Obama orders review of crashers  —  President Obama has ordered a full review into how a Virginia couple managed to make their way into the White House for last week's state dinner without an invitation, even getting so far as to meet the president in the official receiving line, according to a White House official.

Eric S. Raymond on the East Anglia CRU's Global Warming Fraud  —  Eric S. Raymond ("esr") is an open source luminary partly because of his industry changing book The Cathedral & the Bazaar .  As a fellow software engineer and open source advocate, I was curious what he had to say about the tree-ring circus …

A Climate Scientist Who Engages Skeptics  —  I've been in touch all week with Judith Curry, a seasoned climate scientist at Georgia Tech with a particular focus on hurricanes and warming.  She has no skepticism about a growing human influence on climate.  But she has split with many of her peers …

Weekly Tracking Poll: New Feature Paints Ugly 2010 Picture  —  Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 11/22/2009-11/25/2009.  All adults.  MoE 2% (Last weeks results in parentheses):  —  FAVORABLEUNFAVORABLENET CHANGE  —  PRESIDENT OBAMA  —  53 (55)  —  40 (39)  —3  —  PELOSI:  —  41 (40)

Justice Department Says Acorn Can Be Paid for Pre-Ban Contracts  —  WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress banned the government from providing money to the group.

He Can't Take Another Bow  —  An icon of a White House that is coming to seem amateurish.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  This week, two points in an emerging pointillist picture of a White House leaking support—not the support of voters, though polls there show steady decline …

Joy Behar's Moral Quandary: 'Isn't it a Little Racist to Call it Black Friday?'  —  There's nothing like tuning into an episode of “The View” for a little exploration of social sensitivities in the modern American culture.  —  In keeping with that tradition, on Black Friday …

2 Afghans allege abuse at U.S. site  —  Teenagers say they were interrogated at secretive Bagram holding center  —  KABUL — Two Afghan teenagers held in U.S. detention north of Kabul this year said they were beaten by American guards, photographed naked, deprived of sleep and held …

The right fix for the Fed  —  For many Americans, the financial crisis, and the recession it spawned, have been devastating — jobs, homes, savings lost.  Understandably, many people are calling for change.  Yet change needs to be about creating a system that works better, not just differently.

China Jails Environmentalist Wanted in U.S.  —  DALI, China — Justin Franchi Solondz, an environmental activist from New Jersey who spent years evading charges of ecoterrorism in the United States by hiding out in China, was sentenced to three years in prison by a local court on Friday …

Ten ‘principles’ could keep thinkers away from the GOP  —  Some people can't stand prosperity, my father used to say.  Today, he might be talking about Republicans, who, in the midst of declining support for President Obama's hope-and-change agenda, are considering a “purity” …

Top 20 Unfortunate Lessons Girls Learn From ‘Twilight’  —  From a male point of view, the only redeeming feature of the Twilight books and movies is the ammunition they provide against female claims of innate moral superiority over men.  —  Whenever a woman criticizes a man's lust, aggression …

Rashomon in the desert  —  Dubai or not Dubai — that is the question.  Dubai's sorta-kinda default (a state-owned enterprise seeking a rescheduling of its debts) is, by itself, not that big of a deal.  But who else looks like Dubai?  What kind of omen is this for the next stage in the financial crisis?