Chambliss win proves sizeable Obama effect  —  If Georgia is any indication, the Obama effect was huge.  —  In a runoff election with no presidential candidates on the ballot Tuesday, Peach State voters sent Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R) back to the Senate by what looks to be a resounding margin …

Jeb: I am considering Senate run  —  Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush - the younger brother of the president - is weighing a run for the Senate seat currently held by Republican Mel Martinez.  —  Martinez announced Tuesday that he will not seek reelection in 2010.

Bill Clinton eyes role, too  —  Former President Bill Clinton says he is open to the possibility of a role in the Obama administration but said he otherwise plans to be deferential to both the president and Clinton's wife, the soon-to-be secretary of state.  —  Clinton could be named as a sort …

Investment Outlook  —  Dow 5,000 Redux  —  Here I go again!  Gosh it was only six years ago that I cemented my place in stock market history by predicting that the Dow would fall from 8,500 to 5,000, instead of going up to 14,000 where it peaked in October of 2007.

India Names Mumbai Mastermind  —  MUMBAI — India has accused a senior leader of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba of orchestrating last week's terror attacks that killed at least 172 people here, and demanded the Pakistani government turn him over and take action against the group.

Rise of the Twitterati  —  “I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man's being unable to sit still in a room.”  —  We are sitting in a restaurant, sipping wine and chatting, when my friend begins twittering.  —  Not in the usual way.  Two women twittering turn no heads.

Obama shelves oil company tax after price fall: aide  —  CHICAGO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama is not planning to implement a windfall profit tax on oil companies because prices have dropped below $80 a barrel, an aide said on Tuesday.  —  “President-elect Obama announced …

Odetta, Voice of Civil Rights Movement, Dies at 77  —  Odetta, the singer whose deep voice wove together the strongest songs of American folk music and the civil rights movement, died on Tuesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan.  She was 77.  —  The cause was heart disease, said her manager, Doug Yeager.

OH... THE HUMANITY  —  UPDATE: Rabbi's wife was 6 months pregnant and 2 year old Moshe was beaten  —  The Funeral  —  The mother was six months pregnant and the 2 year old boy was beaten (hat tip Cathy)  —  The Jewish mother murdered in the brutal Mumbai terror attacks last week was six month pregnant …

College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S.  —  The rising cost of college — even before the recession — threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the annual report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.

If this Isn't Terrorism, What Is?  —  Last week in Mumbai we witnessed as clear a case of carefully planned mass terrorism as we are ever likely to see.  —  The seven-venue atrocity was coordinated in a highly sophisticated way.  The terrorists used BlackBerrys to stay in touch with each …

UnitedHealth to Insure the Right to Insurance  —  For these economically uncertain times, the UnitedHealth Group has a “first of its kind” product: the right to buy an individual health policy at some point in the future even if you become sick.  —  Called UnitedHealth Continuity …

‘No Line Responsibilities’  —  What Robert Rubin did for his $115 million.  —  On October 18, 1999, Citigroup announced that former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin was joining the firm.  But what exactly would Mr. Rubin do at Citigroup?  Citi's SEC filing eight days later noted …

Congressman requests Obama DOJ investigation of the BCS  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) - It may not top the list of Obama administration priorities, but Hawaii Democratic Congressman Neil Abercrombie is urging the president-elect to take on one more controversial issue — creating a new playoff system for college football.

Iceland's Meltdown  —  “ALL FINANCIAL INNOVATION involves ... the creation of debt secured in greater or lesser adequacy by real assets,” wrote the economist John Kenneth Galbraith in 1993.  And “all crises have involved debt that, in one fashion or another, has become dangerously out of scale …

Calling All Pakistanis  —  On Feb. 6, 2006, three Pakistanis died in Peshawar and Lahore during violent street protests against Danish cartoons that had satirized the Prophet Muhammad.  More such mass protests followed weeks later.  When Pakistanis and other Muslims are willing to take to the streets …

Statistical Models Now Show Coleman as Slight Favorite  —  With in excess of 90 percent of Minnesota's votes now having been recounted, our statistical models now show Norm Coleman as the favorite to retain his senate seat, although with a high degree of uncertainty and without accounting …