AUSTIN BAY: “A Russian bid to return to super-power status is the truly big story behind Ukraine’s rigged election.” Read the whole thing.

MAYOR DALEY’S SON, Patrick Daley, has enlisted in the Army. Interesting observations on the political implications here.

TARGET MYSTERY EXPLAINED: Earlier reports that Target.com was advertising blowjobs, and marijuana — not to mention prostitution — are explained as bad web management, rather than a sudden broadening of Target’s lines of business. You can find same items on Amazon — only with more information (here’s the marijuana item) — and the Target/Amazon sites are co-branded, or co-hosted, or whatever you call it. It’s the complete lack of information on the Target site that makes it confusing.

Of course, several readers think it’s just clever marketing — just as the Christmas shopping season heats up, rumors about spicy content emerge to lure people to the Target website. Do you think?

DO AMERICA’S JEWELERS THINK ALL WOMEN ARE PROSTITUTES? Watching the commercials on TV, it seems that way to me. Jonah Goldberg has a similar take.

UPDATE: Of course, VISA thinks they’re pathologically dishonest compulsive shoppers.

DUANE PATTERSON says that Michael Moore has proved him right.

BRIDGING THE RED-BLUE GAP IN ACADEMIA: A firsthand report.

THOUGHTS on homophobia among the progressives. It’s more like contempt than phobia, really.

TALKING TO ROBOTS: My TechCentralStation column is up.

JESSE WALKER DEBUNKS conspiracy theories about the Ukraine uprising (Best quote: You can’t simply parachute Karl Rove into a country and manufacture a revolution.”) He also observes:

Still, the very experience of overthrowing a government this way—of building independent institutions, diffusing power through civil society, and learning first-hand that it’s possible to say no to authority—unleashes something that’s hard for any politician to control. Those tent cities aren’t merely a demand for freedom. They’re acts of freedom themselves: of men and women voluntarily assembled both to defy the old order and to build something new.

Indeed.

CHRIS MUIR’S DAY BY DAY CARTOON is back from hiatus!

TOM MAGUIRE has a Plame update.

BACK BEFORE THE ELECTION, Tony Pierce was a bit, er, uncharitable where I was concerned. But that won’t stop me from mentioning his new book. I haven’t read it, but I liked the last one.

I got interviewed by a reporter who’s doing a story on blogs and the election, and who seemed anxious to gin up more conflict between me and Jeff Jarvis than I thought was really there. I do think that a few people got a bit excited for a while. But I see blogs as intensely personal. And just as you’d forgive a friend or relative a bit of overexcitability on a key subject or two, I think you should do the same with fellow-bloggers.

DANIEL DREZNER NOTES that immigration is driving up the demand for goat meat. Good, because goat is yummy, and good for you.

I remember one of my brother’s friends (who was Namibian, I believe) in Boston complaining that “you just can’t get a good goat’s head in this town.” Maybe that’ll change!

THIS SEEMS LIKE GOOD NEWS:

Strong consumer spending and business investment and a slightly lower than previously reported trade deficit meant the US economy grew at a 3.9 per cent rate in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said.

The upward revision from the 3.7 per cent advance estimate was above consensus expectations and represented a rebound from 3.3 per cent growth in the second quarter.

Core personal consumption expenditures inflation, excluding food and energy, the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation, was unchanged at a 0.7 per cent rate in the quarter – the lowest reading since the 1960s.

Interest rates are expected to rise, though.

ED CONE EVALUATES John Edwards’ ongoing campaign.

KOFI ANNAN MUST GO: That’s Sen. Norm Coleman in tomorrow’s WSJ. It’s a free link.

UPDATE: Interesting article from the Asia Times, too:

Secretary General Annan had a blessed first term, but a second term that is turning into a nightmare. The mismanagement of the return of the UN to Iraq, alleged corruption in the oil-for-food program, and reported sexual harassment within the UN have coalesced in an unprecedented degree of staff antagonism toward Annan. The crisis has been compounded by what some have interpreted as an attempt by Annan to woo the John Kerry team with the hope of obtaining a third term if the Democrats had won the November US presidential election. . . .

While Annan has unambiguously stated that he will finish his term, in the shadowy world of diplomatic doublespeak, the fact that the statement on Iraq was made at all raised eyebrows. Ultimately, all will depend on the Bush administration, on what the current investigation of the oil-for-food program will unearth and to what use the information will be put.

I think that the investigation will unearth some devastating stuff. As to what happens next, well, that depends on whether Kofi Annan’s personal interests, or the United Nations’ institutional interests, are foremost.

IRANIAN ASSAULT ON BLOGS CONTINUES:

Reporters Without Borders has strongly protested against the Iran’s relentless efforts to stifle free expression online after the arrest of five webloggers in less than two months, the latest on 28 November 2004.

“The government is now attacking blogs, the last bastion of freedom on a network that is experiencing ever tighter control,” said the worldwide press freedom organisation. “At the same time, an Iranian delegate is sitting on a UN-created working group on Internet governance. The international community should condemn this masquerade,” it added.

Yes, it should. Perhaps Kofi Annan will rebuke the Iranians for this.

“BLOG” IS THE NUMBER ONE WORD OF THE YEAR according to Merriam-Webster.

SO YOU CAN BUY a blowjob at Target now? And yesterday it was marijuana. Then there’s this, also, appropriately enough, in the “red hot shop.”

I guess that explains Wal-Mart’s slow sales. But I’m beginning to wonder if someone isn’t hacking their site. . . . (Via Sheepdog).

THE ANCHORESS has a prediction on Tom Ridge’s replacement.

BRIAN WILLIAMS IS DISSING BLOGGERS:

According to CBS Marketwatch, at a post-election wrap-up session, when a fellow panelist “mentioned that bloggers had had a big impact on the reporting on Election Day, Williams waved that point away by quipping that the self-styled journalists are ‘on an equal footing with someone in a bathroom with a modem.'”

And yet, they’re kicking your ass.

UPDATE: Terry Heaton: “It’s a scary time for people in television news, because the blue smoke and mirrors has been revealed for what it is.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heh. And here’s another perspective:

Not a surprise, but always good to be reminded of the culture of arrogance in the Mainstream Media that underlies the lack of concern over facts, truth, and (occasionally) basic, rational self interest.

Meanwhile, at Power Line, a personal reminiscence involving Brian Williams.

MORE: This photo is pretty funny.

MORE ON EFFORTS TO REFORM THE U.N.: Half-measures, I think, but it’s a start.

STEVE GARDNER’S FIRING: Here’s a response from his former employer.

BUSH IN CANADA: Peaktalk has a link-filled post. Damian Penny reports on a protest that fizzled. Colby Cosh reports on a legitimate Canadian grievance. And a Canadian group is trying to bridge the gap.

But Jay Currie notes something missing in the Canadian blogosphere.

UPDATE: Photoblogged here.

MILITARY RECRUITERS AND YALE LAW SCHOOL: An insider’s report.