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Opinion/Editorial

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Is the GOP ready for prime time? (The Week)
Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:34:00 GMT

The Week - All signs point to big Republican gains in November, enabling the GOP to implement its agenda. But what agenda is that?

Florida Sept. 11 Koran-Burning Plan Spurs Debate (The Atlantic Wire)
Tue, 07 Sep 2010 10:13:35 GMT

The Atlantic Wire - A Florida church led by pastor Terry Jones has spent weeks publicizing its plan to burn Korans on September 11. But now that hundreds of people in Afghanistan and Indonesia are protesting the planned event and General David Petraeus has condemned it, saying it will endanger his troops, the U.S. is starting to pay more attention to this fringe but increasingly high-profile event. What does it mean for the U.S. struggle against terror? What are its moral and legal implications? Should the U.S. government try to intervene?

Will Ex-CEO Mark Hurd Seek Vengeance on HP at His New Job? (The Atlantic Wire)
Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:41:44 GMT

The Atlantic Wire - When Mark Hurd was fired as CEO of Hewlett-Packard following a mysterious sexual harassment complaint, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison slammed HP's board of directors saying they "just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs." Now Ellison is putting his money where his mouth is, hiring Hurd as Oracle's co-president. "Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he'll do even better at Oracle," Ellison said in a statement announcing the hire. Intriguingly, Oracle is looking to compete in the same space as HP. Will Hurd exact revenge on his former bosses?

A bank bailout for Afghanistan? (The Week)
Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:31:00 GMT

The Week - A run on Kabul Bank — the nation's largest — is triggering fears of an Afghan financial meltdown. Should the U.S. step in?

How Old School Is George Clooney's 'The American'? (The Atlantic Wire)
Mon, 06 Sep 2010 12:23:32 GMT
The Atlantic Wire - The options could hardly be starker for Labor Day movie-goers. On one hand, there's the blood-stained Machete, which seems to revel in the number of body-parts it dismembers for the pleasure of audiences. And, of course, there's also that European-tinged, art-house hitman movie with the relatively unassuming poster of George Clooney furrowing his brow. What's that one about, exactly? It appears that nearly half of our nation's finest critics lost their patience with the slow-burning film before trying to figure that out.

Why Are the Feds Suing Brash Arizona Sheriff? (The Atlantic Wire)
Sat, 04 Sep 2010 02:37:57 GMT

The Atlantic Wire -

Obama's new infrastructure plan: By the numbers (The Week)
Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:27:00 GMT
The Week - During his Labor Day address, President Obama announced a $50 billion proposal to rebuild American roads and rails

Bloggers Respond to Imam Feisal Rauf's NYT Op-Ed (The Atlantic Wire)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:57:55 GMT
The Atlantic Wire - Imam Feisal Rauf, the leader of the group planning the Cordoba Center, called the "Ground Zero Mosque" by critics, addressed the controversy over his work in a guest column today in the New York Times. Rauf has just returned from a trip abroad doing public outreach on behalf of the U.S. State Department, work he also did under the Bush administration. Here is an excerpt from his column and, below that, several of the reactions from bloggers. Most of the bloggers who responded to his column are critical of his project.

Newt's Faint Presidential Prospects (RealClearPolitics.com)
Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:00:00 GMT
RealClearPolitics.com - On Friday, at a town hall in small town Oklahoma, conservative Sen. Tom Coburn said Newt Gingrich is "the last person I'd vote for, for president." Gingrich is "a super-smart man but he doesn't know anything about commitment to marriage." Gingrich lacks, in Coburn's view, "the character traits necessary to be a great president."

Obama must not let Taliban rule over Afghan women again (The Christian Science Monitor)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:12:12 GMT
The Christian Science Monitor - In mid-August in the northern Afghanistan province of Kunduz, the Taliban carried out a horrific sentence against two young Afghan lovers who had eloped against their familiesâ?? wishes. The punishment was death by stoning. Deemed by Islamic extremists to be justified under sharia law, the process involves partially burying the accused, after which a male crowd hurls stones at the victimsâ?? exposed heads until they die.

Schneiderman for Attorney General (The Nation)
Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:41:39 GMT
The Nation - The Nation -- "Transformational politics is the work we do today to ensure that the deal we can get on gun control or immigration reform in a year—or five years, or twenty years—will be better than the deal we can get today. Transformational politics requires us to challenge the way people think about issues, opening their minds to better possibilities."

D.C. SCHOOLS CONTROVERSY SHOWS IT'S HARD TO SHAKE THINGS UP (Cynthia Tucker)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:56:22 GMT
Cynthia Tucker - WASHINGTON -- Here in the nation's capital city, something remarkable has happened: Students in the public schools, long regarded as among the nation's worst, have shown dramatic improvement on standardized tests over the last few years. Here's something even more remarkable: Local voters seem indifferent, if not outright hostile, to the reforms that have produced those academic gains.

MEXICO SEETHES WITH CHAOS AS WE FIGHT ABROAD (Georgie Anne Geyer)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 23:56:22 GMT
Georgie Anne Geyer - WASHINGTON -- While many Americans are busily exercising their self-righteousness over Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is facing a problem of great magnitude close to home.

'We must do better' in combating mass rape in Congo (The Christian Science Monitor)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:10:23 GMT
The Christian Science Monitor - A year ago, the practice of mass rape by militias in eastern Congo made headlines in the United States as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited the region to speak out against rape as a weapon of war.

Who Is Terry Jones? (Huffington Post)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:32:07 GMT
Huffington Post - Read Harry Shearer's other articles on HuffingtonPost.com

What Ever Happened to Equal Rights for Women? (Huffington Post)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 18:04:12 GMT
Huffington Post - Read Larry Flynt's other articles on HuffingtonPost.com

The Skinny on Google Instant (The Atlantic Wire)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:51:42 GMT
The Atlantic Wire - So this is what the exploding logo was all about. Today, one of the world's fastest search engines just got a little faster. Google unveiled its newest update to Web search, Google Instant. Now, when users begin typing a keyword search, the results instantly appear below. Marissa Mayer, the company's VP of search products, says the new update is all about saving users' time. "Our testing has shown that Google Instant saves the average searcher two to five seconds per search," Mayer says. "That may not seem like a lot at first, but it adds up. With Google Instant, we estimate that weâ??ll save our users 11 hours with each passing second!" Reactions from around the Web:

Are Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin Cashing in on 9/11? (The Atlantic Wire)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:27:12 GMT
The Atlantic Wire - Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are rendezvousing in Alaska this Saturday to commemorate 9/11. The event will likely share some similarities to Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in DC. But with one important difference:

Happy Hour Vid: WSJ vs. NYT as Taiwanese Cartoon (The Atlantic Wire)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:21:04 GMT
The Atlantic Wire - How would you like to see the New York City newspaper war explained through animation and a torrent of Chinese? Taipei-based Next Media Animation has been offering up some pretty choice clips recently. Two weeks ago there was an edgy satirical take on backlash to the Cordoba House initiative. Today, the company explains the New York Times-Wall Street Journal war over New York customers.

What Happens If We Just Let the Housing Market Crash? (The Atlantic Wire)
Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:17:47 GMT
The Atlantic Wire - Should the government let the bottom fall out of the housing market? It sounds catastrophic, but on Sunday, The New York Times reported that the argument in favor of this move is gaining popularity. The Washington Indpendent's Annie Lowrey summed the idea up succinctly as this: