Chavez calls Venezuela vote mandate for socialism  —  CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez says a referendum victory that removed limits on his re-election is a mandate to intensify his socialist agenda for decades to come.  Opponents warn of an impending dictatorship.

To Fix Detroit, Obama Is Said to Drop Plan for ‘Car Czar’  —  DETROIT — President Obama has dropped the idea of appointing a single, powerful “car czar” to oversee the revamping of General Motors and Chrysler and will instead keep the politically delicate task in the hands …

Former Gitmo Guard Tells All  —  Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo in the first years the facility was in operation.  With the Bush Administration, and thus the threat of retaliation against him, now gone, Neely decided to step forward and tell his story.

Lawmakers look dumb for reviving Obama hoax  —  In the Handy Guide for Newspaper Opinion Columnists, this is called shooting fish in a barrel.  Or hitting a slow-pitched softball.  —  Four Tennessee state representatives, all Republicans, have signed up to be plaintiffs in a lawsuit …

IDF: World duped by Hamas's false civilian death toll figures  —  Four weeks after the cessation of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF finally opened its dossier on Palestinian fatalities on Sunday for the first time, and presented to The Jerusalem Post an overview utterly at odds with the Palestinian figures …

Burris under an ethical cloud  —  Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition  —  A month to the day after he was sworn into office by Dick Cheney, Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) is under an ethical cloud that threatens to upend his turn on the national stage.

Archbishop of Canterbury: Society is coming round to my views on sharia  —  The Archbishop of Canterbury has defended his controversial comments about the introduction of Islamic law to Britain and claimed that public opinion is now behind him.  —  On the anniversary of the interview …

California Budget is run by “Girly Men”  —  California is about to go out of business quite literally and still these idiot tax cutting freaky Republicans like Sen. Dave Cox are doing their best to do just that.  A lot of Americans don't know that California has a weird super majority vote …

Some Find Hope for a Shift in Drug Policy  —  SEATTLE — Washington State law prohibits the possession of marijuana except for certain medical purposes.  Hempfest is not one of them.  Yet each summer when the event draws thousands to the Seattle waterfront to call for decriminalizing marijuana …

UK to shift anti-terror strategy  —  The UK government is preparing a major shift in its counter-terrorism strategy to combat radicalisation, the BBC's Panorama programme has learned.  —  Conservative Muslims who teach that Islam is incompatible with Western democracy will be challenged …

There could be 100bn Earth-like planets in the Milky Way galaxy  —  There could be one hundred billion Earth-like planets in our galaxy, a US conference has heard.  —  Dr Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution of Science said many of these worlds could be inhabited by simple lifeforms.

A guide to the 100 best blogs - part I  —  The online world of the bloggers and how you can connect, communicate, publish your thoughts or diaries and ‘spy’ on the famous  —  Blogs — an ugly word, but now unavoidable — were born with the internet.  As soon as people started to use …

Sen. Graham Open to ‘Nationalizing the Banks’  —  Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina of the Senate Budget Committee said today on “This Week” that he is open to “nationalizing the banks.”  —  “I think if you put most of our major banks under a ‘stress test,’ they're going to fail,” Graham told me.