BREVITAS

CRASH TALK

Dean Baker, Prospect - The Post implies that the slowdown in non-residential construction in the United States is due to a lack of financing. While there has undoubtedly been a tightening of credit, this should not be surprising in an environment where vacancy rates are soaring and rents are falling. Builders look like extremely poor risks at present, since new buildings are likely to sit largely empty for many years after completion. Under such circumstances, lenders would be very hesitant to make loans even if the financial system were rock solid.

CNN - Tony-award winning actress Jane Alexander says giving money to the arts will save and create jobs. She was chairman of the agency from 1993 through 1997 when arts funding was cut sharply by the Republican-led Congress, which questioned whether it was an appropriate way to use government money. . . Alexander spoke to CNN.com last week. Alexander: What people forget is that there are over 2 million people in the United States of America who are professional artists. Those are jobs like any other jobs. The artists have families, they have people for whom they're responsible and they give to their communities. . .

OBAMALAND

Washington Times - President Obama's newly named Economic Recovery Advisory Board, the real-world Americans being asked to help solve the nation's financial crisis, includes a union executive who took the Fifth in a federal probe, a billionaire whose failed bank pioneered the subprime mortgage market, and deep-pocket donors who gave or gathered nearly $1.2 million for the president's campaign. In all, 11 of the 16 board members donated or raised money for Democrats in the last election, according to a Washington Times review of campaign finance records. They include the president and chief operating officer of the American arm of UBS Investment Bank, the Swiss-based bank now at the center of a widening tax evasion probe by the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service.

NY Times - President Obama on Wednesday ordered his administration to change how government contracts are awarded to private businesses, saying he intended to reverse some practices of the Bush administration and do away with no-bid contracts that have cost billions and led to corruption investigations. . . . He said guidelines being drafted could save up to $40 billion a year, largely from military-related contracts.

JUSTICE & FREEDOM

Chicago's chief of police has been held in contempt by a federal judge for refusing to release the names of officers with repeated abuse complaints.

GOVERNMENT

Wikileaks - Senator Joseph Lieberman has called for all Congressional Research Service reports to be made public following Wikileaks' release of 6,780 of the reports last month. The Congressional Research Service, or "Congresses' Brain", produces several thousand reports per year on everything from backgrounders on torture policy and impeachment to up to the minute analysis of controversial legislation before Congress. CRS reports are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. They top the list of the government documents "most wanted" by activists and policy wonks, according to an on-going survey by the Washington based Center for Democracy and Technology.

NEIGHBORHOOD CRIME WATCH

LEAHY DISSED BY DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS AND WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST FOR WANTING THE TRUTH ABOUT BUSH CRIMES

BELIEFS

Technology Expert - The three traditional practices of Lent are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Today, some people also give up a vice of theirs, and thus, the Roman Catholic Church in Italy has asked its followers to give up --- texting. Lent is the 40-day period following Fat Tuesday and proceeding to Easter. The Roman Catholic church has added a technological twist, by asking that its followers foreswear text messaging, social-networking Web sites, iPods, cell phones, computer games, and all sorts of tech trappings on Fridays, and more days if possible. Generally people give up things like meat, alcohol, and the like. This is probably going to prove far more difficult.

ARTS & CULTURE

Guardian, UK - George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four comes top in a poll of the UK's guilty reading secrets. Asked if they had ever claimed to read a book when they had not, 65% of respondents said yes and 42% said they had falsely claimed to have read Orwell's classic in order to impress. This is followed by Tolstoy's War and Peace (31%), James Joyce's Ulysses (25%) and the Bible (24. . . When asked to name the writers they really enjoyed, 61% of people ticked JK Rowling and 32% John Grisham. . . . . . 62% of people in the poll admitted they turn the corner of the page to keep their place.

ECO CLIPS

Accuweather reports a large portion of the southern Plains, the Southeast and the West remain abnormally dry. While some precipitation has visited parts of the Southeast and the West of late, precipitation has avoided and may continue to avoid a large part of the Plains in the coming days, weeks and months. . . . . . With such extremely dry conditions across the southern Plains, periods of gusty winds through next week will keep the threat for wildfires elevated. The weather pattern has some similarities to that of the 1930's and given the state of the economy these days make it quite sobering. While modern farming practices and technological advances should prevent a 1930's style dust bowl over the southern Plains, indeed some hardship lies ahead unless the current pattern breaks. The spring planting season begins this month in the region and crops need moisture to sprout and grow.

HEALTH & SCIENCE

NY Times - Assisted suicide becomes legal in Washington, but dozens of hospitals are not expected to participate, and even supporters of the law say they do not foresee a rush of requests for lethal drugs. Washington's law is essentially identical to the one in Oregon, the only other state that allows doctors to prescribe lethal medications. It is the first in the country since the Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that states had a right to adopt such measures.

WAR DEPARTMENT

Army Times - A new report about Veterans Affairs Department employees squirreling away tens of thousands of unopened letters related to benefits claims is sparking fresh concerns that veterans and their survivors are being cheated out of money. VA officials acknowledge further credibility problems based on a new report of a previously undisclosed 2007 incident in which workers at a Detroit regional office turned in 16,000 pieces of unprocessed mail and 717 documents turned up in New York in December during amnesty periods in which workers were promised no one would be penalized

A CENSUS OF GITMO PRISONERS

FURTHERMORE. . .

Russia Today - The Ministry of Economic Development in Georgia announced that it would sell three military ships that Russian troops allegedly sank in the Georgian port of Poti during the 5-day war in August.
But there is a catch. The buyer has to raise the ships from the sea bottom and remove them from the harbor waters. Salvaging a ship is an expensive business and that is why the price of each ship has been set at a symbolic US $10 dollars.

New Census data finds that abut one quarter of the nation's kindergarteners are latino.

BRITISH CABINET SECRETARY HIT BY GREEN CUSTARD

READER COMMENTS

To read recent letters click on the topics below. To move to the most recent letter press Ctl-E or End when you get to the page.

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POLICY WITHOUT PROMISE

SHOP TALK

STUPID DEMOCRATIC CAMPAIGN ADVISOR TRICKS

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THE BILL MOYERS YOU DON'T HEAR ABOUT

THE PROBLEM WITH LEAVING TROOPS IN IRAQ

WHY IS AIG SO IMPORTANT

CREDIT CARD USURY ATTRACTING HILL ATTENTION

DUNCAN WANTS TO CUT STUDENT'S SUMMER VACATION

TIME TO STOP BEING AFRAID OF ISRAEL

FROM OUR OVERSTOCKED ARCHIVES: ON MILTON FRIEDMAN

JROTC TEACHES SCHOOL CHILDREN HOW TO KILL EACH OTHER

HIGH SPEED, HIGH COST, HIGH INCOME RAIL

LAKE MEAD: THE GLOBAL WATER CRISIS COMES HOME

OBAMA'S MANY VIEWS ON MARIJUANA

PASSINGS: PAUL HARVEY

POLICY WITHOUT PROMISE

SENATE APPROVES TOY VOTE FOR CAPITAL COLONY

WHY THE SENATE HIDES BEHIND A RULE IT CAN CHANGE

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