Blagojevich snubs Senate, taps Burris for seat  —  Brushing aside charges that he tried to sell Illinois' vacant U.S. Senate seat, Gov. Rod Blagojevich appointed former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to the post today in defiance of Senate leaders who said they would not admit anyone he selected.

ZBIG SMACKS DOWN MORNIN' JOE  —  Zbig to Joe: “You have a such stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on it's almost embarrassing to listen to you.”

What YouTube Doesn't Want You to See  —  Yesterday, the IDF did something innovative: it opened a channel on YouTube and posted videos to it that help explain why Israel is fighting Hamas.  The site hosted about a dozen videos showing things like Israeli humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza …

D.C. lobbyist sues Times over McCain affair story  —  Washington lobbyist Vicki L. Iseman has filed a $27 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times for a February article about Iseman and her relationship with Sen. John McCain.  —  The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Richmond on Tuesday …

McKinney relief boat rammed by Israeli navy  —  A boat carrying international peace activists, including former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and medical supplies to the embattled Gaza Strip sailed back into a Lebanese port on Tuesday after being turned back and damaged by the Israeli navy, organizers of the trip said.

Home Prices Fell Sharply in October  —  Home values in 20 large metropolitan areas across the country dropped at a record pace in October as the fallout from the financial collapse reverberated through the housing market, according to data released Tuesday.  —  The price of single-family …

‘Magic Negro’ flap might help Saltsman  —  The controversy surrounding a comedy CD distributed by Republican National Committee chair candidate Chip Saltsman has not torpedoed his bid and might have inadvertently helped it.  —  Four days after news broke that the former Tennessee GOP chairman …

Breaking Up Is Harder to Do After Housing Fall  —  When Marci Needle and her husband began to contemplate divorce in June, they thought they had enough money to go their separate ways.  They owned a million-dollar home near Atlanta and another in Jacksonville, Fla., as well as investment properties.

2008 Weblog Awards Finalists  —  Here is a complete list of the finalists for The 2008 Weblog Awards.  Finalists badges (hosted by Imageshack) will be available Wednesday.  Voting is scheduled to begin on January 5, 2009.  —  Please note that the names of the Technorati Autority categories have changed …

Madoff's Latest Victims: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick  —  The crap thing about being Kevin Bacon, it turns out, is that sometimes you find yourself six degrees from the wrong kind of guy.  Such as, for instance, Bernie Madoff.  We'd heard that along with Hollywood boldfacers Jeffrey Katzenberg …

How to prevent the Great Depression of 2009  —  The US recession that began in December 2007 resulted in 403,000 lost jobs in September, 320,000 in October and 533,000 jobs in November.  Projections for 2009 are ominous.  —  The global financial system is undergoing a meltdown …

Samuel Huntington's Warning  —  He predicted a ‘clash of civilizations,’ not the illusion of Davos Man.  —  The last of Samuel Huntington's books — “Who Are We?  The Challenges to America's National Identity,” published four years ago — may have been his most passionate work.

Canvassing Board nudges Franken's lead up to 50  —  The State Canvassing Board today made changes to a handful of withdrawn challenges in the U.S. Senate recount battle and gave DFL challenger Al Franken a net gain of four votes, nudging his unofficial lead to 50.