News Roundup

- “For just the second time since the war began, the Army is sending large units back to Iraq without giving them at least a year at home, defense officials said Monday. The move signaled how stretched the U.S. fighting force has become.” – AP via Kos

- Also from Kos – Hillary Clinton was once on the Wal-Mart Board of Directors.

- Swing State Project has a list of House Members who may leave their Congressional seats open. The only NC Representative on the list is Sue Myrick from the 9th district.

- “Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson will lead a private delegation to North Korea next week to recover the remains of U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War, the White House said Tuesday.” – International Herald Tribune

- Uberconservative Grover Norquist said, “The base isn’t interested in Iraq. The base is for Bush. If Bush said tomorrow, we’re leaving in two months, there would be no revolt.” – via Atrios

- Bush is tantruming because his supplemental funding request has taken 57 days and counting to get through Congress. He doesn’t mention that under the Republican 109th Congress, the other two supplementals took 86 days in 2005 and 119 days in 2006. – Think Progress

- The London Times via Juan Cole tells the terrible end to John McCain’s Iraq photo op: “”21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market [Shurja] visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress.”

- One more from the IHT: “In one of its most important environmental decisions in years, the Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 on Monday that the [Environmental Protection] agency has the authority to regulate heat-trapping gases in automobile emissions.”

- Probably everyone knows this, but local blogging superstar Ashvegas is back – “We’re alive and well and fresh off a little blog break. Not to fear. We’ll get back at all the goodness. We just got a little tipsy. Then ended up in a gutter clutching a bottle of Boone’s Farm.”

- Nine NC lawmakers have signed onto a bill sponsored by Lucky-to-be-around Robin Hayes that would “expand government assistance for textile, apparel and other workers who lose their jobs as a result of import competition.” Nice bipartisan support for our workers hurt by globalization.

- Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy gave the first-ever State of the City address. No transcript yet, but the Asheville Citizen promises to be all over it tomorrow.

- In North Carolina we worry about the quality of our water. In the American West they worry about whether they’ll have water at all.

- Jay at Bird on the Moon found religion, “Is teh REAL. I AM SMARTEST!!!!!1!!”

- Massive die-off of honeybees via Monkeyfister, “Across the country, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, honey bee colonies have started to die off, abruptly and decisively. Millions of bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die…”[...]“The phenomenon is recent, dating back to autumn”

- At Shakesville (the newly redesigned Shakespeare’s Sister, change yer bookmarks) we learn that an Indiana bill to protect the breeders from the homogayfers was defeated by Democrats.

- Paging Carl Mumpower! This was named one of the Top 50 government innovations of the year by Harvard University: “The city of High Point’s Overt Drug Market Strategy is a law enforcement/community partnership that collapses drug markets, reducing violence by directly engaging dealers and their families, creating predictable sanctions and offering a range of services.”