A Handpicked Obama Team for a Shift in Foreign Policy  —  WASHINGTON — When President-elect Barack Obama introduces his national security team on Monday, it will include two veteran cold warriors and a political rival whose records are all more hawkish than that of the new president who will face them in the White House Situation Room.

CNN reports.  You run for cover.  —  Did you hear about the plight of a South Wales couple who pointed out that CNN's careless reporting of the Mumbai hotel siege endangered their lives?  —  Fox reports.  You decide.  —  CNN reports.  You pray for your life:

Cabinet Rank  —  Some people I know were less-than-thrilled to hear that Susan Rice would be heading to New York as our UN Ambassador since they would have rather seen her take a post in DC where she could help ensure that the Gates/Jones/Clinton “team of rivals” doesn't manage to lock …

Senate Could Give New President Early Legislative Victories  —  As Senate Democrats prepare for next year's agenda, they are likely to have a working filibuster-proof majority on a variety of legislative issues that could provide early victories for President-elect Barack Obama.

Six degrees of Imran Khan  —  ANALYSIS/OPINION:  —  On the evening of Nov. 26, the biggest names in Bollywood walked the red carpet at the Bombay premiere of “The President Is Coming,” a comedy about six 20-somethings vying to win the right to shake hands with President Bush.

Palin to speak at Gwinnett Arena, Ludacris to help Martin  —  Georgia's seemingly endless U.S. Senate runoff finally winds down Monday, its last day marked by high-profile rallies, withering attack ads and stealthy efforts to get campaign-weary voters back to the polls.

Doris Dungey, Prescient Finance Blogger, Dies at 47  —  The blogger Tanta, an influential voice on the mortgage collapse, died Sunday morning in Columbus, Ohio.  —  Tanta, who wrote for Calculated Risk, a finance and economics blog, was a pseudonym for Doris Dungey, 47 …

How to Combat a Banking Crisis: First, Round Up the Pessimists  —  Latvian Agents Detain a Gloomy Economist; ‘It Is a Form of Deterrence’  —  RIGA, Latvia — Hammered by economic woe, this former Soviet republic recently took a novel step to contain the crisis.

Memeorandum runs rings around Google News  —  If you want to know what's happening in the world, then Memorandum will tell you - at least in a couple of areas.  It's an automated news clipping service, known in the trade as a “news aggregator”.  It provides headlines and short texts updated every few minutes …

America's Other Auto Industry  —  There is such a thing as a profitable car maker in this country.  —  The men from Detroit will jet into Washington tomorrow — presumably going commercial this time — to make another pitch for a taxpayer rescue.  Meanwhile, in the other American auto industry …

AP IMPACT: US diluted loan rules before crash  —  WASHINGTON - The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed.

Deficits and the Future  —  Right now there's intense debate about how aggressive the United States government should be in its attempts to turn the economy around.  Many economists, myself included, are calling for a very large fiscal expansion to keep the economy from going into free fall.

Jihad's True Face  —  Much of the reporting from Mumbai the last few days has been informative, gripping and often moving.  Some of the commentary, on the other hand, has been not just uninformative but counterinformative — if that's a term, and if it's not, I say it should be.