folo

Too cold to do anything but stay in and toast your tootsies by the blazing computer? Okay, I’ll throw an especially big log on here:

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni turned up in Washington and now, NYT reports, Israel may be ready to accept a ceasefire in Gaza. Oh wouldja lookit that: right in time for President Obama, whodathunkit!

(Abu Aardvark) Marc Lynch’s post on the three dueling Arab summits would be hilarious, except . . .

NYT’s headline promises After the Crash, Heroics and Comedy. Though I’m having trouble locating the comedy, it’s a good story, with sidebar links to more.

ABC says Pendleton, Leavenworth, Miramar, and the Navy brig in Charleston make the military’s list of where to stash Guantánamo detainees in the U.S. Predictably, some of the nelliest GOPers in Congress (Duncan Hunter, Brian Bilbray, Darrell Issa, Sam Brownback) are squawking, “Terrists?! In my district?! Oh noes!”

Back in February, you may recall, the Dems tried to pass a bill forcing the intelligence agencies to adopt the interrogation standards of the Army Field Manual (prohibiting torture). Bush and the GOPers stopped it cold, but now with the stroke of his left-handed pen, Obama will just fix it himself.

Such moves as that make it possible for Americans gadding about in the rest of the world to take the maple leaf flags off their backpacks at last. WHEW!

Now that it’s the weekend (and a long one at that), I’ll point out the excellent piece by Petraeus’s main brain, Col. H.R. McMaster, that I’ve been saving up: The Human Element: When Gadgetry Becomes Strategy. As FoPo’s Tom Ricks advises,

The article is especially interesting because word around the Pentagon is that McMaster is running a comprehensive review of U.S. strategy in Middle Eastern for Petraeus, who recently took over as chief of Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for that troubled part of the world. McMaster played a similar role when Petraeus took command in Iraq in early 2007 and presided over a radically new approach to the war. In addition, he commanded the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment when it conducted the first successful large-scale counterinsurgency operation in the Iraq war, in 2005-2006. And he wrote his doctoral dissertation at the University of North Carolina on the Vietnam War.

Among Dan Froomkin’s satisfying Friday gleanings, we find:

Lydia Saad writes for Gallup: “A mere 17% of Americans believe George W. Bush will go down in history as an outstanding or above-average president — out of sync with Bush’s own confidence that his presidency will be appreciated with time. Another 23% of Americans predict he will be remembered as ‘average’ while 59% say ‘below average’ or ‘poor.’ . . .

“Bush’s net positive score (total percent outstanding or above average minus total percent below average or poor) is worse than Nixon’s: -42 for Bush versus -33 for Nixon.

“There is also a bit of irony embedded in the presidential rankings. President Bush falls well below his father, George H.W. Bush, whose defeat in 1992 was reportedly one of Bush’s motivations for running for governor of Texas in 1994 and, later, for president.”

From a make-you-crazzzy story in WaPo: “American International Group, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are among the companies that are getting bailed out by U.S. taxpayers while having subsidiaries in locations where they can avoid paying U.S. taxes, according to the Government Accountability Office.” Yo, next time ask the Cayman Islands for yer bailout, chumps.

Now that he’s Senator Burris, ProPublica gets around to revealing Lord Roland’s yucky history as a classic Chicago pol — thanks for your alacrity, kids. And since the Illinois Senate trial rules “preclude the governor from putting on any realistic defense,” says Blago’s defense team, they quit (just on that case, not the federal criminal one). Stand by for more clownery . . .

Oh, here’s some now: the AP has located at least 26 BushCo “burrowers” in the federal bureaucracy, but surely there’re more. Two we know of — US Attorneys Mary Beth Buchanan and Alice Martin — claim they ain’t leaving ’til they finish prospersecuting some mo’ Democrats. We’ll see what Obama and Holder say to that.

Ambinder caught a solid statement from Obama on EFCA. I especially relish this part:

“You know, now if the business community’s argument against the Employee Free Choice Act is simply that it will make it easier for people to join unions and we think that is damaging to the economy then they probably won’t get too far with me. If their arguments are we think there are more elegant ways of doing this or here are some modifications or tweaks to the general concept that we would like to see. Then I think that’s a conversation that not only myself but folks in labor would be willing to have. But, so that’s the general approach that I am interested in taking. But in terms of time table, if we are losing half a million jobs a month then there are no jobs to unionize. So my focus first is on those key economic priority items that I just mentioned.”

While the C-L has a photo of the terminally-stupid nutball in ratty shorts and yellow T-shirt (and rattier mullet) who announced online that if someone would just give him a gun and a clue, he’d gladly kill PEBO, the AP story actually has more-’n'-better, as does WLBT.

The C-L’s story on Chip Pickering’s joining Capitol Resources leaves out a little too, somehow failing to mention the lobbying shop’s Barbour connections.

Patsy Brumfield’s mid-afternoon update from the Oxford CLE session begins, “Famed legal-plot author John Grisham walked into the room full of laywers [sic] wearing an orange prisoner jumpsuit and a Boston Red Sox cap. …” But dang it, she’s left it a cliffhanger, so I hope she or somebody will eventually let us know how the “jury” decided.

Finally, since you’re probably not in the office right now, howzabout a little hi-larious balloon nookie?

UPDATE: Here’s US Airways 1549 on final approach (Sully fans will want to read the attached story):

Trela Media/Associated Press