Press hits the dumb button on body scanner reporting
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Privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg writes that breathless, uninformed media coverage has saved the vendors of digital strip-search devices hundreds of thousands of lobbying and public-relations dollars that might otherwise have to be spent to foist these machines on the American public. Where is the reporting on what these scanners will and won't see? 
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Why rush the F-35 into production?
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Ask Defense Secretary Gates: What is the threat that justifies spending $298.8 billion on 2,456 F-35s, or $122 million each, counting research and development costs?
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Is basic American telephone service in a death spiral?
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Bruce Kushnick questions whether AT&T and Verizon are trying to kill off the “plain old telephone service” that millions of Americans rely on. In a recent FCC filing cited by Kushnick, AT&T stated that landline utilities are from a bygone era, and asked to be relieved of its obligations to service them.
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Calling Isaac Asimov | War of the robots -- all too real questions we have to ask
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Defense expert and author P. W. Singer writes that robotics is a game-changer on the battlefield and elsewhere -- but there's been remarkably little public discussion of what the rules should be, or how this will affect our lives.
War-making machine | Ten questions about the U.S.'s intensifying war efforts in the year to come
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Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse wonder what the American way of war might have in store for us in 2010. Answers to their questions might offer reasonable hints about how much U.S. war efforts are likely to intensify in the Greater Middle East, as well as Central and South Asia, in the year to come.
| Regarding that government takeover of health care…
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Morton Mintz has a few questions for the Tea Party Patriots as they 'storm' Senate offices. His first one: Does it bother you that the U.S. is way ahead of other nations in the share that insurers get of health care expenditures?
Impossible goals | The flaws in Obama’s Afghan plan are right there in the open
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Journalists don't need to dig far to find the self-deception at the heart of Obama's Afghan surge: A little Googling is all it takes to see that his hopes for the Afghan forces are absurdly high.
George Wilson’s column | We’ve said what we’re going to do in Afghanistan. Now, how will the Taliban and al Qaida respond?
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President Obama is going to start hearing this question every day for a long time: ‘Why are we still fighting in Afghanistan when we have so many other problems at home?’
Not much press coverage, either | 'There hasn't been two seconds of intelligent discussion about living standards in Afghanistan'
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The poverty in Afghanistan is almost beyond imagining. Thirty Afghans die from TB every day; life expectancy is 43 years; per capita income is $426; only 13% have access to sanitary drinking water; conditions for women are brutal. If Obama plans to address these issues, he's keeping it secret. But without addressing them, can stepped-up American military involvement succeed? Or is it bound to fail?
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Which way in Afghanistan? | Tough questions for Obama -- from Obama
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The last time a president sent more troops to war while claiming his commitment wasn't open-ended, a young senator from Illinois responded with the proper skepticism and excellent questions.
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Bruce Kushnick questions whether AT&T and Verizon are trying to kill off the “plain old telephone service” that millions of Americans rely on. In a recent FCC filing cited by Kushnick, AT&T stated that landline utilities are from a bygone era, and asked to be relieved of its obligations to service them.
The GAO showed that contractors’ estimates have nothing to do with reality, and economic hard times may eventually force the President and Congress to rein in outrageously costly warships, planes and missile systems that don’t work. But that time isn’t here yet.
It’s easy to find activism, impossible to find original intent behind the Roberts/Scalia group’s ruling on corporate political spending. Martin Lobel suggests six sharp, practical steps to deal with it.
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As an old assignment editor I’m used to asking questions and not being embarrassed if they expose me as naïve or wrong minded, because sometimes there’s a good story lurking. So here are a few simple questions. The biggest financial institutions are said to be on the verge of issuing $145 billion in bonuses. My [...] 
A friend and contributor to Nieman Watchdog, Martin Lobel, sent this emaiI with the suggestion that people pass it along. Looks worth passing along to me. Here’s Marty:
“I don’t know whether you’re as upset with the Supreme Court’s legislating in Citizens United v. FEC as I am, but there is a simple solution that is [...]
Item: The New York Times reported Friday afternoon that “two more Democratic senators” said they would vote against a second term for Fed Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. From there, the Times said this made it unclear “whether there were the 60 votes necessary to confirm Mr. Bernanke.”
Excuse me? Sixty votes are not necessary to [...]
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(Nieman Watchdog)
Torture probe abandoned
For lack of interest, the Senate will not move ahead on the idea to appoint a commission to investigate detention, rendition and interrogation policies by the U.S. during the George W. Bush administration.
(Secrecy News)
Find John Brennan's op ed
Harry Shearer, working from a fantasy assignment desk, wants reporters to find a 2005 anti-Iraq war op ed that never was published.
(Huffington Post)
Those Mohammed cartoons
On Jan 2 a man with an axe tried to attack the Danish artist whose 12 depictions of the prophet Mohammed created a furor in 2005. After the failed attack, a Norwegian newspaper reprinted six of the drawings.
(Editors Weblog)
Afghanistan surge to rely heavily on private contractors
Private contractors are expected to make up at least half of the total military workforce in Afghanistan, according to Defense Department officials cited in a recent study from the Congressional Research Service. The number of contractors will likely increase by between 16,000 and 56,000 for a total of 120,000-160,000.
(TPM Muckraker)
Recession scars will be lasting
The aftershocks from deep recessions reverberate for years, even decades.
(USA Today)
The curious spending of a GOP pro-choice PAC
The money doesn't seem to actually go to supporting choice.
(Center for Public Integrity)
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