How the Internet Damages Our Culture  —  America is ruder, cruder, and more paranoid than it once was.  The anonymity of the Web bears much of the blame.  —  American society as a whole, and politics in particular, has become considerably ruder, cruder, and more paranoid than it used to be.

Steele Confuses Stephanopoulos: Claims Government Jobs “Aren't Jobs,” Private Sector Jobs Never Go Away  —  There is certainly a political debate to be waged over whether or not government spending can effectively create jobs.  But in his interview on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday …

U.S. Bank Bailout to Rely in Part on Private Money  —  Wall Street helped produce the global financial and economic crisis.  Now, as the Obama administration prepares to unveil a revised bailout plan for the banking system, policy makers hope Wall Street can be part of the solution.

SC Governor: We're moving close to ‘a savior-based economy’  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) - As many state and local officials clamor for their share of the billions of dollars in federal aid in the stimulus bill under consideration in Washington, South Carolina's Republican governor is sounding a note …

Obama wields the Oval invite  —  With Arlen Specter, the president was “crisp” and “professional” and threw in some talk about judges.  —  With Olympia Snowe, he was more casual, warming up with memories of the late Paul Simon, a mutual friend.  —  With Ben Nelson — a conservative Democrat …

The Destructive Center  —  What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses?  —  A proud centrist.

Republicans See Long-Term Victory in Defeat on Stimulus Plan  —  Three months after their Election Day drubbing, Republican leaders see glimmers of rebirth in the party's liberation from an unpopular president, its selection of its first African American chairman and, most of all …

Disagreeing With Paul Krugman  —  Paul Krugman doesn't believe that the stimulus bill is likely to be enough to get the job done and seems almost despondent about the fact that the compromise that will allow something to pass the Senate made it even smaller.

Obama Confidant Plans To Meet Azerbaijani Leader  —  David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama's presidential campaign and was cited by Obama as the “unsung hero” in his ascendancy to the White House, is expected to meet this week with Azerbaijan's president, who has been accused of undermining democracy in that oil-rich country.

Arabs throws pipebombs and fires rockets on peacful pro-israeli demonstration  —  This time the police was in better shape to handle the arabic mob that once again attacked our peacful pro-israeli demonstration in Malmö.  —  The police had sealed off the entire square, Stortorget …

Do not destroy the essential catalyst of risk  —  Since the spring, and most acutely this autumn, a global contagion of fear and panic has choked off the arteries of finance, compounding a broader deterioration in the global economy.  —  Much of the past year has been deeply humbling for our industry.

US outlines new plan for Afghanistan  —  Ian Traynor Munich  —  The Obama administration today today outlined a new campaign strategy for the war in Afghanistan, scaling back the ambitions of George Bush in a shift which senior officials and diplomats described as a “new realism”.

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF CENTRISM.  —  There are two basic arguments you heard coming from the Collins-Nelson crew.  The first was that the stimulus was too big.  Asked last week to outline his thinking on the stimulus, Nelson said, “I think it will be below 800 [billion].

White House Nabs Political Control over Census  —  The Obama administration is ending the Census Bureau's traditional autonomy - a move that has Republicans outraged over the White House's politicization of counting Americans.  —  Last week, an administration official revealed that the yet …

FEELING UNSTIMULATED?  Watch this.  UPDATE: And check out this video on the stimulus from SNL...  FEELING UNSTIMULATED?  Watch this.  —  UPDATE: And check out this video on the stimulus from SNL.

Celebrity side dish: Ann Coulter under investigation  —  Iman wants the world to stand up to Somalian pirates.  The supermodel is pained that her homeland remains so lawless that kids there can't get AIDS drugs from Keep a Child Alive's “Mother Africa” campaign.

Sen. Ensign: It's ‘Fearmongering’ To Suggest That Any Teachers Would Lose Their Jobs  —  On Meet the Press this morning, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) slammed proposed cuts in aid to the states in the stimulus bill, explaining that states are slashing their funding for vital public needs.