then identified 20 offensive videos for Google to remove as a condition of unblocking the site.  —  ‘If your whole game is to increase market share,’ says Lawrence Lessig …

He's Not Black  —  He is also half white.  —  Unless the one-drop rule still applies, our president-elect is not black.  —  We call him that — he calls himself that — because we use dated language and logic.  After more than 300 years and much difficult history, we hew to the old racist rule: Part-black is all black.