House GOP member to Rush: Back off  —  Rush Limbaugh may command a large following, but his caustic comments Monday about the GOP's congressional leadership have at least one Republican House member defending his colleagues and offering an unusually candid critique of the talk radio powerhouse and his fellow commentators.

PALIN'S GOT PAC AND VIP STATUS  —  ASK not what Sarah Palin can do for your country, ask only what you can do for Sarah Palin.  And the answer is, pay attention.  Trust me, Alaska's governor is moving faster than those glaciers.  —  Traveling with one of her ladies-in-waiting and invited by a rich GOPnik …

How late is too late?  —  One big question in the stimulus discussion is how much we should be worried about lags in implementation.  Every economics textbook — mine too! — warns that stimulus based on public spending has a habit of peaking much too late, and therefore ends up being counterproductive.

Bailout Recipients Hosted Call To Defeat Key Labor Bill  —  Three days after receiving $25 billion in federal bailout funds, Bank of America Corp. hosted a conference call with conservative activists and business officials to organize opposition to the U.S. labor community's top legislative priority.

‘Che’ spurs debate, Del Toro walkout  —  UPDATED:  —  A controversial new biopic about Cuban revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara is awakening old passions and provoking vigorous defenses and denunciations of the iconic revolutionary and - in the case of an interview with The Washington Times - a dramatic walkout.

Social Network of US Counterinsurgency Policy Authors  —  [Update: this work has come to the attention of the COIN community, in particular the folks at Abu Muqawama who were kind enough to mention me in a blog post.  Aside from the fact that the opening graphic contains not one but two typos …

Hope, Change, and the Egg of Power  —  Yes, it's true.  Barack Obama has an ‘Egg of Power’ in the Oval Office.  —  jcm ::  7 seconds ago

PROXY WAR FAIL.  —  Via David Axe, it appears that the Somali government has collapsed following the seizure of its capitol, Baidoa, by Islamist fighters.  Ethiopian troops withdrew from Baidoa less than a day before its fall.  The collapse of the Somali provisional government represents …

The New Kristol  —  Bill Kristol penned his final New York Times column earlier this week, leaving a slot open for a conservative voice on the paper's pages.  But who should it be?  We've asked several notable conservatives to select their ideal candidates to fill Kristol's shoes.

New Bill Asks For Cameraphones To Go Clickety Clack  —  Smile, say cheese and hold that pose till you hear the ‘click’.  A new bill introduced in the Congress by New York Republican Rep. Peter King requires mobile phones with digital cameras “to make a sound” when a photograph is taken.

Don't call us dogs, say Slumdog protesters in cinema rampage  —  Armed police guard picturehouses after India's poor claim that hit film title violates their human rights  —  Armed police guarded cinemas in eastern India today after slum dwellers ransacked a picture house showing Slumdog Millionaire …

Clinton says world “exhaling” with Obama at top  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested on Tuesday the world was breathing a sigh of relief that President Barack Obama had replaced George W. Bush and was working to fix the damage he had caused.

WON'T GO THERE  —  From WaPo ...  The gist of the rest of the article is that the Obama folks aren't going to go clearly in any of the widely discussed options, but rather mix and match.  But these two points, tucked in at the end of the article, tell us the key points.

Tales From The Inside: What Obama Told Republicans  —  President Barack Obama went to Capitol Hill today to push Republicans to back his $825 billion stimulus plan.  While they probably won't, he won points for reaching out to the minority, making good on campaign promises.

Carbon tax is a poison pill  —  There's a reason Republicans are stumping for a carbon tax, and it ain't to reduce emissions  —  This may piss off some people I respect a great deal.  Nonetheless, after hearing it in several off-the-record conversations in D.C. last week, I believe it's something that needs to be said publicly:

Secretary Clinton Talks About Foreign Policy and Diplomacy  —  Remarks With Reporters in the Correspondents' Room  —  Washington, DC  —  MR. WOOD: Before we get started, it's obviously on the record, but we're going to keep this to 15 minutes, about.  The Secretary has another appointment she has to get to.

Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid to Education  —  WASHINGTON — The economic stimulus plan that Congress has scheduled for a vote on Wednesday would shower the nation's school districts, child care centers and university campuses with $150 billion in new federal spending …

A Relentless Updike Mapped America's Mysteries  —  Endowed with an art student's pictorial imagination, a journalist's sociological eye and a poet's gift for metaphor, John Updike — who died on Tuesday at 76 — was arguably this country's one true all-around man of letters.

Swedish city cancels Holocaust event  —  A northern Swedish city has decided to cancel a planned Holocaust Memorial Day torchlight procession due to the recent IDF offensive in Gaza, it was reported Tuesday.  —  The official reason given for the decision, made by the municipal board …