MORE ON GENERAL MOTORS’ TROUBLES, over at GlennReynolds.com.

I’LL BE ON CNN’S “RELIABLE SOURCES” in a little while, talking about the week’s events.

UPDATE: Ian Schwartz has the video.

APPARENTLY THE ATTACK DOCUMENTARY DIDN’T WORK — or maybe the counter-documentary did. . . . Anyway, there’s this news about Wal-Mart:

The world’s largest retailer said Saturday that it expects to post a solid 4.3 percent gain in same-store sales for November, helped by better-than expected sales during the post-Thanksgiving day shopping rush. That’s at the midpoint of its growth forecast of 3 to 5 percent. The sales results cover the four-week period through Friday.

Sales seem to be good in general. That’s good economic news, I guess.

PLAN B: I THINK THAT DRUG APPROVAL should be based on whether drugs are safe and effective, not on political considerations.

Here’s more from the GAO.

WHAT FRANCE NEEDS: More diversity.

MORE CIGARETTE PHOTOSHOPPING, courtesy of HarperCollins. Yes, it’s silly, but in a slightly creepy way.

HE WAS FOR IT BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT: Al Gore on “extraordinary rendition.”

UPDATE: More on posturing here. (Via Don Surber).

MADD PEOPLE STAFFING SOBRIETY CHECKPOINTS? Sounds like an abandonment of law enforcement responsibility for the sake of politics.

MIDGE DECTER, spiritual mother.

NAZIS. I HATE THOSE GUYS. But apparently the folks at Teen People are more flexible in their attitudes.

UPDATE: Dean Esmay isn’t surprised.

HERE’S AN AMERICAN EXPAT who’s blogging on the Harbin disaster in China. There’s also a roundup here.

HENRY FRIENDLY ON ABORTION: A roundup.

SO I CAME DOWNSTAIRS and my sister-in-law was laughing out loud at this. Understandable, but that screws my plans to give her one for Christmas. . . .

UPDATE: That produced this email from (I assume — the email address is one of those that gives no information) Bryan Fuller Tim Minear*:

I know, I know, I know! Give her this! And though I was the exec producer, I swear I don’t make a dime. But I can promise she’ll dig it. If not, I’ll personally supply Firefly.

Firefly isn’t up her alley. More like stuff off the Independent Film Channel. Though the main thing that this seems to have in common with Firefly is that the fans liked it but Fox seemed to go out of its way to kill it.

* He emailed almost immediately to correct me.

UPDATE: Reader Mara Schiffren emails:

Tim Minear gives you excellent advice. Wonderfalls is wonderfully quirky and funny. And delightful and witty. And most of all, as is rare on tv, intelligent.

And it’s completely different from Firefly or Angel or The Inside, which are his other recent shows. Of all of them, it’s closest to the sensibility of both the IFC and Lileks (in its humor).

And if not for your sister in law, check it out yourself. The Instawife might like it as well, as it develops intelligent psychological portrayals of its characters.

Actually, I ordered it last night.

COSTA RICANS MARCH FOR FREE TRADE: Now if we could just get people to do that here.

UPDATE: Here’s more on why Costa Ricans are angry.

JAMES JOYNER looks at gaming the TTLB ecosystem. This takes me back to the halcyon days of MP3.com, when people had all sorts of logrolling schemes to boost their chart positions. In the comments, Steve Verdon predicts more efforts to outwit N.Z. Bear’s system. As the ecologist Thomas Ray said, “Every successful system accumulates parasites.” So I guess the blogosphere ecosystem is a success!

UPDATE: N.Z. Bear emails:

The hue and cry James thoughtfully responded to in his post isn’t a reaction to a new revelation that people are figuring out how to game the Ecosystem. It’s a reaction to the fact that I’m figuring out ways how to stop them. There will always be new approaches people will try to artificially inflate their rank in any system such as mine, but believe it or not, I’m actually quite optimistic about staying, if not one step ahead, then at least not far behind those who would try to rig the system in their favor.

But I need help: the blogosphere is a community, and the more the community as a whole shuns stunts such as “open trackback parties” that exist for no reason other than to exchange link counts, the less I’ll have to worry about figuring out the latest algorithmic way to filter such exploits out. I can handle the obvious out-for-profit spam blogs — it’s the “real” bloggers who like to skirt the grey areas that I need the community’s help to dissuade from bad behaviour.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: LaShawn Barber has thoughts, too.

SHIFTING POSITIONS at The New Yorker.

ED MORRISSEY: “Senator Joe Biden writes an op-ed for today’s Washington Post that gets the entire war on terror fundamentally wrong — and demonstrates why the Democrats have entirely failed to provide any leadership on Iraq and the wider war.”

A USEFUL COLLECTION of urban legends about the Iraq war. (Via Rand Simberg). Also, here’s a look at the New York Times’ shifting editorial positions on Iraq. It’s almost as if partisan politics are behind them.

THE INSTAWIFE looks at vegetarianism and pacifism.

CHINA COVERING UP avian flu outbreaks among humans? Not implausible in light of the SARS experience.

UPDATE: Not implausible, but not necessarily true, either.

FRED LAPIDES sends a link to this cool French cooking site.

Also, Bill Quick’s weekend cooking thread is up.

In answer to his question, this book is probably my favorite cookbook of the moment. And in response to a reader recommendation I ordered this one, but I haven’t made any of its recipes yet. Just flipping through it, though, I can see why it’s considered a classic.

RETAIL SUPPORT BRIGADE SITREP:

More so than during last year’s post-Thanksgiving rush, people jammed stores early, with more than a few testy shoppers scuffling in a rush to grab coveted, limited-quantity bargains.

Several major retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT) – Sears, Roebuck and Co. and Macy’s (NYSE:FD) ‘ as well as mall operator Taubman Centers Inc. (NYSE:TCO) estimated they drew bigger crowds for the official holiday season launch compared with last year.

Lena Michaud, spokeswoman at Target Corp., which had a strong holiday season a year ago, said traffic was at least as heavy.

Online shopping seems to be picking up.

BIKING IN LOS ANGELES: “One day, I found myself biking down an empty little access road next to the notorious 405 freeway during the evening commute. The freeway, as usual, was paralyzed, and I noticed I was actually moving faster than the cars. That’s when the revelation hit: Over the past few months, I had discovered a different Los Angeles.”

Actually, I’d think that L.A. would be good bike territory: It’s mostly flat, it seldom rains, and it’s usually not dreadfully hot.

UPDATE: Much more on this, from The Cycling Dude.