Home of Swedish Muhammad cartoonist attacked  —  STOCKHOLM — The home of a Swedish artist who once drew a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog has been hit by a suspected arson attack, police said Saturday.  —  Lars Vilks, who lives in Nyhamnslage in southern Sweden …

Culture Shock  —  What happened when one conservative Web site ventured outside the movement bubble.  —  Last May, Conor Friedersdorf, a twenty-eight-year-old recent graduate of NYU's Journalism School, decided he was going to save conservative journalism.

The Looming Obama Debt Disaster  —  Is the United States Greece?  The short answer is: not yet, but it will be if the Democrats remain in control in Washington for two more election cycles.  —  In the Telegraph, Edmund Conway summarizes a lengthy report by the International Monetary Fund on sovereign debt that came out today:

Debit Fee Cut Is Rare Loss for Largest U.S. Banks  —  WASHINGTON — Retailers have begged Congress for years, in vain, to limit the fees they must pay to banks when customers swipe credit or debit cards.  Bills never reached a vote.  Amendments were left on the table.

Public Works Are Hard to Do  —  Harold Meyerson explains why it hasn't been possible to use public works to counter massive unemployment in construction, and wouldn't have been even had more funds been appropriated: … Two lessons from this.  One is that I think we need some more real talk …

D.C. Dems to Obama: Aim fire at GOP  —  President Barack Obama is a master of knowing his audience - even when it's fellow politicians.  —  He served up a Republican roast to House Democratic leaders and donors in New York Thursday night, two weeks after Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants griped …

Health reform threatens to cram already overwhelmed hospital ERs  —  The new healthcare law will pack 32 million newly insured people into emergency rooms already crammed beyond capacity, according to experts on healthcare facilities.  —  A chief aim of the new healthcare law …

WiFi data collection: An update  —  Nine days ago the data protection authority (DPA) in Hamburg, Germany asked to audit the WiFi data that our Street View cars collect for use in location-based products like Google Maps for mobile, which enables people to find local restaurants or get directions.

Angry Obama Seeks to Deflect Blame for Gulf Oil Spill Crisis  —  The president seemed genuinely angry today, on a beautiful spring afternoon in the Rose Garden.  Having watched him on a daily basis for about a year and a half, I'm confident he wasn't faking it.

Euro Breakup Talk Increases as Germany Loses Proxy  —  Romano Prodi recalls how he persuaded Germany to allow debt-swamped Italy into the euro: support our membership and we'll buy your milk, he said.  —  When Prodi toured Germany's agricultural heartland after becoming Italian leader in 1996 …

Afghan reconciliation strategy should reflect Pashtun culture  —  How do wars end in the tribal society of Afghanistan?  That's one of the interesting questions that was highlighted by President Hamid Karzai's visit to Washington last week.  —  During their well-scripted news conference at the White House …

Proposal Would Delay Hearings in Terror Cases  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama's legal advisers are considering asking Congress to allow the government to detain terrorism suspects longer after their arrests before presenting them to a judge for an initial hearing, according to officials familiar with the discussions.

Facebook and “radical transparency” (a rant)  —  At SXSW, I decided to talk about privacy because I thought that it would be the most important issue of the year.  I was more accurate than my wildest dreams.  For the last month, I've watched as conversations about privacy went from being the topic …

Schwarzenegger budget would eliminate welfare  —  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked lawmakers Friday to eliminate the state's welfare program starting in October and dramatically scale back in-home care for the elderly and disabled as part of his May budget revision to close a $19.1 billion deficit.

TRENDING: Palin: ‘Fine with me’ to be called a ‘redneck’  —  (CNN) - She's a politician, an author, cable news contributor and sought-after speaker.  But perhaps former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is interested in a new title: comedienne.  —  In what can only be described as a bit of a schtick …