Richard & Linda Thompson, circa 1975:

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Juan Cole with a must-read.

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The Beatles:

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Movement in the right direction:
JERUSALEM, Dec. 25 —Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, acting on a pledge to the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, on Monday approved the removal of more than two dozen military checkpoints in the West Bank that have severely restricted Palestinian movements.
Mr. Olmert also said Israel would take immediate steps to improve the [...]

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I love this Kathy Mattea song. It’s sweet without being saccharine (and it’s a true story, about her in-laws):

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Hire someone else to do the dirty work:
WASHINGTON — The armed forces, already struggling to meet recruiting goals, are considering expanding the number of noncitizens in the ranks — including disputed proposals to open recruiting stations overseas and putting more immigrants on a faster track to US citizenship if they volunteer — according to Pentagon [...]

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Until I read this, I had no idea what diabetics have to face in the workplace. It never ever occurred to me the decisions employers had to make. This was a real eye-opener, particularly with the disability issues.

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There aren’t many honest people who would still argue that the Iraqi people are better off than they were under Saddam Hussein. (I mean, this is the police force we’re talking about.) This latest news is just more confirmation of what we’ve accomplished - and why it’s time to leave:
BAGHDAD, Dec. 25 — Hundreds of [...]

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Could we just get one thing clear? Republicans love outsourcing not because it’s more efficient, or that it saves money - it doesn’t. What it does is extend the width and breadth of patronage plums, which are handed out like candy to incompetent, unqualified companies - like these:
The Defense Department paid two procurement operations at [...]

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Here it goes again:
BAGHDAD, Dec. 24 — The American military is holding at least four Iranians in Iraq, including men the Bush administration called senior military officials, who were seized in a pair of raids late last week aimed at people suspected of conducting attacks on Iraqi security forces, according to senior Iraqi and [...]

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Every year in Davis [CA], there is a dinner which is held for anybody who is alone, or homeless or who just wants to join with other people for a holiday dinner. There are over 500 people served, and all the food is donated by members of the community or by local merchants.

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For my pagan friends:

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Krugman with some thoughts on poverty:
It’s the season for charitable giving. And far too many Americans, particularly children, need that charity.
Scenes of a devastated New Orleans reminded us that many of our fellow citizens remain poor, four decades after L.B.J. declared war on poverty. But I’m not sure whether people understand how little [...]

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James Brown, Godfather of Soul, 73.

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The Grinch:

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But as far as I’m concerned, Mary is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman – sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby. And the Wise Men are always going to be Leroy and his brothers, bearing ham. When we came out of [...]

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Here’s hoping every last one makes it home safely. Dixie Chicks:

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Wolfgang’s Vault. You’ll have to poke around a bit to find the registration link, but it’s free and gives you access to the vault that contains all of Bill Graham’s private concert recordings. (You’ll think you died and went to heaven…)
They’re adding new stuff all the time. (I even found a concert or two I [...]

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The alarm went off again an hour ago and it’s still going. This time, when I called the police, they sent a fire truck. (Come to think of it, it sounds more like a fire alarm, anyway.) Arghhh….
MAKE IT STOPPPPPP
UPDATE: Five hours later, I finally figured out how to make it stop. I went across [...]

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What happens when a child is born in Bethlehem:
Many of the medical problems afflicting pregnant women here are more mundane than Jamilla’s darkest fears: 30 per cent of pregnant Palestinians suffer from anaemia, a lack of red blood cells. The extreme poverty caused by the siege and now the international boycott seems to be a [...]

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Don’t tell me you never heard the famous David Sedaris holiday classic!

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Very enlightening piece on Rahm Emanuel in GQ. Go read it all, it’s an eyeopener:
The “shit” Carville was referring to was the long-running feud between Rahm and Dean, which boiled down to Rahm’s wanting Dean to give him more money—a lot more—and Dean’s refusing to do it. Normally, the chairman of the DNC is installed [...]

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Shystee at Corrente.

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“Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” a wonderful and rarely-aired classic, on Christmas Eve morning at 6:30 a.m. EST, the Cartoon Network. (Trivia: The song “People” was originally written for this, but used later instead in “Funny Girl.”)

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Awww! I’ll bet she was inspired by this man:
SPOKANE, Wash. - A woman hopped aboard buses, greeted passengers with “Merry Christmas” and handed each an envelope containing a card and a $50 bill before stepping off and repeating the process on another bus.
She did it so quickly that descriptions of the woman varied among [...]

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There are so many things that have changed, just in the past few years. Remember when only a few people had cell phones? Remember life before Google maps?
I was just talking to a friend who was shopping in Santa Barbara, California. “I need to find out where I am. I have to get off now,” [...]

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That would be the burglar alarm that went off in the building across the street sometime in the middle of the night. It’s not actually hooked up to the police department, so it doesn’t notify anyone - it just keeps up the ungodly racket. (Oh, and did I mention the flashing strobe lights?)
I woke up [...]

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Billmon:
I once made the analogy that in the imperialism business troops equal money, so perhaps I’m not in the best position to criticize. But I was trying to sound cruel and heartless for sarcastic effect, while Condi appears to have been utterly sincere — every bit as sincere as when she described Israel’s air assault [...]

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James Taylor (I can’t help singing the Joni Mitchell harmony part):

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Nothing to see here, folks:
The former head of elections for Georgia is going to work for the company that supplied the state’s $75 million electronic voting machine system.
Kathy Rogers, director of the secretary of state’s elections division, resigned Nov. 30 and has accepted a job with Diebold Election Systems, manufacturer of Georgia’s voting machines, according [...]

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